LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 355 



safe way to salvation, and the safest of any I know 

 in the worlds 



And to this same purpose he has declared 

 himself a thousand times, when he hath occa- 

 sionally spoke of the blessings we of this king- 

 dom enjoy in our national Church. 



But though he esteemed our ecclesiastical 

 establishment as valuable in itself, and gave it 

 the preference to all others now in being (and 

 perhaps no man ever considered it more tho-- 

 roughly, or spoke of it upon better informations 

 and surer grounds than he did), yet he was 

 far from thinking it so perfectly constituted as 

 not to allow room for improvements, especially 

 in regard of discipline, which had never been 

 effectually provided for, and which likewise, from 

 time to time, had been gradually impaired 

 and enervated by encroachments upon it from 

 the temporal courts. Neither did he think the 

 Liturgy so exactly reformed, as to admit of no 

 further amendment, had there been opportunity 

 of attempting such a thing with safety. Though 

 he admired the communion office, as it now 

 stands, yet, in his own private judgment, he 

 preferred that in King Edward's first service 

 book before it, as a more proper office for the 

 celebration of those mysteries; nor was this 

 the only office that he thought might be ren^ 

 dered more suitable to the respective occasions 



A a2 



