LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 367 



he would have ikem to vote for it. I told him 

 (says he), I had said something to this purpose, 

 that if I had known how things would have followed y 

 and that they would have used the Church of Eng- 

 land men as they did, I should not have advised as I 



did:' 



These representations of what he had acci- 

 dentally dropped in discourse, and the use that 

 was made of them, made him more cautious 

 ever after, how he expressed himself when he 

 spoke of public affairs, particularly when he 

 was met some time after by Mr. , at Gran- 

 tham. " I am sure (says he), / kept such a guard 

 upon myself, that all that I said might he proclaimed 

 at the market cross.'' But to return to the other 

 bill, which chiefly concerned the dissenters. 



He had, as was related before, used his en- 

 deavours to prevent the tack to the bill of Occa- 

 sional Conformity ; but was withal desirous the 

 bill should pass; and spoke for it. But the 

 point that he laboured was not only a reasona- 

 ble one, but what all the clergy in England 

 would have been obliged to him for, if he could 

 have carried it. And that was, indemnifying 

 parish ministers for observing the rubric, from 

 all such damages as by the Test Act they might 

 stand liable to, for refusing to give the sacra- 

 ment in any instance wherein the rubric directed 

 repulsion from it. In the debates, December 4, 



