vine service in churches, or church-yards, is punished with loss of moveables, act 27. Parl. 11. James VI. The church-yard is fenced with dikes, partly for ornament, and partly as a preservative to the dead bodies from being digged up or torn by beasts. The only right that ministers have to the grass growing in the church-yards, is, that they may cause their servants cut it, and hinder others from doing so; the heritors are obliged to repair the church-yard dikes with stone and mortar, two ells high, with sufficient stiles and entries; and the Lords of Session are obliged to direct letters of horning against them for that effect, cap. 232. Parl. 15. Jam. VI.

3. The minister, at the sight of the presbytery, or such of their number as they shall appoint, with two or three discreet men of the parish, may build or repair his own manse upon the expences of the heritors and liferenters, who are respectively liable to reimburse him of what he truly and profitably hath bestowed that way, unless they offered to contribute their own materials, and he refused them: See Mackenzie's observations on the 48th act, Parl. 3. Jam. VI. Where there is a competent manse already, the heritors must repair it once sufficiently at the minister's entry, who is thereafter to uphold the same during his incumbency, and they out of the vacant stipend, in time,of the vacancy, act 21. Parl. 1. sess. 3. Car. II. As the minister is obliged to leave the manse in as good condition as he entered to it, so before he can be made liable so to do, the heritors ought to move the presbytery to pass an act in their favours, to declare it a free manse; but before they can pass any such act, a committee of their number must visit it, after it is built or repaired, and find, upon the depositions of four discreet workmen, who understand that work, but have not been employed therein, two whereof to be chosen by the heritors, and other two by the minister, that the building or reparation is sufficiently finished. And if there be any materials left, or money remaining not expended, after that is declared, the surplus belongs to the heritors. If the minister be not able or willing to advance that money, which has been declared to be necessary for materials and work

manship, or if heritors refuse to meet and stent themselves for that effect, then what should hinder the minister to take the same course, and obtain the same redress that is granted against refusers to build or repair churches, as in § 1. & 2.

4. It is usual to allow half an acre of ground for manse and yard. The manse is not to exceed £1000, nor to be under 500 merks of value. Ministers hold their manses and glebes of none but the King. Glebes are to consist of four acres of arable ground; failing of which, sixteen soums grass of the best and most commodious pasturage of any kirklands within the parish, Jam. VI. Par. 18. cap. 7. and by the 21st act, Par. 1. sess. 3. Car. II. ministers (excepting ministers of burghs royal where there is no landward parish, and who have no right to glebes) are to have grass for one horse and two kine, or else, that the heritors pay to the minister twenty pounds yearly.

5. Manses and glebes, where they have not been designed, or not the full quantity, are now designed by the presbytery, or their committee, with two or three discreet men of the parish. The minister, or a procurator in his name, receives infeftment therein from the moderator, upon which he takes instruments in the hands of a notary, or of the clerk of the presbytery. And upon a petition given in by the minister to the Lords of Session, with the act of designation and instrument, they will interpose their authority for removing the heritors and possessors of the lands designed, in terms of the 48th act, Parl. 3. James VI. by granting letters of horning, to charge them to remove within ten days. And glebes are designed with freedom of foggage, fuel, feal, divot, loaning, free ish and entry, and other privileges, according to use and wont. James VI. Parl. 13. cap. 161.

6. The proprietors of the lands designed must get relief pro rata, off the rest of the heritors of kirk-lands, within the parish, if the designation was out of kirklands, and they not being the glebes and manses of old pertaining to persons or vicars; for there is no relief

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competent to the feuers or tacksmen of such lands, except only against such as have feus of other parts of the said old glebe or manse, act 199. Parl. 18. James VI. When the designation is out of temporal lands, the rest of the heritors of the like lands are to contribute proportionally for relief thereof.

