ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



agent which should of itself provide the remedy. He took his stand 

 on the canons, which, he alleged, were binding on his conscience, and 

 denounced those clergy who ignored them by joining in ' conventicles ' 

 with dissenting ministers, under cover of furthering the interests of 

 morals, while in reality they were causing schism and breaking the law. 

 The clergy, as a whole, were willing enough to follow their archdeacon's 

 advice, till Chancellor Tullie ranged himself on the other side, and went 

 in strongly for the amalgamation of church and dissent. Under his 

 sgis Cockburn, the vicar, aided by a few of the neighbouring clergy, 

 set up the covenant at Brampton, which soon brought down the arch- 

 deacon's thunders on his honest head. Archdeacon and chancellor were 

 summoned to Rose Castle to answer to their aged diocesan for the strife 

 they were causing in his diocese. Little came of it. The bishop was 

 too old and too infirm to curb the zeal of his subordinates. An appeal 

 was made to the archbishop of York, but he shelved the question ; the 

 bishop of Chester was inclined to side with the chancellor, so Nicolson 

 was forced to struggle on alone. 1 



The episcopates of Bishops Rainbow and Smith, which covered 

 the period between 1664 and 1702, were devoted chiefly to the dis- 

 charge of their functions within the diocese. It was their endeavour to 

 set a good example to their clergy and to urge them to follow it. An 

 attractive picture of the private life of Bishop Rainbow has been drawn 

 by the hand of one who knew him. * Four times a day was God 

 publickly called upon by prayers in that family : twice in the chappel, 

 which part his lordship's chaplains performed : and twice in the dining 

 room, the latter of these at six in the morning and nine at night was 

 the usual task of our right reverend worthy prelate himself, if not dis- 

 abled by sickness.' ' His enforcement of discipline among some of the 

 clergy ' who had been sufficiently criminal and neglectful in the dis- 

 charge of their function ' was attended with unpleasantness and often 

 provoked opposition. But his personal example in devotion to duty 

 acted as a stimulus to the diocese, and cleared him of all suspicion of 

 favouritism or private grudge. The life of Bishop Smith, who had been 

 dean of Carlisle before his consecration, was fashioned on the same 

 model. The policy of both prelates was to raise the tone of the clergy, 

 and increase the reverence and regularity of their public ministrations. 

 The dangers of the episcopate, to which the bishops of Carlisle after the 

 Reformation had succumbed, were happily avoided by their successors 

 after the Restoration. It has been pointed out that the Elizabethan 

 bishops were mainly concerned with the suppression of heresy and the 

 enforcement of conformity, a policy negative in its aims as it was dis- 

 astrous in its results. The bishops of Carlisle, who came immediately 

 after 1660, set themselves the task of rebuilding the church as a spiritual 

 edifice, and meddled as little as possible with the demolishing of the 

 religious shelters which the mistaken policy of their predecessors had 



1 Letters of Wm. Nicolson, pp. 109, 145-58, 161-72, etc. 

 1 Life of Bishop Rainbow (London, 1688), pp. 68-9. 

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