Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/231

Rh into moderation, and of the other had riſen to a degree of determination which command reſpect.

The preſent ſtate of our laws on the ſubject of religion is this. The convention of May 1776, in their declaration of rights, declared it to be a truth, and a natural right, that the exerciſe of religion ſhould be free; but when they proceeded to form on that declaration the ordinance of government, inſtead of taking up every principle declared in the bill of rights, and guarding it by legiſlative ſanction, they paſſed over that which aſſerted our religious rights, leaving them as they found them. The ſame convention, however, when they met as a member of the general aſſembly in October, 1776, repealed all act of parliament which had rendered criminal the maintaining any opinions in matters of religion, the forbearing to repair to church, and the exerciſing any mode of worſhip; and ſuſpended the laws giving ſalaries to the clergy, which ſuſpenſion was made perpetual in October 1779. Statutory oppreſſions being thus wiped away, we remain at preſent under thoſe only impoſed by the common law, or by our own acts of aſſembly. At the common law, hereſy was a capital offence, puniſhable by burning. Its definition was left to the eccleaſtical judges, before whom the conviction was, till the ſtatute of the 1 El. c. 1. circumſcribed it, by declaring, that nothing ſhould be deemed hereſy, but what had been ſo determined by authority of the canonical ſcriptures, or by one of the four firſt general councils, or by ſome other council having for the grounds of their declaration the expreſs and plain words of the ſcriptures. Hereſy, thus circumſcribed, being an offence at the common law, our act of aſſembly of