ministers so much for every son, in order to his better education and breeding.

3. The canon law defines tithes thus: "Est quota honorum mobilium, licite quæsitorum, pro sacerdotibus Dei, ipsius locum in terris tenentibus, tam divina quam humana constitutione debita." Ministers stipends and augmentations thereof are legal burdens, and the main one to which teinds are liable, against which no title or right whatsoever can secure. And the truth is, till once the parish minister is sufficiently provided, no person can safely buy his own teinds: For they are always subject to be evicted for that end, by the common law and our custom, even after the heritor has bought them: See that New Treatise on Tithes, p. 340. By William and Mary's Parliament, sess. 4, cap. 24, it is appointed, that teinds belonging to their Majesties, by the abolishing of Prelacy, so long as they remain undisponed, as likewise teinds belonging to colleges and hospitals, or destined to pious uses, are not to be sold, but may only be valued, and made liable thereafter for payment of the valued duties.

4. Former Parliaments referred to their commissions the plantation of kirks and valuation of teinds; but now, the last session of the last Parliament, have, in place of all further commissions for such matters, empowered and appointed the Lords of Session to judge in all affairs and causes, which by former laws did pertain to the cognizance and jurisdiction of commissions of Parliament: Only they are restricted from transporting of a kirk, without consent of most of the heritors of the parish. Every Wednesday afternoon in time of session, the Lords meet to call and discuss such causes.

5. By the 4th act, Parl. 22, Jam. VI. bishops are discharged to set in tack longer than nineteen years, and inferior beneficed persons for longer space than their own lifetime, and five years thereafter (except the commission authorise it) under the pain of deprivation: and further, the contraveners declared infamous and incapable of any church office. Longer tacks were ordained to be registrate within forty days, in a particular book

on pious uses within the respective parishes, except where the patron is Popish; in which case he is to employ the same on pious uses, by the advice, and at appointment of the presbytery; and in case the patron shall fail in applying the vacant stipends for the uses foresaid, that he shall lose his right of administration of the vacant stipend for that and the next vacancy, and the same shall be disposed upon by the presbytery to the uses foresaid. Excepting always the vacant stipends within the bounds of the synod of Argyle, which synod is empowered to dispose thereof for training up of youth at schools and colleges, and for other pious uses, with consent of the heritors, William and Mary's Parl. sess. 2. acts 23, 24.

11. Ministers stipends prescribe, quoad modum probandi, if not pursued within five years after the same are due; so that after that time they cannot be proven to be resting unpaid, except by the oaths of the defenders, or by a special writ under their hands acknowledging what is resting.

12. A minister having charged for the payment of the bolls contained in his decreet of locality, the debtor was ordained by the Lords to depone upon the prices he got; although he had offered the fiars by way of instrument within seven days after the charge, and produced receipts of the charger and his predecessors, for instructing that they were not in use to uplift the bolls in ipsis corporibus. It seems as unreasonable to oblige a minister to accept the fiars from the heritors, as it were to oblige the heritors to accept the fiars from their tenants. Yet I think the liquid price of vacant stipends, according to custom, is the fiar of the respective shires. See that forecited Treatise on Tithes, p. 427.

13. The bolls contained in a minister's decreet, if no measure be therein specified, should be paid according to the Linlithgow measure; unless the minister hath been thirteen years in possession of uplifting according to another measure, or the modified stipend would fall short of the quantity in the act of Parliament by Linlithgow measure. For in that case the minister ought to be paid conform to

the measure of the shire in which the parish lies. See that Treatise on Church Lands, p. 428.

14. An ecclesiastical pension is a certain portion of yearly rent payable for a time out of another's benefice. Ecclesiastical pensions seem to have been introduced at first, as a mean of subsistence to incumbents who, through sickness or infirmity of old age, were turned unable to officiate for such were allowed to resign their benefices, reserving to themselves pensions out of them, as they might live upon, suitable to their former character. As church-men turned afterwards more degenerate, and be nefices became merchandise, resignations and pensions upon trivial reasons were sustained. See book foresaid, page 160.

