B««****^ *•««>»• *#«*4t«««« ■4A«^l««4««^«*«««« W/. > /y///yyy> > yyy^ ' >^ / y yyy y yyy >^ >'^ >^ y ^ y/yyyyyy/ '7///, j\/./ wMyyyi yywyyv/yyy^yy??^ '///yy?/ ^'^////yy /yy/yyyy yyyyyyyy ? ./ J ^/ y\'^\y y\ 'y>>mr> y>yi>i>y^^ y yy yy yyyYyyy\^y\^\^\^\\'^\y\yooO'\y^^^s^^'^^''\'' y yyy yyyYyy\^y\\^\^\\\^\y-o(yoKy\yy'^s^'^'^^^^'^"' yyybbyybbiYyyyyyvyy^^ 'yyyyy>>>>^>k^>>^>N>o^>^>>>^>>>>^>>>^>y' >Oxyxy>'^yN\/vy\-'\X/\y/\X>s/\/\'VN^\>x/ >yo<>bh(y(y9. y>>>>>. \/N->sAr^ v>\>Oo60O00(XX>O6(>b>> 9y>S>9<>>l '\ ,>\/\X\ XXX X >v X >\/ '\ XXXXX^\XXXX^\^ \X>\X X>v XXXX>vv /\/\ X ^^ / XXXa ''\XXXX^\X/\^^'^v^'^^ \ X X X ^\ /\/\ ■ \ -^\'^\X'^\/^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^ XXXXxXX/nXXXX/'^ /'\^\<^ M^$$yyyyy^ xxyyyyyyy^>-yyyy \/\^\>\>\^\>\/-'y\'^Y^y'^Yyy 'xXX/v/x/v/xX^x/v ^X/'^'^^'' • ^■ /vnXXXXX/x'^n ^v 0^";'^>f ^ \XXX/\^X'^^X/\/^VNV\x\/'\/ >\XXX/'vX^\/\/'\/\/\^\^\/'x PUS- ^ [ A ^v ; 1 j iL._ ^^■vj ■ 1 London, PabHslie a liy Kicliai-A Pripstlejr.ie26. THE LIFE OF THE RIGHT REV. JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. LORD BISHOr OF DOWxV, CONNOR, AND DROMORE; WITH A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF HIS WRITINGS. BY THE RIGHT REV. REGINALD HEBER, D.D. LATE LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. THIRD EDITION. LONDON: PRIXTKD FOB C. AND J. RIVINGTON j T. CADELL J LONGMAN^ REES^ ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN 3 J. BOOKER J J. RICHARDSON J HATCHARD AND SON J J. BOHN j J. DUNCAN J J. COCHRAN 3 J. PARKER, OXFORD ; J. AND J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE ', AND W. STRONG, BRISTOL. 1828. LONDON : PRIVTED BY THOMAS DAVISOX, WHIT ET RI ARS. ADVERTISEMENT FIRST EDITION. The unprecedented sale of the late and only complete Edition of Bishop Taylor's Works, and the consequent revival of the popularity of that eminent Writer, are circumstances highly encouraging to the spirit of literary enterprise. Such patronage has induced the Publishers to comply with a wish, voy generally expressed, for a separate publication of the LIFE, written by Dr. Heber, now Lord Bishop of Calcutta — a Production not more distinguished by biographical research and discrimination, than by that elegant tone of religious and moral feeling ivhich pervades the whole. Li Justice, however, to the Right Reverend Author, it becomes the duty of the Publishers to inform the Public, that in consequence of his Lordship's early departure to India, the intention of a separate publication of the Life could not be communicated to him. It is there- fore a literal reprint, but with the addition of an Index, which may be considered as indispensable in a work ivhere the characters and writings of so many contemporaries pass in review. ERRATUM. Vol. i. p. 245, note, /or {QQ.) read (RR.) THE LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D, ETC. ETC. The life of a student is passed within a narrow circle; and of the men whose writings are most widely read and admired, the personal history is often enveloped in the deepest ob- scurity. Nor even of those individuals, whom the zeal of their friends, or the malice of their enemies, have enabled or compelled to act a more conspicuous part on the theatre of contemporary distinction, have the lives been often diversified with many singular events, with great deliver- ances, or surprising vicissitudes. Their days have been quietly busied in producing those effects which only have made their histories worth inquiring after, — effects for which it was necessary that their habits should be retired and uniform. Nor can we wonder, therefore, that whoever undertakes the biography of a scholar or a theologian, has ordinarily but little to relate which is certain, and less which is interesting or extraordinary. In some respects, indeed, the fate of Jeremy Taylor was distinguished from the general lot of men of letters. So far from his life being retired or monotonous, he seems to have passed much of it in a crowd ; and it is one of the circumstances which lead us most to wonder at the fertility and force of his genius, not only that, in so few years, he wrote so many books, but that these books were, many of them, composed under circumstances the least favourable to research or abstraction. 2 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. It was his fortune, at an early age, to attract the notice of those whose patronage, however favourable to his interests or his renown, had a natural tendency to withdraw him from the usual scenes of literary or parochial labour. He was favoured by Laud in the zenith of his power, and trusted by king Charles, when he had become the more venerable from adversity- During the usurpation, though esteemed and pitied even by his enemies, he was destined to encounter a more than usual share of confiscation and imprisonment ; and, at the restoration of the royal family, and while yet in the full vigour of his years and his abilities, he was raised to the highest honours which lie within the compass of his profession. But, during the calamities which agitated an empire, the escapes and sufferings of a private individual were too insignificant to attract much contemporary fame ; and Taylor's sufferings w^ere of the kind which, by impo- verishing their victim, removes him still more from the notice and knowledge of the world. His subsequent pro- motion, though it fixed him in the country where he had found his best asylum, was, in itself, a banishment from the society of public men and the theatre of national politics ; and his latter days were spent in the alternate and unob- trusive labours of the pulpit and the closet, in preparing himself and others for that heaven, w^hither his desires had been from his earhest years directed. It will not, then, be expected, that, after the lapse of almost two centuries, I shall have been able to supply many interesting details of a life thus spent and thus concluded, or that many miportant gleanings remain, which had escaped the almost contemporary inquiries of Wood, or the accurate industiy and zealous researches of Mr. Bonney. Yet the time is not long passed, since unusually abundant stores of information existed, and since those stores were in the pos- session of a person eminently qualified to employ them to the best nd vantage. The late William Todd Jones, of Homra, in the county of Down, esquire, Taylor's lineal descendant in the fifth degree, and who inlierited no small portion of his talents and characteristic eloquence, was employed, at one period of his life, in collecting and arranging materials for the biography of his distinguished ancestor. Mr. Jones possessed, among many other interesting documents, a LIFE OF JEREMY TAVl.OH, D.I). 3 series of autograph letters to and from the Ijishop ; and a " lamily-book," also in his own hand-writino-, giving an account of his parentage and the principal events of his life, with comments on many of the ]jublic transactions in which he himself, or those connected with him, had borne a share. But, in the ardour of Mr. Jones's political pursuits, and the frequent pecuniary embarrassments to which those ])ur- suits exposed him, his biographical labours appear to have been often interrupted ; and his sudden death, by the over- turn of a carriage in the year 1818, cut short all the hopes which his talents and his materials justified. The greater part of his family papers he had, on the sale of Homra to the marquess of Downshire, deposited at Montalto, under the care of the late John, earl of Moira. Their subsequent fate has, unfortunately, not been ascertained. At Donning- ton, whither all the papers found at Montalto are said to have been transferred, no traces of them remain ; and there appears but too much reason to apprehend that they were consumed, together with some other packages belonging to the marquess of Hastings, in the fire which destroyed the London Custom-house. All which the family yet retain, consists of some extracts made by Mr, Jones from these documents with a view to his intended work ; the mar- riage settlement of Taylor's youngest daughter ; and some traditions respecting himself and his descendants, wdiich have been liberally communicated to me by Mr. Jones's sisters, Mrs. Wray, and Mrs INIary Jones. Small as these remains are, the few facts which they disclose are, perhaps, among the most interesting hitherto recovered concerning bishop Taylor's private concerns. From other quarters, indeed, very little was to be gathered which was new, but I have not knowingly neglected any. The Rev. Mr. Bonney, with a kindness to which I am deeply indebted, and which I had the less reason to expect, as I w^as personally unknown to him, has permitted me to make use of an interleaved copy of his able and interesting Life of Taylor, enriched with many valuable manuscript notes and references. To the active and judicious friendship of the Honourable and Reverend J. C. Talbot, I am indebted, not only for my introduction to bishop Taylor's descendants in 4 LIFE OF JFJIEMY TAYLOR, D.D. Ireland, but for whatever other gleanhigs of information or tradition respecting him remained in that kingdom. The archives of All Souls were examined by the kindness of the bishop of Oxford, and my friend, Clement Cartwright, Esq. : and the publishers of this edition have been enabled to procure for me, from the Evelyn Papers, the British Museum, and otlier sources, seventeen manuscript letters of Taylor, fourteen of which are now first printed. But it cannot be concealed, that, notwithstanding these advantages, I have still to lament the scantiness and imperfection of my mate- rials ; and that in this, as in most other instances, the biography of an author must consist in the account of his writings rather than his actions or adventures. Jekemy, third son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor^, was born in Trinity parish, Cambridge, and baptized on the 15th of August, 1613. His father was a barber; an occu- pation which, united, as it generally w^as, with the practice of surgery and pharmacy, was, in the days of our ancestors, somewhat less humble than at present, but which was at no time likely to raise its professor or his children to wealth or eminence. The family, however, had originally held a re- sjjectable rank among the smaller gentry of Gloucestershire, where they had possessed, for many generations, an estate in the Y>arish of Frampton on Severn ; and Nathaniel was the lineal descendant of Dr. Rowland Taylor, rector of Had.- leigh, in the county of Suffolk, and chaplain to archbishop Cranmer'\ Of Rowdand Taylor, neither the name nor the misfortunes are obscure. He was distinouished amono; the divines of the Reformation for his abilities, his learning, and piety ; and he suffered death at the stake on Aldham Common, near Had- leigh, in the third year of queen Mary, amid the blessings and lamentations of his parishioners, and with a courageous and kindly cheerfulness, which has scarcely its parallel even in those days of religious heroism. Dr. Taylor was of sufficient consequence, as an advocate of the new relig^ion, to have excited aoainst himself, without any additional or private motives, the fiercest hostility of the » See Note (A). ^ Letter from Lady "\Vray to William Todd, Esq. of Castlemartin, dated .'May 31, 1732, quoted in tlie I\LS. of ]\Ir. Tmld Jones. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 5 Romish prelates. We are told, however, that Gardiner, by whose warrant, as lord chancellor, he was first apprehended, was stimulated in this instance by feelings of" avarice, as well as bigotry ; that he was desirous of appropriating to himself the family estate at Frampton; tliat, I know not on what pretence, he succeeded in his object after Dr. Taylor's death, and that he had begun to build a mansion on the property, which, at his own decease, he left unfinished. The family of the martyr were thus reduced to poverty, from which they had the less prospect of emerging by any help or favour of government, inasmuch as, in common with many of those who had most severely felt the iron hand of the Romish hierarchy, they were suspected, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First, of an inclination to the rising sect of the Puritans. Yet their poverty cannot have been excessive, since we find Nathaniel Taylor serving as churchwarden ; an office which, in most parishes, is filled by the wealthiest and most respectable in the middle ranks of life. And it may be mentioned to their honour, that, after two generations of comparative distress, the father of Jeremy Taylor was spoken of by his son, in a letter to his old tutor, Bachcroft, as " reasonably learned," and as having himself *' solely grounded his children in grammar and the mathematics''." I have already taken notice of the unfortunate loss of the documents on which this account chiefly depends. For the fact of their having once existed, the authority of Mr. Jones is sufficient ; and though the testimony of Lady Wray is exposed to that degree of doubt which almost always attaches to family tradition, it is as satisfactory a voucher as could be looked for under similar circumstances, and more than sufficient to obtain belief for an account which, in itself, is far from improbable. That Jeremy Taylor had, indeed, some pretensions to gentle blood, may be, to a certain extent, inferred from the armorial bearings which, in an age when such distinctions were less boldly assumed than at present, and when the Heralds' College still retained some vestiges of their ancient authority, were engraved on his seal, still preserved by the Marsh family, and which ' 31 r. Jones's MS. 6 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. (with some degree of harmless ostentation) are ahnost uni- formly appended to his portraits*'. In his works nothing occurs which can either confirm or disprove the traditions of his descendants ; though he speaks of Rowland Taylor with deserved commendation in one of his polemical writings % and appeals to his authority m behalf of the Book of Common Prayer with something like a filial fondness. I am aware, indeed, that the question is, after all, of no great importance, and that the character of bishop Taylor could derive no additional lustre from a pedigree far more distinguished than that which I have assigned him. But the natural prejudices of mankind incline them to attach a certain decrree of weio-ht to the inheritance of talents and virtues ; and I was not sorry to discover, that the author of the Liberty of Prophesying was a descendant of one whose character and sufferings I had long been accustomed to contemplate with veneration. There is nothing, indeed, more beautiful in the whole beautiful Book of Martyrs, than the account which Fox has given of Rowland Taylor, whether in the discharge of his duty as a parish priest, or in the more arduous moments when he was called on to bear his cross in the cause of religion. His warmth of heart, his simplicity of manners, the total absence of the false stimulants of enthusiasm or pride, and the abundant overflow of better and holier feel- ings, are deUneated, no less than his courage in death, and the buoyant cheerfulness with which he encountered it, with a spirit only inferior to the eloquence and dignity of the Phaedon. Something, indeed, must be allowed for the manners of the age, before w^e can be reconciled to the coarse vigour of his pleasantry, his jocose menace to Bonner, and his jests with the sheriff on his own stature and corpu- lency. But nothing can be more delightfully told than his refusal to fly from the lord chancellor's oflficers ; his dignified, yet modest determination to await death in the discharge of his duty ; and his affectionate and courageous parting with his wife and children. His recollection, when led to the stake, of " the blind man and woman," his pensioners, is •I N<.te (li). ^ Pi-f'face to the Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturf^y, vdl. vii. p. 304, of this Edition. LIFE OF JEREMY JAYLOK, D.D. 7 of the same delightful character; nor has Plato any thing more touching than the lamentation of his parishioners over his dishonoured head and long white beard, and his own meek rebuke to the w retch who drew blood from that ve- nerable countenance. Let not my readers blame me for this digression. They will have cause to thank me, if it induces them to refer to a history, which few men have ever read without its making them " sadder and better ^" At three years of age, Jeremy Taylor is said to have been sent to the grammar school then recently founded in Cambridge under the will of Dr. Stephen Perse, and kept by one Lovering^. The profit, however, which he derived from Lovering's instructions cannot have been great, if, as Taylor himself wrote to the head of Caius, he was '' solely grounded in grammar and mathematics" by his father. And it is so unusual a thing in his class of life, or, indeed, in any class, to send an infant of three years old to a public grammar school, that I am tempted exceedingly to doubt a fact which rests on a single, and, as it appears in another instance, an inaccurate memorandum in the admission book of Caius. If, which is certainly not improbable, he attended Lovering's school at all, he can hardly have remained at it so long as he is there stated to have done"". When thirteen years old, on the 18th of August, 1626, he was entered at Caius College as a sizar, or poor scholar; an order of students who then were what the " servitors" still continue to be in some colleges in Oxford, and what the *' lay brethren" are in the convents of the Romish church. This was an institution which, however it may be now at variance with the feelings and manners of the world, was, in its original, very far from deserving the reprobation which has been sometimes cast on it, and owed, indeed, its begin- ning to a zeal for the education of the poor, as w^ell directed as it was humane and Christian. In the time of our ancestors, the interval between the domestics and the other members of a family was by no means so great, nor fenced with so harsh and impenetrable a barrier, as in the present days of luxury and excessive refinement. As the highest rank of subjects was elevated then at a greater height than they ' Note (r). « Bonney, Life, p. 3. '' Note (D). 8 LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOIl, D.D. now arc iibovc the most considerable private gentry, so the latter constituted a far more efficient link in the great chain of society, and a far easier gradation existed between the nobles and that class of men from whom their own domestics were taken. There was, in those days, no supposed humilia- tion in offices which are now accounted menial, but which the peer then received as a matter of course from *' the gentle- men of his household ;" and which were paid to the knight or gentleman by domestics chosen in the families of his own most respectable tenants; while, in the humbler ranks of middle life, it was the uniform and recognised duty of the wife to wait on her husband, the child on his parents, the youngest of the family on his elder brothers or sisters'. But while the subordination of service was thus perfect and universal, this very universality softened its rigours. The well-born and well-educated retainers of a noble family were admitted by its head to that confidence and familiarity which their rank and attainments justified. The servants of the manor-house were usually the humble friends of the master and mistress, whose playmates they had been during childhood, and under whose protection they hoped to grow old. We have been, most of us, impressed with the tone of equality assumed by the valets of the old French comedy; and the jovial familiarity of Furnace, Amble, and Order, in Massinger's '' New Way to pay Old Debts," is a well known, and, probably, an accurate portrait, of that species of gra- duated intercourse which once connected the aristocracy, and the throne itself, with the humblest orders of society, and in the abolition of which it may be reasonably doubted whether all parties are not rather losers than gainers. But it is evident, that, as with such habits and feelino;s the mere fact of servitude did not in itself degrade, so there was nothing to prevent well-educated youths from attending their richer neighbours in a menial capacity to Oxford or Cambridge ; while there was every possible motive of wisdom and humanity to induce the founders and governors of colleges to admit young men thus situated to a share in the instruction afforded by the place, and in the rewards which were held out to the genius or dihgence of other • Note (E). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 9 scholars. It is easy to declaim against the indecorum and illiberality of depressing the poorer students into servants ; but it would be more candid, and more consistent with truth, to say that our ancestors elevated their servants to the rank of students ; softening, as much as possible, every invidious distinction, and rendering the convenience of the wealthy a means of extending the benefits of education to those whose poverty must otherwise have shut them out from the springs of knowledge. And the very distinction of dress, which has been so often complained of, — the very nature of those duties which have been esteemed degrading, — were of use in preventing the intrusion of the higher classes into situations intended only for the benefit of the poor; while, by separating these last from the familiar society of the wealthier students, they prevented that dangerous emula- tion of expense, which has, in more modern times, almost excluded them from the university. The institution is now fading fast away ; and, even where it exists, is altered from its original character. But the difficulties are proportionably increased which oppose the rise of such men as Taylor from the lowest to the highest ranks of society ; and the want of such a frugal and humble order of students is already felt by the church of England, as it eventually may be felt by the nation at large. At the time of Taylor's entrance at college, he had already, as I have observed, been introduced by his father to an elementary knowledge of the mathematics. Then, as now, if Glanville be believed, (who, with all his voracious credulity, both Platonic, chymical, and spectral, was no inconsiderable person among the scholars and philosophers of the seventeenth century,) a knowledge of the exact sciences was that by which Cambridge was chiefly dis- tinguished, and the surest avenue through which her honours and emoluments were accessible''. But no evidence remains that Taylor pursued the mathe- matics to any considerable length, or that he made any progress in that new method of philosophising, to which the world has since been so greatly indebted. Mr. Bonney, indeed, appreliends that many of his peculiar merits as a '' M'ood's Athene Oxoiiicn&is, vol. iii. eol. 1244. Ed. Bliss. 10 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. writer may be traced to an acquaintance with Bacon's illus- trious treatise on " the Advancement of Knowledge." That he had read Bacon I can well believe ; for with what work of contemporary genius was Jeremy Taylor likely to be unacquainted ? But, though there are abundant proofs in his writings of that familiarity with the Aristotelic logic which Lloyd ascribes to him ', I have not been able to discover a single allusion to those principles which Bacon first laid down, and on which alone the discovery of any new truth is possible. The powers of Taylor's mind were not devoted to the investigation of fresh fields of science, or to enlarge the compass of the human intellect, by ascer- taining its legitimate boundaries. He was busied through life in defending truths already received, or in clearing away errors by which those ancient truths had been disfigured. His philosophy was almost entirely casuistical. They were not falsehoods, but fallacious reasonings, against which he had to contend ; and for this species of dialectic warfare his weapons were to be sought after, not in the new, but in the ancient oro-anon, and amono- the elder divines and school- men. It is no disparagement to Bacon, nor is it inconsistent with the admiration which Taylor may w^ell have felt for him, that he did not apply Bacon's discoveries to an use for which Bacon himself did not intend them. Whether he received any emolument or honorary dis- tinction from Cambrido;e, is doubtful. Rust, his friend, and, though not his contemporary, educated at the same university, asserts, that after taking his degree of bachelor of arts in the year 1630-1, he was chosen fellow of Caius College. But we learn from Mr. Bonney, that no evidence of this fact exists (where, if true, it surely must have been recorded) in the archives of the college and the university. And a further reason will be shortly given for supposing that Rust was mistaken in this particular, or that he was less anxious to discover the truth than to relate whatever reports were likely to raise the character of his hero. The period, however, was now approaching which introduced the talents and learning of Taylor to a patron well qualified to appreciate and reward them. ' Lloyd's I\It'moir!5, p. 702. