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Five-Mile Act, or Oxford Act

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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Fix, Christian Gotthelf

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an act of the British Parliament, passed in 1665, which imposed an oath on all nonconformists, binding them at no time to endeavor any alteration of the government in either Church or State; and ordering that nonconforming ministers should neither live in, nor come within five miles (except in crossing the road) of any borough, city, or corporate town, or within five miles of any parish, town, or place in which they bad been, since the Act of Oblivion, parson, vicar or lecturer, under a penalty of forty pounds, or six months' imprisonment, and being rendered incapable of teaching any school, or taking any boarders to be taught or instructed.-Baxter, Church History of England, ii, 632; Neal, History of the Puritans (Harpers' ed.), ii, 255.