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serve to clear him when he was to give an account of his stewardship to his great Master, he believed that many of his hearers came to Church purely out of custom and form, and consequently that their attention was not very profitable and advantageous to their souls, in minding what was delivered to them from the pulpit, and therefore often went to their houses to catechise and instruct them, and to those who were indigent he often gave money to oblige them to attend to his instructions; thereby making their temporal necessities to contribute to the supplying their spiritual wants. A double charity! for which, I doubt not, he hath long since met with a double reward from the Liberal Dispenser of all good things.

In this place did our Dr. Rainbow reside, pleased with his present condition, and his parishioners no less pleased with him, till April 1659, when the rectory of Benefield, in Northamptonshire, valued at 2001. or 3001. per annum, and of the gift of the Earl of Warwick, fell vacant, and was proffered him by the said noble earl; which he utterly refused, because the triers, with whom he was resolved to have nothing to do, were then in power, till there was sent him a presentation from the Earl of Warwick, with an assurance that he might be possessed of Benefield without going to the triers. Which last favour had been procured him by the Earl of Orrery, then only Lord Broghil, and both out of the respect which those ho nourable personages had to his worth and sweet temper.

Having, though very unwilling to leave his retirement at Chesterford, accepted of the presentation to Benefield, upon the above mentioned conditions; wherein, by the bye, the reader may see how careful be was not to make shipwreck of a good conscience for any temporal benefit or advancement, he managed things there as he had done at Little Chesterford, composing all his prayers for the Church out of the Liturgy; which being repeated by him at the offices of christening, burial, &c. by heart, which the ignorant people not un derstanding, liked well. And there he lived with great content, and in quietness; being kindly treated by that people, who roughly treated others of the same func

tion.

Before, in the course of our history, I come to that great and happy year of 1660, when our late sovereign, Charles the merciful, was restored with the joyful acclamations of all his loving subjects, to his crown and dignity, and his loyal subjects

to their privileges, laws, and religion, I am to inform the reader, that Dr. Rain bow had the satisfaction to bear, as the nation had to know, that Oliver Cromwell put a period to the sitting of that long parliament, which had ruined three kingdoms, and unhinged the whole royal family, by pretending to reform the first; and this was done after they had sat about twelve years, in 1653, on that very day in which Dr. Rainbow was born. A transaction at which he not only publicly rejoiced, because it happened on the day of his nativity, but he also noted it in his dairy, with a prayer, "That God would turn it to the good of the Church and na tion."

But to proceed in the year 1660, when the finger of God signally appeared in bringing, in this our nation, a king to the throne of his royal progenitors, after twelve years exile, and without a stroke struck, notwithstanding that there was a veteran army, flushed in blood and victory, and trained up in an aversion to monarchy then in being, the Church was also restored with the king: and then all those worthy persons, who in the preced. ing times of rebellion and confusion had been sufferers by loss of goods or places, or by imprisonment, or by banishment, were either restored to the places which they had formerly possessed, or were preferred to higher honours. Among others, Dr. Rainbow was restored to his mastership of Magdalen College, and by the favour and solicitation of his noble friends was made chaplain to his late majesty, King Charles the Second, and in the year following was made Dean of Peterborough, where he had formerly been a scholar.

Thither he removed in August 1661, with a design to reside there; but his stay there was not long, preferments coming now thick upon him; for he was the next year called to Cambridge, being elected vice-chancellor of that famous aniversity in Nov. 1662. Which early election of him to that great trust was not only a public testimony of the university's great esteem for him, but of his loyalty too.

In the discharge of the vice-chancellor's office, he acquitted himself with suffi. cient reputation, and in the management thereof forgot not the care and interest of that college, whereof he was the head. For whereas the office of a proctor came not to that college in forty-four years, he got it to be publicly ordered and confirmed by his late Majesty, that that office should return to Magdalen College every ninth year;

and by a politic fixing the epocha of this new circle, got a course to his own col lege sooner than it could expect; and not only so, but because some who were put up to preach in the University Church got, for a small sum of money, others to do it for them, who performed it so meanly, that it turned often to the dishonour thereof; to prevent which, he procured a mulet of forty shillings to be imposed on every such offender; and to give a good example therein to the masters of art, the heads of the colleges (by his instigation) yielded to preach there in their turns.

And now being fixed again in his former station, with the additional revenue of the deanery of Peterborough, he had more than satisfied his ambition, which never aimed higher than such a station, as wherein he might live decently, and might be capacitated to be serviceable to his country. But, beyoud his wishes, no less than above his expectation, was he elected Bishop of Carlisle in 1664, upon the translation of the Right Rev. Dr. Richard Stern to the archiepiscopal see of York.

