of the General Assembly; and if he be negligent therein, that he be censured by his own presbytery. As also, every member in every congregation is ordained to keep his own parish kirk, to communicate therein the word and sacraments, except in urgent cases made known to, and approven of by the presbytery; otherwise, that the ministers of these congregations whereto they resort do both in public, by preaching, and in private by admonition, shew their dislike of their withdrawing from their own ministers; and the ministers of that congregation from which they withdraw, shall labour, first by admonition, to reclaim them; and if they amend not, shall delate them to the session, who shall cite and censure them as contemners of the comely order of the kirk; and if the matter be not taken order with there, that it be brought to the presbytery: For the better observing whereof, that the presbyteries, at the visitation of their several kirks, and provincial assemblies, in the censure of the several presbyteries, shall inquire thereanent; which inquiry and report shall be registered in the provincial books, that their diligence may be seen in the General Assembly.Sess. 19, Aug. 24. 1705. The due observance of the directory for public worship, is seriously recommended to all ministers and others within this national church.-Act 10. 1709. Recommended to persons of all ranks, to forbear bowing, or other expressions of civil respect, and entertaining one another with discourses while divine worship is performing, and holy ordinances are dispensing; and that, as to this matter, people carefully observe what is enjoined in the first head of the Assembly's directory for the public worship of God in this church.-Act 4. 1812. Recommended to all the ministers of the church, according to their discretion, to read at one of the meetings for public worship such a portion of the Old or New Testament, or of both, as they may judge expedient. Declared, That it is not meant that this recommendation in any degree supersede the exercise of lecturing, which is enjoined to be observed throughout the church in con formity to the acts of Ass. 1694, and 1704, as a most important branch of the public ministrations of pastors and teachers. Act 19. 1819. Recommended earnestly to all the parish ministers of this church, to give their countenance and aid, within their respective parishes, to subscriptions for erecting a monumental edifice, comprehending a church, destined for the purposes of divine worship, in commemoration of the unparalleled victories with which the Great Disposer of Events had been pleased to crown the British arms by sea and land, in the late glorious and eventful war, in which the valour of Scotsmen was so conspicuously displayed in every quarter of the globe.—Act 10. ZETLAND. 1830. The Assembly, on report of a committee, enacted, That it would be expedient to divide the present presbytery of Zetland into two presbyteries; the one of these two to be called the Lerwick presbytery, to hold its ordinary meetings at Lerwick, and the other to be called the Burravoe presbytery, to hold its ordinary meetings at Burravoe, in the parish of Yell. The presbytery of Lerwick shall consist of the following parishes, viz. :-Dunrossness, Walls, Sandsting, Tingwall, Lerwick, and Bressay; and that the presbytery of Burravoe shall consist of the following parishes, viz. :-Nesting, Delting, Northmavine, Yell, Fetlar, and Unst, thus comprising six parishes in each of the two presbyteries. That the committee are of opinion, that the said two presbyteries should be appointed to form a synod with full synodical powers; that Lerwick should be appointed as the fixed place of the meetings of the synod of Zetland, where its records should be kept, and where the records of the present presbytery should be deposited and kept in retentis. That the presbytery of Lerwick should be appointed to meet at Lerwick on the second Wednesday of July next, and proceed to business; that the presbytery of Burravoe should be appointed to meet at Burravoe on the third Wednesday |