Test Act
Test Act#1678 Act
Date in force: 1673The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and Nonconformists. The principle was that none but persons professing the Established Church were eligible for public employment, and the severe penalties pronounced against recusants, whether Catholic or Nonconformist, were affirmations of this principle. In practice nonconformists were often exempted from some of these laws through the regular passage of Acts of Indemnity.
Read more about Test Act: Corporation Act, 1673 Act, 1678 Act, Repeal
Famous quotes containing the words test and/or act:
“It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humour, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)
“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”
—Samuel Johnson (17091784)