Majesty's courts at Westminster, wherein no essoin, protection, ór wager of law shall lie."

In the sixth Section-It was further enacted that the names of such persons and officers that should take the Oaths aforesaid should be in the said respective courts enrolled; (2) the which rolls should be publicly hung up as therein mentioned (3) and none of the persons aforesaid should pay any fee, &c, above 12d. for the entry of his taking the Oaths aforesaid.

In the seventh Section-That it should be lawful for the said respective courts aforesaid to administer the said Oaths to the persons aforesaid; and upon due tender of any such persons to take the said Oaths, the said courts were thereby required to administer the same. In the eighth Section--That if any persons not bred up, &c. in the Popish Religion, and professing themselves to be Popish Recusants, should breed up, &c. their child or children, or suffer them to be instructed, &c. in the Popish Religion, every such person being thereof convicted should be thenceforth disabled of bearing any office, &c. in Church or State, (2) and all such children so brought up, &c. should be disabled of bearing such office, &c. until he or they should be perfectly reconciled, &c. to the Church of England, and should take the Oaths and Sacrament as therein mentioned.

In the Ninth Section-That when the persons concerned in this Act should take the said oaths, they should likewise make and subscribe the Declaration therein mentioned (being that against Transubstantiation), of which, by Section 10, the like Registry should be kept as of the taking the oaths.

... In Section 11 it was provided-That this Act should not extend, &c., to prejudice the peerage of any Peer of the realm, or to take away any right, &c., which any person (being a peer of the realm) had or ought to enjoy by reason of his peerage either in time of Parliament or otherwise, (2) or to take away or make void any creation-money or bills of impost, or any pension, &c., granted by his Majesty for valuable and sufficient consideration for life or years, other than such as relate to any office or place of trust under his Majesty ; and other than pensions of bounty, &c. (3) nor to any estate of inheritance, granted by his Majesty or his predecessors, in any hereditaments not being offices (4), nor any pension, &c., granted by his Majesty to any person instrumental in his preservation after the battle of Worcester; (5) nor to take away or make void the grant of any offices of inheritance, or any fee, &c., for executing such offices, &c., to any person, &c., who should refuse or neglect, &c., so, nevertheless (6) as such persons should substitute and appoint his or their sufficient deputy or

deputies to exercise the said offices until the person, &c., having the same should voluntarily, in the said Courts of Chancery, or King's Bench, take the said oaths, and should receive the Sacrament according to law, and subscribe the said Declaration; and so as the said Deputies should do the like, and be approved of by the King's Majesty as therein mentioned; (7) but that all and every Peers of the realm should have, &c., what is provided for as aforesaid, and all other persons before mentioned, denoted, &c., within this proviso should have, &c., what is provided for as aforesaid, notwithstanding any incapacity or disability mentioned in this Act.

In Section 12 it was provided-That the said Peers might take the said Oaths, and make the said Subscription, and deliver the said Certificates, before the Peers sitting in Parliament, and, in the intervals of Parliament, in the High Court of Chancery, in which respective courts all the proceedings were to be recorded in manner aforesaid.

In Section 13th, "That no married woman, or person under the age of eighteen years or being beyond seas, or found by, &c., non compos mentis, and so being at the end of Trinity term, 1673, should lose, &c. his or her office, (other than such married woman for the life of her husband only,) for any such neglect or refusal, &c., so as such persons within four months after removal of the respective impediments, should take the oaths and perform the things by this act appointed."

In Section 14th, That any person, who, by his or her neglect or refusal, according to this Act, shall lose or forfeit any office, may be capable of a new grant, taking the said oaths, and doing the other things by the Act appointed.

In Section 15th, That nothing in the Act should extend to make any forfeiture, &c. in or by, &c. any non-commission officer, &c. in his Majesty's Navy, if he, &c. should only subscribe the said declaration therein prescribed.

In Section 16th, That nothing in the Act should extend to prejudice George and Anne, Earl and Countess of Bristol, às therein mentioned.

And in Section 17th, is a proviso in these words: "That this Act shall not extend to the office of any high-constable, titheingman, headborough, overseer of the poor, churchwardens, surveyor of the highways, or any like inferior civil office, or to any office of forrester or keeper of any park, chase, warren, or game, or of bailiff of any manor or lands, or to any like inferior offices, or to any person or persons having only any the before-mentioned, or any the like offices."

SOME CLAUSES

IN

SUBSEQUENT ACTS,

WHICH RELATE TO THE

TEST ACT,

OR PARTS THEREOF.