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOH, U.D. 11 Shortly after his becoming master of arts, in 1633, having ah'cady been admitted into holy orders'", he was employed by one Risden, who had been, according to the academical habits of the time, his chamber-fellow, and who was now lecturer in St. Paul's cathedral, to supply his place for a short time in that pulpit, where his graceful person and elocution, together with the varied richness of his style and argument, and, perhaps, the singularity of a theological lecturer of twenty years of age, very soon obtained him friends and admirers. He was spoken of in high t^rms to Laud, who had then recently left the see of London for that of Canterbury, and who, with all his faults of temper and judgment, (exaggerated as those faults have been be- yond all bounds by the bitterness of the party whom he first persecuted, and who afterwards hunted him to death,) must ever deserve the thanks of posterity as a liberal and judicious patron of that learning and piety, which he himself possessed in no ordinary degree. He sent for Taylor to preach before him at Lambeth, commended his performance highly, and only expressed an objection to the continuance of so young a preacher in London. Taylor, with youthful vivacity, ** humbly begged his grace to pardon that fault," and promised, that, " if he lived, he would amend it"." Laud, however, as Rust informs us, *' thought it for the advantage of the w^orld that such mighty parts should be afforded better opportunities of study and improvement than a course of constant preaching would allow of; and, to that purpose, he placed him in his own college of All Souls, in Oxford." Here again the eulogium of bishop Rust may be charged with abundant inaccuracy and inconsistency. All Souls was not Laud's own college, inasmuch as he had passed his whole academical life at St. John's, the presidency of which society he relinquished when raised to the bishopric of St. David's. Nor had he any further control over, or any closer connexion with All Souls, than that which subsists betv/een every college and its visitor. The reason, too, which is given for Taylor's removal from Cambridge to "' Comber, Discourse on the Offices of Ordination, quoted by Bonney, Life, p. 6, Note. " lyloyd's Memoirs, p. 702. 12 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. another seat of learning, is plainly at variance with Rust's own previous assertion that he was already a fellow of Caius. Had this been the case. Rust, himself a Cambridge man, would hardly have denied that a residence in his own uni- versity would have afforded him sufficient " opportunities of study and improvement :" nor could Laud have reasonably expected or counselled Taylor to abandon a maintenance which he already possessed, in order to qualify himself for another situation of the same sort, and little, if at all, more lucrative. But if Taylor were then, as is most probable, a mere scholar of fortune, and unable, through poverty, to prolong his residence in his own university, it was only natural that his patron should be anxious to remove him to Oxford, where his rank as chancellor and visitor of several colleges gave him abundant opportunities of pro- viding for the object of his favour. When it was that Laud adopted this plan of befriending Taylor, or what became of the latter in the meantime it is now too late to discover. If the interview which has been related took place soon after his arrival in London, it may seem that, however anxious Laud might be to remove him from thence, a considerable time elapsed before he took any successful steps in his favour at Oxford. During this time, perhaps, it was that he pursued his studies, according to a tradition current in that neighbourhood, at Maidley Hall, near Tannvorth*". But, be this as it may, it was not till the 20th of October, 1635, that Taylor was admitted to the same rank of master of arts in University College as he had previously held at Cambridge ; and three days after that, the archbishop wrote a strong letter in his favour to the warden and fellows of All Souls. He there states, that a Mr. Osborn, one of their number, being about to " give over his fellowship," had offered him the nomination of a scholar to succeed him ; that he, " being willing to recommend such an one as they should thank him for," was " resolved to pitch on Mr. Jeremiah Taylor ;" and that he " heartily prayed them to give him all furtherance at the next election, not doubting that he would approve himself a worthy and learned member of their society." " Geutlemairs Magazine, a.d. 17^3, p. 144. LIFE OF JKRK:\rY TAYLOR, D.D. 13 What authority Mr. Osborn can liave had to dispose in tills manner of the nomination to a fellowship which he was himself about to resign, or how he could undertake to influence an election in which he was to have no voice, is not very easy to conjecture, unless we suppose him to have spoken the sentiments of some others among his brethren who may have desired to pay their visitor the unusual com- pliment of askijig his opinion in the choice of a new member of the society. The recommendation, however, forcible as it must have been, was not received with implicit deference, inasmuch as a reasonable doubt existed whether Taylor was strictly eligible. Wood, indeed, is wrong in saying that he was above the age at which he might be chosen; but the statutes are express in requiring candidates to be of three years' standing in the university, whereas ten days had, at the time of the election, barely elapsed since Taylor had been incorporated into Oxford. It is true that Laud seems to have supposed that his admission " ad eundem," as it entitled him to all the privileges of a master of arts, entitled him to whatever advantages were conferred by that standing in the university, which he must have had in order to take his degree there regularly. And a very great majority of the fellows, either convinced by this argument, or desirous of straining a point in favour of a candidate so deserving and so powerfully recommended, appear to have espoused his cause, and to have voted in the first instance for his ad- mission. Sheldon, however, the warden, (afterwards himself archbishop of Canterbury, and a munificent benefactor to the university,) less pliant, or more scrupulous, refused to concur in the election. Under these circumstances, the fellows persisting in their choice, no election at all took place, but the nomination devolved in due course to the archbishop, as visitor of the college, who thus acquired the right of appointing Taylor by his sole authority to the vacant situation, on the 14th of January, 1636. This appears to be the true statement of a transaction which W^ood has considerably misrepresented, as if Laud had, by an irregular and unwarrantable exercise of authority, intruded Taylor into a college, which was neither disposed, nor statuteably able, to receive him. It is plain, however, from documents of which Wood had no knowlcdfre, that 14 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYf.OR, D.D. (whatever may ha thought of the propriety of Osborn's conduct, or the validity of Sheldon's objection,) the arch- bishop had at least a plausible excuse for his recommenda- tion of a candidate ; and a ground, whether tenable or not, which might justify his recommendation of Taylor. It is plain that a candidate whom the fellows almost unanimously approved of was not personally disagreeable to them ; while (the fellows and warden being at variance on the interpreta- tion of a statute) the decision must naturally and legally have rested with the visitor only. The conduct of Sheldon throughout the affair appears to have been at once spirited and conscientious ; but it may have been marked by some degree of personal harshness towards Taylor, since we find that, for some years after, a coolness subsisted between them, till the generous conduct of the warden produced, as will be seen, a sincere and lasting reconciliationP. Taylor was now in possession of those advantages which his patron had esteemed so necessary for his improvement ; a dignified retirement, a decent maintenance, and a free access to books and learned conversation. And we are told by his biogi'apher how much he profited by these opportu- nities, and how much he was admired by the university for his '* excellent casuistical preaching*!." Unfortunately, how- ever, it appears by the college books, that, during the four years of his remaining a fellow, he was by no means a regular resident ; while, of his existing sermons, there are few which can be reckoned casuistical, and only one, the composition of which we have any reason to refer to the time of his Oxford studies. I have not been able to learn at what date he was made one of the archbishop's chaplains, an office which would naturally draw him a good deal away from the scene which he was so well adapted to ornament ; but he was, on the 23d of March, 1637-8, presented by Juxon, bishop of London, (probably through the interest of his steady friend, the archbishop,) to the rectory of Upping- ham, in Rutlandshire, which, though tenable with his fellow- ship, was a still better reason than his chaplaincy for making his residence in All Souls occasional only ^ I* Note (E). 1 "\Yood, iibi supra. Ivloyd, ubi supra. ' Bonney, pp. 14, I7. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 15 During this time he is said by Wood to have first become the object of a suspicion, which, however undeserved, con- tinued throuo-h life to haunt him, of a concealed attachment to the Romish communion. Such a report was almost sure to be raised at the expense of any man whom Laud esteemed and promoted. And if Taylor had already adopted his ascetic notions of piety, his profound veneration for antiquity, and his attachment to the picturesque and poetical features of religion, he would be only the more likely to incur a charge which, in a more advanced period of his life, and while contending against the errors of popery, he solemnly declared to have been always unfounded and slanderous^. And if, as Wood assures us, and as is, certainly, not improbable, he lived at this time on terms of intimate intercourse with a learned Franciscan friar, known by the name of Francis li Sancta Clara, such a friendship, however innocent and creditable to both parties, was, in those days of bitterness and jealousy, sufficient to give confirmation to any rumours of the kind which might be propagated or believed, not only by the puritans, but by the same party among the papists who tempted Laud with a cardinal's hat, and who seem to have flattered themselves that all the more learned and moderate protestants of the age were secretly '* tending towards Latium." This Franciscan, whose real name was Christopher Da- venport, but who was also known by the name of Hunt, was, in his time, an extraordinary person. He was born of protestant parents, and, with his brother John, entered at an early age, in the year 1613, as battler, or pooi' scholar, of Merton College. The brothers, as they grew up, fell into almost opposite religious opinions. John became first a violent puritan, and, at length, an independent. Chris- topher, two years after his entrance at Merton, being then only seventeen years old, fled to Douay with a Romish priest, and took the vows of Francis of Assisi. He rambled for some years through the universities of the Low Countries and Spain ; became reader of divinity at Douay, and ob- tained the degree of doctor. At length he appeared as a missionary in England, where he was appointed one of '^ First Letter to one tempted to the Romish Church, vol. xi. p. 2n. 16 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. queen Henrietta's chaplains, and, during more than fifty years, secretly laboured in the cause of liis religion. An intimacy with him was one of the charges brought against Laud on his trial ; when it appeared that, in fact, he had been introduced to the archbishop by his chaplain. Dr. Augustine Lindsell, as a person engaged in a work on the Operation of God's Grace, and a Defence of Episcopacy*. Laud seems to have, paid him but little attention ; but Wood informs us that he was much esteemed *' by many great and worthy persons ;" and he appears to have been a man of sufficient learning and moderation to have given alarm to many of the bigots of his own persuasion, and of sufficient zeal and talent to have served the interests of that per- suasion in the most effectual manner. His works, of which a long list is given by Wood, are marked, on the whole, with a conciliatory spirit ; and he met with so much of the usual fortune of conciliators, as to have his book, entitled '* Deus, Natura, Gratia," put into the Index Expurgationis in Spain, and all but committed publicly to the flames in Italy. His merits, however, towards his own church, were at length acknowledged, by his being made principal chaplain to the queen of Charles the Second, and chosen, for many years in succession, provincial of his own order in England. His conversation is described by Wood as free and lively ; and he found many friends, and a frequent asylum, at Oxford, where it was his desire to be buried in the church of St. Ebba, formerly belonging to the Franciscans. He was, however, interred in London, where he died, at a great age, in 1680". The friendship of such a man as this could not disgrace Taylor ; but when Davenport, as Wood assures us, ascribed to Taylor a regularly formed resolution of being reconciled to the church of Rome, which only failed through the in- dignation of their party at certain expressions in a sermon preached by him on the fifth of November, 1638, it is most reasonable, as well as most charitable, to impute the assertion to a failure of memory, not unnatural to one so far advanced in years as he must have been when Wood conversed with him. * Note (G). " Wood, Athen. Oxon. vol. iii. col. 1223. Church History of England, Vol. iii. p. 103. Brussels, 1744. LTFK OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 17 Thus he tells us, that Taylor being appointed to preach before the university on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Treason, the then vice-chancellor insisted on his inserting many things so offensive to the Roman Catholics, that his friendship was afterwards rejected by them with scorn, not- withstanding his expressions of regret and penitence for the sentiments which he had been constrained to utter''. If, however, as Mr» Bonney well observes, *' the vice- chancellor had done what was reported, he must have com- pletely remodelled the whole discourse ;" which, instead of bearing any marks of such interpolation, is nothing else, from beginning to end, but a connected and consistent chain of argument against the principles of the Roman Catholics, as what must, in their nature, conduct to such effects as the conspiracy of Digby and his associates. Of invective (which a violent person, or one who desired the preacher to sacrifice to the angry feelings of the time, was most likely to intro- duce into the discourse of another,) there is absolutely no appearance. And as Taylor was not a likely man to com- promise his high reputation, or his rank in the university and in the church, by adopting, against his own opinion, the sentiments or language of another ; so, what he had once said and published, he was still less likely to retract in the manner which Wood, on the authority of Davenport, imputes to him. I may add, that there is little in the sermon itself which could have shocked or surprised the Roman Catholics, as proceeding from a professed member of the Protestant church, and master of arts in an English university. Nor is it likely that they, who were not deterred by Laud's con- troversy with Fisher from expecting the conversion of that prelate, or from persecuting him through life with their fatal friendship, would, on so-'much slighter an offence, have given up whatever hold of intimacy or influence they had acquired over such a mind as that of Jeremy Taylor. It has been said that he was appointed to preach the sermon in question by his patron, the archbishop. If this were true, it would be still more improbable that, thus appointed, he would submit his composition to the censure of the vice-chancellor. But of this designation there is, in " \V(M'(1, ul)i suiira. C 18 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. trutli, no appearance. The appointment of preachers on such occasions is usually exercised by the vice-chancellor, not the chancellor himself; and the author, in his dedi- cation to Laud, plainly gives us to understand, that " the superior," in obedience to whose commands he embarked in the work, was not the same with him to whom he inscribed it when published. " It pleased some," he says, *' who had the power to command me, to wish me to the publication of these my short and sudden meditations, that, if it were possible, even this way I might express my duty to God and the king. Being thus far encouraged, I resolved to go somewhat further, even to the boldness of a dedication to your grace, that, since I had no merit of my own to move me to the confidence of a public view, yet I might dare to venture under the protection of your grace's favour." And he goes on to allege several different reasons for the pro- priety of inscribing such a work to the archbishop, without once mentioning (what, if it were true, would have been the best reason of all,) that it was by Laud's own command that he had undertaken the discussion of the subject. Of this earliest production of Taylor's genius, the defects and merits may be the subject of future investigation. I will here merely observe, that the former are those of the time at which he lived, and are, themselves, chiefly defects as being- out of their place, and as less proper for a solemn discourse than a popular harangue or a polemical pamphlet. The latter are almost exclusively his own ; and if we have less of that splendid strain of eloquence which, in his later works, has left him without a rival, it will not be denied that in his earliest sermons are many blossoms of genuine power and beauty, which continued meditation and longer practice might be reasonably expected to ripen into fruits worthy of Paradise. Ascetic as Taylor was in many of his opinions, celibacy appears to have formed no part of his plan of life ; nor does he seem to have attached so much value to the learned leisure of an university, as to have been inclined to linger there after a new and important scene of action and duty was elsewhere opened to him. I have already observed, that, from the date of his institution to Uppingham, he was but little resident in All Souls; and he now, at an earlier LIFE OF JEREIMY TAYLOR, D.D. 19 age than is usual with literary men, took a step which was to separate him IVom his fellowship entirely. On the 27th of May, 1639, being tlicn in tlie twenty- sixth year of his age, he married, at Uppingham, PhccJbe Landisdale, or Langsdale, of whose family little else is known than that her brother was a physician, established first at Gainsborough, and afterwards at Leeds, where he was buried January the 7tli, 1683 y. Of Phoebe's mother, though not of her father, mention is made in one of Ta^dor's letters ; and from this circumstance, as well as the daughter's being married at Uppingham, it is probable that she was a w-idow residing in that parish. By Phoebe Langsdale, Taylor had three sons, one of whom, William, (so named, in all probability, after his great patron. Laud), was buried at Uppingham on the 28th of May, 1642; nor did the mother long survive her infant^. The other boys grew up to manhood, and their melancholy deaths were among the last and most grievous trials of Taylor's eventful pilgrimage. This year, 1642, was marked, however, by many public as well as private sorrows ; and, in the great struggle which w^as now^ begun, he ably and courageously contended on the side both of episcopacy and monarchy. He appears to have been among the first to join the king at Oxford, where, shortly after, he published, '' by his Majesty's command," his treatise of " Episcopacy asserted against the Acephali and Aerians, new and old ;" " encouraged," as Heylin tells us, *' by many petitions" to the same effect ** to his majesty and both houses of parliament ^." But though it was natural that the outrageous proceedings of the presbyterian party should have produced a considerable revulsion in the national feeling, and though the work itself is well adapted to profit by and strengthen such a disposition, it is probable that men's minds, were by this time, too generally made up to leave them inclination or leisure for the study of contro- versy ; and the fact that the treatise remained without an attempt at reply from the other party, is a probable argu- ment that it was less read than it well deserved to be. To such rewards, however, as the king and church had > Bonney's MS. Note. ' Jones's MS. Boiuicy, p. 18. ^ Heylin's Life of I/aud, p. 4<^5 20 MFK OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. to bestow, Taylor had no common pretensions ; and we find him admitted, on the first of Ts^ovembcr in the same year, with many other eminent loyahsts, by the royal mandate, to the degree of doctor of divinity. The distinction, however, was considerably lessened by the indiscriminate manner in which similar honours were then bestowed ; inasmuch as the unfortunate monarch, having few other v/ays in his power of rewarding the services of his adherents, created, about the same time, his doctors and masters of arts with so much profusion, as to call forth a remonstrance from the heads of houses against a practice w^hich threatened to de- stroy the discipline, the dignity, and even the revenues of the university^. The Presbyterians had more power to hurt than Charles to reward : and it was, probably, about this time that the rectory of Uppingham was sequestered ; a fact which is certain from the joint authority of Walker and Lloyd, no less than from all which is known of Taylor's subsequent poverty. The date of his deprivation, however, or the name of his intrusive successor, I am not able to supply. Neither Walker, Calamy, nor Clarke, throw any light on the subject ; and though the bishop of Peterborough has, with much kindness, examined for me the register's office of that diocese, no information appears there, or in the parish books of Uppingham, which can add any thing to the facts already collected by Mr. Bonney. Of course, neither Taylor, nor any of the deprived clergy, relinquished their claim to the livings of which they were despoiled ; but as their places were, in every instance, filled up without loss of time by the ruling party, it is something remarkable that no record remains of the institution of the intruder, his incumbency, or his ex- pulsion on the return of monarchy and episcopacy. The name of Daniel Swift only once occurs (on the 20th of April, 1652) as choosing a churchwarden, and signing him- self '* Pastor de Uppingham ;" and there is not the smallest appearance, during the following years of Taylor's life, that he received any part of that pittance w^hich the clergy, presented to livings by the parliamentary commissioners, were enjoined to pay to their expelled predecessors'^. ^ Note (H) = Bonney, p, 31, Note. