The canons trench in several places on the known province of the common law, by assigning specific penalties and forfeitures to offences, as in the case of adultery; and though it is true that this was all subject to the confirmation of parliament, yet the lawyers would look with their usual jealousy on such provisions in ecclesiastical canons. But the great sin of this protestant legislation is its extension of the name and penalties of heresy to the wilful denial of any part of the authorised articles of faith. This is clear from the first and second titles. But it has been doubted whether capital punishments for this offence were intended to be preserved. Burnet, always favourable to the reformers, asserts that they were laid aside. Collier and Lingard, whose bias is the other way, maintain the contrary. There is, it appears to me, some difficulty in determining this. That all persons denying any one of the articles might be turned over to the secular power is evident. Yet it rather seems by one passage in the title, de judiciis contra hæreses, c. 10, that infamy and civil disability were the only punishments intended to be kept up, except in case of the denial of the christian religion. For if a heretic were, as a matter of course, to be burned, it seems needless to provide, as in this chapter, that he should be incapable of being a witness, or of making a will. Dr. Lingard, on the other hand, says, "It regulates the delivery of the obstinate heretic to the civil magistrate, that he may _suffer death_ according to law." The words to which he refers are these: Cum sic penitus insederit error, et tam alte radices egerit, ut nec sententiâ quidem excommunicationis ad veritatem reus inflecti possit, tum consumptis omnibus aliis remediis, ad extremum ad civiles magistratus ablegetur _puniendus_. _Id._ tit. c. 4.