Test Act
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
Act 25 Car. II. c.
2, by which it was enacted that all persons holding any office, civil or military (excepting some very inferior ones), or receiving pay from the crown, or holding a place of trust under it, should take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, and receive the sacrament according to the usage of the Church of England, under a penalty of £500 and disability to the office.
4 Bl. Comm. 59.
From this act the word "test" originally acquired its signification in connection with the word "oath."
116 III. 606.
An odious act now abolished, 9 Geo. IV, c. 17, so far as taking sacrament is concerned, and a new form of declaration substituted. Enc. Brit.