20G LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



licentiousness, preserving order and discipline, 

 and enforcing the ecclesiastical laws of the 

 realm. Such complaints as were made to him- 

 self, he took care himself to see redressed, if 

 they came within the cognizance of his courts ; 

 and would frequently confer with his officers 

 (and he was provided tvith an able set of men), 

 about the fittest methods of executing the 

 powers the laws had invested them with. This 

 he seldom failed to do, in all those causes de- 

 pending in his courts where any of his Clergy 

 or the rights of their churches were concerned ; 

 or where the reformation of delinquents by ecclesias- 

 tical censures was aimed at. And as he guarded 

 on the one hand against the neglects of inferior 

 officers, and was vigilant in seeing those powers 

 exerted which the laws had lodged with him ; 

 so he was very careful, on the other hand, not 

 to abuse them, by giving needless trouble and 

 distress, either to clergy or laity, when no other 

 end could be answered by it, than shewing his 

 power and authority over them. He rightly 

 distinguished discipline from persecution. And as 

 the latter is never allmuable, so neither did he 

 think the former seasonable, but in such cases 

 where the mild and gentle methods of persua- 

 sion proved ineffectual. He wished the Clergy 

 to try, first all the softer means of reforming delin- 

 quents in their several parishes. And then, if 