7. It would look more impartial like, and resemble more that humility, love, and simplicity recommended to Christians by the apostle (James ii. 1.) and would look liker the subjects of Christ's kingdom, which is not of this world, if church members would take their seats in the church without respect of their civil character, as they do at the Lord's table. Some seats are built and repaired at the general charge of the parish, in which all have a common interest; and there are others which particular heritors have built for their own use with consent of the kirk-session, or which they have prescribed a right unto by forty years possession. In several burghs royal, within this kingdom, the disposal of all the church seats, at least upon the bounds at first allotted to them for their inhabitants by the kirk-session, is thereafter ordered and parcelled out by the town-council, and burdened with certain yearly sums for a minister's stipend, and where the seats are disposed upon to burgesses without that burden; and it be found that without it there cannot be a competent stipend to the ministers. The dispositions and rights so made, may, no doubt, be reduced on that head; for it was never the intention of the kirk-session, who gave these rights, to authorise an absolute alienation of seats, to the obstructing and preventing funds, for maintaining the public preaching of God's word.

8. The keys of seats are to be kept by beddals, that when the proprietors are absent, such as wants seats, or throng the seats of others, may be accommodated for the time; but in case the owners be so little concerned with religion, as not to countenance the public worship of God, or averse to serve such as attend upon it with their empty seats, the people that want accommodation cannot be blamed to possess and occupy that void in their absence; and if the owners, or others by their order, shall offer to

dispossess them violently, especially in time of divine service, they should be prosecuted as disturbers of public worship, both before the civil magistrate and church judicatures.

9. The heritors are bound to pay for, and are stated in the property of the bells, books, utensils, and ornaments of the church; but the minister and kirk-session, to whose custody they are committed, may pursue for any of them that are abstracted. A charge for a stent imposed for buying of bells to a church within a burgh royal hath been sustained against the land-ward heritors, albeit the burgesses and indwellers would have more advantage by them. See the new Treatise on Church Lands, page 212.

10. Every one must have some way to the church, but cannot pretend to any special way, as the nearest, through another man's land, without proving immemorial possession, which is reckoned forty years, of such a gate or passage. And to make up this immemorial possession, a person will be allowed to conjoin his predecessors possession of that road with his own. See the forecited Book, p. 212.

TITLE XIV.

Of Tithes, Stipends, and Mortifications.

1. The maintenance belonging to ministers for their labours we call stipends, but more commonly and by the canon law they are named benefices. Calvin, in his Lexicon Juridicum, tells us, that the rewards and privileges given and granted of old to soldiers for their service, were called benefices and stipends. The canonists define a stipend or benefice thus, "Est jus perpetuum percipiendi fructus ex bonis ecclesiasticis, propter aliquod officium spirituale, auctoritate ecclesiæ constitutum." Whatever belongs to church-men is likewise called the patrimony of the church, the word signifying an inheritance left by a father; because, when legislators or private persons do authorise or destinate suitable encourage

ment for the comfortable life of church-guides and pas tors, they do, in so far, act the part of nursing fathers unto the church. In the 9th chapter of the Policy of the Kirk, they comprehend under the church's patrimony, all things given, or to be given to the kirk, and service of God, as lands, buildings, possessions, annual rents, and all such like wherewith the kirk is doted, either by donations, mortifications, or any other lawful titles, together with the continual oblations of the faithful; as also teinds, manses, glebes, and such like, which by the common and municipal laws, and universal customs, are possessed by the kirk. And to take any of this patrimony and convert it to the particular and private use of any person, is reputed a detestable sacrilege before God, by our church.

2. The work of the ministry is a warfare, and it is not ordinary for soldiers to maintain themselves without pay, 1 Cor. ix. 7. and the light of nature teacheth that the labourer is worthy of his hire. By the 42d article of cap. 1. French Church Discipline, it is found, that ministers who are rich, and have of their own, should nevertheless take wages of their flocks, lest their example de prejudice to other pastors and churches. And M'Kenzie and Stair, in their Institutions, do maintain that some part of our goods is due, by divine right, towards the maintenance of the clergy; but that the proportion may be determined by human laws, according to circumstances. By the 19th act of Parliament 1633, all ministers are appointed to be provided with sufficient stipends, being eight chalders of victual, or eight hundred merks at least, beside manse and glebe, except in singular cases referred to the commission for plantation of kirks. In some places of Scotland, ministers may maintain their families for less than the half, which must be allowed to maintain the same families in other parts of the kingdom. Seeing ministers do deny themselves to the gain of civil employments, whereby they might have a more unlimited prospect, not only of maintaining their families, but of purchasing stocks for their posterity, therefore the Dutch custom is not unreasonable, which alloweth to