e m: Gibs. cod. 972.]

V. THE next, and indeed the most numerous order of men in the system
of ecclesiastical polity, are the parsons and vicars of parishes: in
treating of whom I shall first mark out the distinction between them;
shall next observe the method by which one may become a parson or
vicar; shall then briefly touch upon their rights and duties; and
shall, lastly, shew how one may cease to be either.

A PARSON, _persona ecclesiae_, is one that hath full possession of all
the rights of a parochial church. He is called parson, _persona_,
because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is
represented; and he is in himself a body corporate, in order to
protect and defend the rights of the church (which he personates) by a
perpetual succession[n]. He is sometimes called the rector, or
governor, of the church: but the appellation of _parson_, (however it
may be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate use) is
the most legal, most beneficial, and most honourable title that a
parish priest can enjoy; because such a one, (sir Edward Coke
observes) and he only, is said _vicem seu personam ecclesiae gerere_.
A parson has, during his life, the freehold in himself of the
parsonage house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues. But these are
sometimes _appropriated_; that is to say, the benefice is perpetually
annexed to some spiritual corporation, either sole or aggregate, being
the patron of the living; whom the law esteems equally capable of
providing for the service of the church, as any single private
clergyman. This contrivance seems to have sprung from the policy of
the monastic orders, who have never been deficient in subtle
inventions for the increase of their own power and emoluments. At the
first establishment of parochial clergy, the tithes of the parish were
distributed in a fourfold division; one for the use of the bishop,
another for maintaining the fabrick of the church, a third for the
poor, and the fourth to provide for the incumbent. When the sees of
the bishops became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from
demanding their usual share of these tithes, and the division was into
three parts only. And hence it was inferred by the monasteries, that a
small part was sufficient for the officiating priest, and that the
remainder might well be applied to the use of their own fraternities,
(the endowment of which was construed to be a work of the most exalted
piety) subject