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    4 \ f ) \ Vho was brought up arta discharged by Sir John Mai'kham , as having committed no heresy- within the statrute . The oflfcnce fot * which he was committed by the Archbishop , seems to have been neither more nor

    less than that of doubting the effect of excommunication on his wheat crop , upon which the archbishop appears to have thought it would operate as a blight . Having been excommunicated , ** the said Keyser openly affirmed that the said sentence was- not to be feared , neither did he fear it * 'And Albert ,

    the Archbishop , or his commissary , liath excommunicated me , yet before God \ am not exconvmunieated * , ' and he said he spake nothing but the truth , and so it appealed-, for that the last harvest ( standing so excommunicate ) ,

    fee had as great plenty of wheat and other grain as any of his neighbours , saying to them in scorn , ( as was urged against him , ) that a man excommunicate should not have such plenty of wheat 1 "

    Heresy continued cognizable in this manner for a long period , and the next material feature in its history , is the necessity which the reformation created 1 , of defining it a little more

    according to the existing standard of orthodoxy . The sfat . of £ 5 Hen . VIII . c . 14 , was then passed , which repealed the 9 , Hen . IV . c . 15 , and took alt offences against the Cnurch of Rome oat of the list of heresies , and the or ^

    dmary was m other ways shackled in his jurisdiction , in order fo give the temporal power a controul over his measures . And yet , as Black stone observes , " the spirit of persecution was not abated , but onTy diverted into a lay channel , " for 31 Hen . VIII . \ fas

    passed an act , en tit fed , " An Act for Abolishing I > iversity of Opinions in certain Articles of Religion , " commonly sty Bed the bloody few of the Six Articles , by which certain points 6 f popery , the impugning of which had just been declared no heresy ,

    44 were determined and resolved by the rnost godly study and pain of his Majesty ; " and impugners of some of these points were declared heretics , and ¦ fo be burnt , and of others to be felons and suffer dfeath . A motley jurischtetion was also established , combined of

    the spiritual and temporal powers , for the trial of sttch heresies . In the reign of Ij 2 dward VI . a more liberal

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    spirit appeared fbr the momfent , and an act was passed ii * the first year of his reign , c . 19 , " the most admirable and excellent statute ever passed by the English legislature , ' * which , aittongst other things , repealed ** all

    and every aet of parliament concerning doctrine or matters of religion . This might , indeed , be styled an act of toleration , but its duration was short , for soon after was passed the Act of Uniformity , which fklls more properly tmdfer our second head .

    In the reign of Mary all the acts for suppression of lmresy were fully revived , and enforced , it is needless to observe , in their full rigour -y but in the reign of Elizabeth a great change took place both in the definition of

    the offence and the jurisdiction over it . The 1 Eliz . c . 1 , was the first legislative measure of her reign , and by it all the laws for assisting the ecclesiastical juriisdictioii , and creating the temporal jurisdiction over heresy , were abolished .

    It was declared , that no tenets should be considered heretical by the High Commission Court , established fey the act , but trrose which had been settled to be so ; first , by the words of the Canonical Scriptures ; or , second , fey the first four general councils , or

    such others as have only osed the words of Scriptcrre ; or * third , which should hereafter be diecfared soch by parliament , with the assent of the clergy in convocation * This statute restored the old eccfesmstitar jurisdiction over heresy , as * it stoocl previous

    to the several statutes ofi that subject . ' * So that no statute ( as Lorcf Coke observes ) , standeth now in force , atid stt this day no person can be indicted or impeached for heresy , before any

    temporal jcrdg'e or other that' hath temporal jurisdiction . " This statute , Frowever , also appointed a cotrrt of high commissioners , to whom a jurisdiction- was given over heresies , errors , schisms , abuses , &c , under a

    restriction agaiirst declaring any tiringto be heresy , but the points abofC-metitioned , which restriction has genevafly been considered as good direction to the common ecclesiastic cotxrts , » 1-thotrgh arpplred by the statute only the court of high c € H * rmissioft , wnich

    was abolisfrcd by 16 Car . I . c . 11 . ( Born ' s Eccles . Law , Tit . Heresy . ) The old jurisdiction was , frowerer .

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    bSS On Meligioufr Offbrufe * indictable ctt Cfarftmxftl Law

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1817, page 538, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2468/page/26/