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Vicar of St. Anne’s within one month after appointment to call a vestry, to choose church wardens, &c.
who are impowered to purchase lands of 100l, a year,
and to assess the several inhabitants towards building a church, &c.
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XXI. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the next and first vicar or minister of the said parish of Saint Anne, within one month after he is instituted into the said vicarage or parish, is hereby authorized, impowered, and required to call together the inhabitants of the said parish to a vestry for choosing church-wardens, and that the vicar or minister, or in his absence, his lycensed assistant in the cure of the said vicarage, and the inhabitants who shall then meet, or the major part of them, shall choose two fit persons for church-wardens, and two synodsmen, alias sydesmen, who when so chosen, shall be church-wardens and synodsmen of the said parish for one year, and till the next Easter after, and for ever after two church-wardens, two synodsmen, and other parish officers shall be yearly chosen as is usual in other parishes, and that such church-wardens so chosen as aforesaid, and their successors church-wardens of the vicarage or parish of Saint Anne, shall be a body corporate, and have power to sue or be sued by the name of the church-wardens of the parish of Saint Anne, and by that name to purchase or take lands, tenements, and hereditaments of the yearly value of one hundred pounds sterling, to the use of the said parish, the statute of mortmaine, or any other law or statute to the contrary notwithstanding. And the said first church-wardens, of the parish of Saint Anne, and their successors, shall be and hereby are impowered to rate and assess the several houses within the said parish of Saint Anne, in such manner as they shall think fit, with the consent of the vicar and inhabitants of the said parish, or the major part of them, at such meetings as shall be appointed for that purpose, for and towards the building or erecting a church within the said parish, to be constituted as aforesaid, under the name and title of the church of Saint Anne, if the voluntary contribution that shall be made towards the said building shall fall short and not be sufficient to do it, and to levy the same with the necessary charges thereof by distress and sale of the goods so distrained, rendering the overplus, if any, to the owner or owners of them.
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