The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Test Act

a law enacted by Parliament in England in 1673. It required that all those holding or wishing to hold public office take an oath according to the rites of the English church and renounce Catholic dogma. The Test Act annulled the Declaration of Indulgence issued by Charles II in 1672. The declaration had been considered by the opposition bourgeois nobility to be a step toward the restoration of Catholicism, which was the instrument of the feudal absolutist reaction in the country. The Test Act was annulled by the Declarations of Indulgence issued by James II in 1687 and 1688, but its provisions were partially restored after the revolution of 1688–89 by the Act of Toleration of 1689.

Mentioned in

Herbert pendulum method

References in periodicals archive

The Test Act 1678 ('Second Test Act') (17) went further.

The constitutional prohibition on religious tests

The Test Act of 1673, barring from important office all who would not receive communion in their parish churches, confirmed the reality that nonconformists and Catholics alike were second-class citizens.

Out with the old guard ... For most of Britain's population, the Restoration had little effect. Life under Charles II was much the same as it was under Cromwell

The passing of the Workhouse Test Act in1723, gave parishes the option of denying out-relief and offering claimants only the work house where the able-bodied were required work, usually without pay, in return for food and a roof over their heads.

Flash back: How the poor survived; DISCOVERING YOUR FAMILY HISTORY ECHO ORIGINS

The Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory (NTTL) was established in 1920 in response to the Nebraska Tractor Test Act of 1919, which required all agricultural tractors sold and advertised in Nebraska to have manufacturers' performance claims verified by the Nebraska Tractor Test Lab.

Nebraska Tractor Test Lab: eighty-six years and going strong

Malcolm quotes Smilie's convention speech without placing his statement in the context of Smilie's earlier involvement with the Test Act controversy.

Commonplace or anachronism: the standard model, the Second Amendment, and the problem of history in contemporary constitutional theory

The Act of Uniformity, the Conventicle Act and the Test Act of 1673 were much more effective means of repressing dissent than the execution of the regicides.

Historicizing Milton: Spectacle, Power, and Poetry in Restoration England

In 1996, an even stronger law, the Omnibus Transportation Employee Test Act, became effective for all employers regulated by one or more of five U.S.

Fighting substance abuse on the job

Congress Enacts TEST Act; CMS Follows With Proposed Changes to CLIA Proficiency Testing Rules

Government news

The court also directed the secretary, Delhi Medical Council, principal secretary ( health), Delhi government, and the deputy commissioner who is the competent authority under the Prenatal Determination Test Act, to raise awareness in public through its order.

Doc in abortion row

Until 1829 Catholics were effectively prevented from holding public office in Nova Scotia because of the "Test Act," which required them to renounce their belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Can Catholic teachers be compelled to teach sex education? Catholic teachers and Nova Scotia's sex manual Part III