LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 151 



to think that any one of their people should 

 mind what they preached to them out of their 

 pulpits ; unless they adorned their doctrine by 

 a holy, innocent, and unblameable demeanour. 

 That although they used the best language in 

 their discourses, and the best arguments, and 

 added all the charms of a good utterance, that 

 the best orator could make use of, yet, if their 

 lives and sermons did not comport, their audi- 

 tors would have an argument against their dis- 

 courses, so prevalent, as to defeat all their argu- 

 ments against vice and immorality, viz. if our 

 minister really believed what he talks to us, he 

 would certainly practise otherwise himself. — 

 Therefore, he besought them, if they meant to 

 do any good in their parishes, to have a care of 

 themselves in the first place ; and to let all who 

 heard them, and all who conversed with them, 

 be convinced that they were in good earnest 

 when they talked to them of faith and holiness. 

 To shew the beauty and charms of a Christian 

 spirit in their own modest, quiet, peaceable, 

 and inoffensive deportment ; in their unaffected 

 piety, and a goodness to be discerned in all 

 their conversation ; to let their people see that 

 there are men who do more than talk of another 

 world, for they do live as if there were;" 



Another point that he urged to them was di- 

 ligence in their calling, and application of them- 



