Live and Die for God Said Jeremy Taylor's Popular Books
Taylor authored books on Christian living and dying.
ON THIS DAY, 3 August 1667, Jeremy Taylor went to bed sick. A week earlier, he had visited a church member who was dying of “fever.” Now that fever placed his own life in jeopardy.
Taylor, bishop of Down and Connor, was a well-known religious author. His career had advanced under the support of Archbishop Laud, notorious for his persecution of Puritans (who would later, when they came to power, behead him). Taylor's early works were deeply scholarly. Between 1649 and 1653 he published his most accessible material, which included The Great Exempler, a lengthy study of the life of Christ, as well as two admired volumes of sermons. In the Exempler he interwove commentary on the Scriptures with legends of the life of Christ and prayers. One read, “Holy Jesu, let me be born anew, receive a new birth, and a new life, imitating thy graces and excellencies by which thou art beloved of the father, and hast obtained for us a favor and atonement.” However, it is for Taylor’s works of spiritual counsel that we remember him most today. His two books The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living and The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying quickly became spiritual classics and have remained in print ever since.
As a Royalist during the English Civil War, Taylor had been captured and imprisoned by Parliamentary forces. Following his release, he supported himself and his children as educator, author, and clergyman. When he became chaplain to the Earl of Carbery, he had time for good works and quiet reflection, and he produced his best prose. Shortly before the monarchy was restored in 1660, his association with Carbery ended and he became secretly a counselor and priest to Royalist sympathizers. He was arrested repeatedly.
During these years, Taylor made many friends. Following the Restoration, Charles II rewarded Taylor for his loyalty to the crown by making him bishop of Down and Connor as well as a member of the Irish privy council and vice-chancellor of the University of Dublin (which was in complete disarray). The position at Down and Connor was not at all to Taylor’s liking; Presbyterians had a strong foothold in the region and he foresaw trouble and asked for reassignment. The king, however, considered Taylor the best choice as he was well-liked and had previously written in support of religious liberty of conscience.
Taylor proved inflexible with his Presbyterian opposition, however, who went so far as to threaten his life. When his overtures of peace were rebuffed, he told the Presbyterian churchmen they must either comply or be thrown out, and proceeded to expel thirty-six of them. He also forced Irish Catholics to attend Church of England services, which were not only offensive to them but were held in a language they, as Gaelic speakers, did not understand.
To add to Taylor’s sorrows, all of his children had died, his friends in England had lost touch with him and problems in his diocese would not go away. He had no incentive to live. Ten days after taking to his bed with fever, Jeremy Taylor died.
—Dan Graves
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Like Richard Foster, Jeremy Taylor celebrated Christian discipline. Watch Celebration of Discipline at RedeemTV.
Celebration of Discipline can be purchased at Vision Video.