their representation be proportioned to the number of ministers that are in each presbytery; the old ministers who were ordained before the year 1662, being always supernumerary: and that two or three of the members of the General Assembly in each synod, be appointed as a committee to name the members of the commission, and that the whole representatives of presbyteries in the several synods at Assemblies, do meet by themselves, and name their respective members of the said committee, And the General Assembly, by the same act, does appoint the expenses of the said commissioners to be borne and defrayed by the several presbyteries which they represent, according to the number of the days of their at tendance; and that their presbyteries take care to supply their charges with preaching during their absence, on

the account foresaid.

28. The General Assembly, by their 6th act 1703, does require the members of the commission to give all due attendance thereon, as they will be answerable, which members are condescended upon by the 15th act of Assembly 1705, to be one at least of that number of the several presbyteries who are members of the commission, and they are to attend the meetings thereof by turns. And presbyteries are ordained to send into the commission, the names of such as they have appointed to attend the several diets thereof. And by the foresaid act 1703, the clerks of the commission are ordained to record lists of the absents from each quarterly meeting, and from the meetings in time of Parliament, or who shall go away therefrom without leave first obtained, and send an extract of their names to the respective synods, who are impartially to censure them, and make report thereof to the next General Assembly: And to this effect, the clerks of the commission are ordered to lay before that Assembly the lists of these absents. And in the instructions to the commission 1708, all presbyteries within twelve miles of Edinburgh are discharged to meet during sitting of the commission.

29. Some few years ago, the presbyteries of this church, conform to what had been before practised, did delegate

one of their number, being a minister, to repair to the city where the Parliament did sit, and during that time attend, and watch ne quid detrimenti caperet ecclesia. But the commission consisting of both ministers and elders, without which no ecclesiastical judicatory or committee thereof can be lawful, (See & 4. of this Title,) and also, that all the presbyteries are therein represented, and that the commission now is ordered to attend in the time of Parliament; the former meeting of such delegates is now supplied more conveniently by the meeting of the commission; and I am sure, much more legally both by church and state constitutions: For neither do authorise any other ecclesiastical judicature but Assemblies, synods, presbyteries, and kirk-sessions, or their committees, consisting of ministers and ruling elders. And the act of Parliament 1690, ratifying the Confession of Faith, and settling presbyterian church government, doth establish the exercise of that church government in the hands of ministers and ruling elders. And it may be doubted if the state would correspond with such delegates, or regard addresses from them, their meetings wanting the stamp, both of civil and ecclesiastical authority.

30. In the act of Assembly, 29th July 1640, art. 2. concerning ordering the Assembly-house, the commissioners to General Assemblies are to receive tickets from the magistrates of the burgh where the Assembly sits at the delivery of their commissions, whereby they may have ready access to the Assembly-house; and this act is renewed by the Assembly 1690, and is among the unprinted acts.

61. By that same act, whatsoever presbytery, burgh, or university, shall not send commissioners, is to be sum moned to the next General Assembly, to be censured by them as they find reasonable. And by the 6th act of Assembly 1699, such commissioners as do not attend duly from the beginning and through the whole diets of the General Assembly, and the committees which they may be put upon, not having a relevant excuse, may be cen sured as the Assembly shall think fit.

32. The stile of acts of the General Assembly, runs

thus: The General Assembly appoints and ordains, and sometimes recommends. Thir acts should rather be like directions from the chair, than discourses from the pulpit. Though the Sovereign's person be therein sometimes represented, yet his name cannot be joined with the General Assembly, in making of acts. Because the civil magistrate considered as such, is neither head nor member of the church, nor of any of her judicatures, and it is the authority of the General Assembly of this national church that can alone bind her members. Which authority doth not so properly consist in making of laws, as it doth in declaring what their Lord and Master hath already appointed. And though ecclesiastical constitutions should be enacted in the Sovereign's name and authority, yet these could never bind the subjects as such, because the legislative power is lodged in the Sovereign and estates of Parliament, and in them only: Hence all petitions to the General Assembly are only addressed to the moderator and members thereof, and not to the Sovereign nor his Commissioner, though present: For petitions can be presented to none, but to such as those in whose name and authority they are granted.

