130 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



7iot to busy themselves in their ow?i parishes with 

 election matters, to their own hurt and detri- 

 ment, in their pastoral capacities. 



For the same reasons of prudence, which re- 

 strained him from making or soliciting votes on 

 such occasions, are equally prudential in the 

 parochial clergy, who cannot but have better 

 purposes in view, to which they may employ 

 the interest they have in their parishioners, than 

 in promoting or supporting private or party 

 interests. Not that the doing this is any other- 

 wise exceptionable, than as it draws (which it 

 seldom fails to do) resentments and inconve- 

 niencies upon themselves, which render them 

 less serviceable than otherwise they would be 

 in their respective cures. It is so natural for a 

 man who obliges his minister with his vote, to 

 expect in return for the favour, that his own 

 irregularities (such especially as elections draw 

 him into) should be connived at ; and so natural 

 for one who is in a different interest from that 

 of his minister, to interpret the most just repre- 

 hensions, or the kindest cautions from him, as 

 the effects of mere spleen and party resent- 

 ment; that it seems a most difficult and almost 

 an impracticable thing for a clergyman to en- 

 gage openly in an election, without lessening 

 and impairing his credit and authority as a 

 pastor. 



