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within three months after his or their admittance in or receiving their authority Mid employment , in some public church upon some Lord ' s day , immediately after divine' service and sermon , and should deliver a certificate of so receiving * it , under the hands of the minister and churchwarden , and should then make proof of the truth thereof ,
by two credible witnesses , at the least , upon oath , and that all persons neglecting or refusing , should be ipso facto adjudged incapable and disabled in law , to all intents and purposes , to have , occupy and enjoy the said office or employment , or any profit or advantage appertaining , &c . The 5 th section declares , that , upon being
convicted of executing any office after a neglect or refusal to comply with the Act , the offender is to forfeit 500 / . to the informer , and is , moreover , disabled to sue in / any court of law or equity , to be guardian of any child , or executor or administrator of any
person , or to be capable of a legacy or gift , or of holding any office whatever . The offices of constables , overseers , church war dens , surveyors of the highways , or " any like inferior civil offices , " are left open to the ambition of Nonconformists , who are also
tolerated in exercising the functions of a gamekeeper , or like private offices . The first statute I have met with , which bears any close resemblance to the modern Indemnity Act , is the statute 1 William and Mary , Sess . 1 , c . * S , by which the oaths of supremacy and allegiance , previously existing , were abrogated , and the oath of
abjuration directed . The 14 th section rentes , that since the 11 th Dec , 1688 , the abrogated oaths could not be taken by any person elected to corporation offices , by reason whereof his election was void by the act of 13 Charles II ., and indemnifies him upon taking the new oath within a limited
tune . The 15 th section contains a like provision for officers incapacitated by neglect of the requisitions of the Test Act .
But in this statute we do not find any symptom of a disposition to relax these laws , out of deference to the ^ Tuples of Dissenters ; pn the contrar y , it is upon record , that clauses proposed in favour of Protestant Non-^ nformists were rejected . See Lords ' J 'otcst 8 , Vol . 1 . pp . 120 , 121 .
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The Toleration Act , which was passed in the same session , in making a sweeping repeal of the laws passed for repressing Papists and Popish recusants , so far as they affected Protestant Dissenters , expressly excepts the Test Act , and also the statute of
30 th Charles II ., for disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament ; with the requisitions of which latter statute , however , Protestant Dissenters had never any difficulty in
complying . It is rather singular that the Corporation Act was not also the subject of express exception , but I presume it was not considered to come precisely within the description of an act against Popish recusants .
There is no other statute in thi 3 reign which answers to the modern annual Indemnity Act . There is , indeed , an Act of a similar description , ( 11 and 12 Wm . III . c- 170 intended to protect the officers of government against the penalties incurred by a neglect to subscribe the Protestant
Association , which , having originated in a voluntary engagement to protect the person of the Sovereign , had been legalized and continued as an additional Test until the accession of Queen Anne , when all laws relative to the Association were annulled .
It would seem , from the case of the King v . Haines , which occurred in the 7 th year of King William III ., and is reported in Skinner , p . 583 , that the Corporation Act was occasionally made the instrument of private malice and revenge , even against regular Conformists . The reporter says , that this
prosecution against an alderman of Worcester , appeared upon the trial to be a warm prosecution , fomented by a person in the highest civil station , upon a private pique , the defendant having omitted to take the sacrament three days after the time prescribed by the Act , but , upon notice , he received the sacrament , and intended to take
the oaths ( he being a person in all points conformable , and who communicated frequently every year , and had taken the oaths several times ) at the next sessions , which were accidentally adjourned . The defendant was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence of
the charge of halving- acted after the time limited . The statute 1 Anne ( Sess . 2 , c . 17 ) appears to have reference to such
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TheNonconformist . NoJXXiV . 333
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 133, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/5/
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