Testing Clause
Testing Clause names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Testing Clause in Scotch law
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Scotch law, written deed or in a formal instrument by which it is authenticated the clause of law. It consists the form of essentially of the name and designation according to number of pages of of the writer, the ties and postulates of human nature. The treatise "Against the Jews" is to prove that prophecy is fulfilled in Christ. (2) Against heretics. He formulates this position juristically in his "Against the Proscription of Heretics." Against gnostic attempts to volatilize Christhe gnostic attempts tianity in gnostic spiritualism he maintained its reality as a practical form of life in his "Concerning Baptism," "Against Hermogenes," "Against Valentinians," "Concerning the Soul" (in which he contends that even the soul is material), "Concerning the Body of Christ" (against Docetism), "Concerning the Resurrection of the Body," and the five books "Against Marcio." Against the F Patripassian heresy he wrote the book "Against Praxeas." (3) Practical and ascetic treatises. It is especially in these writings relating to Christian life and discipline that we can trace Tertullian's increasing hostility to the Church and adoption of the Montanist views, which had great influence among African Christians. He hailed the testimony of "free prophecy" as God's the dialectic stamp; it does not philosophize; it reasons, using now the argument, ex auctoritate, now the argument e ratione. He shows striking power of psychological observation. Finally, his writings have a strong practical evangelic tendency; with their vivid appeal to the reader's will, and their simple concrete expression of the Gospel, they appealed not to theologians only, but to all. In these characteristics and their union. Tertullian became the type of the Christianity of the Western Church.
Testing Clause in Scotch law
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Scotch law, the clause in a formal written deed or instrument by which it is authenticated according to the form of law. It consists essentially of the name and designation of the writer, the number of pages of which the deed consists, the names and designations of the witnesses, the name and designation of the person who penned the deed, and the date and place of signing.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's set this out in 1921, a Scottish deed was authenticated by a testing clause reciting the writer's name and designation, the number of pages, the names and designations of the witnesses, and the date and place of signing. That machinery has gone: the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995 swept away the old rules of solemn authentication, so that a document is now formally valid if it is subscribed by the granter, and self-proving ("probative") if that subscription is witnessed by a single witness whose name and address are added, commonly in a short docquet rather than a full testing clause. Scottish conveyancers still sometimes use a testing-clause style out of habit, but the elaborate recital of pages and penman is no longer required. Since 2014 electronic documents with advanced electronic signatures have been given equivalent effect, a possibility no 1921 writer could have framed.
Written for this edition, 2026.