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    Chancellor also . Thorpe was a disciple of Wickliffe , and the Archbishop appears to have seized him on the certificate of the bailiff of Shrewsbury 4 t witnessing the errors and heresies that this losel had venomously sown there , " ( which are mentioned here , onJvtoshew how undefined the crime

    of heresy w as , ) viz . " That the sacrament of the altar , after consecration , was material bread—that images should in no wise be worshiped—that men should not go on pilgrimagesthat priests have no title to tijthesthat it is not lawful for to swear iu

    anywise . " The issue of the examinntion or trial was , that the Archbishop makes use of the power given by the late act , and * ' bade the constable to have him forth thence in haste , and he was brought unto a foul and dishonest

    prison . It is w andering , perhaps , from our purpose , but I cannot refrain from quoting the two following passages , as exemplifying the styles and tempers of the persecutor and persecuted . — Archbishop . " L , or Sirs ! this is the manner and business of this losel and

    such other , to pick out sharp sentences of Holy Scripture , and of doctors , to maintain their sect and lore against the ordinances of holy church . And , therefore , losel , it is that thoucovetest to have that Psalter that I made to be

    taken from thee at Canterbury , to record sharp verses against us - but thou shalt never have that Psalter nor none other book , till I know that thy heart and thy mouth accord fully to be governed by holy church . " A dispute arising about what was this holy

    church , Thorpe , in answer to the Archbishop ' s question on the subject , says , " The holy church be every one in charity , yet it hath two parts ; the first and principal part hath overcomen perfectly all the wretchedness of this life , and reigneth joyfully in heaven

    with Christ , and the tother part is hepe yet in earth , busily and continually fighting , day and night , against temptations of the fiend , forsaking and hating the prosperity of this world ,

    despising and withstanding their fleshlylusts y which only are the pilgrims of Christ , wandering toward heaven by stedfast faith and grounded hope and by perfect charity—for these heavenly pilgrims may not nor will not be letted

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    of their good purpose , by the reason of any doctors discording from holy Scripture , nor by the floods of any tribulation temporal , nor by the wiud of any pride of boast , nor of menacing

    of any creature , for they are all fast grounded upon the sure stone Christ , hearing his word and loving it , exercising themselves faithfully and continually in all their vyits to do thereafter /'

    The trial of Oldcastle , Lord Cobham , followed , in 1 Hen . V . A . D . 1413 . ( See Stale Trials , Vol . I . ) This was also a proceeding for similar offences in the Ecclesiastical Court , and it appears at the end of the report * that , this case gave occasion to the

    parliament passing the second heresy act , viz . £ Ben . V . c . 7 , by which Lollardy was made a temporal , as well as spiritual often ce , indictable in the King ' s Courts , which , as Blackstone observes , * ' did not thereby gain an

    exclusive , but only a concurrent jurisdiction with the Bishop ' s consistory . " Before this statute , however , it is perfectly clear that heresy was a mere spiritual offence , to which state it was brought back by the subsequent repeal of this act . There was no common

    law forfeiture of goods , &c , on conviction for heresy , till the stat . 2 Hen . V . " because the proceeding therein is merely spiritual , pro salute animae , and in a court that is no court of record , and , therefore , tl > e conviction of heresy worketh no forfeiture of any thing that is temporal . " ( Coke 3 lust .

    41 . ) Lord Coke describes the kind of proceedings which took place by indictment , under this statute , against JLolhuxly , " which opinions , " he adds * " were so far from heresy , as the makers of the statute of 1 Elizabeth had great cause to limit what heresy was . "

    Tlioy then indicted offenders in general words , for writing " faisas billas et scripturas scth ' tiosas et uonnulla fidei et doctrinae Christiana : contraria continentcs , " &c . " which indictments also , " he observes , * ' were utterly insufficient in law . " The spiritual

    courts afso proceeded against offenders , though the Court of King ' s Bench frequently interfered by habeas corpus to prevent the abuse of their authority . In particular , in Mic . 5 Edw . IV . 143 , the case of John Keyser occurred , as mentioned by Lord Coke , ( 3 lost .

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    On Religious Offences . indictable at Common Law . 537

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    vol . xii . 3 x

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1817, page 537, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2468/page/25/