33. By the act of Assembly, December 20. 1638, they ordain presbyteries and provincial Assemblies to convene before them such as will not acknowledge that Assembly, (and from a parity of reason any other Assembly,) nor acquiesce unto the acts thereof, and to censure them accordingly, and refractory presbyteries are to be summoned by the commission to compear before the next General Assembly to abide their trial; and by a clause in the end of the 5th act, session 2. King William and Queen Mary's Parliament, it is provided, that whatsoever minister being convened before the General Assembly or representatives of this church, or their commissions, or the visitors to be by them appointed, shall either prove contumacious in not appearing, or be found guilty, and therefore censured, whether by suspension or deposition, they shall ipso facto be suspended from, or deprived of their stipends and benefices. And by the book of canons put in form for the government of the

church of Scotland, by English bishops, their counsel and influence, and approved by King Charles I. his proclamation, dated at Greenwich, the 23d day of May 1635, it is appointed, that national synods called by his Majesty's authority, for matters concerning the state of the church in general, shall bind all persons as well absent as present, to the obedience of the decrees thereof in matters ecclesiastical. And if any shall affirm or maintain that a national synod so assembled ought not be obeyed, he shall be excommunicated till he publicly repent and revoke his error.

34. Beside the clerk of the Assembly, there useth to be an advocate or procurator for the kirk chosen by them, who was to advise them in matters of civil right, and to plead what concerns the right of the church before civil courts; and in his name summonses are raised before the commission of Parliament for plantation of kirks, or Lords of Session. The agent or solicitor for the kirk is likewise elected by the Assembly, and he acts and agents their business in such order as they appoint him. Their agent was privileged to be present at all the meetings of that commission of Parliament, even when they acted with close doors. In the late prelatic times, the King's solici tor was by his patent constitute solicitor for the church too: but whether in this government her Majesty's advocate be also by his patent constitute advocate for the church, is a thing I cannot certainly assert. The agent has the care put upon him of sending dispatches to the several presbyteries.

35. All church judicatures at every rising appoint their next sitting; so that their meetings are not precarious and uncertain, but entirely and intrinsically, as to their time and frequency, lodged in the will and discretion of the plurality of the members of her respective judicatures. The kirk session, being properly the only radical church judicature, not consisting of delegate, but of perpetual and fixed members, cannot be at any time dissolved, but by themselves are adjourned from time to time: Albeit they use to begin and conclude the number of their sessions, at and after the presbytery hath appro

ved of their proceedings. All church judicatures, but especially this, were called Consistories, where the judges did stand in administering justice (see Stair's Instit. p. 524,) and even yet, their moderators, presidents, or prolocutors, do stand, as the mouth of their meetings. Presbyteries are radical as to the pastors, and delegate as to the ruling elders, (see tit. 12. § 1.) For the first presbytery after each ordinary meeting of the synod, when new elections of elders are returned, that presbytery doth begin the first session thereof, and so other sessions of the same continue till the next synod in ordinary be over. And provincial synods consisting of presbyteries, they do in part dissolve twice a year, and so the synodical sessions are counted from one ordinary synod to the next ordina ry meeting of another synod. But National Assemblies being annual, and consisting all of delegates, as hath been said, the sessions thereof are counted from the first meeting until they part and dissolve in the same place, at least by the constitutions and practice of this church, until, and no longer than the ordinary time for a new annual Assembly: for no doubt, an Assembly, if the affairs of the church so require, may translate, and also continue their meeting, as was done anno 1641; but it necessarily dissolves before the year. At the closing of every session of the Assembly, the moderator appoints the next diet, in presence, and with consent of the members; then he turns to the Commissioner, and acquaints his Grace thereof, to which he ordinarily answers, Be it so, or, I am satisfied; whereupon the adjournment is intimated publicly at the door by the beddal, afterwards the moderator closes with prayer.

36. At closing of the General Assembly, some few of their number are nominated to assist the moderator and clerk, in revising the minutes and proceedings of that Assembly, before the same be recorded in their registers, and to determine what of their acts are fit to be printed : but it were as proper for the Assembly to give orders therein, as the acts are passed.

37. All the affairs which the Assembly could overtake, being brought to a close, the moderator causeth