[1] _De Schismate Donatistarum_, p. iii, cap. vii.
Such a teaching might appear, at first sight; hard to reconcile with the law of gentleness which Jesus preached to the world. But the theologians quoted Christ's words: "Do not think that I am come to destroy the law; I am not come to destroy but to fulfill,"[1] and other texts of the Gospels to prove the perfect agreement between the Old and the New Law in the matter of penalties. They even went so far as to assert that St. John[2] spoke of the penalty of fire to be inflicted upon heretics.
This strange method of exegesis was not peculiar to the founders and the defenders of the tribunals of the Inquisition. England, which knew nothing of the Inquisition, save for the trial of the Templars, was just as cruel to heretics as Gregory IX or Frederic II.
"The statute of May 25, 1382, directs the king to issue to his sheriffs commissions to arrest Wyclif's traveling preachers, and aiders and abettors of heresy, and hold them till they justify themselves _selon reson et la ley de seinte esglise_. After the burning of Sawtré by a royal warrant confirmed by Parliament in 1400, the statute '_de hæreticis comburendis_' for the first time inflicted in England the death penalty as a settled punishment for heresy.... It forbade the dissemination of heretical opinions and books, empowered the bishops to seize all offenders and hold them in prison until they should purge themselves or abjure, and ordered the bishops to proceed against them within three months after arrest. For minor offences, the bishops were empowered to imprison during pleasure and fine at discretion, the fine inuring to the royal exchequer. For obstinate heresy or relapse, involving under the canon law abandonment to the secular arm, the bishops and their commissioners were the sole judges, and on their delivery of such convicts, the sheriff of the county, or the mayor and bailiffs of the nearest town, were obliged to burn them before the people on an eminence. Henry V followed this up, and the statute of 1414 established throughout the kingdom a sort of mixed secular and ecclesiastical Inquisition for which the English system of grand inquests gave special facilities. Under this legislation, burning for heresy became a not unfamiliar sight for English eyes, and Lollardy was readily suppressed. In 1533, Henry VIII repealed the statute of 1400, while retaining those of 1382 and 1414, and also the penalty of burning alive for contumacious heresy and relapse, and the dangerous admixture of politics and religion rendered the stake a favorite instrument of statecraft. One of the earliest measures of the reign of Edward VI was the repeal of this law, as well as those of 1382 and 1414, together with all the atrocious legislation of the Six Articles. With the reaction under Philip and Mary, came a revival of the sharp laws against heresy. Scarce had the Spanish marriage been concluded when an obedient Parliament re-enacted the legislation of 1382, 1400, and 1414, which afforded ample machinery for the numerous burnings which followed. The earliest act of the first Parliament of Elizabeth was the repeal of the legislation of Philip and Mary, and of the old statutes which it had revived; but the writ _de hæretico comburendo_ had become an integral part of English law, and survived, until the desire of Charles II for Catholic toleration caused him, in 1676, to procure its abrogation, and the restraint of the ecclesiastical courts in cases of atheism, blasphemy, heresy, and schism, and other damnable doctrines and opinions 'to the ecclesiastical remedies of excommunication, deprivations, degradation, and other ecclesiastical censures, not extending to death."[1]