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Prys, William, 1753

I have recently come across a heretic I had not previously been aware of and have not found any reference to him elswhere, though there must be more to the story: In 1753 “There was one William Prys who was charged with spreading doctrines of an Antinomian tendency. Among other strange things, he asserted he had not sinned for some time, and that there was (iio) no sin either in his understanding, his will, or his conscience, and because he clung stubbornly to these views, he was expelled, and the Societies were warned to beware of his heresies, and the brethren to avoid his society.  “After long discussion and prayer,” says the report, “and with great solemnity, we turned him out, while our hearts were overwhelmed with love to his soul and jealousy for the glory of God, and full of fear and anxiety for the safety of the flock.”    Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, A Historical Sketch , London, Presbyterian Church of Wales, Rev William Williams of Swansea, London 1884, p58.  Here Any furthe
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Penalites Upon Opinion: Blasphemy

  (Blasphemy is not a focus of my study but bears some tenuous affinity with heresy as  as a crime of religion.) Penalties Upon Opinion: Or, Some Records of the Laws of Heresy and Blasphemy (1689-1912) Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, London, Watts & Co, 1912, Published for the Rationalist Press Association. The author’s conclusion is cautious, and makes no claim to be exhaustive - nonetheless I have not found any list more comprehensive. Notwithstanding the title, the cases she records are exclusively those of blasphemy.  1728 Thomas Wooston Six Discourses on the Miracles (1726) Argued for allegorical reading of miracles  Imprisoned till d. 1733 1756 Jacob Ilive Some Modest Remarks on the late Bishop Sherlock’s Sermons.  Pilloried in three places around  London, then imprisoned with  hard labour for 3 years 1766 Peter Annet Articles in The Free Inquirer 1797 Williams (a bookseller) for selling Paine’s Age of Reason (Part 2) Prosecuted by the  “The
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Henderson, J. B. (1998). The construction of orthodoxy and heresy: Neo-confucian, islamic, jewish and early christian patterns . Albany (N.Y.: State University of New York Press.)  Henderson was the William R. and Letitia Bell Endowed Professor , Co-ordinator of Chinese Studies , Department of History, Louisiana State University He died in April 2019. Obituary.  This book is a dizzying survey and analysis of orthodoxy and heresy across five religions and twelve hundred years, give or take.  I like the notion that the exercise “may be characterised as ‘the science of the error of others’” (p2) (citing Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, p.154) , but Henderson’s method is not scientific and is none the worse for it. It is historical, at a high level of abstraction, founded on an extensive and impressive range of reading and command of his materials. I did not see a general or abstract definition of heresy. Perhaps I missed it, but I hope not: I assert that heresy is constructed in the
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