Toleration Act - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition toleration-act

Definition :

Toleration Act (English) (1 W. & M. st. 1, c. 18), confirmed by 10 Anne, c. 2, by which all persons dissenting from the Church of England (except Papists and persons denying the Trinity) were relieved from such of the Acts against Nonconformists as prevented their assembling for religious worship according to their own forms, or otherwise restrained their religious liberty, on condition of their taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribing a declaration against transubstantiation; and in the case of dissenting ministers, subscribing also to certain of the Thirty-nine Articles. So much of the Toleration Act as excepted persons denying the Trinity from its benefits, and so much of the Blasphemy Act of William III as related to persons who 'deny any one of the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity to be God,' were repealed in 1813 by 53 Geo. 3, c. 160. See the case of Lady Hewley's Charities, Shore v. Wilson, (1842) 9 Cl&Fin 355, and the Act was repealed, save for some minor provisions in s. 5, part of s. 8 and s. 15, by the Promissory Oaths Act, 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 48).