Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/400

 384 diocee, the better to inpect the conduct of the parochial clergy, and therefore armed with an inferior degree of judicial and coercive authority.

V. next, and indeed the mot numerous, order of men in the ytem of eccleiatical polity, are the parons and vicars of churches: in treating of whom I hall firt mark out the ditinction between them; hall next oberve the method by which one may become a paron or vicar; hall then briefly touch upon their rights and duties; and hall, latly, hew how one may ceae to be either.

, perona eccleiae, is one that hath full poeion of all the rights of a parochial church. He is called paron, perona, becaue by his peron the church, which is an inviible body, is repreented; and he is in himelf a body corporate, in order to protect and defend the rights of the church (which he peronates) by a perpetual ucceion. He is ometimes called the rector, or governor, of the church: but the appellation of paron, (however it may be depreciated by familiar, clownih, and indicriminate ue) is the mot legal, mot beneficial, and mot honourable title that a parih priet can enjoy; becaue uch a one, (ir Edward Coke oberves) and he only, is aid vicem eu peronam eccleiae gerere. A paron has, during his life, the freehold in himelf of the paronage houe, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues. But thee are ometimes appropriated; that is to ay, the benefice is perpetually annexed to ome piritual corporation, either ole or aggregate, being the patron of the living; whom the law eteems equally capable of providing for the ervice of the church, as any ingle private clergyman. This contrivance eems to have prung from the policy of the monatic orders, who have never been deficient in ubtile inventions for the increae of their own power and emoluments. At the firt etablihment of parochial clergy, the tithes of the parih were ditributed in a fourfold diviion; one for the ue of the bihop, another for maintaining Rh