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 21 He had obtained, however, a wealthy and powerful patron in Christopher Hatton, Esq., afterwards lord liatton of Kirby, who had been his neighbour at Uppingham, and to whom his Defence of Episcopacy, as well as many other of his earlier works, are dedicated; '* a person," Clarendon tells us, " who, when he was appointed controller of the king's household, possessed a great reputation, which, in a few years, he found a way to diminish"^." It is always difficult to determine the real character of a public man, between the widely varying statements of his friends on one side, and his enemies or rivals on the other. The same lord Hervey who was the Sporus of Pope's tre- mendous satire, is extolled by Middleton, in all the exube- rance of elegant flattery, as the last of the Romans, the bravest, the best, and most eloquent of mankind. Nor is it easy to find a more splendid character in history, than is ascribed by the hope or gratitude of Taylor to the nobleman of whom the historian speaks thus slightingly. It was not, indeed, till the present age that men of letters appear to have completely broken through that debasing custom, which made excessive eulogium and affected humility essentials in the addresses of authors to the great and wealthy. Yet Hatton cannot have been destitute of learning or of talents, since in him Taylor found opinions congenial to his own on the subject of toleration, and since it was at his suggestion, and with his assistance, that Dugdale undertook his Monas- ticon^ Of Taylor's history, during the remainder of the civil war, we are very imperfectly informed. Wood speaks of him as a frequent preacher before the court at Oxford, and as following the royal army in the capacity of chaplain, till, on the decline of the king's cause, he sought an asylum in Carmarthenshire. The following letter, however, represents him, at the close of the year 1643, living, for a time at least, with his mother-in-law and children, and oppressed, as should seem from some of his expressions, by those pecu- niary difficulties which, during by far the greater part of his life, continued to pursue and harass him. The silence observed respecting his wife confirms lady Wray's statement, •^ Clarendon, HisU Rebell. vol. ii. 150. Oxon. " Note (I). 22 LIFE OF JERE:\IY TAYLOR, D.D. that he had buried her before he quitted Uppingham. For the rest, it serves to show how constantly his attention was directed to the spiritual welfare and improvement of those with whom he was connected. The original letter is in the British Museum. — " Deare Brother, — Thy letter was most welcome to me, bringincr the happy news of thy recovery. I had notice of thy danger, but watched for this happy relation, and had layd wayte with Royston to enquire of Mr. Rumbould. I hope I shall not neede to bid thee be carefull for the per- fecting thy health, and to be fearful of a relapse. Though I am very much, yet thou thyself art more concerned in it. But this I will remind thee of, that thou be infinitely [careful] to perform to God those holy promises which I suppose thou didst make in thy sicknesse ; and remember what thoughts thou hadst then, and beare them along upon thy spirit all thy life-time. For that which was true then is so still, and the world is really as vain a thing as thou didst then suppose it. I durst not tell thy mother of thy danger (though I heard of it,) till, at the same time, I told her of thy recovery. Poore woman ! she was troubled and pleased at the same time, but your letter did determine her. I take it kindly that thou hast writt to Bowman. If I had been in condition you should not have beene troubled with it; but, as it is, both thou and I must be content. Thy mother sends her blessing to thee and her little Mally. So doe I, and my prayers to God for you both. Your little cozens are your servants ; and I am *' Thy most affectionate and endeared Brother, " November 24, 1G43." " JER. TAYLOR.*' " To my very dear Brother, D. Langsdale, at his Apothecary's House in Gainsborough." This letter is without any mention of the place whence it was written ; but the notice which occurs of Royston, who was a bookseller and printer in Ivy Lane, and who published most of Taylor's later works, would naturally lead us to suspect that its writer was then in London. This is, how- ever, altogether at variance with Wood's statement, unless LIFE OF JEREMY TAVJ-OH, D.D. 23 we suppose that, for some reason which cannot now be discovered, he discontinued his attendance on the royal person at a far earHer period than " the dechne of the royal cause." Next year, however, we find him in Wales, and again attached to a portion of the army, since Whitelock mentions a Dr. Taylor (and Jeremy Taylor is the only person of that name and degree whom I have been able to discover among the royalists) as a conspicuous prisoner, (the only one, indeed, whose name he notices,) in the victory gained by the parliamentary troops over colonel Charles Gerard, before tlie castle of Cardigan, on the 4th of February, 1644^ And I am inclined to suspect, that the cause which drew him away from the royal army was love ; that he had formed an attachment to the lady who afterwards became his second wife, during the first visit of king Charles to Wales ; and that he married her, and retired to her property, soon after the date of his letter to Dr. Lanosdale, thouo-h the evils of w^ar, extending themselves into the most remote and peaceful districts, again, in a very short space of time, involved him in their vortex. Something of this kind is plainly intimated in the dedication to his Liberty of Pro- phesying; and the passage itself is worth transcribing, not only for the spirit of poetry which it breathes, but as giving us almost all the information which remains as to the troubles of Jeremy Taylor. In it, he tells his patron, lord Hatton, that, '' in the great storm which dashed the vessel of the church all in pieces, he had been cast on the coast of Wales ; and, in a little boat, thought to have enjoyed that rest and quietness which, in England, in a far greater, he could not hope for. Here," he continues, '' I cast anchor ; and, thinking to ride safely, the storm followed me with so impetuous violence, that it broke a cable, and I lost my anchor. And here again I was exposed to the mercy of the sea, and the gentleness of an element that could neither distinguish things nor persons. And but that He who stilleth the raging of the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the madness of his people, had provided a plank for me, I had been lost to all the opportunities of ^ Wliitelock, Memor. ]>. i:>(). For my kjiowltNUi^i! o!' this rtirious jtat.s.it^r am indebted to a MS. Note of 3Ir. Jjoniiev. 24 .IFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. content or study. But I know not whether I have been more preserved by the courtesies of my friends, or the gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy. 'O/ yao (Sd^QuPOi 'nuouyj))/ oj Tr^v r'jy^rZGav (piXav^^carriav r,[x7v' dva-^ccvng ydg r:\igdv, rr^off£XdQo)/ro 11 A NT A 2 HMAS, d/d rov vsrov rov l(pi6T0jTa, xa» did TO -^'oyjizy Th^at a voluntary retreat from the more busy scenes of war and politics ; that a subsequent exposure to the same interruptions, w ith more than their usual share of attendant misfortune ; that the help of friends, and the forbearance of enemies, are here spoken of, is sufficiently evident. But the Greek quotation from the Acts of the Apostles (for which, by the way, those generous enemies w^hom he praises, had they understood it, would have scarcely thanked him), implies, at least, that he had many fellow-sufferers in that particular danger to which he alludes. Nor can I find any defeat of the loyalists in the neighbourhood of his Welch retirement which so well tallies with these different circum- stances, as that w^hich Whitelock has recorded. The Liberty of Prophesying was, indeed, not published till 1647 ; but, for the probable duration of his imprisonment, the time necessary to collect his books, and, in the midst of those avocations on which his livelihood depended, to prepare for the press such an essay as that to which he chiefly owes his fame, w^ould account for a far longer interval between his becoming a prisoner and the date of that work, than the hypothesis on which I have ventured supposes. Nor can I consider it as inconsistent with this opinion, that, during this same year, 1644, there appeared at Oxford his edition of the Psalter, with Collects affixed to each Psalm ; and that a Defence of the Liturgy, which he after- wards improved into a larger works, was also published, and honoured by the approbation of king Charles. On the contrary, the supposition of his being, at this time, in the enemy's hands, will account for that which is otherwise not easy to explain, why, contrary to his usual practice, the latter of these came out anonymously, and the former under the name of Hatton. Jf this last measure were intended to « See Dedication to an Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy, vol. vii. ]). cclxxix. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 25 gratify his patron's vanity, it would be a trick discreditable to both sides ; though to Taylor, in his deep poverty and burthened with a family, much might be forgiven. But, while yet a prisoner, there might be some reason for his abstaining from publishing any thing in his own name, though even this would hardly justify Hatton in appro- priating to himself the work of another''. How long Taylor remained a prisoner, and on what terms, and by whose interest he was released, there are now small hopes of discovering. I would gladly have recorded, with some degree of certainty, the names of those generous enemies from whom he received so much unexpected kind- ness. All which is known on this subject is, that colonel Laugharn, governor of Pembroke Castle, was the chief parliamentary officer about this time in South Wales ; and that colonel Broughton, colonel Stephens, Mr. Catching of Trelleck, and Mr. Jones of Uske, are named by Rushworth as the committee for that district. It is to these gentlemen, therefore, or to some among them, that the Christian world is indebted for their humanity to one of its brightest orna- ments. Such instances of individual gentleness and forbear- ance occur like bright and insulated spots in the gloomy annals of most civil wars ; but an Englishman may recollect with gratitude, and some degree of honest pride in his own nation and ancestors, that more such are, perhaps, to be found in the records of our own troubles than in those of any other contest of equal length, and embittered by so many different circumstances of religious and popular hatred. When Taylor was once in Wales, it was not likely he would rejoin the royal army, even supposing him released from his confinement or his parole, before the success of that army became desperate by the secession of the king, and his surrender of himself to the Scottish forces. I am not, how- ever, of opinion, that he had now taken a last leave of his unfortunate master. In August, 1647, the chaplains of the imprisoned monarch were again allowed, for a time, free access to him ; and it appears, that, at a late period of Charles's misfortunes, Taylor had an interview with him, and received from him, in token of his regard, his watch, * Note (J). 26 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR,, D.D. and a few jDearls and rubies which had ornamented the ebony case in which he kept his Bible'. Being now deprived of all church preferment, he sup- ported himself by keeping a school, which he carried on in partnership with William Nicholson, afterwards bishop of Gloucester, and William Wyat, who subsequently obtained the rank of prebendary of Lincoln. Their success, con- sidering their remote situation and the distresses of the times, appears to have been not inconsiderable. Newton Hall, a house in the parish of Lanfihangel, which they jointly rented, is dignified by Wyat, in his Latin epistle to lord Hatton, which will be shortly noticed, with the title of " Collegium Newtoniense :" and Wood tells us of '* several youths most loyally educated there, and afterwards sent to the universities." Of their scholars, however, none are now remembered but Judge Powell, who bore a distinguished part on the trial of the seven bishops ; Richard Peers, an Irishman of mean extraction, but who is mentioned by Wood among the list of Oxford writers ; and a certain Griffin Lloyd, Esq. of Cvnngwilly, who has thought it worth while, as Judge Powell has also done, to record on his tomb that he was educated under Taylor and Nicholson*". Nor have I been able to ascertain how long their partnership continued, though it certainly was dissolved long before the restoration of the royal family, and even before Taylor's departure from Wales. Of this establishment, accordingly, the most remarkable fruit with which we are acquainted, is " A New and Easy Institution of Grammar," which appeared in 1647 ; to which are prefixed two epistles dedicatory, the one by Wyat, in Latin, which has been already noticed as addressed to lord Hatton ; the other in English, by Taylor himself, to Chris- topher Hatton, his patron's eldest son, then a youth of fifteen, afterwards raised by Charles the Second to the dignity of a viscount, and made governor of Guernsey. This address is in the usual style of his writings, devout, affectionate, and eloquent. The work which it introduces (though pompously panegyrized in a copy of Latin verses ' JMr. Jones's M8. iMr. Bonncy's do. ^ Note (K). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 27 by a certain F. Gregory, who appears to have been an under-master at Westminster), was, probably, tlic work of Wyat rather than of Taylor, and, though well adapted to its purpose, is not of a nature to add materially to the reputation of either. It was followed, shortly after, by the most curious, and, perhaps, the ablest of all his compositions, — his admirable " Liberty of Prophesying ;" composed, as he tells his patron, lord Hatton, in the epistle dedicatory, under a host of grievous disadvantages ; in adversity and want ; without books or leisure ; and with no other resources than those which were supplied by a long familiarity with the sacred volume, and a powerful mind, imbued with all the learning of past ages. Of the work thus produced, an account will be given hereafter. Of its importance and value at the time of its first appearance, some opinion may be formed by recollecting that it is the first attempt on record to conciliate the minds of Christians to the reception of a doctrine which, though now the rule of action professed by all Christian sects, was then, by every sect alike, regarded as a perilous and por- tentous novelty. There is abundant proof, indeed, in the history of the times in which Taylor lived, and of those which immediately preceded him, that (much as every rehgious party, in its turn, had suffered from persecution, and loudly and bitterly as each had, in its own particular instance, complained of the severities exercised against its members,) no party had yet been found to perceive the great wickedness of perse- cution in the abstract, or the moral unfitness of temporal punishment as an engine of religious controversy. Even the sects who were themselves under oppression exclaimed against their rulers, not as being persecutors at all, but as persecuting those who professed the truth; and each sect, as it obtained the power to wield the secular weapon, esteemed it also a duty, as well as a privilege, not to bear the sword in vain. Under such circumstances, it was absolutely necessary for Taylor to guard against misrepresentation or miscon- <:eption ; to admit, as he has done in his epistle to lord Hatton, repeatedly and expressly, the expedience of sup- 28 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. pressing, even by force, sucli religious opinions (if any sucli there were) as taught sedition or immorahty, and to prove that the exclusion of the secular weapon from our Christian warfare was not inconsistent with the employment of all peaceable and charitable means of refuting error, and of bringing back, by fair argument and good example, to the sheepfold of our Divine Master, our deceived or deceiving brethren. But, notwithstanding this eloquent apology, the Liberty of Prophesying inculcated a doctrine too entirely at variance with the practice and prejudices of Taylor's age, to escape the animadversions of his contemporaries. A copy of the first edition, which now lies before me, has its margin almost covered with manuscript notes, expressive of doubt or disap- probation ; and the commentator, whoever he was, has sub- joined at the end of the volume " Taceo metu," and " Vobis dico non omnibus." His arguments, more particularly, in behalf of the Anabaptists, were regarded as too strenuous and unqualified ; and the opinions of the author himself having consequently fallen into suspicion, he, in a subse- quent edition, added a powerful and satisfactory explanation of his previous language, and an answer to the considera- tions which he had himself advanced in apology for the opinions of those sectaries. That Taylor was most sincere in his belief of the pro- priety and efficacy of infant baptism, he has shown in the sixth and seventh discourses of his '' Great Exemplar," which he, in the first instance, published separately, in the year 1655, as a corrective to the mischief which he was supposed to have done by his previous admissions ; accom- panied by a preface, in which he refers the reader, for fuller satisfaction, to the labours of his friend. Dr. Hammond, on the same subject. Hammond, indeed, had himself, though with much cour- tesy and kindness of expression, undertaken to answer the precise arguments employed by Taylor, in his ** Letter of Resolution to six Queres of present use with the Church of England." He there, under the head of the Baptizing of Infants, describes the collection of Presumptions against Pseudo-baptism contained in the Liberty of Prophesying, as *' the most diligent he had met with," and as " so impar- LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 29 tially enforcing the arguments of his adversaries, that he knew not where to furnish liimself with so exact a scheme, and that therefore, on that one account, he should choose to follow the path which his friend had traced before him'." Hammond and Taylor well knew each other's worth. They were, for a few years at least, fellow-students. They together, in the worst of times, obtained, by unshaken loyalty and piety unim peached, the respect of their political and religious opponents ; and they were so perfectly trusted by the loyalists, that they were made the joint channels for dispensing those contributions which were privately raised, to a large amount, for the persecuted clergy of the church of England "". How well Hammond, in his controversy with Tombes, as well as in the work already noticed, performed his part as advocate for Psedo-baptism, it is unnecessary here to notice. Of Taylor's exertions in the same good cause, I can give no better proof than the weight which is ascribed to his testi- mony by a writer who has discussed those unfortunate con- troversies which have recently arisen on baptismal regenera- tion, with a wisdom, a discrimination, and a conciliatory temper, which can hardly be surpassed, and which have been too little imitated". Of those who, in Taylor's own day, attacked the leading principle on which the Liberty of Prophesying was founded, the most considerable, and the only one whose name has descended to the present times, though rather as the mark of one of Milton's satirical arrows, than for any of those particulars which excited the respect and deference of his Calvinistic contemporaries, was Samuel Rutherford, professor of divinity in the university of St. Andrew's. He produced, in 1649, *' A Free Disputation against pretended Liberty of Conscience," which Taylor never noticed so far as to answer, but which appears to have been one, at least, of the causes which led Milton, who is said to have always admired Taylor, and whose zeal for toleration was as unlimited and ' Hammond's A\^)rks, vol. i. p. 45L '" Life of Hammond. "Wordsworth's Eccles. Biograpliy, vol. v. pp. .37«j, 376, and Note. " Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 4Ul. 30 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. as consistent as Taylor's was, to insert the name of Ruther- ford in the contemptuous diatribe to which I liave alkided ". An attack of a different kind has, in later times, been made on the Liberty of Prophesying, arraigning not the principles of the work, but the motives and sincerity of the author in maintaining them. He has been represented as arguing, not from his own personal conviction, but as an advocate, and to serve the temporary ends of his party; since, though a churchman, he was a dissenter when the Liberty of Prophesying was written. ** He was then," pro- ceeds the writer from whose work this charge is taken, " pleading for toleration to episcopacy. He must either have written what he did not himself fully believe, or, in a few years, his opinion must have undergone a wonderful change. With the return of monarchy, Taylor emerged from obscurity; wrote no more * on the Liberty of Pro- phesying ;' and was a rmmher of the privi/ council of Charles the Second, from which all the persecuting edicts against the poor non-conformists proceeded. It deserves to be view^ed, therefore, as the special pleading of a party counsellor, or the production of Jeremy Taylor, deprived of his benefice and the privileges of his profession, imploring relief; of which bishop Taylor, enlightened by the elevation of his episcopate, and enjoying, with the party, security and abundance, became ashamed, and, in his own conduct, published the most effectual recantation of his former opi- nions or sincerity i'." And, on this supposed tergiversation of Taylor, the writer proceeds to ground the sweeping censure, that " it is vain to look for liberality or forbearance from the members of an establishment." With the logical accuracy of the vulgar maxim, *' ex uno disce omnes;" or with the degree of Christian candour which the above application of it exhibits, I have, at present, no concern; though it is possible that Mr. Orme w^ould be displeased, and I am sure he would have sufficient right to be so, if I had reasoned, like him, from the faults or incon- sistency of any single individual, to the prejudice of all the other members of the Independent persuasion. But I am " Note (L). 1' Orme's Life of Owen, London, 1820, p. 102. LIFE OF JERE:\IV TAYLOR, D.D. 31 only concerned with his charges against Jeremy Taylor; and am anxious, therefore, to inform him — what he might have easily learned for himself, and what it was his duty to have inquired into, before he brought such a charge as persecution against the fair fame of any man, — that though bishop Taylor was a nominal member of the Irish privy council, there is no reason whatever to suppose that he took a part in the measures of any administration; that the administration of Ireland did not, in fact, during the reign of Charles the Second, persecute the dissenters ; that Taylor had not even an opportunity of concurring in the severe measures of the English government; and that no action of his life is known which can justly expose him to the suspicion of having been a persecutor himself, or having approved of persecution in others. That he did not write lun/ more about Liberty of Frophesijiug, while his former work was in every body's hands, and while its principles remained unanswered, is no very serious charge against a man whose time was, in many other ways, abundantly occu- pied. But, that he was not ashamed of his former treatise on this subject, is apparent from the fact, that it appears in a prominent situation in the successive editions of his controversial tracts, of which one, the second, was published when he was actually bishop, and amid the recent triumph of his party. Nor, though there are, unquestionably, some passages in the Liberty of Prophesying where Taylor speaks, rather as urging what may be said in behalf of the more obnoxious creeds, than as expressing his own opinion, can I conceive that an intelligent and candid reader will find any difficulty in distinguishing between such passages and those where he pleads (with every appearance of the deepest and most conscientious conviction) the common cause of all Christian sects under persecution. That, in so doing, he might be animated with the greater zeal by the circumstance that his own sect was thus unhappily situated, I am neither obliged nor inclined to deny. Nor do I conceive that this circumstance alone would lead a candid mind to susj)ect his sincere belief of those general principles on which he pro- ceeds ; or his anxiety, that not the church of England alone, but all other Christian communions, should be partakers in the benefit of his arguments. Had it been otherwise, indeed. 