(Continued from Vol. II., page 171.)
Permanent Clerk Appointed to Synod.—”Because that the provincial books are yearly to be presented in order to be reviewed by the General Assembly, and that it is fit they should be written in a good legible hand, and that heretofore the clerk was changeable because it was troublesome for one minister to be clerk without any benefit, therefore the assembly has made choice of Mr. James Campbell, Minister of Kilfinan, because of his good and legible hand, to be clerk to the provincial constantly in time coming, allowing him that which was allotted formerly to the constant clerk of the provincial, to wit, two marks by each brother within the province. Wherefore, he shall be astricted to give an extract of all the acts of each provincial to each Moderator or Clerk of each Presbytery within the province, which charge the said Mr. James has embraced, and has given the undertaking usual in such cases. And to this effect, Mr. Dugald Darroch, who was clerk to the two last assemblies is appointed to draw up all the acts in mundo and deliver to him the book complete under his hand.” (I. 75).
7th October, 1643.—”Referred to the Presbytery of Kintyre to take order with John and James Hamilton for their barbarous misbehaviour in raising of dead corpses out of the grave, and that they employ the baillie of Arran for their assistance for correcting them according to the injunction of the Presbytery.” (I. 80.)
“James Mackirdy, minister of Kilmory in Arran, being found by the visitors unfit for discharging of any part of the spiritual function of the ministry, as their report at more length purports, is ordered to be deposed, but in consideration of his old age the two parts of his present stipend, which is thirty bolls of victual, reserved for himself and his glebe and manse till the glebe be provided, and his place to be supplied by the Presbytery as it is in the minute.” (I. 80.)
“The assembly considering how prejudicial the long vacancy of the kirk of Iona and Kilviceun may be to the state of the kirks in these bounds, it is thought fit that the same should be planted by the transportation of Mr. Martin MacGillvery hither, and, lest that any should complain of wrong, it is appointed that his parishioners be warned to compear before the Presbytery at Pennigown the first of November to see if they have any reasons to give against the lawfulness of his transportation, which if they have not, then they are to go on to give him actual transportation, and invest him in the benefice, and withal it is recommended to them to modify Mr. John MacLachlan’s charges for serving so long at Iona.” (I. 82-83.)
*Extracts from the Records of the Synod of Argyll.
2nd May, 1644. Military Service.—”In respect that notwithstanding of the general course that is taken for advancing a regiment to Colonel Erskine by the ministers of the kingdom, and that every minister should furnish a man to that effect in all military equipage, and yet that so many within this province have been negligent of that duty, therefore, it is appointed that they use all diligence that their man be in readiness to go with their commissioner to the General Assembly for the several Presbyteries to Edinburgh, that the said commissioner may try out a way how they may be conveyed to their colours.” (I. 88.)
(To be continued.)