This new advancement was directly contrary to his mind, as he declared it to those honourable friends of his who had therein solicited for him. His truly pri mitive temper put him upon the declining of that high and honourable employment in the Church; the great care of so many souls, as would thereby be devolved upon him, affrighted and deterred him awhile from embracing that honour, which so many court in vain, who so little know how to discharge it. He looked upon himself, as did the ancient fathers, to be unfit for that high calling, which was, though in his judgment highly honourable, yet withal a burden too heavy for his weak shoulders to bear and sustain. He was desirous, as out most reverend and learned primate, Archbishop Parker, was in the last age, to be serviceable to the Church, though moving in a lower sphere, and only that he might enjoy those promotions and dignities he had then arrived to, without ascending higher.

Thus meanly did he think of himself, what others often contradicted him in, as not sufficiently qualified for that high dignity, and had still refused it, if the importunity of his friends had not at last prevailed with him to decline it no longer; and there was one thing which contributed not a little to his accepting of it, the great respect which he had for two ancient and very deserving friends, which upon his removal to Carlisle were to succeed bim in his present promotions; the one in his

deanery, and the other in his mastership.

Overcome at last with the desires and arguments of his friends, he accepted of that honourable dignity, that was procured him by his noble patron's mediation, and accordingly was consecrated in July 1664, at London, by the most reverend Father in God Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, then Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and came to settle at Rose Castle, in Cumberland, the palace for the bishops of that see, on Sept. 8, following.

I ought to mention, that his generosity in this case was so great, that though (perhaps) he was at that time in such circumstances as to need some assistance to defray the necessary charges of his consecration, first-fruits, and his journey to, and settlement in his diocese; yet did he not so much as desire to hold the mastership of Magdalen College in commendam for a while with his bishopric, but presently and freely resigned both that place and his deanery of Peterborough to his successors in them both; although such favours as the retaining one of them for some time, had not unusually been granted to others upon the like promotion.

We have now seen him ascend by steps into the episcopal throne; a dignity which the primitive Church of Christ had so great a veneration for, and which in times of hot persecution had been so often sprinkled with the blood of those who sat thereon; they exchanging that ticklish honour for an immortal crown of glory, by that of martyrdom, we will now take a stand, and view how he discharges that sacred office.

He found his palace at Rose Castle much ruinated; a great part of it being burnt down by the rebels in the late times of rebellion, and but little repaired by bis immediate predecessor, though he had received great advantages by entering upon that bishopric after so long a vacancy, and the expiration of the tenants leases, which engaged him in a suit about dilapidations with his predecessor, then his metropolitan. In which trouble he was unwillingly embarked, as that which was both repugnant to his meek nature, and was in his thoughts unbecoming persons of that sacred character.

After the conclusion of that long suit, he was at a great expense in building at Rose Castle, for he built the chapel anew, and made several other additions and conveniences there. But though these edifices were costly, as well as troublesome, yet there was another sort of building

which he was more intent upon, the building of God's Church in the spiritual sense, and that either by himself or his assistants, his brethren the clergy, in the diligent preaching of God's word; in the due administration of the holy sacraments; in catechising of youth, (which word is rendered by some grammarians, To build up in the most holy faith ;) in advising them to walk in paths of virtue and holiness, and in admonishing and reclaiming the more loose from their immoralities.

As this was his great province, so it was his desire and endeavour to see that the clergy subordinate to him should do their duties. In the management of which, when some who had been sufficiently criminal and neglectful in the discharge of their function, were justly reproved by him for so doing, though that was done too at the first with meekness enough, yet he met with a very rude treatment from them, and much unbecoming their station ; nevertheless, both that and the ill returns made bim from persons whom he had highly obliged, was far from making him vindictive, if his public character and the interest of the Church were not interwoven with his own concern, for then he would take care to rescue both from contempt, lest the common cause might suffer by his own supine negligence. I shall not here revive the remembrance of those affronts to that sacred order, by particularizing those which were offered to him, and therefore will forbear to mention the offending persons names, wishing that the faults of some of them may be buried in the same grave with their authors; and only add, that generally the troubles which befel him after his advancement to the episcopal authority, were occasioned by his conscientions discharge of that sacred office, which doth not seldom make the best of men fall under the weight of popu lar odium. For although I am far from pretending to exempt him in his management of that dignity from mistakes and errors, and it is certain his own humility taught him another lesson, than to aspire to the swelling title of infallible; yet gene rally his failings were such as might admit of an easy apology, without the assistance of political refinings, to which he was very much a stranger.

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who attend at God's altar, and dispense his holy word, and unfold the sacred mysteries of our holy religion. He therefore resolved to set them a copy as legible as his human frailties would permit it to be written, that they fairly imitating it, the laity might be invited to transcribe it from them.

