ACT of faith, auta da se, in the Romish church, is a sort of jail delivery, for the punishment of heretics, and the absolution of those who are found to be innocent. The culprits are first led to church, where their sentence, either of condemnation or absolution, is pronounced, and the guilty are delivered over to the secular power, with an earnest intercession for them, that no blood may be shed. But if they persist in their supposed errors, they are burnt alive. See INQUISITION.