32 LIFE OF JEREMV TAVLOR, D.D. he would rather, as an artful advocate, have applied himself to the palliation of the particular differences existing be- tween the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, than have offended the prejudices of these last, in the pride of their new-blown success, by advancing principles which they were so little prepared to receive, and encumbering his cause with the patronage of those sects who were the objects of still greater abhorrence and alarm than his own persecuted communion. The truth is, however, that, if we consider the moment at which the Liberty of Prophesying appeared, and consider also, not only the spirit of mutual concession which it breathes, but the principles on which it rests, and the natural consequences which flow from them, we shall perceive that the Presbyterians were not the only party for whose instruc- tion it was designed, and that its object was to induce not only an abatement of the claims which they were then urging on the king, but a disposition on the king's part, and on the part of his advisers among the episcopal clergy, to concede somewhat more to those demands than their principles had as yet permitted them. The circumstances of the times, in 1647, were such, indeed, as to offer a greater probability than at any former period of the war, that moderate counsels would prevail, and that an arrangement of mutual toleration might be adopted, which would preserve the kingly govern- ment, and heal, in a certain degree, the religious feuds of the nation. King Charles was removed from the custody of the parliamentaiy commissioners to what were supposed the more indulgent hands of Cromwell and the army. His person was treated with far greater respect than formerly. His chaplains were allowed to officiate in his presence according to the English Service Book ; and all parties were so situated, that it seemed the interest of all to court him. The parlia- ment and the army were at open variance ; and the two prevaihng sects, the Presbyterians and Independents, were scarcely less incensed with each other than with the episcopal clergy. Even these last were not yet universally ejected from their benefices ; and the force of private character, the fame of extensive learning, and, perhaps, the ties of blood and friendship, were of sufficient weight, till this year, to protect Hall in his episcopal palace at Norv/ich, and Sander- LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOH, D.D 33 son and Hammond in their public situations at Oxford'^. All which seemed wanting to an accommt)dation, was to convince the several parties that the points in question were those on which they might conscientiously give way to the opinions or prejudices of their brethren ; and that, so far from being bound to destroy each other's persons, they might meet in the same places of worship, and conform to that government, and those rites (whichever of the contend- ing parties should be most favoured in them,) which might be agreed on by the king and parliament. That this was Taylor's own opinion, and that he desired his arguments to take effect on all the different parties of the nation, is apparent, I think, from the fact of his having dedicated this work to so strenuous a high churchman as Hatton, as well as from the anxiety whicii he expresses, not only that persecution for religious opinions might cease, but that contention about them might be suspended ; that the churches of Christ should be distinguished by no other names than those of the nations in which they were esta- blished ; and that each church might receive to its bosom men of various opinions, even as that heaven of which the Christian church ought to be the living image. And it is evident, that, if his arguments had produced their due effect on both sides, the main obstacle would have been removed to a treaty between the king and his people ; a grievous dissension healed in the churches ; and not only the Epis- copalians relieved from their immediate oppressions, but the opposite party preserved from those severities w^hich, on the restoration of kingly power, were most unwisely exercised against them. Meanwhile (and the observation will be found of some importance to justify Taylor's consistency,) it plainly followed from his principles, that, in points of themselves indifferent, (even granting that it might be tyranny to impose a rule,) it was causeless rebellion to resist a rule already imposed ; and it followed also, (which was still more important under the peculiar circumstances of the times,) that concession and moderation were to be •1 Hume, chap. lix. and Note (C). Bisliop Hall, Hard Measure. M^'ords- worth's Bi()^ai)hy, vol. v. p. 316, et seq. Ibid. p]). 3G3, 439. 34 LIFE or JEREMY TAYLOR, D.I), expected at least .as much from those who desired a change, as from those who were content with the forms and institu- tions of their ancestors. Of Taylor's domestic concerns during this interval we know very little. I have already expressed my suspicions that a second marriage was the cause of his withdrawing from the king's service ; and it is certain that this event must have taken place before the period of which I am writing, since, of his three daughters, the youngest was married (as appears by the settlement) in 1668. This second wife was a Mrs. Joanna Bridges, who was possessed of a competent estate at Mandinam, in the parish of Llanguedor, and county of Carmarthen. Her mother's family is unknown ; but she was generally believed to be a natural daughter of Charles the First, when Prince of Wales, and under the guidance of the dissipated and licen- tious Buckingham. That the martyr's habits of life, at that time, were extremely different from those which enabled him, after a twenty years' marriage, to exult, while approach- ing the scaffold, that, during all that time, he had never, even in thought, swerved from the fidelity which he owed to his beloved Henrietta Maria, there is abundant reason to believe ; nor are the facts, by any means, incompatible. The former, indeed, rests chiefly on the authority of Mr. Jones's papers ; but the circumstances which he mentions are in part corroborated by the marriage settlement of bishop Taylor's third daughter, now lying before me, in which Joanna Taylor the elder, described as his widow and executrix, settles on her daughter the reversion of the Mandinam property ; while the existence of such a property and mansion is confirmed to me by the testimony of my kind and amiable friend, archdeacon Beynon. I regret to state, however, that, from the mutilated condition of the parish register at Llanguedor, and from the present circum- stances of the Mandinam property, his exertions have failed to procure me any further information as to Joanna Bridges, or her maternal ancestors. She is said, in lady Wray's letter, to have been brought up in much privacy by some relations in Glamorganshire ; to have possessed a very fine person, (of which, indeed, her portrait, yet preserved by the IJFE OF JERKMV TAYLOR, D.D. Sb family, is a sufficient evidence) ; and, botli in countenance and disposition, to Iiave displayed a striking resemblance to her unfortunate father. But, notwithstanding the splendour of such an alliance, there is no reason to believe that it added materially to Taylor's income. We have seen him, after his first im- prisonment, compelled to keep school for his subsistence. From the manner in which, when writing both to Evelyn and Hatton, he speaks of his " shipwreck," it is probable that he was not released from the consequences of his enterprise at Cardigan without a heavy amercement of his wife's estate ; and, as his school seems to have been broken up by his repeated imprisonments, his chief support must have been his literary labours, and the kindness of his numerous friends. Of these, the most eminent in rank was Richard Vauohan, earl of Carbery, whose seat at Golden Grove was in the same parish where Taylor's lot was thrown, and whose bounty and hospitality, during several years, appear to have been his chief dependence and comfort. Though now chieflv remembered as Taylor's patron, Vaughan was a man of abilities, and, in his day, of high reputation. He had served with distinction in the Irish wars, for his conduct in which he had received the Order of the Bath : he had been the principal military commander on the king's side in South Wales'" ; and he received, after the Restoration, the English title of lord Vaughan of Emlyn, together with the appoint- ment of lord president of Wales and privy counsellor. His character seems to have been mild and moderate; and though a loyalist, he had many friends among the opposite party. In consequence, after the fatal battle of Marston Moor, he was easily admitted to compound for his estates by the parliamentary commissioners ; and was thus in a situation which enabled him to befriend more effectually such persons of his side as had been less favourably dealt with. He married twice. The first wife was Frances, daughter of Sir John Altham of Orbey, a woman of whom Taylor has drawn, in her funeral sermon, a picture which, making all allowance for the occasion on which it was ' Rushworth, ul)i supra, p. 30r>. 36;; LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. preached, and the gratitude of the preacher, belongs rather to an angeUc than a human character. The second was Ahce, eleventh daughter of John Egerton, first earl of Bridgewater, and remarkable as being both the subject of much elegant eulogium from Taylor, and the original of the " Lady " in Milton's Comus'. In the friendship of this family Taylor found a happy asylum; and it was within their walls, and to their family and immediate neighbour- hood, that, when the churches were closed against his ministry, he delivered his yearly course of sermons. The next in succession of his literary labours was the " Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy against the Pretence of the Spirit ; " the appearance of which, in its first and imperfect state, has been already noticed, and which was followed, in a very few months, by a work of greater bulk, and far more extensive popularity, (the first, perhaps, of his writings which was speedily and widely popular,) " The Life of Christ ; or, the Great Exemplar." Of the three parts into which this splendid work is divided, each has a separate dedication ; an engine of harm- less flattery, which Taylor was too grateful, or too poor, to omit any fair opportunity of employing. The first is in- scribed to his friend, lord Hatton, and the second to Mary, countess of Northampton ; whose husband, Spencer Comp- ton, earl of Northampton, had, as it appears from some of Taylor's expressions, been engaged, at the time of his death, (which took place in the battle at Hopton Heath, on the royal side,) in a work of a similar character. The third, in the first edition, was dedicated to Frances lady Carbery ; and, after her death, another dedication was added, in the third edition, to her successor, the lady Alice Egerton. All these dedications are in Taylor's characteristic man- ner. The last was, perhaps, the most difficult to compose ; and he has contrived in it, with great and singular felicity, to offer, at the same time, his congratulations to the living lady Carbery, and to express his regrets for her deceased predecessor. While he compliments his present patroness on her own personal advantages, he calls her attention, in a solemn and affecting manner, to the duties of her new ^ Note (M). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOU, D.D. 37 situation ; and he avows, with courteous frankness, that her chief claim, thus early in their acquaintance, on his own affection and prayers, was her being '* in the affections of her noblest lord, successor to a very dear and most excellent person ; designed to fill those offices of piety to her dear pledges, which the haste which God made to glorify and secure her, would not permit her to finish ;" and " to bring new blessings to that family, which was so honourable in itself, and, for so many reasons, dear to him." In the dedication to Hat ton, the duty of obedience to the *' kino-" is mentioned in a manner which has led Mr. Bonney to believe that the Great Exemplar must have been written, though not published, before 1648, while Charles the First was yet alive. He forgets that the king of England never dies, and that a loyalist like Taylor regarded Charles the Second as his sovereign, though, at the time, under adversity and in exile. There is, however, another expression in this dedication, by which I am myself considerably perplexed. Taylor, at the end, entreats Lord Hatton to '* account him in the number of his relatives'' Does this mean merely his friends, or dependents ? — or is it to be understood in the usual sense of the word, and as Taylor, in other places, employed it, to denote an alliance by blood or marriage ? — An alliance by blood we can hardly suppose ; but one by marriage is not impossible. But to ascertain the fact, it would be previously necessary to ascertain the maternal relations of Taylor's second wife, who, of the two, is most likely to have been connected with the Hattons. The extensive popularity of the Great Exemplar appears to have co-operated with Taylor's natural averseness from controversy, to determine the character of his next pub- lications. His works, during three successive years, were entirely of a devotional or practical character ; consisting of a Sermon on the Death of the Excellent Lady Carbery ; to which is subjoined a long Latin inscription, probably not intended for her monument, but to be affixed, as usual in those days, to her coffin, while lying in state; — a short Catechism for Children; — his 27 Sermons for the Summer half-year; — and his Holy Living and Dying ; — the two last of which had 38 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. been composed at the desire, and for the use of his late patroness, and are inscribed to her afflicted husband. Controversy, however, was not entirely to be avoided ; and, in 1654, the insulting triumph of some Roman Catholics over the fallen condition of the English church provoked him to re-examine the leading points of difference between the two communions, and produced the ** Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation ;" and dedicated to Warner, bishop of Rochester, a worthy and a wise man, who, even in the times of general distress, continued, from his scanty means, to assist the still deeper poverty of Taylor, and by whose counsels, as will hereafter appear, it had been well, in one instance, if the latter had been more implicitly guided. The church of Rome might be offended with impunity ; but Taylor's zeal for episcopacy about this time involved him with a more formidable adversary. He had, during this year, expanded his " Catechism for Children," already noticed, into the beautiful Manual which, in honour of the hospitable mansion of Lord Carbery, he has entitled " the Golden Grove." This he now published, with a preface, w^hich, though ostensibly calculated (and perhaps intended) to concihate the Protector in favour of the persecuted church of England, as friendly to established governments, and more particularly to monarch}/, contained many expressions which were likely to provoke, to the utmost extent, both the Presbyterian and Independent clergy, and some which Cromwell himself might reasonably conceive insidious or insulting. He was accordingly committed to prison ; in what month, or at what place, I have not been able to ascertain. Our whole knowledge of the fact is, indeed, derived from a letter from the amiable John Evelyn, of Say's Court, dated February 9, 1654 ; in which, while the writer expresses the anxiety which he had felt on the news of his friend's calamity, he congratulates him on being again at liberty*. When, and under what circumstances, his acquaintance with Evelyn had commenced, does not appear. The latter • Note (M). LIFE or JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D 39 speaks of himself as one of his auditors, in a church in the city, on the 15th of April, 1654, but with no indication that he was at that time particularly interested in him. During this spring, however, the acquaintance was improved into a nearer and more confidential intimacy. Taylor having visited London, we find Evelyn, on the 18th of March, one of a congregation of Episcopalians, to whom he preached a sermon on sins of infirmity and their remedy ; and, on the 31st of the same month, Evelyn paid him a visit, *' to confer with him about some spiritual matters, using him thencefor- ward as his ghostly father".'' His friendship, indeed, and his Hberality, were, from this time, anijong the chief sources of Taylor's happiness; since, besides the remarkable agree- ment which Evelyn expressed wath all Taylor's religious sentiments, and the countenance and comfort which the latter derived from the support of one so distinguished for station, loyalty, and piety, his wealth appears to have been administered with no sparing hand, for the support of his confessor and his family. Taylor's troubles, however, were not yet concluded. On the 18th of May there is another letter from Evelyn, written in great and evident distress of mind, and under the appre- hension of an approaching persecution, in which he pretty plainly intimates that the person whom he addresses was again in custody, and in which he urges him to publish something for the comfort and guidance of the devout laity, who, by the loss of their faithful and orthodox teachers, were deprived of all outward means of grace, not only in the case of preaching and the common prayer, but of the orderly administration of the sacraments ''. This letter did not reach Taylor, to all appearance, for several months after it was written. It certainly was not answered by him till the January follov/ing ; and had probably the same fate with other letters which passed at the same time through Royston's hands, being detained by him under the impression that a captive would not be allowed to receive it. Of this second confinement, the scene was, I apprehend, in Chepstow Castle. Its cause does not appear. It can hardly have arisen from the same publication which had " Noto (N). ' Noip (O). 40 LIFE OF JERE.AIY TAYLOK, D.D. already been visited on him with a similar sentence ; and Mr. Bonney's conjecture, that lie was suspected of being engaged in the unfortunate and ill-contrived insurrection of Penruddock and Groves, in 1654, as it rests on no authority, is rendered improbable by the fact, that, subse- quent to the suppression and punishment of those unfortu- nate gentlemen, he was, as we have seen, at large, and cxercisinjr his ministerial functions in London. To some supposed connexion with their enterprise, the previous imprisonment which I have noticed, and which, till the publication of Evelyn's Memoirs, was unknown and unsus- pected, might be, with greater likehhood, ascribed. And it is certainly not improbable, that though the ground alleged, and, perhaps, the immediate occasion of that severity, might be the expressions in his Golden Grove, — yet the usurping government may have been led to notice such expressions, contrary to Cromwell's usual and cou- rageous neglect of " paper pallets," by the dangers of the times, and the character of Taylor as an able and dis- tinguished loyalist. It is, however, tolerably certain, that either no connexion existed between him and the insurgents at Salisbury, or that none such was discovered by the government, since he would, in that case, hardly have escaped so well as with a few months' confinement. Even his second imprisonment at Chepstow was neither severe nor long. In the letter to Warren, published with his Deus Justificatus, he says, ** I now have that liberty that I can receive any letters, and send any ; for the gentle- men under whose custody I am, as they are careful of their charges, so they are civil to my person^'." His amiable manners, no less than his high reputation for talents and piety, seem, at all times, to have impressed and softened those who were, from political and polemical considerations, most opposed to him. And there is also room to suspect, that the estate of his wife was again drawn on largely to conciliate the ruling powers ; and that these last were content to grant some degree of freedom to a learned and holy man, whom they had reduced to almost abject poverty. Neither imprisonment nor poverty, however, liad power ^ Answer to a Letter toucliing Original Sin, vol. ix. p. 365. LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOU, D.D. 41 to cramp the fertility of Taylor's genius, or to deter him from the expression of his sentiments, though at the risk of offending those whose good opinion was most valuable to him. Besides completing his Eviocvrog, or Series of Ser- mons for the whole year, by the addition of the twenty-five discourses which, though last published, stand first in the volume, he produced, at the beginning of the present year, his ** Unum Necessarium : or, the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance ; describing the necessity and measures of a strict, a holy, and a Christian life, and rescued from popular errors." In this work he had, as its title implies, expressed him- self concerning the nature of original sin, and the extent of man's corruption, in a manner, if not unprecedented and unwarrantable, at least at variance with the opinion of Christians in general, and more particularly of the Pro- testant churches ; and he appears to have felt, and not without reason, considerable anxiety as to the manner in which his work would be received by them. From the Calvinists he neither expected nor wished for approbation ; but, in order to conciliate the favour or soften the opposition of the members of his own communion, a single dedication did not appear sufficient. Besides an epistle to lord Carbery, he has introduced his treatise with a preface inscribed to the bishops of Salisbury and Rochester, and the rest of the clergy of the church of England, in which he strenuously, though with many expressions of humility and submission to his spiritual superiors, exculpates himself from the charge of heresy, or of holding language inconsistent with the liturgy and articles of relio'ion^. The apology thus made was not, however, thought suffi- cient. The letters from Evelyn, already referred to, though they prove that Evelyn himself was a convert to his friend's opinions, prove also that a considerable alarm was excited among the orthodox clergy, not only by the supposed danger of the doctrine thus advanced, but by the scandal to which their persecuted church would be exposed, if the charge of Pelagianism, so often brought against it, should receive support from the writings of one of its most distinguished ' Preface to the Clergy of England, vol. vii. p. tdiv. 42 LIFK OF JERKMY TAVI^OK, D.U. champions. Warner addressed him in a private letter of expostulation and argument, of which we now know nothing except through the answer. The venerable Sanderson, too, (who, though honoured and courted by the ruling party, had relinquished, for conscience sake, the chair of regius pro- fessor of divinity in Oxford), though he had by this time abandoned the high Calvinistic interpretation of the articles which in his earlier life he had defended, is said to have deplored, with much warmth, and even with tears, this departure from the cautious and scriptural decision of the church of England ; and to have bew^ailed the misery