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it is enacted,

That neither the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth, intitled, an act to retain the Queen's Majesty's subjects in their due obedience; nor the statute made in the twenty-ninth year of the said Queen Elizabeth, intitled, an act for the more speedy and due execution of certain branches of the statute made in the three and twentieth year of the said Queen's Majesty's reign, namely the aforesaid act; nor that branch or clause of a statute, made in the first year of the reign of the said Queen Elizabeth, intitled an act for the uniformity of common prayer and service in the church, and administration of the sacraments, whereby all persons having no lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, were required to report to their parish churches or chapels, or some usual place where the Common Prayer should be used, upon pain of punishment by the censures of the church, and also upon pain that every person so offending, should forfeit for every such offence twelve pence; nor the statute made in the third year of the late King James I. intitled, an act for the better discovering and repressing Popish recusants; nor that other statute made in the same year, intitled, an act to prevent and avoid dangers which may grow from Popish recusants; nor any other law or statute of the realm of England, made against Papists or Popish recusants, (except the statute made in the 25th year of King Charles II. intitled, an act for the more effectual preserving the King's person and government, by disabling Papists from sitting in either house of parliament,) should be construed to extend to any person or persons dissenting from the church of England, that should take the oaths mentioned in a statute, made in the then present parliament of the said King William and Queen Mary, intitled, an act for removing and preventing all questions and disputes concerning the assembling and sitting of that present parliament, and should make and sub-[469]-scribe the declaration mentioned in the statute made in the thirteenth year of King Charles II. to prevent Papists from sitting in either house of parliament; which oaths and declaration last above-mentioned, the justices of the peace, at the general sessions of the peace to be held for the county or place where such person should live, were by the same act, intitled, an act for exempting their Majesties Protestant subjects dissenting from the church of England from the penalties of certain laws, required to tender and administer to such persons as should offer themselves to take, make, and subscribe the same, and thereof to keep a register.

And it was further enacted by the said last-mentioned act,

That all and every person and persons that should as aforesaid take the said last-mentioned oaths, and make and subscribe the last-mentioned declaration, should not be liable to any pains, penalties, or forfeitures, mentioned in an act made in the 35th year of the late Queen Elizabeth, intitled, an act to retain the Queen's Majesty's subjects in their due obedience; nor in an act made in the 22d year of King Charles II. intitled, an act to prevent and suppress seditious conventicles; nor should any of the persons be prosecuted in any ecclesiastical court, for or by reason of their non-conforming to the church of England.

The defendant then pleaded in substance as follows: That the office of sheriffs of London is an office to which the provision of the aforesaid act of King Charles II. commonly called the corporation act, extends; and that he is, and was at the time of the pretended election of him to the said office, a Protestant Dissenter, qualified agreeable to the terms of the act of King William and Queen Mary above recited; and that he had not, within one year next before the said pretended election, taken the sacrament of the Lord's supper, according to the rites of the church of England, nor had ever, or could he in conscience take the same, and that he was not bound by law to take the same; of which the liverymen of the said city of London had due notice, at and before the time of the said pretended election; and that by reason of the preanises, and by force of the said act of parliament, intitled, an act for the well governing and regulating of corporations, the said Liverymen were prohibited from electing him to the said office, and the said defendant was disabled and utterly incapable of being elected to be one of the sheriffs of the said city of London, and thereby the said supposed election of him the said defendant was void.

The defendant also pleaded seven other pleas, which were the same as the first, and in the very words thereof, except in the averment relating to the office of sheriff, describing it in different words, as an office relating to the government of the city of London.