Pursuant of his pious design, he preached not only in his courses at the cathedral, but often there also upon occasional days; as also frequently at his own chapel at Ross, at Dalston Church, and the adjacent chapels, till hindered from this performance by the gout, the racks of which were not probably more troublesome than their consequence, his being thereby forced to omit his public duty. And catechising he so much kept up, that to oblige some indigent persons to attend it, to their own spiritual advantage, and the building themselves in the most holy faith, he gave them money. Neither was his hospitality offending against the canons of the Church, but like that of a bishop. His entertainment was free; his table was well furnished with varieties: his conversation pleasant and yet grave, divertive and yet instructing, often feeding the minds as well as the bodies of his guests.

We have observed his way of procedure as to what related to the Church; now the ordering of his family challenges our next consideration. The government of his private family was modelled in imitation of that of the Church; that is, regular. Four times a day was God publicly called upon by prayers in that family; twice in the chapel, 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 and worthy prelate himself, if not disabled by sickness: as if he who was the master of the family, would open it every morning, and lock it up every night, by the key of prayer.

All known profaneness and swearing were banished thence: for this made as much discord in that family, as an ill musician did in Plato's schools. Offenders in debauchery were at first reproved and admonished, and if they relapsed into the same fault, they were often dismissed the house, unless there appeared visible sigus of repentance, and those ushered in with fervent promises, to make those good by their utmost endeavours.

While the suit was continued between the then Archbishop of York and our wortby prelate, viz. in 1668, he was once offered to be removed from the see of Car

lisle to that of Lincoln, by the mnost Rev. Father in God Gilbert Sheldon, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. A prelate, who, besides the monuments he erected to his name by his truly primitive virtues, hath left one at Oxford, that famous theatre built at his own charge, and dedicated to the uses of the public, the service of the Church, and the muses. A structure which, if the world last so long, may continue the name of that pious archbishop longer than the Egyptian pyramids have continued the memory of their ambitious and vain-glorious founders.

Dr. Rainbow listened with some pleasure to that motion of the good archbishop, as being desirous to be freed from the inquietudes which his legal dispute with his metropolitan in the above mentioned case of dilapidations did create him. But herein he met with too potent an adversary to be successful; a great lady, with whom he had formerly some acquaintance, and a just respect: but, when she had forfeited his esteem, and that of all good men, by the prostitution of her honour, our good Bishop did not then think himself obliged,notwithstanding her greater quality, to pay her those regards he had formerly done. And when she, after that, offered him civilities, he was so far from laying hold on such opportunities to advance his fortunes by her mediation, that he declined her very company, contemning the most innocent favours of such a person, who had forgotten her noble practices in the addition of new titles, and those purchased at a dear rate with the loss of her fame.

This slight from our pious prelate, the lady so highly resented, that partly out of particular pique, and partly out of a design to prefer an uncle of her's to the bishopric of Lincoln, though far unfit to be placed in so much light, she hindered the translation of Dr. Rainbow thither. Al beit the pious Archbishop so far prevailed over that lady's interest, as to get an Irish Bishop, designed before for Carlisle, and with the thoughts whereof he had been well enough contented, to be placed in the stead of that lady's uncle, who was thereby gently laid aside.

Our prelate was not much displeased at this turn of affairs, though he had wished the contrary, for the above-mentioned reason; to which another might be added, that the Bishop of Lincoln's palace at Bugden was so situated as to be near Cambridge, and not far distant from London, in which respect he could not have wished to have been better fixed than there, for the enjoyment of his relations

and intimate acquaintance; yet when he first considered in his cooler, by whose interest he was frustrated of his expeciations, and that the Bishopric of Lincoln, besides its vast extent, which still increas ed the cure of souls, and consequently made that greater burden balance the greater revenue, it had, as he thought, a greater inconvenience, that that revenue, superior to the other of Carlisle (which notwithstanding was far from tempting our prelate to a removal to Lincoln,) consisted much in pensions from the Clergy, so that he used to say, that that Bishop was maintained out of the poor clergymen's mouths.

Dr. Edward Rainbow had continued near twenty years in the exercise of his episcopal function, though often indisposed, and especially in his latter years, with the stone and the gout, two diseases of so acute a pain, that they would not only pose the patience, or rather pretended apathy of the proudest stoical philosopher, but put even a Christian one to fly from second causes to the first of all, for his support under that torment, more cruel than the dispatching and devouring flames : he had been Bishop, I say, so long, when in March, 1683, his pains occasioned, as was supposed, by the gout in the stomach, increased, and the more they augmented, the more did our pious Bishop apply himself to the Physician of Souls, as looking upon the bodily health to be in a declining condition; albeit, to preserve it, he neglected not to consult physicians for the body too, but in vain. When he therefore ascertained that death was approaching him, with how much cheerfulness, and with what a true Christian magnanimity did he look the king of terrors in the face! he prepared to receive him not as an enemy, but as a welcome friend, who was to conduct him out of this vale of tears, into the mansions of eternal joy, far above all the regions of instability. He saw his course was almost finished, and he longed to be at the goal.