of the times, w^hich did not admit of suppressing, by authority, so perilous and unseasonable novelties. The good old man had, perhaps, never read — it may be thought, at least, that he had not greatly profited by the perusal of — the " Liberty of Prophesying." But it would be putting too harsh a construction on his words to appre- hend that, by the authority which he invoked, he meant the civil sword ; or that he desired to employ against Taylor any other weapons than those spiritual censures which every religious community has a right to exercise against its erring members. Be this as it may, it was fortunate for Taylor that persuasion and argument were the only engines in the professor's power ; and these he sought for in two letters to Thomas Barlow, then fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, and librarian of the Bodleian, afterwards Sanderson's own successor in the see of Lincoln, whom he exhorted, with much earnestness, though without success, to undertake the refutation of Taylor's error^. Taylor, in the meantime, was not idle in his own defence. While a prisoner at Chepstow, he produced the " Further Explication of the Doctrine of Original Sin," which now constitutes the seventh chapter of the *' Unum Necessarium," but was at first published separately, with the dedication to the bishop of Rochester, which still accompanies it. This tract, indeed, he in the first instance submitted to the inspection, correction, or suppression of the prelate to whom it is inscribed, in a letter, hitherto unpubhshed, the ^ Barlow's Letter to "Walton. Lite of v'^^andersou. Wordsworth, Eccl. Biog. vol. V. p. 548. Kennet's Register, p. 6*33. LIFE OF JEKKMV TAVJ^OR, D.D. 43 autograph of which is now before me. Warner (as appears from an ahnost illegible and very imperfect draught of his answer on the back) expressed himself, perhaps with reason, still unsatisfied ; and refused to revise a work, which, in fact, was a reinforcement of the previous offensive position. The otfer, however, is at least an evidence, that, if Taylor were wroncr, he was not unwillino: to be instructed, and that the error of his opinions was not rendered more offensive by a self-confident and dogmatical temper. With such a disposition he might err, but he could hardly be an heretic. The letter is as follows : — " RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD. " My very good Lord, — I wrote to your Lor^'. about a fortnight or three weekes since, to w^'. letter, although I believe an answer is upon the road, yet I thought fitt to prevent the arrival of by this addresse ; together with which I send up to Royston a little tract, giving a further account of that doctrine which some of my brethren were lesse pleased with. And although I find, by the letters of my friends from thence, that the storme is over, and many of the contradictors professe themselves of my opinion, and pretend that they were so before, but thought it not fit to owne it, yet I have sent up these papers, by which (according to that counsel which your LorP. in your prudence and charity was pleased to give me) I doe intend, and I hope they will effect it, [to] give satisfaction to the church and to my jealous brethren : besides, possibly, they may prevent a trouble to me, if peradventure any man should be tarn otiose negotiosus as to write against me. For I am very desirous to be per- mitted quietly to my studies, that I may seasonably publish the first three books of my Cases of Conscience, which 1 am now preparing to the presse, and by which, as I hope to serve God and the church, so I doe designe to doe some honour to your Lor^., to whose charity and noblenesse I and my relatives are so much obliged. I have given order to Royston to consigne these papers into your Lor^'.'s hands, to peruse, censure, acquit, or condemne, as your Lor^. pleases. If the written copy be too troublesome to read, your Lor^. may receive them from the presse, and yet suppresse them before the publication, si miims prohentur. But if, by your 44 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. Lori'.'s letters, which I suppose are coming to mee, I find any permission or coimsel from your Lor^. that may cause mc to alter or adde to what is sent up, I will obey it, and give Royston order not to post so fast, but that I may overtake him before these come abroad. But I was upon any termes willing to be quit of these, that I might no longer suffer or looke upon any thing that may retard my more beloved intendment. *' My Lord, I humbly begge your blessing upon " Your LorP.'s most obliged and most affectionate and thankful Servant, '^ Mandinam, November 17, 1G55." " JER. TAYLOR.'* From this letter it appears that he was already released from prison, and at his wife's house of Mandinam. And since, from his published answer to Warner, annexed to the ** Deus Justificatus," it is certain that he was still in Chepstow Castle about the middle of September, we may, probably enough, state the duration of his confinement from May to October inclusive. Nor is this the only interesting fact which this letter gives us to understand. It represents him as already considerably advanced in the composition of his " Ductor Dubitantium ;" and proves to us, through how many years of his life, and with what a devoted earnestness, he was employed on the work to which he looked forward as the surest pledge of his future celebrity. Nor, when we recollect the far greater popularity enjoyed by his devotional works over this favourite product of his genius and industry, can we avoid some painful reflections on the short-sighted estimate often formed by the best and wisest of mankind, as to the celebrity and utility of their different labours. The following letter to Evelyn, which has been published by Dr. Bray, was, probably, also written from Mandinam. The letters to which it is an answer do not appear. " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. ** Honour'd and Deare S"", — Not long after my coming from my prison, I met with your kind and friendly letters, of which I was very glad, not onely because they were a testimony of your kindnesse and affections to mee, LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 45 but that they gave mee a most welcome account of your health, and (which now-a-dayes is a great matter) of your liberty, and of that progression in piety in which I doe really rejoyce. But there could not be given to mee a greater and more persuasive testimony of the reality of your piety and care, than that you passe to greater degrees of caution and the love of God. It is the worke of your life, and I perceive you betake yourselfe heartily to it. The God of heaven and earth prosper you and accept you ! " I am well pleased that you have reade over my last booke : and give God thanks that I have reason to believe that it is accepted by God and by some good men. As for the censure of unconsenting persons, I expected it, and hope that themselves will be their owne reproovers, and truth will be assisted by God, and shall prevaile, when all noises and prejudices shall be ashamed. My comfort is, that I have the honour to be an advocate for God's justice and goodnesse, and that y® consequent of my doctrine is, that men may speake honour of God, and meanly of them- selves. But I have also this last weeke sent up some papers, in which I make it appeare that the doctrine which I now have published was taught by the fathers within the first 400 years ; and have vindicated it both from novelty and singularity. I have also prepared some other papers con- cerning this question, which I once had some thoughts to have published. But what I have already said, and now further exphcated and justified, I hope may be sufficient to satisfy pious and prudent persons, who doe not love to goe qua itur, but qua eundem est. S"", you see how good a husband I am of my paper and inke, that I make so short returns to your most friendly letters. I pray be confident, that, if there be any defect here, I will make it up in my prayers for you and my great esteeme of you, which shall ever be expressed in my readinesse to serve you with all the earnestnesse and powers of, Deare S% " Your most affectionate friend and servant, " November 21, 1655." " JER. TAYLOR." 46 LIFE OK JKHEMY TAYLOR, D.D. This is a pious and eloquent letter ; but there are some parts of it which should serve as a caution to all religious disputants. Whatever may be thought of his peculiar opinions, there are few who will venture to assert that such a man as Taylor either embraced them rashly, or professed them without sincerity, or was negligent in his applications to the throne of grace for celestial light and assistance. The doctrines, however, are, it will be readily allowed by most men in the present day, (as it was seen and deplored by the wisest and most learned theologians of the age in which Taylor lived,) irreconcilable with the articles of the church which he loved and honoured, and contrary to the plain sense of those Scriptures which were his consolation and his guide. It is even probable that he w^ould never have entertained them, had it not been for the monstrous and dangerous glosses with which the truth had been obscured by Augustine and his followers ; by which our nature, instead of being " very far gone from original righteousness," is represented as become utterly diabolical, and the gracious remedy provided for the disease of all mankind is confined to a few favoured individuals. Yet these doctrines which appear to most of us, as they doubtless appeared to Taylor, so offensive to reason, and so unworthy of the Deity, were maintained by men as wise, perhaps, and certainly as holy, as Taylor himself, who, on their parts, regarded with horror his denial of absolute pre- destination, and of the doctrine that infants unbaptized were immediate objects of God's anger. Such considerations should not only lead us to think charitably of the persons with whom we differ, but should warn us against a too hasty condemnation of their opinions. They should warn us against supposing the reverse of wrong to be right ; and should endear to us still more the moderation, the dis- cretion, and the humility, with which, on these lawful and most mysterious subjects, our own excellent and apostolic church has expressed herself. There is yet one caution more. Taylor, as the reader will have seen, was confident in the truth of his hypothesis, from the persuasion that it manifested the goodness and justice of God, and taught men to " speake honour of God, and meanly of themselves." It is probable that, on these very same grounds, the most LIFE OF JEREMY TAYI.Oll, D.D. 47 vehement of his adversaries were prejudiced in favour of Calvinism. The inference is plain, that though it be suffi- cient cause to reconsider most diligently and most jealously whatever opinion appears to us or to others to militate against our natural notions of fitness and general analogy of Divine perfections, — yet, is it wise, in all such cases, to suspect that our own perceptions may be erroneous, our own reasoning inconsequent ; and that it becomes us to believe of God, not so much what we may think worthy of him, as what he has himself revealed concerning his nature and his actions. — As a commentator on Scripture, as a guide to the interpretation of Scripture, our reason is most useful and most necessary ; but Scripture, and Scrip- ture only, is the rule of faith ; and this is the perfection of reason which leads us to adhere most closely to the only guide which, in all necessary points of belief, is infallible. It appears that Evelyn, during the early part of the winter, renewed his application to Taylor, that he should undertake some work adapted to the use of Christians when deprived of regular ministry and the sacraments, which a regular ministry alone can ordinarily dispense with efficacy. It appears, indeed, that the former letter had been over- looked by Taylor in the pressure of his troubles and his studies, till now a second time recalled to his mind, since *' the distich of the departed saint '' is plainly that which is given in Evelyn's letter of May 1655. Some other correspondence, besides that which has been already noticed, and to which Taylor alludes, as containing the " vile distich of the departed saint," must at all events have passed, since Taylor, in the following letter, speaks of Evelyn's apologies for troubling him, and his offiirs of pecuniary assistance. The Birkenhead, whose repartee he mentions, was, probably, John Birkenhead, author of the ** Mercurius Aulicus." The letter is now first given to the public. " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. " St. Paul's Converfi. 5g. ** Deare S"", — I perceive by your symptoms how the spirits of pious men are affected in this sad catalysis : it is an evil time, and we ought not to hold our peace ; but now the question is, who shall speake ? Yet I am highly per- 48 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. suaded, that, to jaood men and wise, a persecution is nothing but a changing the circumstance of religion, and the manner of the formes and appendages of divine worship. Pubhke or private is all one : the first hath the advantage of society, the second of love. There is a warmth and light in that ; there is a heate and zeale in this ; and if every person that can, will but consider concerning the essentials of religion, and retaine them severelly, and immure them as well as he can with the same or equivalent ceremonies, I know no difference in the thing, but that he shall have the exercise, and, consequently, the reward of other graces, for which, if he lives and dies in prosperous dayes, he shall never be crowned. But the evills are, that some will be tempted to quit their present religion, and some to take a worse, and some to take none at all. It is a true and a sad story ; but oportet esse hareses, for so they that are faithful shall be knowne; and I am sure He that hath promised to bring good out of evil, and that all things shall co-operate to the good of them that feare God, will verify it concerning perse- cution. But concerning a discourse upon the present state of things in relation to soules and our present duty, I agree w^ith you that it is very fitt it were done, but yet by some- body w^ho is in London, and sees the personal necessities and circumstances of pious people. Yet I was so far per- suaded to do it myselfe, that I had amassed together divers of my papers useful to the worke ; but my Cases of Con- cience call upon me so earnestly, that I found myselfe not able to beare the cries of a clamorous conference. S"", I thank you for imparting to me the vile distich of the dear departed saint. I value it as I doe the picture of deformity or a devil ; the art may be good, and the gift faire, though the thino; be intolerable ; but I remember that when the Jesuits, sneering and deriding our calamity, shewed this sarcasme to my lord Lucas, Birkenhead being present, replied as tartly, * It is true our church wants a head now ; but if you have charity as you pretend, you can lend us one, for your church has had two and three at a time.' S^ I knowe not when I shall be able to come to London ; for our being stripped of the little reliques of our fortune remaining after y^ shipwrecke, leaves not cordage nor sailes sufficient to beare me thither. But I hope to be able to commit to LITE OF JEHEMV TAYLOR, D.D. 49 tlio picsse my first bookes of Conscience by Easter time; and then, if I be able to get up, I shall be glad to wayte upon you; of whose good I am not more sollicitous than I am joyful that you so carefully provide for it in your best interest. I shall only give you the same prayer and blessing that St. John gave to Gains ; * Beloved, I wish that you may be in health and prosper ;' and your soule prospers ; for so, by the rules of the best rhetorike, the greatest affaire is put into a parenthesis, and the biggest businesso into a post- script. S"", I thankc you for your kind expressions at the latter end of your letter : you have never troubled mee, neither can I pretend to any other returne from you but that of your love and prayers. In all things else I doe but my duty, and I hope God and you will accept it; and that, by means of his own procurement, he wdll, some way or other (but how I know not yet,) make provisions for mee. S', I am, in all heartinesse of affection, '' Your most affectionate friend and minister in the Lord Jesus, " JER. TAYLOR"." Taylor's poverty, however, was either not so great as he, at this moment, apprehended it would be, or the kindness of his friends enabled him to enjoy, much sooner than he had expected, the happiness of their society. His acknow- ledgments to Warner, in the letter already given, and the letter which now follows to Sheldon, are proofs that he had other friends besides Evelyn, both anxious, and, in some degree, able to render him pecuniary assistance. Sheldon, it will be recollected, as warden of All Souls, had opposed Taylor's election to a fellowship. It is pleasing to find them now reconciled. The letter is without date ; but the amount of the progress which the writer professes to have made in his Ductor Dubitantium forbids us to place it later "". " TO DR. SHELDON. "Dear Sir, — I received yours, dated November 5, in which I find a continued and enlarged expression of that '' Evelyn Tapers, ined. '^ This letter was co])ied by Dr. Birch into his Collection of Letters. Brit. ]Mus. I\iSS. Donat. 4162. art. 19. 50 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. kindness with which you have always assisted my condition and promoted my interest. Two debts you are pleased to forgive me ; one of money, the other of unkindness. I thank you for both ; but this latter debt was contracted when I understood not you, and less understood myself; but I dare say there was nothing in it but folly and imprudence. But I will not do it so much favour as to excuse it. If it w^as displeasing to you then, it is much more to mee now that I know^ of it. " Sir, I will be sure, by the grace of God assisting me, that Mr. Royston shall pay in ten pounds to your nephew, Mr. Joseph Sheldon, before Candlemass. If you please in the interim to send to him the bond, or any other powder to discharge me, you will much oblige me. But, Sir, I desire that, by a letter from you to me, you will be pleased, on receipt of that money, to disoblige and free my duty and conscience, for that is the favour and the peace I desire in this particular. Sir, I am to thank you for the prudent and friendly advice you w^ere pleased to give me in your other letter relating to my great undertaking in Cases of Conscience. I have only finished the first part yet ; the praecognita and the generals. But in that and the remaining parts I will strictly observe your caution. Sir, though it hath always been my fortune to be an obliged person to you, and [I] now have less hope than ever of being free from the great variety of your endearments, yet I beg of you to add this favour, — to think that I am all that to you which you can wish, save only that I cannot express how much I love and how much I honour you. Sir, I beg also your prayers, and the con- tinuance of your kind affection to, "Dear Sir, " Your most affectionate and obliged friend and servant, " JER. TAYLOR." From whatever quarter he obtained the means of his journey, it is certain, however, that Taylor visited London ; for, on the 12th of April, he dined with Evelyn at Sayes Court, in company with Berkeley, Boyle, and Wilkins, and occupied with them in the discussion and examination of LIFE OF JF.REArV TAYLOR, T3.D. 51 philosophical and mechanical subjects'^. Of this visit, he, four days after, speaks with lively and natural delight in the following letter ; in which, however, as will be observed, while complimenting the taste of his friend, he does not foro^et to mino-le Christian caution and rebuke with his felicitations. " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. " April 16, 1656. " Honoured and Deare S"^, — I hope your servant brought my apology with him, and that I already am par- doned, or excused in your thoughts, that I did not returne an answer yesterday to your friendly letter. S"", I did believe myselfe so very much bounde to you for your so kind, so friendly reception of mee in your Tuscnlamun, that I had some little wonder upon mee when I saw you making excuses that it was no better. 8% I came to see you and your lady, and am highly pleased that I did so, and found all your circumstances to be an heape and union of blessings. But I have not either so great a fancy and opinion of the prettinesse of your aboad, or so low an opinion of your prudence and piety, as to thinke you can be any wayes transported with them. I know the pleasure of them is gone off from their height before one month's possession ; and that strangers, and seldome seers, feele the beauty of them more than you who dwell with them. I am pleased, indeed, at the order and the cleannesse of all your outward things ; and look upon you not onely as a person, by way of thankfulnesse to God for his mercies and goodnesse to you. specially obliged to a great measure of piety, but also as one who, being freed in great degrees from secular cares and impediments, can, without excuse and allay, wholly intend what you so passionately desire, the service of God. But, now I am considering yours, and enumerating my owne pleasures, I cannot but adde that, though I could not choose but be delighted by seeing all about you, yet my delices were really in seeing you severe and unconcerned in these things, and now in finding your affections wholly a stranger to them, and to communicate with them no portion of your ^ See below. Note (P). 52 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. passion but such as is necessary to him that uses them or receives their ministries. S"", I long truly to converse with you ; for I doe not doubt but in those liberties we shall both goe bettered from each other. For your Ijucretius, I perceive you have suffered the importunity of too kind friends to prevaile with you. I will not say to you that your Lucretius is as far distant from the severity of a Christian as the faire Ethiopian was from the duty of B^'. Heliodorus ; for indeede it is nothing but what may become the labours of a Christian gentleman, those things onely abated which our evil age needes not ; for which also I hope you either have by notes, or will by preface prepare a sufficient antidote : But since you are ingag'd in it, doe not neglect to adorne it, and take what care of it it can require or neede ; for that/ neglect will be a reproofe of your own act, and looke as if you did it with an unsatisfied mind, and then you may make that to be whcUy a sin, from which onely by prudence and charity you could before be advised to abstain. But, S"", if you will give me leave, I will impose such a penance upon you for your publication of Lucretius, as shall neither dis- please God nor you ; and since you are buisy in that which may minister directly to learning, and indirectly to error or the confidences of men, who of themselves are apt enough to hide their vices in irreligion, I know you will be willing, and will suffer your selfe to be intreated, to imploy the same pen in the glorifications of God, and the minlsteries of eucharist and prayer. S"", if you have M^""* Silhon de V Immortalite de /'Ante, I desire you to lend it mee for a weeke ; and believe that I am in great heartiness and dearenesse of affection, "Deare S^ " Your obliged and most affectionate friend and servant, *' JER. TAYLORS" On the sixth and seventh of the following month, we find Evelyn bringing to Taylor a young Frenchman, a pro- selyte to the English church and a candidate for orders, for his examination and recommendation to a bishop. Taylor, being well satisfied with him, did accordingly recommend * Evelyn Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 102. LIFE OF JEUEMY TAYLOU, D.D. 53 him to some Irish prelate whom Evelyn calls the bishop ol' Meath, then living in abject distress in London, and to whom the fees paid by Evelyn were a matter of charity. '* To that necessity," he naturally exclaims, " were our clergy reduced ^." Long after this Taylor does not appear to have remained in London. His next letter is from Wales, and obviously in answer to one now lost, in which the same friend to whose regard he w^as so much indebted appears to have offered him, on the part of Mr. Thurland, an asylum in the neigh- bourhood of London. Mr. afterwards Sir Edward Thurland, and one of the barons of the Exchequer, was an eminent lawyer, and author of a work on Prayer ; on which Evelyn sent him a letter, published in the interesting collection to which I have so often had occasion to refer. His offer, whatever it were, seems to have been a liberal one, since Taylor speaks of it as rendering a change of residence not impossible to him. The letter is interesting in itself, as dis- playing Taylor's character and sentiments under the pressure of a heavy affliction : and it also seems to fix pretty accu- rately the appearance of his " Deus Justificatus." " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. " July 19, IGSfi. " Deare S"", — I perceive the greatnesse of y"^ affections by your diligence to inquire after and to make use of any opportunity [which] is offered whereby you may oblige mee. Truly, S*^, I doe continue in my desires to settle about London, and am only hindered by my Res angusta dorni ; but hope in God's goodnesse that he will create to mee such advantages as may make it possible ; and when I am there, I shall expect the daily issues of the Divine Pro- vidence to make all things else well ; because I am much persuaded that, by my abode in y^ voisinage of London, I may receive advantages of society and bookes to enable mee better to serve God and the interest of soules. I have no other designe but it ; and I hope God will second it with liis blessing. S"", I desire you to present my thankcs and ' Note (P). 