Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert PeelAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert Peel
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
should forfeit all his or her goods, lands, and moneys whatever; and
whoever should send such person without such licence should forfeit
one hundred pounds; and every officer of a port, and every shipowner,
master of a ship, and all his mariners who should allow such person
to go, or should take him or her, should forfeit everything they
possessed, one half to the king, and the other half to the person
sueing.
To all this his Lordship had to add various specimens of the Canons.
By the 3rd, every one asserting that the Church of England was not
a true apostolical church should be excommunicated. The 4th and 5th
excommunicated all who declared that there was anything contrary to
sound Scripture in the form of worship of the Church of England, or
anything superstitious or erroneous in the Thirty-Nine Articles.
The 65th enjoined all ordinaries to see that all offenders, under
the different Acts here enumerated, should be cited and punished
according to statute, or excommunicated. The 72nd forbade, under pain
of excommunication, all ministers, without licence of the bishop, to
attempt, upon any pretence whatever, to cast out any devil or devils,
under pain of deposition from the ministry. The 73rd made it a subject
of excommunication that any priest or minister should meet with other
persons in any private house or elsewhere to consult upon any canon,
etc., which may tend to impeach or deprave the doctrine, the Book of
Common Prayer, or any part of the discipline and government of the
Church of England; and by the 115th, all churchwardens are enjoined
to make presentments of offenders in any of these particulars; and
all judges, magistrates, etc., are bound to encourage, and not to
discourage, all such presentments. Lord Stanhope observed that the
Court of King's Bench, in 1737, had decided that these Canons, not
having ever received the sanction of Parliament, were not binding on
the laity; and he contended that the ratification of them by James I.,
not being authorised by the original statute, the 25th of Henry VIII.,
made them as little binding on the clergy. He had not, therefore,
included the Canons in his Bill. He took care, too, to except Catholics
from the benefit of the Bill; neither was the Bill to repeal any part
of the Test and Corporation Acts, nor the 12th and 13th of William
III., "for the better securing the rights and liberties of the
subject." He finally showed that these fierce and persecuting Acts
were not become utterly obsolete; they were ever and anon revived, and
might, any of them, be acted upon at any moment. It might reasonably
have been supposed that the bishops would have supported the Bill
unanimously; that they would have been glad to have all such evidences
of the odious means by which their Church had been forced on the
people, swept out of the Statute-book and forgotten. No such thing. The
Archbishop of Canterbury declared, if Dissenters were allowed to defend
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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