have welcomed a reconciliation on honourable terms, and he dedicated his ‘Cursus Theologicus’ to King James in the same year. In 1630 Cardinal Richelieu ordered him to leave France, where he had acquired considerable renown as a protestant theologian, and he came over to London. In the same year he became professor of divinity in the university of Edinburgh, and died about 1648, when Alexander Colvill succeeded him.
He published:
- ‘Tractatus de Justificatione hominis coram Deo,’ Geneva, 1609 and 1612, 8vo.
- ‘Tractatus de misero hominis statu sub peccato,’ Geneva, 1610, 8vo.
- ‘Cursus Theologicus,’ Geneva, 1618, 4to; Geneva, 1622, 4to.
- ‘Symphonia Prophetarum et Apostolorum,’ Geneva, 1625 and 1639, 4to.
[Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. II. ii. 497; M'Crie's Life of Melville, 1st ed. ii. 253; Young's Life of Welsh, p. 169; Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, ii. 494.]
SHARP, JOHN (1645–1714), archbishop of York, born at Bradford on 16 Feb. 1644–5, was the eldest son of Thomas Sharp, wet and dry salter, by Dorothy, eldest daughter of John Weddal of Widdington, Yorkshire. The family had long been settled in Bradfordale. Sharp's youngest brother, Sir Joshua (d. 1718), an eminent stationer, was sheriff of London in 1713 (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. viii. 354). His father, a puritan who enjoyed the favour of Fairfax, inculcated in him Calvinistic doctrines, but his mother, a strong royalist, instructed him in the liturgy. On 26 April 1660 he was admitted at Christ's College, Cambridge, and in the fourth year of his residence was made ‘scholar of the house.’ He attended the lectures of Thomas Burnet (1635?–1715) [q. v.] in natural philosophy, and gave much attention to chemistry and botany. In 1663 he graduated B.A., and began to study divinity. He also ‘kept to hard study of the Greek authors’ till 1667, when he ‘commenced master.’ Soon after, on the recommendation of Henry More (1614–1687) [q. v.], the Platonist, who had been pleased with his reading of the lessons in the college chapel, Sharp became domestic chaplain and tutor at Kensington House, in the family of Sir Heneage Finch [q. v.], then solicitor-general. He was ordained deacon and priest on 12 Aug. 1667 at St. Mary's, Westminster, by special faculty from Archbishop Sheldon. On 12 July 1669, together with other Cambridge men, he was incorporated at Oxford, on the occasion of the opening of the Sheldonian Theatre (Wood, Fasti, ii. 311). Sharp remained in Finch's house till his marriage in 1676. In 1673 he was appointed, on Finch's nomination, archdeacon of Berkshire. Through the same influence Sharp became in 1675 prebendary of Norwich and incumbent of St. Bartholomew's, Exchange, London. The latter post he resigned the same year for the rectory of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. When Finch became lord keeper and lord chancellor, Sharp acted as his adviser in the bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage.
After his marriage Sharp lived for four years in Chancery Lane with William Rawlinson, who had married his wife's sister. He soon gained the reputation of being one of the best preachers of the day. In 1679 he was made lecturer at St. Lawrence Jewry, where the Friday sermons had been much frequented since Tillotson delivered them. In the same year he was created D.D. at Cambridge by proxy. In 1680 he delivered sermons at the Yorkshire feast and at the election of lord mayor of London. He now removed to Great Russell Street, where he remained till he became archbishop. On 8 July 1681, ‘at the intercession of the Duke of York and Lord Arlington,’ he was named dean of Norwich; he retained the rectory of St. Giles.
In 1674 he printed a sermon attacking the dissenters. Dodwell defended it, and Baxter replied to Dodwell. In 1683–4, in two ‘Discourses concerning Conscience,’ Sharp amplified his argument, and maintained the necessity of dissenters' communion with the church (cf. Bennet, Abridgment of the London Cases, Cambridge, 1700). Sharp's argument was employed in 1704 by a writer in favour of reunion with Rome, and a fresh controversy followed.
In 1685 Sharp drew up for the grand jury of London their address of congratulation on the accession of James II. On 20 April 1686 he became chaplain in ordinary to the king. But, provoked by the tampering of Roman catholics with his parishioners, he preached two sermons at St. Giles's on 2 and 9 May, which were held to reflect on the king. Sharp assured Burnet that nothing of the kind was intended, and, to refute the charge, went to court to show the notes he had used. He was not admitted, and on 14 June Compton, bishop of London, was ordered to suspend him. He refused, but in an interview at Doctors' Commons on the 18th instant privately advised Sharp to ‘forbear the pulpit’ for the present (Burnet, Hist. Own Time, iii. 100 et seq.; cf. Evelyn, Diary, pp. 255, 257). His appeals to Sunderland and Middleton for full reinstatement met with no response. On 1 July, by the advice of Jeffreys, he left London for Norwich; but