54 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOU, D.D. service to Mr. Thurland ; his society were argument enough to make mee desire a dwelling thereabouts, but his other kindnesses will also make it possible. I would not be troublesome ; serviceable I would faine be, usefuU, and de- sircable ; and I will endeavour it if I come. S"", I shall, besides what I have already said to you, at present make no other returne to Mr. Thurland ; till a little thing of mine be publike, which is now in Royston's hands, of Original Sin ; the evils of which doctrine I have now laid especially at y^ Presbyterian doore, and discours'd it accordigly, in a mis- sive to y^ countesse dowager of Devonshire. When that is abroad, I meane to present one to Mr. Thurland ; and send a letter with it. I thanke you for your Lucretius. I wished it with mee sooner ; for, in my letter to y® countesse of Devonshire, T quote some things out of Lucretius, w'' for her sake I was forced to English in very bad verse, because I had not your version by mee to make use of it. Royston hath not yet sent it mee downe, but I have sent for it : and though it be no kindness to you to reade it for its owne sake, and for the worthinesse of the worke; because it deserves more ; yet, when I tell you that I shall, besides the worth of the thing, value it for the worthy author's sake, I intend to represent to you, not onely the esteeme I have of your worthinesse, but the love also I doe and ever shall beare to y*" person. Deare Sir, I am in some little disorder by reason of the death of a little child of mine, a boy that lately made us very glad : but now he rejoyces in his little orbe, while we thinke, and sigh, and long to be as safe as he is. S"^, when your Lucretius comes into my hands, I shall be able to give you a better account of it. In y® mean time I pray for blessings to you and your deare and excellent lady : and am, " Deare Sir, " Your most affectionate and endeared friend and servant, " JER. TAYLOR e." The following letter touches on a deficiency in the public service of the English church, which has been often lamented, 2 Evelyn Papers, inedit. LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOH, D.D. 55 but is easier to lament than repair. Taylor himself, to judge from the few specimens which he has given of religious poetry in a metrical form, — for, in a more enlarged sense of the term, all his devotional writings are poetry, — would have fallen into the errors, as well as rivalled the beauties, of Cowley. Evelyn, though of genius far inferior, (indeed, with all his virtues and accomplishments, genius can hardly be said to have entered into his character,) would, perhaps, have been more fortunate. His ear for music was good, and highly cultivated ; he was sincerely pious ; and the general simplicity of his style would have been in his favour, in an undertaking where, by a singular fatality, Addison has suc- ceeded better than either Pope, Dryden, or Milton. The praises of Evelyn's Lucretius which follow, may, perhaps, appear exaggerated. But some allowance must be made for the partiality of friendship, and the gratitude of one who had just received a present from his patron. Evelyn's translation, however, is by no means a con temp table work ; and he is fairly entitled to the credit of having transfused the sense, if not all the spirit, of his original, into harmonious English verses. " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. '* Deare Sir, — At last I have got possession of that favour you long since designed to mee ; — your Lucretius. Sir, shall I tell you really how I am surprised ? — I did believe (and you will say I had some reason) that Lucretius could not be w^ell translated. I thought you would doe it as well as any one, but I knew the difficulty, ex parte rei, was almost insuperable. But, Sir, I rejoyce that I find myself deceived : and am pleased you have so wittily reprov'd my too hasty censure. Mee thinkes now, Lucretius is an easy and smooth poet, and that it is possible for the same hand to turn Aris- totle into smooth verse. But, Sir, I pray tell mee why you did so grudge your annotations to the publike ? I am sure you neede not blush at them ; but you may well chide your- self for offering to conceale them. Sir, you know I was not apt to counsel the publication of this first booke : but I should not repine (so the labour of it were over) that it were all done by the same hand, so perfectly doe I find myselfe confuted by your most ingenious pen. I was once bold with 56 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. you ; I would faine be so once more. It is a thousand pitties but our Enoiish toni2;ue should be enriched with a translation of all the sacred hynmes which are respersed in all the rituals and church bookes. I was thinking to have beg'd of you a translation of that well-knowne hymne, * Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet seclum in favilla ; ' which, if it were a httle changed, would be an excellent divine song : but I am not willing to bring trouble to you : onely it is a thousand times to be lamented that the beaux esprits of England doe not think divine things to be worthy subjects for their poesy and spare houres. I have commanded Royston to present to you two copyes of a little letter of mine to y^ c. dowager of Devon : of which, if you please to accept one, and present the other from mee to your friend Mr. Thurland, you will very much oblige mee, who already am, *' Deare Sir, " Your most affectionate and endeared "August 23, — 5C." «JER. TAYLOR"." TO THE SAME. " 9^^-^ 15, 1656. " Honour'd and Deare Sir, — In the midst of all the discouragements which I meet withall in an ignorant and obstinate age, it is a great comfort to mee, and I receive new degrees of confidence, when I find that yourself are not only patient of truth, and love it better than prejudice and prepossession, but are so ingenuous as to dare to owne it in despite of the contradicting voices of error and unjust partiality. I have lately received from a learned person beyond sea certaine extracts of the Easterne and Southerne Antiquities, which very much confirme my opinion and doctrine ; for the learned man was pleased to expresse great pleasure in the reasonablenesse of it and my discourses concerning it. Sir, I could not but smile at my owne weaknesses, and very much love the candour and sweetnesse of your nature, that you were pleased to endure my English " E^ clyn Pajjcrs, iued. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 57 poetry: but I could [not] be removed from my certaine knovvledoe of my owne greatest weaknesses in it : but if 1 could have had your Lucretius when 1 had occasion to use those extractions out of it, I should never have asked any man's pardon for my weake version of them; for I would have used none but yours, and then I had beene beyond censure, and could not have needed a pardon. But, Sir, the last papers of mine have a fate like your Lucretius : I meane so many errata's made by the printers, that, because I had not any confidence by the matter of my discourse and the well-handling of it, as you had by the happy reddition of your Lucretius, I have reason to beg your pardon for the imperfection of the copy. But I hope the printer will make amends in my Rule of Conscience, which I find hitherto he does with more care. But, Sir, give me leave to aske, why you will suffer yourselfe to be discouraged in the finishing Lucretius ? They who can receive hurt by the fourthe booke understand the Latin of it; and I hope they who will be delighted with your English, will also be secur'd by your learned and pious annotations, which I am sure you will give us along with your rich version. Sir, I humbly desire my service and great regards to be presented by you to worthy Mr. Thurland : and that you will not faile to re- member mee when you are upon your knees. I am very desirous to receive the * dies ii'ao, dies ilia' of your transla- tion; and, if you have not yet found it, upon notice of it from you I will transmit a copy of it. Sir, I pray God continue your health and his blessinges to you and your deare lady and pretty babies ; for which I am daily obliged to pray, and to use all opportunities by which I can signify that I am, • " Deare Sir, " Your most affectionate and endeared servant, " JER. TAYLOR'." In all these letters, it may be observed with how much anxiety and uneasiness he contemplated the opposition made to his Doctrine of Original Sin, and the remonstrances ■ Evelyn Pajicrs, iued. 58 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. addressed to him on the subject by the most eminent persons in his own communion. The same feeling is betrayed in the dedication of the " Deus Justificatus," ah'eady so frequently alluded to ; and which, together with a letter addressed to himself by Warner in the course of the preceding year, and two letters in answer to that learned prelate, he published a short time before the date of his last letter to Evelyn. He there enlarges with some asperity on the unfavourable re- ception which his former work on Repentance had met with, not only from the Presbyterians, but from some of those " to whom he gave and designed his labours, and for whose sake he was willing to suffer the persecution of a suspected truth/' The opposition which he had met with, he com- plains, was not open, inasmuch as no man had, as yet, appeared in public against his doctrine, but that there were many who " entered into the houses of the rich and honour- able, and whispered secret oppositions and accusations rather than arguments." '* Madam," he continues, " I know the arts of these men; and they often put me in mind of what was told me by Mr. Sackvill, the late earl of Dorset's uncle, that the cunning sects of the world (he named the Jesuits and the Presbyterians) did more prevail by whispering to ladies, than all the church of England and the more sober Pro- testants could do by fine force and strength of argument." The man who writes thus (however he may profess, as he does in another part of the same dedication, that, " if any man differed from him in opinion, he is not troubled at it," and that men " ought to love alike, though they do not understand alike,") is evidently suffering under contradiction which he did not expect, and which he has not learned very well to bear. But Taylor was poor and persecuted, — neither of them circumstances which improve the temper. He was, moreover, at this time under the pressure of a severe domestic affliction ; and we may easily forgive to the afflicted parent a peevishness, which is less excusable in a practised dis- putant, and one who, by the promulgation of an unusual opinion, had, as if by choice, laid himself open to contra- diction. The " Deus Justificatus" is the only work which was pubUshed in this year with Taylor's name, or which can be LIFE OF JFllEMY TAYLOR, D.D. 59 ascertained with any degree of certainty to be his composi- tion. As I have, however, had the misfortune to find myself opposed to the judgment of some of my ablest and most valued friends, in refusing to the " Treatise on Artificial Handsomeness" a place in the present collection, it is, at least, my duty to give some account of that work, and of the sort of evidence on which it has been generally attri- buted to Jeremy Taylor. It first appeared in 1656, in a small volume printed by Royston, Taylor's usual publisher, without the author's name, and, whimsically enough, adorned with the same frontispiece of a woman, with a sun on her breast, pointing upwards to heaven, and trampling on a whole toilet of ornaments, mirrors, and patches, which is prefixed to the first edition of " The Ladies' Calling." There are even some peculiarities in the method of employing italics which correspond with the general practice observed throughout that work, and some slight similarities of style, though by no means sufficient to lead us to attribute the two works to the same author. The preface, indeed, of the '" Artificial Handsomeness" expressly assures us, that this last was not only occasioned, but chiefly composed, by a lady, — an assertion which has been thoTight to be belied by the style of the composition and the learning which it displays. The latter, I confess, does not appear to me extraordinary, or, in that learned age, such as might not, very probably, have been attained by many well-educated females. It chiefly displays itself in a readiness in quoting the Scriptures ; in a familiarity with the popular ascetic writers of the day, and in a few references to ancient fathers ; to which, it may be observed, the fair disputant was guided by the very arguments of those English divines whom she endeavours to prove mistaken. Still, however, it has not the appear- ance of a woman's composition ; though I must repeat, that a far less extent of learning, than was possessed by Jeremy Taylor, was competent to all the authorities and illustrations on which so much stress has been laid, and which have been supposed so plainly to designate him as the author. In 1662, however, while Taylor was yet alive, another edition appeared, with the initials on the title-page, " J.T. D. D.," which Kennet (whose critical acumen is, indeed. 60 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. good for nothing, but who is a competent evidence as to the general opinion which prevailed in his time,) supposes to stand for " Jeremy Taylor, Doctor of Divinity'' ;" and it is also certain that Taylor employed the same signature in the title-page to the first edition of his beautiful Essay on Friendship. Lastly ; in the epistle dedicatory, prefixed to the third edition, in 1701, — it is described as the work of " a late learned Bishop," — while Anthony Wood, who, though like Kennet, utterly without taste or critical discrimination, was, still more than him, a diligent collector and careful examiner of literary history, has inserted it, without any apparent scruple, in his list of Taylor's writings. And many considerable modern critics have been induced, by these reasons and by the supposed striking similarity of its style to that of his acknowledged works, to support his claim to it with a confidence and zeal which, under other circum- stances, I should hardly have thought myself justified in opposing. On the other hand, it may be observed, that it was by no means an unexampled deception in the booksellers of the seventeenth century to affix, without sufficient authority, or even against their better knowledge, the names of eminent persons to works of which those persons were altogether guiltless. Though Taylor was alive in 1662, he was then in Ireland, and little likely to interest himself in the refutation of a charge which, if he ever heard it, he, perhaps, would think ridiculous. Wood is not consistent with himself in placing this work among his writings, since he elsewhere, with equal confidence, ascribes it to Gauden ; and my friend, Mr. Bliss, whose authority is deservedly eminent on all such questions, is disposed to take the credit, such as it is, away from both, and to class it among the productions of Obadiah Walker ^ On the resemblance or dissimilarity of style, when the subject is so different from those which, in other instances, have employed Taylor's genius, it would be unsafe to give a positive opinion. The whole treatise is, undoubtedly, an Kcnuet's Register, T8T. LTFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.I). 61 ingenious piece of special pleading in a bad and foolish cause ; and it is distinguished by a vivacity of diction and illustration which, though it is in some degree a charac- teristic of all the satirical writings of that age, may not unfrequently remind the reader of the language of Taylor's controversial treatises. But, for the occasional bursts of passion and sublimity which, in his avowed works, flow from him as if in spite of himself : for the ardent piety which was inherent in his hourly thoughts and lightest expressions ; for the strains of affecting eloquence, with which he is ever anxious to draw men from questions of less importance to practical devotion and holiness ; we may search throughout the " Artificial Handsomeness" in vain. Nor are these the strongest arguments against supposing him its author. That which with me weighs most of all, is found in the subject of the work itself, which is a formal defence of painting the face, a practice obviously inconsistent with the ascetic opinions to which he was through life inclined, and one which he himself, with perhaps too great severity, has classed in his '" Holy Living," in the same category with " singular and affected walking, proud, nice and ridiculous gestures of the body, lascivious dressings," and the other least equivocal arguments of a worldly and immodest character. " Menander in his comedy," (he elsewhere observes,) " brings in a man turning out his wife from his house, because she stained her hair yellow, which was then the beauty. Nay t^9r cc^' oiac-jv raJvoi' rhv yvvcuKX ya,^ T»jv ffa)" Note (A A). 88 LIFE OF JEKK.MY TAYLOR, D.D. and the world having given you an essay of their accep- tation of it. *' Sir, that Pallavicini whom you mention, is the author of the late history of the Council of Trent, in two volumes in folio, in Italian. I have seene it, but had not leisure to peruse it so much as to give any judgment of the man by it. Besides this, he hath published two little manuals in 12mo, Assertiomim Theohgicariun ; but these speake but very little of the man. • His history, indeed, is a great undertaking, and his family (for he is of the Jesuit order) use to sell the booke by crying up the man : but I thinke I saw enough of it to suspect the expectation is much bigger then the thing. It is no wonder that Baxter undervalues the gentry of England. You know what spirit he is of, but I suppose he hath met with his match : for Mr. Peirs hath attacked him : and they are joyn'd in the lists". I have not seene Mr. Thorndike's booke. You make me desirous of it, because you call it elaborate : but I like not the title nor the subject, and the man is indeed a very good and a learned man, but I have not seen much prosperity in his writings : but if he have so well chosen the questions, there is no peradventure but he hatji tumbled into his heape many choice materials*^. I am much pleas'd that you promise to inquire into the way of the Perfectionists ; but I thinke L. Pembroke and Mrs. Joy, and the Lady Wildgoose, are none of that number. I assure you, some very learned and very sober persons have given up their names to it. Castellio is their great patriarch : and his Dialogue An per Spir. S. homo posut perfectt ohedire legi Dei, is their first essay. Parker hath written something lately of it, and in Dr. Cell's last booke in folio there is much of it. Indeed, you say right that they take in Jacob Behmen, but that is upon another account, and they understand him as nurses doe their children's im- perfect language ; something by use, and much by fancy. I hope. Sir, in your next to me (for I flatter myselfe to have the happinesse of receiving a letter from you sometimes,) you will account to me of some hopes concerning some settlement, or some peace to religion. I feare my peace in " Note (B B). AV^ood's Athen. vol. ii. p. 358. • Note (C C). Wood, vol. i. p. 461. LIFE or JEREMY TAVLOll, D.D. 89 Ireland is likely to be short ; for a Presbyterian and a madman have informed against me as a dangerous man to their religion ; and for using the signe of the crosse in baptisme. The worst event of the information which I feare, is my returne into England ; which although I am not desirous it should be upon these terms, yet if it be without much violence, I shall not be much troubled. " Sir, I doe account myselfe extremely obliged to your kindnesse and charity, in your continued care of me and bounty to me ; it is so much the more, because I have almost from all men but yourselfe, suffered some diminution of their kindnesse, by reason of my absence, for as the Spaniard sayes, * The dead and the absent have but few friends/ But, Sir, I account myselfe infinitely oblig'd to you, much for your pension, but exceedingly much more for your affection, which you have so signally expressed. I pray. Sir, be pleased to present my humble service to your two honoured brothers : I shall be ashamed to make any addresse, or pay my thankes in words to them, till my Rule of Conscience be publicke, and that is all the way I have to pay my debts ; that and my prayers that God would?. Sir, Mr. Martin, Bookseller, at the Bell, in St. Paul's Church-yard, is my correspondent in London, and what- soever he receives, he transmits it to me carefully; and so will Mr. Royston, though I doe not often imploy him now. Sir, I feare I have tir'd you with an impertinent letter, but I have felt your charity to be so great as to doe much more than to pardon the excesse of my affections. Sir, I hope that you and I remember one another when w^e are upon our knees. I doe not thinke of coming to London till the latter end of summer or the spring, if I can enjoy my quietnesse here; but then I doe if God permit: but beg to be in this interval refreshed by a letter from you at your leisure, for, indeed, in it will be a great pleasure and endear- ment to, " Honoured Sir, " Your very oblig'd, most affectionate and humble servant, " JER. TAYLORi." P Note (DD). T Evelyn Pnpers, iucd. 90 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. In consequence of the information laid against Taylor, ii warrant was issued to the Governor of Carrickfergus, by the Irish Privy Council, to bring him before them for exa- mination'. In the minutes of the council no other entry occurs relating to him, and it is, therefore, probable that his friends had power to obtain his speedy discharge. The journey, however, to Dublin, in the heart of winter, was sufficient to throw him into a severe illness, which, perhaps, was admitted by the government as a plea for letting him off more easily. In the letter of Lady Wray, to which I have already so often referred, it is said that he about this time *' suffered much from Sir Phelim O'Nial.'' But this is, evidently, a circumstance respecting which her memory had deceived her, since that weak and cruel chieftain had suffered death some years before Taylor's arrival in Ireland. From his kindred and clan, at this time, a loyalist had nothing to apprehend, even if they had possessed the power of injuring him ; and the O'JN^ials, as well as all the other Irish Septs, had been completely crushed by the dreadful severities of Ireton and Cromwell. In 1666, however, the neighbouring county of Tyrone was really infested, for some time, by bands of Tories and White Boys% and, if Taylor kept a farm, as from various circumstances he appears to have done, it is possible that his cattle may, on some occasion, have been stolen ; a circumstance which might be easily ex- aggerated by family tradition, till it became, in the narration of his grandchild, a persecution by the Roman Catholicjs, But, if it had been any thing considerable, we should have found, in all probability, some mention of it in his letters; and on the contrary, I am assured that the traditions of the country imply that with the peasantry of that persuasion, his amiable temper and ascetic habits rendered him an object of regi;ard and veneration. It was this, perhaps, which gave occasion to a renewal of the report of his inclination to Popery, of which he com- plains in his " Letters to Persons changed in their Religion," which, though not now published, appear to have been written about this time. No new work of his issued from ' Ncte (KE). - Rawdon Papers, pp. 21R, 223, &c. LIFE OF J K RE MY TAYLOR, D.D. 91 the press this year, for the " Ephesian Matron" is appre- hended by Mr. Bonney to liave been merely a reprint of that story as told in the Holy Dying^ The following letter, however, was published in the QuvaroXoyra of Dr. John Stearne, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Dublin ; and is interesting-, as being, except the interminable Epitaph on Lady Carbery, the only remaining specimen of the author's Latinity. The concluding compliment is lively and elegant. For the rest, it cannot be said that he flatters so beautifully in a learned language as in English. With the poor book which is beslavered with such deglutitious phrases I have no acquaintance. ** Viro amicissimo et integerrimo Johanni Stearne, Medicinae et Philosophiae Professori Doctissimo, hyai^nv, " Quam primuni earum mihi facta est copia, in schedas tuas involaverunt oculi et mens, amor et acumen, et tota quanta est curiositatis supellex, ut discernerem quicquid id fuit quod parturiens et ferax ingenium in lucem hodiernam destinarat bono publico. " Tam recte novi ingenium tuum, Stearni doctissime, ex monumentis publicis, et privatis praeclarae tuae eruditionis indicibus, ut difficile non fuerit hariolari quid intus latcret in Enchiridio, quod festinantius singularis tua humauitas preemiserat, enimvero necfalsus fui. Praesensit enim animus me in hisce tabulis, ingenii cupedias et bellaria, philosophiaa inventa non vulgaria, rationis ay]ow hprnMa, Artis Medicse, quam hodie in Hibernise metropoli adornas, specimen non mediocre : at cum irrueram in interloquium, (placide enim et moderate tot r^a/j^/xara adire, nee enim diffitebor, impos plane fui,) me divinum sensi ; et quem prasgustaveram, lepide quidem vaticinatus qualem perlecturus eram libellum, cum demum aut avidiiis, ne totum non exhaurirem, aut pitissans, ne citius quam volueram clauderetur festum, certe mira cum ingluvie non uno modo ordinata, ingessi in animum meum : et tandem ruminans quod delibaveram, sensi clarissime (et laetatus sum) scientiae reconditioris arcana reserata, ingenii incomparabilis i'xiyjiDr^ij.cira, veritatis illustre et ingenuum ministerium, et quaestiones nodosas satis, sed nee inutiles, quas aut solvisti dextre, aut dissecuisti strenue, ' Bonney, Life, p. 274. 