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 not be absolved but by abjuration of the said errors and heresies.

Several ways have been resorted to to save the Church of Rome from the barbaric disgrace, not only of ignorance in the matter of science, but of formal sentence against it. An Italian, Tiraboschi, has drawn a subtle distinction between bulls of the pope and Inquisitorial decrees sanctioned by him; and Englishmen have bethought themselves of solving the difficulty by the intervention of technicality — every offence cognisable by the Holy Office being, as they affirm, in technical language, called heresy. True, the Office derived its origin and designation from the character of being conservators of the faith against heretical pravity. But is nothing heresy in this jurisdiction? and was there nothing in that jurisdiction but heresy? To be sure, the reading and keeping of prohibited books savoured of heresy; the polygamist might in a sense be suspected of heresy; usurpers of the sacerdotal function might be esteemed heretical; so likewise blasphemers, soothsayers, astrologers, sorcerers, and Jews. But what are we to say of confessors soliciting their female penitents to incontinence, against