Socialism and the Pope

one cannot say, but in 1682 he published the "life" of Sir Matthew Hale, who had died six years before.

Sir Mathew Hale was considered a great lawyer and a famous judge. For six years he was chief Judge of the King's Bench. He wrote many religious works. Like Wesley, Hale believed in the absurd and terrible doctrine of Witchcraft, and as a judge on the King's Bench, actually engage in the solemn and tragic farce of sentencing "witches." But unlike Wesley, he was brought by study to believe in Arianism, in the humanity and not the deity of Jesus of Nazareth. Since Hale was born in 1609, he at least lived in an earlier period than Wesley.

On the accession of James II., Burnett retired to the Continent, but returned at the palace revolution of 1688. He was appointed to the Bishopric of Salisbury. Archbishop Sanscroft refused to consecrate him, but was compelled to grant a commission to do so. Burnett was consecrated on March 31, 1689. Five years later he conducted the funeral service at the burial of his friend, Archbishop Tillotson, and defended Tillotson's memory against attack. Burnett died on March 17, 1715, and was interred in the Parish Church of St. James of Clerkenwell, London.

Burnett's friend and master in heresy, Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, was appointed to the See against his own wishes in 1691. He was charged with being an Atheist, Deist, and Arian. Burnett championed his memory, knowing that Tillotson rejected the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet he questioned the mentality of the martyred Joan Bocher.

I have no doubt that Burnett's idea was to censure the murderers and persecutors of Joan Bocher. But he did this weakly and meanly, as became a scholar wanting in supreme audacity. He shared her views, and he had the advantages of social position and of time, since he lived a century later. Yet he challenged her martyrdom by questioning her mentality. Nevertheless, Burnett did strive for freedom of thought, did challenge superstition, and did oppose persecution. In contemporary courage he was superior to Miles Coverdale, who presided at persecutions against his own conscience.

Burnett was contemporary with Jogn Strype, who flourished 1643-1737. Born in Stepney, Strype became Vicar of Layton in 1669. He is regarded as one of the greatest English ecclesiastical historians and biographers. His works are of great value to all students of historic theology. He depicts the "heresies" that "were vented abound" in "little more than ten years" after the 1537 publication of the Bible in England. This translation was adapted, without acknowledgment, from Tyndal's and Coverdale's translations. For nearly two centuries before their time, translations of the Bible had been circulation in England. All translations previous to that of Wycliffe were acknowledged to be lawful. Fresh translations without authority were prohibited. Wycliffe had made