[1661/1/37]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
Forasmuch as by diverse acts of parliament it is found that stipends and benefices of vacant kirks, or which thereafter should fall vacant by death, deposition, suspension, transportation of ministers, division of kirks or any other way, should during the vacancy thereof be employed on pious uses, and the king's majesty considering that during these troubles many learned and religious persons in the ministry and in universities, for their expressions of duty and loyalty to his majesty, or not concurring in the confusions of the time, have been deposed or suspended from their charge and ministry, and have been otherwise put under great sufferings and they and their families reduced to extreme misery and want, and conceiving it to be an act of great piety and justice to have regard to the sufferings of those honest and faithful ministers and others, and in some measure to provide for them and repair their losses, therefore his majesty, with advice of his estates of parliament, ordains all stipends or benefices of kirks that are vacant, and not already disposed of, or which shall fall vacant by death, deposition, suspension, transportation or any other way, to be employed for the supply and maintenance, and towards the reparation of the sufferings and losses of the persons aforesaid, and of the wives and bairns of such of them as are dead, and that in such manner and ways as after trial of their merits and sufferings and the causes and grounds thereof, shall be thought fit by the lords of his majesty's privy council, to whom his majesty, with advice and consent foresaid, commits the care of this business and does hereby empower and require them to use all diligence that the favour and justice hereby intended by his majesty, to these suffering persons and their families, may be made effectual, and that notwithstanding of anything contained in any of the said acts to the contrary. It is always provided that this act is without prejudice of any benefit which by the law and custom of this kingdom falls to the widow, bairns or executors of a minister after his death, and that this act is to endure for the space of seven years and longer as his majesty shall think fit.