the devil; neither would he leave them so, but would also severely and straitly hold them in by _lawful and politic punishments_, if they fortune to break out any where and bewray themselves.[479] These are very strong words. And what is more remarkable still, a similar line was adopted, nearly a hundred years later, by one who has been considered the great champion of religious liberty, and in a work expressly dedicated to the extension of it, and though it is more than probable that Jeremy Taylor, here, as elsewhere, would not have had the courage to follow out his own argument to its practical results, and would have shrunk from “putting to death or dismembering” the professing Christian, even for “impiety or blasphemy,” or for opinions (if only such), however “destructive of the foundation of religion;”[480] yet the theory itself, re-asserted after so long an interval, and by such an advocate, is enough to prove that Cranmer was rather in advance of his generation than behind it; and that he is still to be regarded as the reformer, and not as the bigot. But there is reason to think that the capital penalties even of his code would have been mitigated, had he ever actually presented it to the legislature. Cranmer was becoming daily more tolerant, as he gradually fell under the influence of a more charitable faith. He had been shocked, it is said, by the solemn manner in which Edward made him responsible before God for the life of Joan of Kent; he expressed himself shortly afterwards of Gardiner in terms significant of a repugnance to severities;[481] and he was one of those who advised connivance at the use of the mass by the Princess Mary. With these tokens of temper before us, it seems fair to infer, that however greatly Cranmer coveted the establishment of discipline, he would scarcely have bought it at the price of blood; and that his own character, by nature one of the most gentle, was asserting itself more and more even in matters calculated to put it most of all to the proof. But if discipline, properly so called, be lacking, so much the rather should those ecclesiastical regulations which are of imperfect obligation perhaps (and there are many such) be diligently observed by the clergy, both towards those set over them, and towards those committed to their charge; the respect or neglect of which is just that which constitutes the decency or disorder of a church; a distinction not easy to describe in detail, yet sufficiently intelligible in itself; nor is it unreasonable to expect that the laity on their part should see the advantage of such rules, which cannot be onerous, and cordially co-operate with the clergy to the maintenance of them.