Should herecant those things which he had said against the pope's conduct he would only strengthen the papal tyranny and give an opportunity for new usurpations.
According to a law of 1550, heretics who persistently refused to recant were to be burned alive.
Recant I can not and will not, for it is hazardous and dishonorable to act against one's conscience.
Unhappy Murmurers that still repine (After th' Eclipse our Sunne doth brighter shine) Recant your False Grief and your True joyes knowe, Your Bliss is Endles as you fear'd your Woe!
Defn: To recant or recall, as what has been said; to refract; to take back again; to make as if not said.
Defn: To recant or recall, as an oath; to recall after having sworn; to abjure.
Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
To recant is to renounce or abjure some proposition previously affirmed and maintained.
Seven bishops arrayed him in priestly garb and warned him to recant while yet there was time.
The bishop failed to confuse her and at last condemned her to death for heresy, bidding her recant if she would live.
Her last thought was of others and De Quincy says, that recant was no more in her mind than on her lips.
It was the unique sentence on Paine to recant and yet be damned.
Either Paine had to recant or Dogma had to recant.
They were lodged in separate cells, in the prison portion of the Palazzo Vecchio, and each was importuned to recant the charges made against the Pope and the Medici.
I neither can nor will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one's conscience.
If Luther were willing to recant them, the Emperor would engage that his other works, in which they were not contained, should be tenderly handled: if not, let him recollect the fate of other books condemned by the Church.
That the protagonist in a great Cause should recant in the face of death seems to argue an almost incredible degree of pusillanimity, and suggests that pusillanimity and subservience are the key to his career.
The whole of their offence consisted in the single fact that they could not and would not recant their belief in the validity of Katharine's marriage.
They went to law with us to make us recantthe bargaine that wee had made with them.
Six several times was he induced to recant the doctrines he had preached, and profess an allegiance which could only be a solemn mockery.
Only one hundred and fifty years before, one of his countrymen had accepted torture and death rather than recant his religions opinions.
This man declares that Paine did not recant and that he died tranquilly.
And upon the question of whether he did recant there was but one expression.
They all said that he did not recantin any manner.
Recant What you have said, ye Mungrils, and licke up The vomit you have cast upon the Court, Where you unworthily have had warmth and breeding, And sweare that you like Spiders, have made poyson Of that which was a saving antidote.
These are my conditions: you will this very day publicly recant your slander and beg my pardon".
He did not recant the professorship till Cranmer invited Peter Martyr from Germany to the chair of the disguised Romanist.
When they were all assembled at the Vierschare, seated upon the four benches that were set around the lime-tree, Claes was cross-examined afresh, and asked if he was willing to recant his errors.
Those who would recant their heresies were to be hanged, but those who were obstinate were to be burnt at the stake.
The bailiff asked him if he would not recant the accursed thoughts which had led him to break the images, and the impious delusion whereby he had spoken such evil words against Pope and Emperor, who were both divine personages.
He shall abjure and bear a faggot if he does not recantor offends a second time.
Any clergy preaching contrary to the King's religious doctrine shall recant for the first offence.
If a layperson teaches, defends, or maintains a religious doctrine other than the King's, he shall recant and be imprisoned for twenty days for the first offence.
In vindicating his ideal he does not recant his human nature.
A man who has truly loved, though he may come to recognise the thousand incidental illusions into which love may have led him, will not recant its essential faith.
If it could accomplish what they propose by it, I would recant without hesitation, but the opposition of my adversaries has spread my writings farther than I had ever hoped; they have taken hold too deeply on the souls of men.
One thing he would not do--recant what he had said against the unchristian extension of the system of indulgences; but recantation was the only thing the hierarchy wanted of him.