92 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. in omnibus vel Aristoteli vel Alexandre suppar : adeo ut non ineptum judicaverim gratulari Reipublicae Literariee hoc novum emergens decus, imo et tibi in aurem insusurrare quam faeliciter Spartam banc exornaveris ; certe bono pubbco, honori Academiee DubUniensis, usui et ornamento lite- ratorum, sahiti sedentis et desidis turbae cogitabundorum hominum, quinimo et inclytae famte tuae. Tantum est nihil enim superest, nisi ut te amem, ut legam, ut relegam, et ut (quod vovit Socrates in intuitu et speculatione mortis,) ego pro tuis de morte prseclaris lucubrationibus et longsevi- tatis salutaribus documentis nuncuparem Galium ^Esculapio ; vel potius tibi (quod Apollinis filio Heraclides constituit,) sXalov Tt^rivriv x^ve^v rov hyboov. Serpentem autem et canem in 3ede ^Esculapii tu cave. Etenim non ita pridem sensisti mordacium animalculorum morsiunculas. Vale. " Ex amoenissimo recessu in Portmore dedit " JEREMIAS TAYLOR, *' S.S. Th. Professor." What follows is of a very different character. " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. " Honoured and deare Sir, — Yours dated July 23d, I received not till All Saints day : it seemes it was stopp'd by the intervening troubles in England": but it was lodged in a good hand, and came safely and unbroken to me. I must needes beg the favour of you that I may receive from you an account of your health and present conditions, and of your family ; for I feare concerning all my friends, but especially for those few very choice ones I have, lest the present troubles may have done them any violence in their affaires or content. It is now long since that cloud passed ; and though I suppose the sky is yet full of meteors and evil prognostics, yet you all have time to consider concerning your peace and your securityes. That was not God's time to relieve his church, and I cannot understand from what quarter that wind blew, and whether it was for us or against us. But God disposes all things wisely ; and religion can receive no detriment or " Note (FF). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 93 diminution but by our owne fault. I long. Sir, to come to converse with you ; for I promise to myselfe tliat I may receive from you an excellent account of your progression in religion, and that you are entred into the experimental and secret way of it, which is that state of excellency whe- ther [whither] good persons use to arrive after a state of re- pentance and caution. My retirement in this solitary place hath been, I hope, of some advantage to me as to this state of religion, in which I am yet but a novice, but by the good- ness of God, I see fine things before me whither I am con- tending. It is a great, but a good worke, and I beg of you to assist me with your prayers, and to obtaine of God for me that I may arrive to that height of love and union with God, which is given to all those soules who are very deare to God. Sir, if it please God, I purpose to be in London in April next, where I hope for the comfort of conversing witli you. In the mean time, be pleas'd to accept my thankes for your great kindnesse in taking care of me in that token you were pleased to leave with Mr. Martin. I am sorry the evil circumstances of the times made it any way afflictive or inconvenient. I had rather you should not have been burden'd than that I should have received kindnesse on hard conditions to you. Sir, I shall not trouble your studies now, for I suppose you are very buisy there : but I shall desire the favour that I may know what you are now doing, for you cannot seperate your affaires from being of concerne to, " Deare Sir, " Your very affectionate friend and humble servant, " Portmore, Nov. 3, 1G59." " JER. TAYLOR*." With such humility did the author of the " Holy Living and Dying" regard his own attainments in religion, and such were his impressions of the happiness and consolation, even in this life, conferred by a pure and exalted piety. If there is something mystic in the tone which he adopts, and we are reminded, in spite of ourselves, of his previous inquiries concerning the Perfectionists, let it be remembered that his subsequent, no less than his preceding writings, bear tes- "^ Evelyn Papers, iiied. 94 LIFE OF JFREIVrY TAYLOR, D.D. timony to his freedom from any error of the kind ; and that his devotion through Hfe, appears to have continued as we have hitherto seen it, however intense, however unremitted, however (I had ahiiost said) seraphic, — yet practical, peace- ful, energetic, and orderly; — of a kind which, instead of seeking food in visions of enthusiastic rapture, or displaying itself in a fantastical adoption of new toys and instruments of theopathy, made him the better friend, the better parent, the better servant of the state, the better member and governor of that church which he had defended in her deepest adversities. Those adversities were now drawing to an end, though Taylor could not foresee it, and, as appears from some expressions in the preceding letter, was uncertain whether the aspect of the times portended good or an increase of evil. His journey to London, however, which we have seen him already meditating, and which he again promises to his friend and himself, in the letter which stands next in the series, was as well timed for his own prospects and future advancement, as if he had really been in the secret of Monk's intentions. " TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQ. '' Portmore, Feb. 10, Ifi^a. ** Honoured and deare Sir, — I received yours of December 2, in very good time, but although it came to me before Christmas, yet it pleased God, about that time, to lay his gentle hand upon me ; for I had beene, in the worst of our winter weather, sent for to Dublin by our late Anabaptist commissioners ; and found the evil of it so great, that in my going I began to be ill : but, in my return, had my ill redoubled and fixed : but it hath pleased God to restore my health, I hope ' ad majorem Dei gloriam ;' and now that I can easily write, I return you my very hearty thanks for your very obliging letter, and particularly for the inclosed. Sir; the Apology you were pleased to send me, I read both privately and heard it read publikely with no little pleasure and satisfaction. The materials are worthy, and the dress is clean, and orderly, and beauteous : and I wish that all men in tlie nation were obliged to read it twice : it is impossible but it must doe good to those guilty persons to whom it is not impossible to repent. Your Character hatli LIFE OF JEHEMV TV A LOU, D.D. 95 a great part of a worthy reward, that it is translated into a language in which it is likely to be read by very many ' beaux esprits.' But that which I promise to myself as an excellent entertainment, is your * Elysium Britannicum-^.' But, Sir, being you intend it to the purposes of piety as well as pleasure, why doe you not rather call it Paradisus than Elysium ; since the word is used by the Hellenish Jewes to signify any place of spiritual and immaterial pleasure, and excludes not the material and secular. Sir ; I know you are such a ' curieux,' and withal so diligent and inquisitive, that not many things of the delicacy of learning, relating to your subject, can escape you ; and, therefore, it would be great imprudence in me to offer my little mite to your already digested heape. I hope, ere long, to have the honour to waite on you, and to see some parts and steps of your pro- gression : and then if I see I can bring any thing to your building, though but hair and stickes, I shall not be wanting in expressing my readinesse to serve and to honour you, and to promote such a worke, than w hich I thinke, in the world, you could not have chosen a more apt and a more ino'enious. '* Sir ; I do really beare a share in your feares and your sorrowes for your deare boy. I doe and shall pray to God for him ; but I know not what to say in such things. If God intends, by these clouds, to convey him and you to brighter graces and more illustrious glories respectively; I dare not, with too much passion, speake against the so great good of a person that is so deare to me, and a child that is so deare to you. But I hope that God will doe what is best : and I humbly beg of him to choose what is that best for you both. As soon as the weather and season of the spring gives leave, I intend, by God's permission, to returne to England : and when I come to London with the first to waite on you, for whom I have so great regard, and from whom I have received so many testimonies of a worthy friendship, and in whom I know so much worthinesse is deposited. ** I am, most faithfully and cordially, " Your very affectionate and obliged servant, " JER. TAYLOR'." > Notp (O G), ' Evelyn Papers, ined. 96 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. This journey to London, though probably undertaken with no further expectations than of seeing his friends, and giving the last inspection to his ' Ductor Dubitantium,' in its progress through the press, — was propitious to Taylor's advancement. His name appeared among the signatures of loyalists in London, and its vicinity, affixed to their decla- ration of April 24, 1660, in which they expressed the mode- ration of their views, and their confidence in the wisdom and justice of Monk and his government. He was thus advan- tageously brought under the notice of his sovereign, on his return to the throne, as a faithful adherent to monarchy and episcopacy ; and had the opportunity of dedicating to him the great work, to which his best years had been devoted, — on which, of all his compositions, he had bestowed the most time and labour, the most anxiety and prayer, — and in which, of all others, he seems to have pleased himself with the idea that he was laying the foundations of his future fame, and rendering an acceptable service to the cause of morality and religion. It may be doubted whether the manner in which it has been received has altogether answered these anticipations. With all its learning, most widely ransacked and most pro- digally displayed — with all its acuteness of argument and criticism, its strong practical good sense, and its admirable moderation^ — the '* Ductor Dubitantium" has, perhaps, been among the least read and least popular of his writings. The world have been less anxious to study than to talk of and and admire; its object, even at its first appearance, was, in some degree, accounted obsolete, and its sphere of utility limited ; and, while his devotional works have found their way into every closet and every cottage, his * opus magnum' reposes on the shelves of our libraries, in company with the neglected giants of an earlier day, the ' Summa Senten- tiarum,' and the writings of Duns Scotus. How far this neglect is merited or undeserved, — how far it is inherent in the nature of his design, or incidental to the manner in which that design is executed, — a better oppor- tunity will hereafter be afforded for inquiring. I will here only observe, that the times in which it appeared had, in themselves, a natural and inevitable tendency to rob the * Ductor Dubitantium' of even its due share of popular notice LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 97 and favour. The country was in a state of feverish excita- tion, which left men little desire, and less leisure, to open folios of casuistry. Every body was agitated by the con- sciousness of having deserved well or ill of the restored monarch and his family; and the hopes of preferment, — the fears of persecution, — the triumph of the loyal, — and the doubts of those few who saw deeper into Charles's character, — were succeeded by a long and disgusting course of tyranny and civil dissension, and by a school of literature and com- position, of all others w hich this country has seen the least favourable to genius, and the most unlike that style of thinking and expression which had distinguished Jeremy Taylor and his contemporaries. After the completion of a work of such magnitude and importance, it would, with most men, have been no more than was to be expected, that they should suspend awhile the labours of composition. But the rapidity of Taylor's pen was such, that it is necessary to mark the fact, that only one more work of his appeared this year, — the " Worthy Communicant," — accompanied by his beautiful sermon at the funeral of Sir George Dalstone. The dowager princess of Orange was at this time in England, on a visit of con- gratulation to her brother; and the volume is inscribed to her, in a dedication in which Taylor eulogizes not only her virtues, but those of the king, in a strain which may be forgiven to a triumphant loyalist, when speaking of a young and graceful monarch, whose dignified and prudent- conduct under misfortune, and whose supposed constancy in maintain- mg, against all temptations, his allegiance to the Church of England, had inspired hopes of a wisdom and piety, which his subsequent conduct but too lamentably disappointed. The merits which Taylor had to plead with the restored government, were exceeded by those of few persons in his profession. Of all the episcopal clergy, old Sanderson alone, perhaps, excepted, there was none who could compete with him in the renown of learning and genius. His cha- racter had remained unsullied by any compliance with the factious or fanatical party, during the time of their greatest triumphs. He had been the object of a more than common suspicion and severity, on the part of the usurping govern- ment; and even his polemical antagonists were in the habit 98 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, U.D. of bearing testimony to his blameless life, and the ardour of his piety. Whether his union with the king's natural sister was known or pleaded, may, perhaps, be doubted. If it were, it is possible that this circumstance may have contri- buted to determine the scene of his promotion ; and that Charles was not unwilling to remove to a distance a person whose piety might lead him to reprove many parts of his conduct, and who would have a plausible pretence for speaking more freely than the rest of the dignified clergy. It may be believed, however, that Taylor himself would be by no means displeased with his destination, though, in some respects, a more obscure one than, from the circum- stances enumerated, he might have looked for. His family were already in Ireland, and, though the Mandinam property was now relieved from sequestration, the state of his worldly affairs can hardly have been such as to make the expense of removal desirable. To the country of his refuge he seems to have felt considerable attachment; — and the persuasions of the marquess, afterwards duke of Ormond, who was the great pillar of the episcopal cause, and who was extremely and laudably solicitous to fill the sees of his native kingdom with learning and piety, would naturally be employed both to forward the appointment and reconcile him to it. He was, accordingly, nominated, on the 6th of August, after the king's return, under the privy seal, to the bishopric of Down and Connor, and, shortly after, elected, by Ormond's recom- mendation, vice-chancellot of the university of Dublin*. These situations were very far from sinecures. In the university every thing was to be undone and begun anew, in consequence of the disorders introduced during the time of the commonwealth. The revenues had been dilapidated, and the land, in many instances, alienated. None of the members then in possession had any legal title either to scholarship or fellowship ; all having been introduced by irregular elec- tions, or by the direct interference of the usurping government. And as, by the statutes of the college, no election could be made but by the provost, and the concurring votes of at least four seniors, it was proposed by Taylor, that himself. * Rot. Pat. Cauc. Hibern. 2nda pars. f. 11, 15. For this date and reference, I am obliged to the kindness of I\Ir. IMonk IMason. 99 as vice-chancellor, — the archbishop of Dublin, as visitor, — and the new provost, who was appointed by the crown, — should be empowered, by their own authority, to elect seven senior fellows, who were to serve as a nucleus from which the society should again take its beginning. Ormond, how- ever, chose to keep this appointment in his own liands, though he so far complied with the proposal as to desire the vice-chancellor and provost to recommend live persons who might, by the royal authority, be made fellows ; and Taylor had, in consequence, the satisfaction of procuring a fellow- ship for his friend. Dr. Stearne, already mentioned, (though a married man, and, therefore, not statutably eligible,) on the plea that, in so great a scarcity of able candidates, his learning, and long acquaintance with the college, made his presence absolutely necessary. In the mean time, Taylor undertook the task of collecting, arranging, revising, and completing the body of statutes which bishop Bedell had left unfinished; — in settling the form and conditions under which degrees were to be conferred; — in appointing public lectures and disputations; — and in laying the basis of the distinguished reputation v/hich the university of Dublin has since retained, in spite of its unfortunate situation in a luxurious metropolis, and the disadvantageous competition which it has been compelled to carry on with the elder and more extensive establishments of the sister kingdom ^. His labours in his diocese were still greater, and their result, at first, far less satisfactory, inasmuch as their scope was more extended, and the prejudices against which he had to contend were of deeper root, and involved more important interests. It has happened almost uniformly, in cases of religious difference, that those schisms have been most bitter, if not most lasting, which have arisen on topics of dispute com- paratively unimportant, and where the contending parties had, apparently, least to concede, and least to tolerate. Nor are there many instances on record which more fully and more unfortunately exemplify this general observation, than that of the quarrel and final secession of the puritan clergy *" Carte's Life of Oinioiul, vol. ii. p. 208. 100 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. from the church, in the year 1662. Both parties, in that case, were agreed on the essentials of Christianity. Both professed themselves not unwilling to keep out of sight, and mutually endure, the few doctrinal points on which a differ- ence existed between them. The leading puritans were even disposed to submit to that episcopal government, their oppo- sition to which, during former reigns, had created so much disturbance, and had led, by degrees, to such abundant bloodshed and anarchy. And it is no less true than strange, that this great quarrel, which divided so many holy and learned preach(firs of the common faith, was occasioned and perpetuated by men, w^io, chiefly resting their objections to the form and colour of an ecclesiastical garment, the wording of a prayer, or the injunction of kneeling at the eucharist, were willing, for questions like these, to disturb the peace of the religious world, and subject themselves to the same severities which they had previously inflicted on the epi- scopal clergy. With these men, whether in England or Ireland, there were apparently only three lines of conduct for the ruling- powers to follow. The first was the adoption of such a liturgy and form of church government as w^onld, at once, satisfy the advocates of episcopacy and presbytery. This was attempted in vain; and was, indeed, a measure, the failure of which, a very slight attention to the prejudices and animosity of both parties would have enabled a bystander to anticipate. The second was that which was, at least virtually, promised by the king in the declaration of Breda; that, namely, uniformity of discipline and worship should, for the present, not be insisted on; that the Presbyterian and In- dependent preachers should, during their lives, be continued in the churches where they were settled; ejecting only those who had been forcibly intruded, to the prejudice of persons yet alive, and who might legally claim re-instatement ; and filling up the vacancies of such as died, with ministers epi- scopally ordained and canonically obedient. In this case, it is possible that, as the stream of preferment and patronage would have been confined to those who conformed, as the great body of the nation were strongly attached to the liturgy, and gave a manifest preference to those churches LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.l). ]01 where it was iised^; and as the covenantino; clergy would have no longer been under the influence of that point of honour, which, when its observance was compulsory, induced them to hold out against it, — the more moderate, even of the existing generation, would have by degrees complied with their own interests and the inclination of their flocks ; while the course of nature, and the increasing infirmities of age, must, in a few years, have materially diminished the numbers and influence of the more pertinacious. We have found, in fact, by experience, that the liturgy has, through its intrinsic merits, obtained, by degrees, no small degree of reverence even among those who, on other grounds, or on no grounds at all, dissent from the church of England, as at present constituted. And it is possible that, by thus for- bearing to press its observance on those whose minds were so ill prepared to receive it, a generation would soon have arisen, to whom their objections would have appeared in their natural weakness, and the greatest and least rational of those schisms had been prevented, which have destroyed the peace and endangered the existence of the British churches. But, while we, at the present day, are amusing ourselves with schemes of what we should have done had we lived in the time of our fathers, it may be well, for the justification of these last, to consider how little the principles of toleration were then understood by either party ; how deeply and hov/ recently the episcopal clergy, and even the laity of the same persuasion, had suffered from the very persons who now called on them for forbearance ; how ill the few measures which were really proposed, of a conciliatory nature, were met by the disingenuousness of some of the presbyterian leaders, and the absurd bigotry of others'^, and the reason- able suspicion which was thus excited, that nothing would content them but the entire proscription of the forms to which they objected. Nor can we greatly wonder, that under such circumstances, the third and simplest course was adopted, — that, namely, of imposing afresh on all a liturgy, to vv'hich the great body of the people was ardently attached, and the disuse of which, in any particular parishes, (when the majority of congregations enjoyed it,) was likely to be « Clarendon, Life, p. 157. t^'l- 1759. ^ Note(Iin). 