LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 43 



admirable form of prayer in the established 

 Liturgy. They who have taken up unreason- 

 able, and yet invincible prejudices, against all 

 set forms of public worship, will suppose it a 

 very small attainment for a man to learn his 

 paces in the same perpetual round or circle, 

 and may think it of no moment what manner is 

 used in offering up (what, in their opinion, may 

 be little better than) the dull repetitions of dry 

 addresses to God Almighty. But they who 

 have more thoroughly considered the thing, do 

 acknowledge, that it is neither so easy a matter 

 to read prayers well, nor of small consequence 

 whether the offices be performed with devotion 

 and solemnity or no. Too many complaints 

 have been made against the clergy upon this 

 head, and some of them, without doubt, very 

 unjustly; it not being in every man's power, 

 how pious soever he be in disposition, to read 

 the common prayers to the general satisfaction 

 of others. But this is to be said for Dr. Sharp, 

 that the Church Service in his hands, was exe- 

 cuted to every body's taste ; and the common 

 petitions, where they were put up by him to 

 the Throne of Grace, were so far from being 

 liable to the imputation of dull performances, 

 that they always affected his audience, though 

 they did not seem always new. How far his 

 happiness in these exercises was a natural gift 



