Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/61

Ch. 4. as have only ued the words of the holy criptures; or, 3. Which hall hereafter be o declared by the parliament, with the aent of the clergy in convocation. Thus was herey reduced to a greater certainty than before; though it might not have been the wore to have defined it in terms till more precie and particular: as a man continued till liable to be burnt, for what perhaps he did not undertand to be herey, till the eccleiatical judge o interpreted the words of the canonical criptures.

the writ de haeretico comburendo remained till in force; and we have intances of it's being put in execution upon two anabaptits in the eventeenth of Elizabeth, and two Arians in the ninth of James the firt. But it was totally abolished, and herey again ubjected only to eccleiatical correction, pro alute animae, by virtue of the tatute 29 Car. II. c. 9. For in one and the ame reign, our lands were delivered from the lavery of military tenures; our bodies from arbitrary imprionment by the habeas corpus act; and our minds from the tyranny of upertitious bigotry, by demolishing this lat badge of perecution in the Englih law.

what I have now aid I would not be undertood to derogate from the jut rights of the national church, or to favour a looe latitude of propagating any crude undigeted entiments in religious matters. Of propagating, I ay; for the bare entertaining them, without an endeavour to diffue them, eems hardly cognizable by any human authority. I only mean to illutrate the excellence of our preent etablihment, by looking back to former times. Every thing is now as it hould be, with repect to the piritual cognizance, and piritual punishment, of herey: unles perhaps that the crime ought to be more trictly defined, and no proecution permitted, even in the eccleiatical courts, till the tenets in quetion are by proper authority previouly declared to be heretical. Under thee retrictions, it eems neceary for the upport of the national religion, that the officers of the church hould have power to cenure heretics; yet not to harras them with temporal penalties, much Rh