the liberties of
Dissenters. On the other hand, he indignantly resented the unworthy
attempt of the more extreme Tories to force the occasional Conformity
Act through the House of Lords by 'tacking' it to a money bill. He
expressed the utmost displeasure against anything like bitterness and
invective; he had been warmly in favour of a moderate comprehension of
Dissenters, had voted that Tillotson should be prolocutor when the
scheme was submitted to Convocation, and had himself taken part of the
responsibility of revision. As in 1675 he had somewhat unadvisedly
accepted, in the discussion with Nonconformists, the co-operation of
Dodwell, so, in 1707, he bestowed much praise on Hickes' answer to
Tindal (sent to him by Nelson) on behalf of the rights of the Christian
priesthood. But Dodwell's Book of Schism maintained much more exclusive
sentiments than Sharp's sermon on Conscience, of which it was
professedly a defence; nor could the Archbishop by any means coincide in
the more immoderate opinions of the hot-tempered nonjuring Dean. And so
far from agreeing with Hickes and Dodwell, who would acknowledge none
other than Episcopal Churches, he said that if he were abroad he should
communicate with the foreign Reformed Churches wherever he happened to
be.[71] On many points of doctrine he was a High Churchman; he entirely
agreed, for example, with Nelson and the Nonjurors in general, in
regretting the omission in King Edward's second Prayer-book of the
prayer of oblation.[72] He bestowed much pains in maintaining the
dignity and efficiency of his cathedral;[73] but, with a curious
intermixture of Puritan feeling, told one of his Nonconformist
correspondents that he did not much approve of musical services, and
would be glad if the law would permit an alteration.[74] In regard of
the questions specially at issue with the Nonjurors, he heartily
assented for his own part to the principles of the Revolution,
maintaining 'for a certain truth that as the law makes the king, so the
same law extends or limits or transfers our obedience and
allegiance.'[75] This being the case, it may at first appear
unintelligible that an ardent nonjuring champion of passive obedience
and non-resistance should assert that 'by none are these truly Catholic
doctrines more openly avowed than by the present excellent metropolitan
of York.'[76] But Dodwell was correct. Archbishop Sharp, with perfect
consistency, combined with Whig politics the favourite