Testament

“ What godless audacity is it, therefore, when we who are to receive the testament of God come as those who would perform a good work or Him! This ignorance of the testament, this captivity of the sacrament—are they not too sad for tears? When we ought to be grateful for benefits received, we come in our pride to give that which we ought to take, mocking with unheard-of perversity the mercy of the Giver by giving as a work the thing we receive as a gift; so that the testator, instead of being the dispenser of His own goods, becomes the recipient of ours. ”

“ A distinction was formerly made between a will and a testament; when lands or tenements were devised in writing, it was by will, and when goods and chattels were disposed of, it was by testament; but this distinction is now lost sight of, and the words are used indiscriminately, and we speak of the posthumous disposition of an estate, of whatever kind, as by last will and testament.
Since peculiar perils and obstacles beset a man in his last hours; as much uncertainty and contention have arisen as to his precise purpose and declaration ”

“ The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament, and sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly understood; and it has happened that in the same house, though in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable design of over-reaching each other, have summoned their respective lawyers, to declare, at the same time, their mutual but contradictory wishes. ”

“ Concerning the making of a latter testament, so large and ample is the liberty of making testaments that a man may, as oft as he will, make a new testament, even until his last breath; neither is there any cautel under the sun to prevent this liberty; but no man can die with two testaments, and therefore the last and newest is of force ”

“ For wheresoever is a testament, there must also be the death of him that maketh the testament. For the testament taketh authority when men are dead: For it is of no value as long as he that made it is alive. For which cause also, neither that first testament was ordained without blood. For when all the commandments were read of Moses unto all the people, he took the blood of calves, and of goats, with water and purple wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying this is the blood of the testament, which God hath appointed unto you. ”

“ The word testament is another name for the promise that God made unto Abraham concerning Christ. A testament is not a law, but an inheritance. Heirs do not look for laws and assessments when they open a last will; they look for grants and favors. The testament which God made out to Abraham did not contain laws. ”

“ Now what he here calls the testament, either above, where he says, “My testament had been with Him,” or here, where he has called Him the Angel of the testament, we ought, beyond a doubt, to take to be the new testament, in which the things promised are eternal, and not the old, in which they are only temporal. Yet many who are weak are troubled when they see the wicked abound in such temporal things, because they value them greatly, and serve the true God to be rewarded with them. ”

“ A husband may not lease out his wife's land.
No woman-covert, child, idiot, or person of insane memory may devise land by will or testament.
The land of tenants-in-common may be partitioned by them so that each holds a certain part.
No bishop or other official having authority to take probate of testaments may take a fee for probating a testament where the goods of the testator are under 100s., except that the scribe writing the probate of the testament may take 6d., and for the commission of administration of the goods of any man dying intestate, being up to 100s, may be charged 6d. ”

“ Therefore, wherever in Scripture God's testament is referred to by the prophets, in that very word the prophets are taught that God would become man and die and rise again, to the end that His Word, in which He promised such a testament, might be fulfilled and confirmed. For if He is to make a testament as He promised, then He must die; if He is to die, He must be a man. And so that little word "testament" is a short summary of all God's wonders and grace, fulfilled in Christ. ”

“ It is certain that, in the old Roman Law of Inheritance, the notion of a will or testament is inextricably mixed up, I might almost say confounded, with the theory of a man's posthumous existence in the person of his heir.
The conception of a universal succession, firmly as it has taken root in jurisprudence, has not occurred spontaneously to the framers of every body of laws. ”

“ The same embarrassment occurs, perhaps in a greater degree, in the exposition of several passages in the eighth and ninth chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, (manifestly written by a profound lawyer, be he Paul or Apollos) , where he uses language applicable indifferently both to a covenant inter vivos and a last will. For with us, a testament is simply a declaration of the last will of the testator, in regard to the disposition of his property after his decease, irrespective of any consent, or even knowledge, at the time, on the part of him to whom the estate is given ”

“ For no law is called a testament, nor is any thing else called a testament, save what persons make who are about to die. And whatever is within the testament is sealed, even to the day of the testator’s death. Therefore it is with reason that it is only sealed by the Lamb slain, who, as it were a lion, has broken death in pieces, and has fulfilled what had been foretold; and has delivered man, that is, the flesh, from death, and has received as a possession the substance of the dying person, that is, of the human members ”

“ To come to Paul's argument. Civil law, which is God's ordinance, prohibits tampering with any testament of man. Any person's last will and testament must be respected. Paul asks: "Why is it that man's last will is scrupulously respected and not God's testament? You would not think of breaking faith with a man's testament. Why do you not keep faith with God's testament?" ”

“ This present one I declare being the only good one in which faith is to be put and which I require my executors, Administrators or Assigns will put in execution and adhere to and any other will or testament existing I may have forgotten to destroy, and differing from the substances, or intentions of the several articles of this one, I declare them null and of no force value, but this present one being made and written by me in my sound senses and good health. ”

“ The servant born in thy house, and he also that is bought with money, must needs be circumcised, that my testament may be in your flesh, for an everlasting bond. If there be any uncircumcised manchild, that hath not the foreskin of his flesh cut off, his soul shall perish from his people: because he hath broken my testament. ”

