Courts in matters temporal. Speaking broadly, before the time of
Charles II. these things would have been dealt with as heresy; and
the libellers so-called of more recent days would have suffered as
heretics in earlier times." [Reference: _The Law of Blasphemous Libel_.
The Summing-up in the case of Regina v. Foote and others. Revised
with a Preface by the Lord Chief Justice of England. London,
Stevens and Sons.] Sir James Stephen also, after referring to the
writ _De Heretico Comburendo_, under which heresy and blasphemy
were punishable by burning alive, and which was abolished in 1677,
without abridging the jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts "in cases
of atheism, blasphemy, heresie, or schism, and other damnable doctrines
and opinions," adds that "In this state of things, the Court of Queen's
Bench took upon itself some of the functions of the old Courts of Star
Chamber and High Commission, and treated as misdemeanours at common law
many things which those courts had formerly punished... This was the
origin of the modern law as to blasphemy and blasphemous libel."
[Reference: _Blasphemy and Blasphemous Libel_. By Sir James Stephen.
_Fortnightly Review_, March, 1884.]

Less than ten years after the "glorious revolution" of 1688 there
was passed a statute, known as the 9 and 10 William III., c. 32,
and called "An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy
and Profaneness." This enacts that "any person or persons having
been educated in, or at any time having made profession of, the
Christian religion within this realm who shall, by writing, printing,
teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons in the
Holy Trinity to be God, or shall assert or maintain there are more
gods than one, or shall deny the Christian doctrine to be true, or
the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine
authority," shall upon conviction be disabled from holding any