LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 209 



When delinquents were proceeded against 

 in his Court, he would use all kind endeavours 

 to have them brought to a due sense of their 

 fault, and a ready submission to the authority 

 and sentence of the ecclesiastical court, before 

 excommunication was denounced against them. 

 And he would not only put the Clergy upon 

 trying to convince them both of their sin, and 

 of the dangerous consequence of their being 

 cut off from cominiinion with the Church, but he 

 would prevail with his officers to respite proceed- 

 ings till such trial tvas made. And his fatherly 

 concern and compassion for such offenders was 

 not confined within the limits of his diocese, 

 but was extended into other parts of his pro- 

 vince. An instance of which, (that will serve to 

 shew at once the greatness and extent of his 

 tenderness on such occasions,) we have, in a 

 letter that he wrote to the Commissary of Rich- 

 mond, in the diocese of Chester, concerning a 

 person under sentence of excommunication for 

 marrying his deceased wife's sister, and refusing 

 to obey the admonition of the ecclesiastical 

 judge, by separating from her. 



" I know," says he, '' Mr. Commissary, you 

 have done nothing in this affair, but what you 

 ought to do ; nor have the Bishop of Chester or 

 I any power to stop your proceedings, if we 

 had a mind to it, which I dare say neither of us 



