A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



addressed * to all that profess the Name of the Lord Jesus in the counties 

 of Cumberland and Westmerland, both magistrates and people ' in 

 explanation of the Articles and with an exhortation to obedience. All 

 scandalous persons, such as episcopalians, papists and quakers, were 

 rigidly excluded from the Association till they had publicly recanted 

 their errors. 1 



The moving spirit of this great effort for unity among the sects was 

 Richard Gilpin, pastor of Greystoke, a minister of refined and scholarly 

 attainments, who exercised a well-deserved influence over the presby- 

 terian section of the community. His soul had been vexed at the 

 profaneness which he saw thriving around him for want of discipline 

 in the churches, and at the divisions and jealousies fomented among 

 brethren of the same household of faith. In order to help in rebuild- 

 ing the spiritual Sion, he laboured day and night to bring about recon- 

 ciliation. On 19 May 1658 he preached his famous 'acceptable 

 sermon ' on the ' Temple Rebuilt,' at Keswick, before a general meeting 

 of the associated ministers of the county, which was printed at the 

 unanimous request of those who heard it. Notwithstanding Gilpin's 

 eloquent pleading for peace, it is to be feared that his labours for unity 

 were only partially successful. There can be little doubt that the 

 presbyterian body looked up to him as their counsellor and guide, but 

 it is questionable whether the leaders of independency were in full 

 sympathy with the Association movement. At least we find the discipline 

 of the congregational connexion exercised independently of the Associa- 

 tion at Bridekirk in 1656, the delinquent being the incumbent of 

 Plumbland. However much the fusion of the sects fell short of Gilpin's 

 ideal, one cannot help admiring the zeal of the ministers in guarding 

 the ordinances of religion from profanation and their self-denying 

 courage in making a stand for godliness at a time when faith and hope 

 and love had almost deserted the mass of the Cumbrian population. 



When the church and monarchy were restored in 1660 the diocese 

 of Carlisle was in a pitiable condition of desolation. The west end of 

 the cathedral lay in ruins ; the deanery and prebendal houses were 

 uninhabitable ; Rose Castle, the historic seat of the bishops, had been 

 mutilated during the Civil War and patched up for the residence of a 

 Cromwellian general. Several of the benefices were vacant or held in 

 plurality. All the old members of the capitular body had died before 

 the Restoration with the exception of Lewis West, canon of the third 

 stall. When Richard Sterne, who had acted as chaplain to Archbishop 

 Laud on the scaffold, was consecrated on 2 December 1660, his task in 

 the reorganization of the diocese was by no means easy or agreeable. 

 The dean and chapter had to be constituted ; questions of disputed 

 patronage made the appointment of incumbents to vacant parishes irk- 



The quarto pamphlet, from which this account is taken, is entitled, ' The Agreement of the 

 Associated Ministers and Churches of the Counties of Cumberland and Westmerland, with something 

 for Explication and Exhortation annexed.' It was printed in London in 1656 and sold 'by Richard 

 Scott, bookseller in Carlisle.' 



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