The Lady Elizabeth, not long after, by the death of Queen Mary, coming to the crown, in the fifth year of her reign, by act of Parliament repealed in the first place all the laws ecclesiastical of Queen Mary, with all other former laws concerning the punishments of heretics: nor did she enact any other punishments in their place. In the second place it was enacted, that the Queen by her letters patents should give a commission to the bishops, with certain other persons, in her Majesty’s name, to execute the power ecclesiastical; in which commission, the commissioners were forbidden to adjudge anything to be heresy, which was not declared to be heresy by some of the first four general Councils: but there was no mention made of general Councils, but only in that branch of the act which authorised that commission, commonly called the High Commission; nor was there in that commission anything concerning how heretics were to be punished; but it was granted to them, that they might declare or not declare, as they pleased, to be heresy or not heresy, any of those doctrines which had been condemned for heresy in the first four general Councils. So that during the time that the said High Commission was in being, there was no statute by which a heretic could be punished otherways, than by the ordinary censures of the church; nor doctrine accounted heresy, unless the commissioners had actually declared and published, that all that which was made heresy by those four Councils, should be heresy also now: but I never heard that any such declaration was made either by proclamation, or by recording it in churches, or by public printing, as in penal laws is necessary; the breaches of it are excused by ignorance. Besides, if heresy had been made capital, or otherwise civilly punishable, either the four general Councils themselves, or at least the points condemned in them, ought to have been printed or put into parish churches in English, because without it, no man could know how to beware of offending against them.
Some men may perhaps ask, whether nobody were condemned and burnt for heresy, during the time of the High Commission.
I have heard there were: but they which approve such executions, may peradventure know better grounds for them than I do; but those grounds are very well worthy to be enquired after.
Lastly, in the seventeenth year of the reign of King Charles the First, shortly after that the Scots had rebelliously put down the episcopal government in Scotland, the Presbyterians in England endeavoured the same here. The king, though he saw the rebels ready to take the field, would not condescend to that; but yet in hope to appease them, was content to pass an act of parliament for the abolishing the High Commission. But though the High Commission was taken away, yet the parliament having other ends besides the setting up of the Presbyterate, pursued the rebellion, and put down both episcopacy and monarchy, erecting a power by them called The Commonwealth, by others The Rump, which men obeyed not out of duty, but for fear; nor were there any human laws left in force to restrain any man from preaching or writing any doctrine concerning religion that he pleased. And in this heat of the war, it was impossible to disturb the peace of the state, which then was none.
And in this time it was, that a book called Leviathan was written in defence of the King’s power, temporal and spiritual, without any word against episcopacy, or against any bishop, or against the public doctrine of the church. It pleased God, about twelve years after the usurpation of this Rump, to restore his most gracious Majesty that now is, to his father’s throne, and presently, his Majesty restored the bishops, and pardoned the Presbyterians. But then both the one and the other accused in Parliament this book of heresy, when neither the bishops before the war had declared what was heresy; when if they had, it had been made void by the putting down of the High Commission at the importunity of the Presbyterians. So fierce are men, for the most part, in dispute, where either their learning or power is debated, that they never think of the laws, but as soon as they are offended, they cry out, crucifige; forgetting what St. Paul (2 Tim. ii. 24, 25) saith, even in case of obstinate holding of an error: the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance, to the acknowledging of the truth: of which counsel, such fierceness as hath appeared in the disputation of divines, down from before the Council of Nice to this present time, is a violation.
FINIS.
CONSIDERATIONS
UPON THE
REPUTATION, LOYALTY, MANNERS,
AND RELIGION,
OF
THOMAS HOBBES,