“ It is my will and I do direct that neither the legacy to my granddaughter in the fifth item of my said last will and testament, or the legacy to Hester Prince in the seventh item of my said will, shall bear any interest until the same are due and payable, as provided in said items of my said will. ”

“ The Apostle says that he is speaking after the manner of men. He means to say: "I will give you an illustration from the customs of men. If a man's last will is respected, and it is, how much more ought the testament of God be honored: 'In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' When Christ died, this testament was sealed by His blood. After His death the testament was opened, it was published to the nations. ”

“ In regard to this subject he asserts that the rule is, if a man's testament be confirmed (and it is confirmed by his death) no man dare alter it nor add to it nor take away from it. So the jurists declare it to be a divine law that no one should break a man's last will. ”

“ But the simplest plan of avoiding the difficulty was for the paterfamilias to regulate his succession by testament; and this was probably had recourse to, not so much for instituting a stranger heir when a man had no issue—according to patrician notions his duty then was to perpetuate his family by adopting a son—as for partitioning the succession when he had more children than one. ”

“ I, John Jay, of Bedford, in the county of Westchester, and State of New York, being sensible of the importance and duty of so ordering my affairs as to be prepared for death, do make and declare my last will and testament in manner and form following, viz.:—Unto Him Who is the author and giver of all good, I tender sincere and humble thanks for His manifold and unmerited blessings, and especially for our redemption and salvation by His beloved Son. ”

“ Wills therefore and testaments, rights of inheritance and successions, are all of them creatures of the civil or municipal laws, and accordingly are in all respects regulated by them; every distinct country having different ceremonies and requisites to make a testament completely valid: neither does any thing vary more than the right of inheritance under different national establishments. ”

“ So it has been again and again, from the case of Mary Stuart, writing her will in her own hand during the last hours before her execution, or of Archbishop Laud drawing up his will in the Tower, to the case of Señor Ferrer, dictating his testament in the prison chapel at Barcelona.
II
Strange histories, it will be seen, lie behind wills, dull and similar as at first sight the majority appears. The history may not always be explicit, but the suggestion conveyed by some gift or revocation, some phrase or fact, may often be completed by the reader’s imagination. ”

“ But besides all this, in order that the instrument may not be contested, I am anxious to give it the greatest possible authenticity, therefore, one of my colleagues will help me, and, contrary to custom, will assist in the dictation of the testament. ”

“ A duly executed testament remains valid until either revoked or rescinded.
1 A will is revoked when, though the civil condition of the testator remains unaltered, the legal force of the will itself is destroyed, as happens when, after making his will, a man adopts as his son either an independent person, in which case the adoption is effected by imperial decree, or a person already in power, when it is done through the agency of the praetor according to our constitution. In both these cases the will is revoked, precisely as it would be by the subsequent birth of a family heir. ”

“ There's just one other thing that I have to ask you, sir, and I should take it as a kind return for all this explanation, if you could do it for me. You remember that Testament that was picked up. I always carried it in my inside pocket, and it must have come out in my fall. I value it very highly, for it was the family book with my birth and my brother's marked by my father in the beginning of it. I wish you would apply at the proper place and have it sent to me. It can be of no possible value to anyone else. ”

“ Contrary to the maxim that no man could dispense with the institution of an heir or die partly testate and partly intestate, a soldier might dispose of part of his estate by testament with or without nomination of an heir, and, leave the rest to descend to his heirs ab intestato. ”

“ THE last method of conveying real property, is by devise, or disposition contained in a man's last will and testament. And, in considering this subject, I shall not at present enquire into the nature of wills and testaments, which are more properly the instruments to convey personal estates; but only into the original and antiquity of devising real estates by will, and the construction of the several statutes upon which that power is now founded. ”

“ Males may make a will at fourteen, females at twelve. A nuncupative legacy is good to the amount of £100 Scots (£8, 6s. 8d.) , and a holograph testament is good without witnesses, but it must be signed by the testator, differing in this from the old English holograph. By the Conveyancing Act 1874 such a will is presumed to have been executed on the date which it bears. Not all movables can be left, as in England. The movable property of the deceased is subject to jus relictae and legitim. ”

“ The fidei commissum originated in a prayer, petition, or request, of a testator upon his instituted heir, to deliver the inheritance, or some portion of it, to a designated person. Every testament being originally a law of succession, proposed by the testator, and consented to by the Roman people, the language of legislation, that is, of mandate and authority, was essential to its validity. Precatory words were insufficient to raise an obligation upon the heir, or to vest property in the donee. ”

“ Primitive communities are slow to realize the conception of private testaments, and the plebeians could not at this period make a public one either calatis comitiis or in procinctu. But not long after their admission to citizenship there is reason to conjecture that mancipation was employed by them, not indeed to make a testament instituting an heir and taking effect only on the testator's death, but to make a conveyance of a whole patrimony mortis causa. ”

“ When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property by hereditary right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his relatives in a certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a testament only belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the paternal power could not make a will. Males above fourteen and females above twelve, when not under power, could make wills without the authority of their guardian ”