Two Thirds of the Members have the Power of a full House. No Member to vote &c. in the House till qualified. The Qualification of every Member of Assembly. Altered by an Act pass’d in the II Geo. I, entitled An Act—prescribing the Forms of Declaration of Fidelity. &c.
AND if any County or Part of this Province shall refuse or neglect to choose their respective Representatives as aforesaid, or if chosen, do not meet to serve in Assembly, those who are so chosen and met shall have the full Power of an Assembly in as ample Manner as if all the Representatives had been chosen and met; Provided, they are not less than two Thirds of the Whole that ought to meet.
AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED by the Authority aforesaid, That no Person who shall be hereafter a Member of the Assembly, or House of Representatives of this Province, shall be capable to vote in the said House, or sit there during any Debate, after their Speaker is chosen, until he shall make and subscribe the following Declarations and Profession his Belief, viz.,
I A. B. do sincerely promise, and solemnly declare before GOD and the World, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to Queen Anne. And I do solemnly profess and declare. That I do, from my Heart, abbor, detest and renounce as impious and heretical, that damnable Doctrine and Position, That Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any Authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their Subjects, or any other whatsoever.
AND I do declare, That no foreign Prince, Person, Prelate, State or Potentate hath, or ought to have, any Power, Jurisdiction, Superiority, Preeminence or Authority ecclesiastical or spiritual, within the Realm of England, or the Dominions thereunto belonging.
AND I A. B. do solemnly and sincerely, in the Presence of GOD, profess, testify and declare, That I do believe that in the Sacrament of the LORD’s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of CHRIST, at or after the Consecration thereof, by any Person whatsoever; and that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitions and Idolatrous.
AND I do solemnly, in the Presence of GOD, profess, testify and declare. That I do make this Declaration and every Part thereof, in the plain and ordinary Sense of the Words read unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protestants, without any Evasion, Equivocation or mental Reservation whatsoever and without any Dispensation already granted me for this Purpose by the Pope, or any other Authority or Person whatsoever, or without any Hope of any such Dispensation from any Person or Authority whatsoever, or without thinking I am or may be acquitted before GOD, or Man, or absolved of this Declaration, or any Part thereof, although the Pope, or any other Person or Persons, or Power whatsoever, should dispense with or annull the same, or declare that it was null or void from the Beginning.
AND I A. B. profess Faith in GOD the Father, and in JESUS CHRIST, his eternal Son, the true GOD, and in the HOLY SPIRIT, one GOD, blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New-Testament, to be given by divine Inspiration.
The Law in William Penn’s Colony.
No Absolute Soul-liberty in Pennsylvania in Those Days.
Lord Baltimore, the Roman Catholic proprietor of Maryland, was far in advance of his Church. He came to the New World to secure religious liberty for himself and his friends. The Maryland Act of Toleration, issued in 1649, provided that