BY St. 1 Geo. I. st. 2. c. 13, intitled "An Act for the further security of his Majesty's person and Government, and the succession of the crown in the Heirs of the late Princess Sophia, being Protestants, and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales, and his open and secret abettors,"

It was, in sect. 1 and 2, enacted, That the persons therein mentioned (being such as by the Test Act are required to take the Oaths and Sacrament as therein mentioned, and also persons in divers ather preferments, benefices, offices, places, capacities, practices, employments, or business therein described) should take and subscribe the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and Abjuration, in the same Act of Geo. I. expressed at length, within three months after they shall be admitted to such preferments, &c.

By St. 9 Geo. II. c. 26, intitled "An Act for indemnifying persons who have omitted to qualify themselves for offices within the time limited by law, and for allowing further time for that purpose; and for amending so much of an Act passed in the second year of the Reign of his present Majesty as requires persons to qualify themselves for offices before the end of the next Term or Quarter Sessions; and also for enlarging the time limited by law for making and subscribing the Declaratiou against Transubstantiation; and for allowing further time for Inrolment of Deeds and Wills made by Papists, and for Relief of Protestant Purchasers, Devisees, and Lessees,"

Provision was made, sect. 3, for enlarging the time of taking the Oaths required by 1 Geo. I. c. 13, and the Declaration against Transubstantiation, required by the Test Act, to six calendar months as therein mentioned.

By sect. 4 of the same St. 9 Geo. II. it was provided, That nothing in the same Act should extend to any person beyond seas who ought to take the said Oaths or make the said Declaration, so as such person should, within six calendar months next after his return to England

take the said Oaths, in such manner as appointed by the said St. 1 Geo. I. and receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the usage of the Church of England, and make the said Declarations in such cases wherein respectively the same ought to be done.

And by St. 16 Geo. II. c. 30, intitled " An Act to indemnify persons who have omitted to qualify themselves for offices and employments within the time limited by law, and for allowing further time for that purpose; and also for amending so much of an Act made in the 25th year of the Reign of King Charles II., intituled 'An Act for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants, as relates to the time for receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, now limited by the said Act.'

After reciting in sect 3, the said St. 25 Car. II. as to receiving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the usage of the Church of England, within three months, &c.-[which by St. 13 Geo. I. c. 29, sec. 4, had been declared and enacted to mean three kalendar months]

and that the said time of three months was found to be too short and inconvenient, it was, for remedy thereof, and amending the said Act by enlarging the said time, enacted, That every such person should receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, according to the usage of the Church of England, in manner therein, and in the Test Act, mentioned, within six months after his or their admittance, &c.

The Test Act is expressly excepted by the Toleration Act, 1 W. and M. c. 18. from among the Statutes, &c. against which Protestant Dissenters complying with the terms of that Act are thereby protected: and the like exception appears to be in effect continued in the subsequent Toleration Acts 19 Geo. III. c. 44. and 52 Geo. III. c. 155.

By St. 57 Geo. III. c. 92, after reciting in sect. 1, That by certain Acts passed in the Reigns of his Majesty's royal predecessors, it was provided that Officers in his Majesty's Navy and Army should take certain Oaths, and make, &c., certain Declarations, before they should enter upon the offices, &c., to which they might be appointed; and that doubts had been entertained whether the provisions of the said Acts were still in force in that behalf, and that the practice of taking the said Oaths, and making, &c., the said Declarations by officers previously to their receiving commissions in his Majesty's Army, had been long disused, and that it was expedient to remove such doubts, and to assimilate the practice of the two services, it is enacted, That it should be lawful for his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, the Lord High Admiral, or Commissioners for that office, the Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Land Forces, the Master-General of the Ordnance, and the Secretary at War, respectively, or any other per

1

sons thereunto lawfully authorized, to deliver commissions or warrants to any officer or officers in the Navy, Land Forces, or Marines, as therein mentioned, without previously requiring the said Oaths or Declarations, as therein mentioned, with a proviso in sect. 2, that nothing in this Act should extend to any oaths, &c., required by any Act then in force, to be taken, &c., after accepting, &c., such commission, &c.

By 5 Geo. IV. c. 79, after reciting, That it was expedient that persons holding certain offices, &c., in the management, collection, &c., of the Public Revenues, should be enabled to receive, hold, &c., the same without previously taking certain Oaths, and Declarations,

It is enacted, That it should be lawful for any person, being his Majesty's subject, to have, hold, &c. and execute any of the offices of Commissioners of Customs, Excise, Stamps, or Taxes, or concerned in the collection, &c. of the revenue, subject to the said Commissioners, or of the revenues subject to the authority of the Postmaster-General, &c. without previously taking, making, &c. any declaration or oath, except the oath of allegiance, and the oath for the due performance of the duties of such office or place.

This Act does not contain any express mention of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.