Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL.
Mr David Williamson and Mr. John Anderson, ministers at St. Cuthberts, v. Mr James Lows of Mercheston.
Date: 9 February 1693
Click here to view a pdf copy of this documet : PDF Copy
The Lords repelled the first reason of suspension, that he was not legal minister, not having the call of the major part of the heritors, though he had the last incumbent's demission: for the Lords thought that cognition belonged to a church judicatory. And as for the 2d, that he was unequally stented, and that his quota could not be so many bolls by far, when calculated with the rest of the heritors of the parish, in regard the locality was laid on by the King and Lords of the Treasury, and ratified by a decreet of the Commission for plantation of kirks; they remitted him for his redress to that judicator by reduction, the Lords not being competent Judges of their sentences. As for the 3d, they also repelled it, viz. that they were always in use to pay only the middle fiars for their teinds, when they belonged to the bishop, and had an ease from the King when they fell to him by abolition of Episcopacy, and that past memory; and therefore they ought still only to pay him the middle fiar; for the Lords considered that it was actus merœ facultatis, and did not tie the ministers who had not such large revenues as the bishops had, and that the decreet expressly bore either delivery of the bolls, or one hundred pound for each chalder thereof.
