Cosin

Cosin, John (1594-1672), an English bishop, born at Norwich, and educated there and at Cambridge, became Fellow of King's College, and secretary to Bishop Overall, of Lichfield, then chaplain to Bishop Neill, of Durham, and master of Peter House, and Dean of Peterborough in 1640. A friend of Laud, he hated the Puritans, who in their turn denounced his ritualistic tendencies, and found fault with the "Young Apollo," who introduced "Babylonish ornaments" and consumed much tobacco. He was deprived of his many benefices by the House of Commons, and was for nineteen years in exile at Paris. At the Restoration he was made Bishop of Durham, and established a model diocese on which he spent much of his great revenues. He was fully alive to his dignity as Prince-Bishop, and though a High Churchman, was a strict Sabbatarian, and he persecuted Catholics and Puritans with equal impartiality. Of his writings, the chief are, his Private Devotions, and his Correspondence. He had a share in the final revision of the Book of Common Prayer.