During this his last sickness, not one idle or impertinent word fell from him. He had in his lifetime, before this last arrest of his body by distempers, learned a perfect resignation of himself to the divine will and pleasure of Almighty God, and therefore received the approaches of death with that humble submission to the Divine will, and with that calmness and serenity of mind, which are not often found but in persons of a primitive piety.

He had indeed begged of God, that he might over-live Lady-day, because it would much conduce to the profit of his

then consort, and since mournful widow. And this seems to have been granted to him, since he survived the return of that time no more than one day. Another petition he also made, that his reason and senses might continue to the last moment of his life, which was also granted, for he lived till Wednesday, March 26, 1684, in the evening; and yet did he not mis-spend his precious hours. His care for secular concerns, which was never so great as to merit the title of fondness, was now taken off by a more pressing and laudable one, and that which was to be entertained in the preparation for, and contemplation of a future and eternal state. Hence the last moments wherein he enjoyed the use of his tongue, were spent in a most pious manner-prudent counsel to those that were about him; holy meditations upon his own condition at that time; fervent prayers and supplications to the King of Mercy, were the happy employments of his heavenly soul; and all these performed with so much zeal and fervour, that it seemed already to be upon the wing towards heaven.

Towards even, on Wednesday above mentioned, being got into bed, and finding himself very weak, he called for prayers, which being concluded, and observing his speech to fail, he spake these words to the company which were then with him-It hath pleased God to take away my speech, and I am heavy and dull; I desire you all to pray for me, that God would assist me with his grace.

After this he lay quietly, and slumbered sometimes, till eleven o'clock at night, when a starting fit (which formerly in his sickness had troubled him at times) seized him sharply for some time; then he lay quietly for some time, though sensible, as might be perceived, to the last, and so breathed out his last breath, yielding up his spirit to God, the author of it, and leaving all the spectators of this his happy end, dissolved in tears at this long separation, in going to inherit, I hope, a crown of glory, which God hath prepared for all them which unfeignedly love and sincerely serve him.

Thus died that right reverend and pious prelate, Dr. Edward Rainbow, late Bishop of Carlisle, about eleven o'clock at night, on Wednesday, March 26, 1684, at the age of near seventy-six years, and was interred on Tuesday following, in Dalston church-yard, April 1, 1684, as he had desired upon his death-bed. His hearse was attended with a great multitude of the gentry, the clergy, and other neighbours; Mr. Thomas Tulley, his Lordship's chap

lain, and chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle, preaching his funeral sermon.

As he had requested that no pomp nor state should be used at his funeral, no more than any eulogium should be made of him (such was his rare modesty and humility,) so did he desire to be buried in Dalston church-yard, and to have a plain stone laid over his grave, with no other inscription, but that such a day and year died Edward, Bishop of Carlisle, which accordingly was performed. These, his two last requests, are a declaration to the world in his last moments, how little he valued the pageantry of funeral pomp, and all monuments, which were not built upon the sure and firm basis of piety.

We have now seen him laid in the chambers of the dust, let us draw the cor tains about him, leaving his body to repose till the last trumpet shall awake him to the general resurrection of the just,

He left no works in print, but three occasional sermons, the two former of which are scarce to be got,

The first of these sermous, and which hath been already twice mentioned, was preached at St. Paul's Cross, on Sept. 28, 1634, entitled, Labour forbidden and commanded, and which to all persons that peruse it without prejudice will sufficiently evince, that the late Dr. Rainbow could clothe his thoughts in all the gaiety of expression suitable to a great audience, when he judged it convenient.

The second was at the funeral of Susanna, Countess of Suffolk, preached May 13, 1649, on Eccles, vii. 1. which was printed, together with some eulogies in praise of that virtuous young lady, which were composed by his two intimate and no less learned friends, Dr. S. Collins, Regius Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, and Dr. James Duport, Greek Professor there, and his successor in the Mastership of Magdalen, and Deanery of Peterborough.

The third was preached at the interment of Anne Countess of Pembroke, Dorset, and Montgomery, at Appleby, in Westmoreland, April 14, 1676, with some remarks on the life of that eminent lady, on Prov. xiv. 1.

In his youth he had a rich vein in poesy, in which appeared somewhat of Ovid's air and fancy, tempered with the judgment of Virgil; but none of his poetical exercises and diversions have been published, but a paper of verses upon the frontispiece of Mr. Henry Isaacson's Chronology, which accurate chronologer was our Bishop's particular friend, and had formerly been amanuensis to that living library, while

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