LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 153 



meantime, were not contrived for the making 

 people good. And this way of preaching to be 

 sure they were to avoid. He told them as to 

 the choice of their subjects, to take the most 

 weighty points, such as struck at the very root 

 of evil principles and vicious dispositions ; such 

 as if a man's conscience be once touched with, 

 it is in a manner impossible for him (if he were 

 given to think and consider,) not to be both a 

 moral man and a good Christian. He was sure 

 that there was so much truth and evidence, so 

 much power and efficacy in our religion, that if 

 it were but faithfully represented, and the ar- 

 guments of it duly set home upon men's con- 

 sciences, it would be very difficult for any one 

 who was not abandoned by God, not to yield 

 himself a convert to it. He begged of them, 

 therefore, to press upon their flocks the sub- 

 stantial doctrines, and the indispensable duties 

 of Christianity, and the mighty arguments they 

 had both for believing the one, and practising 

 the other : that they would do this very plainly, 

 warmly, and affectionately. That they would 

 do it in such a way that people of the meanest 

 capacities might understand what they said, 

 and that every man who was not wanting to 

 himself might go away from them either better 

 or wiser. He told them, if they took these me- 

 thods, whatever opinion some giddy-headed 



