Footnote 246: The Bible is always and everywhere the standard of divine truth; but to condemn an individual for wilful ignorance of its heavenly doctrines, to whom no opportunity has been afforded of learning them, would be unreasonable and unjust. A corresponding principle applies to the interpretation of the Bible. Our responsibility in every case increases with our privileges and opportunities.[(back)]
Footnote 247: It will be borne in mind, that the question here is not whether there be not one immutable principle, nor whether there ought not to be one uniform interpretation of that principle; we are inquiring only into the nature of that rule by which we may equitably judge of the moral and religious characters of men.[(back)]
Footnote 248: The attachment of Henry to the See of Rome, and the countenance given by him to the encroachments of the Pope, have been greatly exaggerated. Rapin took a different view of his measures. "The proclamation" (he says) "made by Henry, prohibiting the Pope's provisions, was a death-blow to the court of Rome." On the death of Henry, the Pope wrote a letter of condolence to the council, in which he says, "We loved our son of famous memory, Henry King of England, for there were many and royal virtues in that Prince for which he ought to be loved;" and then adds a strong appeal to the council to abrogate the obnoxious statutes which had so materially entrenched upon his assumed prerogative. In a letter to Henry himself (Kal. Nov. xiv. An. iv.) nearly two years before his death, the Pope refers to a promise made by Henry that he had no desire to curtail the authority of the Roman See in his new dominions; and also to an undertaking that he would bring the obnoxious statutes under the notice of his parliament; and that, "if they could not be supported on honest and lawful grounds," he would satisfy the Pope in that particular. Surely these are not the expressions of one who was "the slave of the Popedom."—See "Annales Ecclesiastici."[(back)]
Footnote 249: Milner's Church History, vol. iv. p. 196.[(back)]
Footnote 250: This view of heresy we find to have been at a very early date propagated and encouraged by the Pope and the See of Rome. Walsingham records, that, three years before Richard II.'s deposition from the throne, "the Pope wrote to him with a prayer (orans) that he would assist the prelates of the church in the cause of God, and of the King himself, and of the kingdom, against the Lollards; whom he declared to be traitors, not only of the church, but of the throne. And he besought him with the greatest urgency (obnixiùs) to condemn those whom the prelates should have declared heretics.—Ypod. Neust. 1396.[(back)]
Footnote 251: For Christians of the present age, and in our country, to pass through life without partaking in any persecution, such as once disgraced our legislature and the executive government, does not necessarily imply a freedom of the conscience from a persecuting spirit. The Christian can now evince the real tone and temper of his mind only in his behaviour towards his fellow-creatures, and by the sentiments to which he gives utterance. The Author hopes he may be pardoned, if he ventures, in further illustration of his principles on this subject, to make an extract from his sermon lately preached at the consecration of the Bishop of Salisbury. "In his intercourse with those Christians whose sentiments do not coincide with our own, the Christian minister will never by laxity of expression or conduct encourage in any an indifference to truth and error, nor countenance the insidious workings of latitudinarian principles. He will ever maintain the truth, but never with acrimony; and, whilst his duty compels him to banish and drive away all false doctrine, he will feel and show towards the persons of such as are in error compassionate indulgence and forbearing tenderness. He knows that truth can be only on one side, but he acknowledges that sincerity may be on both; and he will set his mind on winning back again by mild argument and conciliatory conduct those who have gone astray, rather than by severity in exposing their faults, and a cold, forbidding, and hostile bearing, indispose them to examine their mistaken views, and confirm them in their spirit of alienation."[(back)]
Footnote 252: Owen Feltham.[(back)]
Footnote 253: Bishop Taylor's "Liberty of Prophesying," 13.[(back)]
Footnote 254: This work, "published by William Prynne, Esq. a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, 1657," is ascribed by him to Cotton; but it proves not to have been written by Cotton, but by the two brothers William and Robert Bowyer. See manuscript note, by Francis Hargrave, at the commencement of his copy in the British Museum. What notes and observations came from the author, whether Cotton or one of the Bowyers, and what were added and interwoven by Prynne, it seems impossible to determine. This passage (p. 456) apparently carries with it internal evidence that it was penned by Prynne.[(back)]
Footnote 255: Much doubt and many mistakes seem to have prevailed as to the real state of the law in England before the statute 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15. It is said by the annotator on Fitzherbert that, "before the time of Henry IV. no person had been put to death for opinions in religion in England;" but the same author himself tells us that, among the crimes to be punished by burning by the common law, heresy is enumerated. "No Bishop, indeed, by the common law, could convict of heresy, as to loss of life, but only as to penance, and for the health of the soul, 'pro salute animæ.' In the case of life, the conviction by the common law ought to have been before the Archbishop in convocation." Much information is found on this subject in Fitzherbert's Book, De Naturâ Brevium.[(back)]