succeeding ages again, as all men thronged into the Church, and these earliest parishes became too populous for separate superintendence, they were farther subdivided by the same episcopal authority from which they had originated.
The division of labour, and the concentration of responsibility, is therefore a principle entwined with the original constitution of the Church. Every one of Christ's flock has his appointed shepherd, who must give account for his soul. The bishop is bound[1], either by himself or by those commissioned by him, to oversee every inhabitant of his diocese, the parish priest each of his parishioners. Nor are the services of the laity unappropriated: for, while all are bound together as members of the same Lord, they are more especially united who are committed to the superintendence of the same bishop, and yet more of the same pastor; and the efforts of Christian benevolence in the alleviation of bodily suffering, the education of youth, and the edification of all, are no longer dispersed over a desultory and uncertain range, but are united and concentrated, that with a wise and well-ordered alacrity we may "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ[2]."
- ↑ See Wilson's Sacra Privata; Andrews's Devotions, &c,
- ↑ See Acts vi. It may be observed, that the state poor laws, a most inadequate substitute for the bounty of the Church, yet
incumbents, who with the bishop shared a common stock. The establishment at Hippo, in the time of St. Austin, seems to have been of this nature.
