passion, signifies a private opinion. So the different sects of the old philosophers, Academians, Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, &c., were called heresies. But in the Christian Church, there was in the signification of that word, comprehended a sinful opposition to him, that was chief judge of doctrines in order to the salvation of men’s souls; and consequently heresy may be said to bear the same relation to the power spiritual, that rebellion doth to the power temporal, and is suitable to be persecuted by him that will preserve a power spiritual and dominion of men’s consciences.
B. It would be very well (because we are all of us permitted to read the Holy Scriptures, and bound to make them the rule of our actions, both public and private) that heresy were by some law defined, and the particular opinions set forth, for which a man were to be condemned and punished as a heretic; for else, not only men of mean capacity, but even the wisest and devoutest Christian, may fall into heresy without any will to oppose the Church; for the Scriptures are hard, and the interpretations different of different men.
A. The meaning of the word heresy is by law declared in an Act of Parliament in the first year of Queen Elizabeth; wherein it is ordained, that the persons who had by the Queen’s letters-patent the authority spiritual, meaning the High Commission, shall not have authority to adjudge any matter or cause to be heresy, but only such as heretofore have been adjudged to be heresy by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four general Councils, or by any other general Council, where the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the said canonical Scriptures, or such as hereafter shall be adjudged heresy by the high court of Parliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in their convocation.
B. It seems therefore, if there arise any new error that hath not yet been declared heresy (and many such may arise), it cannot be judged heresy without a Parliament. For how foul soever the error be, it cannot have been
