re in the world, time only can determine, and to that I leave it.
Yet considering the method in which I treat this subject, I readily
forsaw one objection which occasioned my writing so long a preface as
this, in order that it might be fully obviated._

_Though in the body of the work itself I have carefully traced the rise
of those corrupt inclinations which bring men to the committing of facts
within the cognizance of the Law, it still remains necessary that my
readers also become acquainted, at least in general, with what those
facts are which are so severely punished. In doing this I shall not
speak of matters in the style of a lawyer, but preserve the same
plainness of language which, as I thought it the most proper, I have
endeavoured throughout the whole piece._

_The order of things requires that I should first of all take notice how
the Law comes to have a right of punishing those who live under it with
Death or other grievous penalties, and this in a few words arises thus.
We enter into society for the sake of protection, and as this renders
certain laws necessary, we are justly concluded by them in other cases
for the protection of others; but of all the criminal institutions which
have been settled in any nation, never was any more just, more
reasonable, or fuller of clemency, than that which is called the Crown
Law in England. In speaking of this it may not be improper to explain
the meaning of that term, which seems to take its rise from the
conclusion of indictments, which run always_ contra pacem dicti domini
regis, coronam et dignitatem suam _(against the peace of our Sovereign
Lord the King, his Crown and Dignity) and therefore, as the Crown is
always the prosecutor against such offenders, the Law which creates the
offence is with propriety enough styled the Crown Law._

_The first head of Crown Law is that which concerns offences committed
against God, and anciently there were three which were capital, viz.,
heresy, witchcraft and sodomy; but the law passed in the reign of King
Charles the Second for taking away the writ_ de Haeretica comburendo,
_leaves the first not now punishable with death, even in its highest
degree. However, by a statute made in the reign of King William, persons
educated in the Christian religion who are convicted of denying the
Trinity, the Christian religion, or the authority of the Scriptures, are
for the first offence to be adjudged incapable of office, for the second
to