15. The pastoral charge, or the office of professor of theology in schools, is of that weight and consequence, that to discharge any one of them satisfactorily, will be exercise enough to any honest man, however sufficient, all the days of his life. By the canons of the synod of London, October 25. 1597, in Bishop Sparrow's Collections, the extraordinary parts and merits of some is pretended for a ground to dispense with a plurality. This were relevant to be practised for some time in ecclesia constituenda, where gifted men are rare: but to continue that custom in ecclesia constituta, where gifts do abound, it were to neglect both the maintenance, and likewise the gifts of God that he hath bestowed on some, and to overvalue the gifts he hath given to others, and hinder them from discharging of the duties belonging to one office eminently. There were in Christ's time abundance of idle Pharisees, Scribes, and Priests, that spent their time in teaching the people their rites, ceremonies, and traditions: but there were always but a few labourers in God's harvest; hence Chrysostome thought that but few ministers will be saved. What man or angel is sufficient for the ministerial work! But their sufficiency is of God.

16. By the 22d act of Assembly 1700, presbyteries are to take notice, how sums of money mortified, or otherwise belonging to the poor of the parish, have been managed and applied from time to time; and if they shall

find dilapidations of any such sums, that those guilty thereof be pursued according to law, and the synods are to see to the presbyteries diligence herein.

17. By cap. 6. Parl. 1. Car. I. gifts, legacies, or donations for pious uses, must not be inverted from the specific use destinate by the disponer, and the persons intrusted are made countable for the same, and ordinary profits thereof to the kirks, colleges, and others to whom they are disponed; and this is extended to all such dispositions as have been made since the majority of King James VI. and that letters be thereon direct.

18. That forecited book on Church Lands, page 107, tells us, that Charles the Great discharged ecclesiastics to accept of mortifications, whereby children would in effect be disinherited. So good Augustine refused universal legacies in favours of his church, when the testator left children or parents who might be prejudged and suffer thereby. Nor was this generosity of his singular; for a certain man having no children, nor hopes of any, having gifted his estate to the church of Carthage, only with the reservation of his own liferent, Aurelius the Bishop reponed him to his former right, upon the unexpected birth of a son.

19. By the 29th act, Parl. 11. Jam. VI. Popish benefices are annexed to the crown, or converted into civil uses. Consider that these mortifications were fraudulently elicited from persons, imposed upon by ways and means of priestcraft; and that they had been originally destinate to maintain an idolatrous and superstitious worship. Now, it being the public interest that none make a wrong, far less a sinful use of their property, it is incumbent on the orthodox magistrate, to convert what was mortified and fraudulently obtained for maintenance of idolatry, to the maintenance of the true worship of God: and in case there shall happen any excrescence, over and above what may support the same, and the ministers thereof comfortably, then may not that be applied for some honest and necessary use in the republic, until the affairs of the church require the same again. This is confirmed by the Policy of the Kirk, cap. 12. art. 14.

20. The visitors of hospitals are to be appointed by the Sovereigns, act 101. Parl. 7. James V. and accordingly by William's Parl. sess. 6. cap. 29, there is a recommendation to his Majesty to cause visit hospitals, and inquire after mortifications. This is renewed sess. 9. cap. 21. It would seem by the 27th act, Parl. 2. James I. that actions for bringing patrons and others to count for their intromissions with the rents of hospitals, may be intented at the Chancellor's instance, especially in case no royal visitation be appointed.

21. In the 9th and 12th chapters of the Heads of Policy of the Kirk, they allow of a fourfold distribution of the churches patrimony; one portion thereof to be assigned to the pastor for his entertainment and hospitality: another to the deacons, elders, and other officers of the kirk and kirk-servants, such as clerks of assemblies, takers up of psalms, beddals, and keepers of the kirk, joining with them also the doctors, and schools, to help their old rents where need requires; the third portion to be bestowed on the poor members of the faithful, and on hospitals: the fourth for reparation of kirks, and other extraordinary charges as are profitable for the kirk, and also for the commonwealth if need require.

22. In the 12th chapter of that book of discipline, the collection and distribution of all ecclesiastical goods or patrimony, properly belongs to the office of the deacons, (see the title of Deacons,) that the poor may be answered of their portion thereof, and they of the ministry live without care and solicitude, as also the rest of the treasure of the kirk may be reserved and bestowed to their right uses. If these deacons be elected with such quali fications as God's word requires, there is no fear that they will abuse their office. Yet, because the giving so great trust to them, appeareth to many to be dangerous, let them be obliged to find caution for their fidelity, that the kirk rents be no way dilapidated.