CHAPTER IV. OF OFFENSES AGAINST GOD AND RELIGION. 1. How are crimes to be estimated, in their relation to the municipal law ?-41. They ought to be estimated merely according to the mischiefs which they produce in civil society. 2. What is the difference between public and private vices ?—42. Both public and private vices are subject to the vengeance of eternal justice; and public vices are besides liable to the temporal punishments of human tribunals. 3. Under what heads are the several offenses, which are either di rectly, or by consequence, injurious to civil society, and therefore punishable by the laws of England, distributed ?—42, 43. Under the following general heads: 1. Those which are more immediately injurious to God and his holy religion. 2. Such as violate and transgress the law of nations. 3. Such as more especially affect the sovereign executive power of the state, or the king and his government. 4. Such as more directly infringe the rights of the public or commonwealth. 5. Such as derogate from those rights and duties which are owing to particular individuals, and in the preservation and vindication of which the community is deeply interested. 4. How do such crimes and misdemeanors as more immediately offend Almighty God, by transgressing the precepts of religion, either natural or revealed, transgress the law of society also ?--43. Mediately, by their bad example and consequence, 5. Of what species are they?-43-64. They are 1. Apostacy. 2. Heresy. 3. Offenses against the established church. 4. Blasphemy. 5. The offense of profane and common swearing and cursing. 6. Witchcraft, con juration, enchantment, or sorcery. 7. The offense of religious impostors. 8. Simony. 9. Profanation of the Lord's day 10. Drunkenness. 11. Open and notorious lewdness. 6. What is apostacy?-43. It is a total renunciation of christianity, by embracing either a false religion, or no religion at all. This offense can only take place in such as have once professed the true religion. 7. What is heresy ?-44, 45. It consists, not in the total denial of Christianity, but of some of its essential doctrines, publicly and obstinately avowed. 8. Of what kinds are the offenses against religion which affect the established church ?-50. They are either positive or negative: positive, by reviling its ordinances; or negative, by nonconformity to its worship. 9. How are non-conformists divided?—52. They are of two sorts: 1. Such as absent themselves from divine worship in the established church, through total irreligion, and attend the service of no other persuasion. 2. Those who offend through a mistaken or perverse zeal; as papists and protestant dissenters. 55. 10. Into what classes may papists be divided?—55. Into three: 1. Persons professing popery. 2. Popish recusants convict. 3. Popish priests. 11. What were the penalties and disabilities of the first class?— Besides penalties for not frequenting their parish church, they were disabled from taking their lands, either by descent or purchase, after eighteen years of age, until they renounced their errors; they were incapable of presenting to any advowson, or granting to any other person any avoidance of the same; they might not keep or teach any school, under pain of perpetual imprisonment; and if they willingly said or heard mass, they for feited, for the one two hundred, for the other one hundred marks, and each suffered a year's imprisonment. 12. What if these errors were aggravated by apostacy or perversion?-55. Where they were so aggravated, as where a person was reconciled to the see of Rome, or procured others to be reconciled, the offense amounted to high treason. 13. To what additional disabilities, penalties, and forfeitures, were the second class of papists subject?-56. They were considered as persons excommunicated; they could hold no office or employment; they could not keep arms in their houses, but the same could be seized by the justices of the peace; they might not come within ten miles of London, on pain of £100; they could bring no action at law, or suit in equity; they were not permitted to travel above five miles from home, unless by license, upon pain of forfeiting all their goods; and they could not come to court under pain of £100. No marriage or burial of such recusant, or baptism of his child, could be had otherwise than by the ministers of the church of England, under other severe penalties. A married woman, when recusant, forfeited two-thirds of her dower or jointure, might not be executrix or administratrix to her husband, nor have any part of his goods; and, during the coverture, might be kept in prison, unless her husband redeem her at the rate of £10 a month, or the third part of all his lands. And, lastly, as a feme covert recusant might be imprisoned, so all others were obliged, within three months after conviction, either to submit and renounce their errors, or, if required to do so by four justices, abjure and renounce the realm; and if they did not depart, or if they returned without the king's license, they were deemed guilty of felony, and suffered death as felons without benefit of clergy. 59. 14. What is blasphemy, and how punishable at common law?— It is an offense against God and religion, by denying his being and providence; or by contumelious reproaches of our Saviour Christ. Whither also may be referred all profane scoff ing at the Holy Scriptures, or exposing them to contempt and ridicule. These are offenses punishable at common law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporeal punishment; for Christianity is part of the laws of England. 15. How was the pretence of using witchcraft, telling fortunes, or discovering stolen goods by skill in the occult sciences, punished?— 62. By a year's imprisonment, and standing four times in the pillory. 16. Who are religious impostors ?-62. Such as falsely pretend an extraordinary commission from heaven, or terrify and abuse the people with false denunciations of judgment. 17. How are they punishable?-62. With fine, imprisonment, and infamous corporeal punishment, by the temporal courts. 18. What is Simony ?-62. The corrupt presentation of any one to an ecclesiastical benefice for gifts or reward. It is, also, to be considered an offense against religion. CHAPTER V. OF OFFENSES AGAINST THE LAW OF NATIONS. 1. What is the law of nations ?--66. The law of nations is a system of rules, deducible by natural reason, and established by universal consent among the civilized inhabitants of the world, in order to decide all disputes, to regulate all ceremonies and civilities, and to ensure the observance of justice and good faith, in that intercourse which must frequently occur between two or more independent states, and the individuals belonging to each. This general law is founded upon this principle, that different nations ought, in time of peace, to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war, as little harm as possible, without prejudice to their own real interests. 2 Is this law of nations adopted by the common law ?—67. Yes; to its full extent, and is held to be a part of the law of the land. 3. What is the remedy for offenses against this law by whole states or nations?—68. Recourse can only be had to war. 4. What if the individuals of any state violate this general law? -68. It is then the interest as well as duty of the government, under which they live, to animadvert upon them with a becoming severity, that the peace of the world may be maintained. 5. What are the principal offenses against the law of nations, animadverted on as such by the municipal laws of England ?—68. They are three in number: 1. Violation of safe-conducts. 2. Infringement of the rights of ambassadors. 3. Piracy. 6. What is piracy?-71-73. The offense of piracy, by common law, consists in committing those acts of robbery and depredation upon the high seas, which, if committed upon land, would have amounted to felony. CHAPTER VI. OF HIGH TREASON. 1. Into what kinds may those offenses, which more immediately affect the royal person, his crown, or dignity, and which are in some degree a breach of the duty of allegiance, whether natural and innate, or local and acquired by residence, be distinguished?—74. They may be distinguished into four kinds : 1. Treason. 2. Felonies injurious to the king's prerogative. 3. Præmunire. |