Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/598

 condition soever he or they be, patriarch, archbishop, king, queen, duke, or of what other dignity, either ecclesiastical or secular, he be; also with their advocates and procurators whosoever, that are believers, followers, favourers, defenders, or receivers of such heretics, or suspected to be believers, followers, fautors, defenders, or receivers of them, to be excommunicated every Sunday and festival day, in the presence of the people.

Furthermore, that you diligently cause to be inquired, by the said our authority, upon all and singular such persons, both men and women, that maintain, approve, defend, and teach such errors, or that be favourers, receivers, and defenders of them, whether exempt or not exempt; of what dignity, state, pre-eminence, degree, order, or condition soever. And that such as you shall find in the said your inquisition, either by their own confession, or by any other mean to be defamed, or otherwise infected with the spot of such heresy or error, you, through the sentence of excommunication, suspension, interdict, and privation of their dignities, parsonages, offices, or other benefices of the church, and fees which they hold of any church, monastery, and other ecclesiastical places; also of honours and secular dignities and degrees of sciences, or other faculties; as also by other pains and censures of the church, or by ways and means whatsover else shall seem to you expedient, by taking and imprisoning their bodies, and other corporal pimishments wherewith heretics are punished, or are wont and are commanded by canonical sanctions to be used; and, if they be clerks, that you by degradation, do correct and punish, and cause them to be corrected and punished, with all diligence.

Furthermore, that you do rise up stoutly and courageously against such heretics, and the goods as well of them, as of the lay-men, according to the canonical sanction made against heretics and their followers, under which we will and command them and their partakers to be subject. And also such persons as shall be infamed of the heresies or errors aforesaid, or any of the premises, shall be bound to purge themselves at your arbitrement: but the others, who, either by witnesses, or by their own confessions, or other allegations or probations, shall be convicted of the aforesaid heresies or articles, or of any the premises, they shall be compelled to revoke and abjure publicly and solemnly the said articles and errors, and to suffer condign penance and punishment, yea even to perpetual imprisonment, if need be, for the same.

And, to the intent that they shall not nourish any kind of heresies hereafter, either in word, deed, or gesture, or shall induce others either in word or deed, privily or apertly, directly or indirectly, to believe the same, they shall be forced to put in sufficient surety: who, if it so chance that they will not publicly and solemnly renounce and abjure their articles and errors, and take at your hands condign penance, though it be to perpetual or temporal punishment according to your discretion, neither will be contented to piit in sufficient surety that they will not hereafter hold or nourish these errors and heresies, neither will induce others by word or deed, privily or apertly, directly or indirectly, or by any other manner of colour to believe the same, that then you shall proceed against them, according to the quality of their errors and demerits; yea, and if you see it so expedient, as against heretics, and as infected with heresy, by our authority, according to the canonical sanctions summarily, and simply and plainly, 'sine strepitu el figura judicii,' and of office (all appellation or appellations whatsoever ceasing); and that you punish the same, according to the sanctions and traditions canonical, yea, if need be, in leaving and committing them to the secular power; and against such as be superiors or learned doctors, laying the censures of ecclesiastical excommunication, all appellation set aside: also invocating, if need shall require, aid of the secular arm. The constitution as well of our predecessor pope Boniface VIII. of blessed memory, wherein is decreed that no man without his city or diocese (except in certain cases), or in places being one day's journey distant from thence where he inhabiteth, shall be called into judgment; and that no man do presume to depute judges from the see apostolic, without the city and diocese, where they are deputed to proceed against any; or do presume to commit their authority to any other person or persons, or to fetch and remove any man beyond one day's journey from out his diocese where he dwelleth, or at most two days' journey, if it be in a general council; as also all other constitutions of any bishop of Rome, touching as well judges delegate, as persons not