Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/50

its general adoption (besides the great advantage of introducing something of uniformity throughout our parishes, and regulating on system the exertions of zealous laymen,) would produce the most salutary effects both on themselves and on churchmen at large. With how much more of authority and boldness would men discharge their several functions, who were designated to them by the chief pastor of the diocese, as the parochial clergyman to the ministry of the Word and Sacraments. Meanwhile, acting on a delegated authority, and no longer tempted to rest their claims on their personal qualifications, their own dangers would be much diminished; their functions would tend to unite and attach them more closely to the Church and her ordinances, of which they would feel themselves to be a part; and they could at no time assert an independent authority, and usurp the functions of the ministry, without destroying their past influence by annulling and disowning the commission on which they had hitherto acted. Meanwhile the authority of the bishop, as the chief pastor of the whole diocese, would become a matter of experience to every member of the Church; and the mass of the laity, who now too often regard her most sacred order as unconnected with them and belonging only to the clergy, would feel that the diocesan was their own spiritual ruler, and, under God, the source of every order of religious ministration. It