With the rector, churchwardens, and vestry-men rested the power of appointing sextons, and of fixing their salaries and fees. The rector was to be one of the vestry, and the churchwarden, in each parish were directed to procure, at the charge of the parish, a well bound paper or parchment book wherein the vestry-clerk of the parish was to register the birth, marriages, and burials of all and every person and persons that shall from time to time be born, christened, married, or buried within the said parish, under the penalty of five pounds sterling on failure thereof. For each entry, the vestry clerk was entitled to receive, as a fee, one shilling sterling. These registers were to be adjudged and accepted in all courts of record in the province as furnishing sufficient proof of the births, marriages, christenings, and burials therein mentioned; and if any party was convicted of willfully making or causing to be made any false entry therein, or of amilciously erasing, altering, or defacing an entry, or of embezzling any entry or book of record, he was to be adjudged guilty of a felony, and to be punished with death without benefit of clergy. Each vestry was instructed to nominate a proper person to keep a record of its proceedings, and to act as the custodian of its books and papers. No authority was conferred upon rectors to exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or to administer ecclesiastical law.
