Sir Robert Keith Dick of Corstorphine is patron of the church.  In the list of clergymen, we have mentioned the form in which they were severally elected, where any record of it is preserved in the presbytery or parish registers.  The consent and concurrence of the congregation was most carefully sought in the elections prior to 1665, and in the elections of Mr. George Fordyce, and probably of his predecessor. The others, with the exception of the present incumbent, who was settled under the Act of 1833, were the presentees of absolute patronage.  Enough has been stated above to enable the reader to judge which of the two systems has worked best in this parish.

There were deacons as well as elders from the planting of the church down to the expulsion of Mr. Hunter in 1662.  At first the session was elected or re-elected annually and publicly received before the congregation.  In September 1656, there is an entry in the register of discipline, complaining that "for many years bygone, the elders and deacons had not been changed nor publicly received before the congregation, whereby the power and authority of the session was ready to be vilified, the people neither knowing the charge and duty of such as were over them, nor were those in charge put in mind of their charge, nor solemnly engaged to the same.  It is then stated that it is "the order and practice of this church that, either yearly or in similiter congregations in the countrie, each two years, there should be a new election of the eldership."

Both elders and deacons were always elected by the previous session, except in 1684 when the heritors named to the minister the elders they wished for their respective districts, Lord Forrester appointing those for the barony, and the others for their own estates. The form of election at first was for the session to meet and agree upon a list of persons qualified for the office and living in the several districts into which the parish was ecclesiastically divided.   The present elders and deacons of each district were then removed, and in their absence the rest of the session proceeded to elect an elder or elders and a deacon for that district, till the number was filled up. The names were then intimated from the pulpit, when all the congregation were required to state any objections they might have to any of the persons chosen.  After 1692 elders were chosen in the form now in general issue. In 1656, the session consisted of nine elders and seven deacons.  In 1709, the parish was divided into twelve districts, and an elder appointed to each.