Commenda_, or
_ecclesia commendata_, is a living commended by the crown to the care
of a clerk, to hold till a proper pastor is provided for it. This may
be temporary, for one, two, or three years, or perpetual; being a kind
of dispensation to avoid the vacancy of the living, and is called a
_commenda retinere_. There is also a _commenda recipere_, which is to
take a benefice _de novo_, in the bishop's own gift, or the gift of
some other patron consenting to the same; and this is the same to him
as institution and induction are to another clerk[q]. 4. By
resignation. But this is of no avail, till accepted by the ordinary;
into whose hands the resignation must be made[r]. 5. By deprivation,
either by canonical censures, of which I am not to speak; or in
pursuance of divers penal statutes, which declare the benefice void,
for some nonfeasance or neglect, or else some malefeasance or crime.
As, for simony[s]; for maintaining any doctrine in derogation of the
king's supremacy, or of the thirty nine articles, or of the book of
common-prayer[t]; for neglecting after institution to read the
articles in the church, or make the declarations against popery, or
take the abjuration oath[u]; for using any other form of prayer than
the liturgy of the church of England[w]; or for absenting himself
sixty days in one year from a benefice belonging to a popish patron,
to which the clerk was presented by either of the universities[x]; in
all which and similar cases[y] the benefice is _ipso facto_ void,
without any formal sentence of deprivation.

[Footnote p: Cro. Car. 456.]

[Footnote q: Hob. 144.]

[Footnote r: Cro. Jac. 198.]

[Footnote s: Stat. 31 Eliz. c. 6. and 12 Ann. c. 12.]

[Footnote t: Stat. 1 Eliz. c. 1 & 2. and 13 Eliz. c. 12.]

[Footnote u: Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 12. 14 Car. II. c. 4. and 1 Geo. I. c.
6.]

[Footnote w: Stat. 1 Eliz. c. 2.]

[Footnote x: Stat. 1 W. & M. c. 26.]

[Footnote y: 6 Rep. 29, 30.]

VI. A CURATE is the lowest degree in the church; being in the same
state that a vicar was formerly, an officiating temporary minister,
instead of the real incumbent. Though there are what are called
_perpetual_ curacies, where all the tithes are appropriated, and no
vicarage endowed, (being for some particular reasons[z] exempted from
the statute of Hen. IV) but, instead thereof, such perpetual curate is
appointed by the appropriator. With regard to the other species of
curates, they are the objects of some parti