102 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. attended with abundant discontent and inconvenience. These considerations are, indeed, no apology for the fresh ao;o;ressions of which the episcopalian party were guilty; for their unseasonable though well intended alterations of the liturgy ; and the hostile clauses inserted in their new act of uniformity. Far less can they extenuate the absurd wicked- ness of the persecution afterwards resorted to against those whom these measures had confirmed in their schism. But they may lead us to apprehend that, (though a very few concessions more would have kept such men as Baxter and Philip Henry in the church,) there would have been very many whom no concession would have satisfied ; and that the offence of schism w^as, in a great degree, inevitable, though a different course, on the side of the victorious party, might have rendered it of less wide diffusion, and of less deep and lasting malignancy. If a temper thus unfavourable to peace prevailed in Eno-land, there is reason to believe that in Ireland it was still more powerful. Even among the episcopalian clergy, during the continuance of then- establishment, no incon- siderable leaven of puritanism had been found ; and the venerable Usher himself, though during the triumph of Cal- vinism, he saw reasons for altering his sentiments, gave encouragement, at an earlier period, by his example and his patronage to these unattractive and gloomy tenets. But, by the absurd and most miserable rebellion of the Roman Catholics, begun in rashness and miscalculation by the crazy patriotism of Roger More; carried on in folly and brutal cruelty l3y the drunken O'Neil, and the savage rabble, whom he could neither lead nor control ; and suppressed by a system of military tyranny the most perfect, the most effectual, the most wicked, and remorseless, of which Christendom affords an example ; — the Protestant episcopal clergy had all been swept away from that ill-starred kingdom. Their places had been supplied by the most zealous adherents of the common- wealth and the covenant, who were supported by the ma- jority of those who had profited during the merciless system of confiscation which Cromwell had put in practice, and by the officers and men of a numerous army, formed in his school and under his immediate auspices, whom the govern- ment could neither pay nor discharge, — and who, though LIFE OF JEllEINIY TAYLOR, D.D. 103 they had concurred in the restoration of the crown, were very httle disposed to sanction that of the mitre. Ah'eady these men had gained confidence by the delay which intervened between the royal designation of the new bishops to their respective sees, and their solemn consecra- tion to the sacred office. And it is probable that, but for the zeal of Ormond, seconded by his great popularity, and by the firmness of the small majority of Irish nobility a]|,d gentry, who were attached, by old recollections and a sense of recent oppression, to the institutions which Calvinism had supplanted, the hierarchy and the Common Prayer would have had a similar and a yet earlier extinction in that king- dom than in Scotland. Fortunately for good taste and rational piety, the friends of both were triumphant ; and, more happily still for the national honour and prosperity, the restoration of both was effected without any of those seve- rities towards dissenters which, in England and Scotland, disgrace the annals of Charles the Second. Yet the year 1660 passed aw^ay without any steps being taken in favour of episcopacy; and it was only on January the 27th of the following year, that two archbishops and ten bishops were consecrated by Bramhall, formerly bishop of Derry, and now primate, with great pomp and loud exultation of the loyalists, in the cathedral of St. Patrick. Of the bishops Taylor was one, and appointed to preach the sermon. Of his talents, indeed, the government in church and state seem to have been fully sensible, and naturally anxious to avail themselves, since it w as he who w^as also called on to preach, on the 8th of May, before the two houses of Parliament, and again, before the primate, at his metropolian visitation of Down and Connor. Honours and preferment were now flowing fast upon him. In February he was made a member of the Irish Privy Council, and, on the 30th of April, in addition to his former diocese, was entrusted with the administration of the small adjacent one of Dromore, " on account," in the words of the writ under the privy seal, " of his virtue, wisdom, and industry^." ' Rot. Pat. LT (!ai-. 11. 'iada jiar.s, facie. See also Ilarns's W&re, y. 205. 104 LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOK, D.D. For all these good qualities, and for patience more than all, the state of his dioceses afforded him, indeed, abundant occasion. It was in this part of Ireland, more than any other, that the clearance of the episcopalian clergy had been most effectual, and that their places had been supplied by the sturdiest champions of the covenant, taken for the most part from the west of Scotland, — disciples of Cameron, Renwick/ and Peden, and professing, in the wildest and most gloomy sense, the austere principles of their party. Such men as these, more prejudiced in proportion as they were worse educated than the other adherents of Calvin, were neither to be impressed by the zeal with which the new prelate discharged the duties of his station, nor softened by the tenderness and charity expressed in his deportment towards themselves. It was in vain, so far as they were concerned, that he preached every Sunday in different churches of his diocese ; that he invited his clergy to friendly conferences; that he personally called at their houses; employed the good offices of pious laymen of their own persuasion, and offered his best endeavours to give satisfaction or obtain relief for their scruples. In answer to these advances, the pulpits resounded with exhortations to stand by the covenant even unto blood ; with bitter invectives against the episcopal order, and against Taylor more particularly ; while the preachers entered into a new engagement among themselves, " to speak with no bishop, and to endure neither their government nor their persons." The virtues and eloquence of Taylor, however, were not without effect on the laity, who were, at the same time, offended by the refusal of their pastors to attend a public conference. The nobility and gentry of the three dioceses, with one single exception, came over, by degrees, to the bishop's side ; and we are even assured by Carte, that, during the two years which intervened before the enforcement of the Act of Uniformity, the great majority of the ministers themselves had yielded, if not to his arguments, to his persevering kindness and Christian example^. In the mean time, however, some traces of disappointment and irritation are, I think, perceivable in his sermon before *' Carte, ubi j;upra. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 105 the two houses of Parliament. He tliere inveighs with some asperity against such as thought it a less sin to stand in separation from the church, than to stand in a clean white garment : and observes, that " we have seen the vilest part of mankind, men that have done things so horrid, worse than which the sun never saw, yet pretend tender con- sciences against ecclesiastical laws/' He urges, forcibly and ably, that, in things indifferent or doubtful, it must be safe to follow the decision of our superiors ; that, in all cases, obedience is free from those results which are the greatest aggravation of the crime of heresy, and that, therefore, in the great majority of cases, dissent is more dangerous than conformity. He presses the consideration that no laws can stand at all, if all who dislike them may plead conscience as an exemption ; and he presses also, (what is easily said in the case of our brother, but what every man in his own case receives with difficulty,) that they who dislike the discipline of a church are at liberty to resign their preferments^. We shall do him an injustice, however, if we sup- pose him to hold these doctrines without qualification ; without allowances for invincible prejudice, for human infirmity, and the many other considerations which must be taken into account in every reformation or return to original principles. On the contrary, he expresses a hope that, in all measures to be adopted for the government of the church, wherever " weak brethren shall still plead for tole- ration and compliance, the bishops would consider where it can do good and do no harm ; where they are permitted, and where they are themselves tied up by the laws ; and, in all things where it is safe and holy, to labour to give them ease and bring them remedy." And there is one circumstance which it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind while forming our opinion on this part of Taylor's conduct ; that, namely, the obedience which he claims, as due to the laws of ecclesiastical superiors, is that obedience only which is paid by the members of their own communion. It is, in fact, no more than the privilege (which every Christian society exerts, and must exert for its own preservation), to have the offices of its ministry supplied « Vol. vi. p. cccxxxi. et seq. 106 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. by such men as conform to the regulations imposed by the body at large, or those to whom its powers are delegated. On toleration, properly so called, in its civil sense and on its broadest foundation, he has, in this discourse, said nothing at variance with his " Liberty of Prophesying." And so far is any thing which he here advances from sanctioning those penal enactments which the jealousy of succeeding parlia- ments directed against the professors of other creeds, that his main argument proceeds on the supposition that sects who could not agree might charitably differ. The model, in short, of mutual forbearance, which he proposed to his countrymen, was the same with that exhibited by the ruling and notoriously tolerant churches of Geneva, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, who arranged their own internal concerns as they themselves thought most expedient, but who never attempted to disturb the liberties of those who conscientiously forsook their communion. And if, in an orator of Taylor's principles, a more definite caution is required against the crime of religious persecution, let it be remembered, that he could not have foreseen the temper in which the work now begun was afterwards carried on and completed. The declarations of the king had hitherto breathed nothing but conciliation and indulgence to weak consciences ; and, from the known principles of many of the leading characters of the Irish Parliament, the episcopalians of that nation, in particular, had no reason to apprehend that too little regard would be shown to the wishes of the puritans''. One subject there was, however, on which an abun- dant share of the Christian virtues of disinterestedness, forgiveness, justice, and compassion, was no more than necessary to guide his auditors to a right decision ; — a decision in which the interests and even existence of many thousand families were implicated, and which some of the worst and strongest feelings of avarice, party spirit, and deeply rooted hostility, conspired to pervert or embarrass. I mean the question of the Irish confiscated estates, on which it is gratifying to find Taylor speaking with the discrimi- nation of one who well understood the affairs of that king- '' Carte, ubi supra. LIFE OF JERE:\IY TAYLOR, D.D. 107 dom, no less than with that authority and earnestness which it becomes a Christian bishop to display on the side of the oppressed and unfortunate. " Ye cannot obey God unless you do justice : for tliis also * is better than sacrifice/ said Solomon. For Christ, who is the sun of righteousness, is a sun and shield to them that do righteously. The Indian was not immured suf- ficiently by the Atlantic sea, nor the Bosphoran by the walls of ice, nor the Arabian by his meridian sun : the Christian justice of the Roman princes brake through all enclosures, and by justice, set up Christ's standard, and gave to all the world a testimony how much could be done by prudence and valour, when they were conducted by the hands of justice: and now you will have a great trial of this part of your obedience to God. " For you are to give sentence in the causes of half a nation : and he had need to be a wise and a good man that divides the inheritance amongst brethren; that he may not be abused by contrary pretences, — nor biassed by the interest of friends, — nor transported with the unjust thoughts even of a just revenge, — nor allured by the opportunities of spoil, — nor turned aside by partiality in his own concerns, — nor blinded by gold, which puts out the eyes of wise men, — nor cozened by pretended zeal, — nor wearied with the difficulty of questions, — nor directed by a general measure in cases not measurable by it, — nor borne down by prejudice, — nor abused by resolutions taken before the cause be heard, — nor overruled by national interests. For justice ought to be the simplest thing in the world, and is to be measured by nothing but by truth, and by laws, and by the degrees of princes. But, whatever you do, let not the pretence of a different religion make you think it lawful to oppi'css any man in his just rights; for opinions are not, but laws only, and ' doing as we ivould he done to,' are the measures of justice: and, though justice does alike to all men, Jew and Christian, Lutheran and Calvinist ; yet, to do right to them that are of another opinion is the way to win them : but if you, for conscience sake, do them wrong, they will hate both you and your religion. '* Lastly ; as ' obedience is better than sacrifice,' so God also said, ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice;' meaning 108 LIFE OF JEREIMY TAYLOR, D.D. that mercy is the best obedience. ' Perierat totum quod Deus fecerat, nisi misericordia subvenisset,' said Chry- sologus : all the creatures both in heaven and earth woi|ld perish, if mercy did not relieve us all. Other good things, more or less, every man expects according to the portion of his fortune. * Ex dementia omnes idem sperant ; ' but from mercy and clemency all the world alike do expect advan- tages. And which of us all stands here this day, that does not need God's pardon and the king's ? Surely no man is so much pleased with his own iimocence, as that he will be willing to quit his claim to mercy, and, if we all need it, let us all show it. " Naturae imperio gemimus, cum funus adultae Virginis occurrit, vel terra clauditur infans Et minor igue rogi ! " " If you do but see a maiden carried to her grave a little before her intended marriage, or an infant die before the birth of reason, nature has taught us to pay a tributary tear. Alas ! your eyes will behold the ruin of many families, which, though they sadly have deserved, yet mercy is not delighted with the spectacle ; and therefore God places a watery cloud in the eye, that, when the light of heaven shines on it, it may produce a rainbow, to be a sacrament and a memorial that God and the sons of God do not love to see a man perish. God never rejoices in the death of him that dies, and we also esteem it indecent to have music at a funeral. And, as religion teaches us to pity a con- demned criminal, so mercy intercedes for the most benign interpretation of the laws. You must, indeed, he as just as the laws: and you tnust be as merciful as your religion: and you have no umij to tie these together, but tofolloio the pattern in the mount ; do as God does, ivho in judgment remembers mercy !'' Occupied as Taylor now was, his contributions to the press were not likely to be frequent or considerable, and, except his Consecration Sermon, his Sermon before the Parliament, and a small manual of rules for his clergy, (of whom, it hence appears, he had already reconciled no inconsiderable number,) we are acquainted with no other publications of his during this year. These he mentions, more slightly than they deserve, in the following letter. LIFE OF JERFMY TAYLOR, D.D. 109 '' TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQUIRE. " Dublin, November IC, 1G6L *' Deare Sir, — Your owiie worthinesse and the obligations you have so often pass'd upon me have imprinted in me so great a value and kindnesse to your person, that I thinke myselfe not a little concerned in yourselfe and all your relations, and all the great accidents of your life. Doe not therefore thinke me either impertinent or otherwise without employment, if I doe with some care and earnest- nesse inquire into your health and the present condition of your affaires. Sir, when shal we expect your * Terrestrial Paradise,' your excellent observations and discourses of gardens, of which I had a little posy presented to me by your owne kind hand : and makes me long for more. Sir, I and all that understand excellent fancy, language and deepest loyalty, are bound to value your excellent panegyric, which I saw and read with pleasure. I am pleased to read your excellent mind in so excellent [an] idea; for as a father in his son's face, so is a man's soule imprinted in all the pieces that he labours. Sir, I am so full of publicke concernes and the troubles of businesse in my diocese, that I cannot yet have leisure to thinke of much of my old delightful imployment. But I hope I have brought my affaires almost to a consistence, and then I may returne againe. Royston (the bookseller) hath two Sermons and a little Collection of Rules for my Clergy, which had beene presented to you if I had thought [them] fit for notice, or to send to my dearest friends. ** Dear Sir, 1 pray let me hear from you as often as you can, for you will veiy much oblige me, if you will continue to love me still. I pray give my love and deare reg^irds to worthy Mr. Thurland : let me heare of him and his good lady, and how his son does. God blesse you and yours, him and his. I am, " Deare Sir, " Your most affectionate friend, « JEREM. DUNENSIS*." ' K\ elyu Papers, ijied. 110 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOU, D.D. This is the last letter which has been yet discovered between the two friends. I am loath to think that their correspondence terminated here, though it appears probable from some expressions of Taylor's, that it had already begun to slacken, and that this languor had first commenced on the part of Evelyn. The latter, however, as appears from his diary, continued to regard Taylor with unmingled feelings of respect and esteem, and, when speaking, many years after, of Mary Marsh, he calls her '* the daughter of his worthy and pious friend, the late bishop of Down and Connor." That friend, however, was then no more ; and if we are really to account for the apparent cessation of correspondence, by the supposition that an affection founded in similarity of sentiment, and cemented by benefits and prayers, though it had withstood the severest blasts of adversity, had gradually faded under the influence of long continued absence and change of circumstances and occupation ; it will be only another proof how vain is that life where even our best and noblest ties are subject to dissolution and decay, and how valuable is that hope which teaches us that the love which is founded in virtue and piety shall revive again, and continue to form, in part, the happiness of an existence where neither absence nor change is to be feared ! During this year, Taylor had again experienced the hand of Providence weighing heavily on his domestic comforts. On the 10th of March, his son Edward was buried at Lisburn, — the only surviving son, as I apprehend, of his second marriage. He had found also an occasion for his pious munificence in the ruined state of his cathedral at Dromore, of which he rebuilt the choir at his own expense : his wife (not his daughter, as has been generally supposed,) contributing the communion plate ^. During this year, too, he invited over George Rust, a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, with a promise of conferring on him the deanery of Connor, which was expected to be shortly vacant. Rust was afterwards Tay- lor's successor in the see of Dromore, and preached his Funeral Sermon, a work to which we are obliged, in the paucity of othpr materials, for our knowledge of many ^ .Note (I I). LIFE OF JERKMV TAYLOR, D.D. HI leading circumstances of his life, his fortunes, and character. It is remarkable that the preacher himself, though an eminent person in his day, and though his friend Glanvill has extolled him as a profound divine, a powerful orator, and an admirable philosopher, is now chiefly, if not altogether, recollected through his accidental connexion with the more illustrious memory of his predecessor. Of Taylor's domestic concerns, at this time, little more is known than that he continued to occupy his favourite retirement of Portmore, where he had a house and farm, and lived in intimate friendship with the family of Lord Conway. For our knowledge even of these particulars, which are, however, confirmed by the fact that his son Edward was buried at Lisburn, we are indebted to two strange stories in that strange book the ** Sadducismus Triumphatus," of Glanvill, edited and enlarged by More, which, (though its ravenous credulity and ghostly frontis- pieces may, at present, be thought only proper to alarm a nursery,) displays in some of its arguments much of that singular Platonic learning by which its author and editor were distinguished, and has, undoubtedly, adduced some evidences of apparitions which it is easier to ridicule than to disprove. One of these was a spirit, supposed, on Michaelmas-day in the year 1662, to appear to one Francis Taverner, '* a lusty, proper, stout fellow, then servant at large, afterwards porter, to the Lord Chichester, Earl of Donegal," near Drumbridge, in the county of Antrim, and in Taylor's diocese of Connor. The object of the ghost's return to earth, which he should seem to have effected in a respectable grazierly style, on horseback, and in a white coat, — was to recover for his orphan boy a lease, of which his widow and her second husband had wronged him. Taylor, who was then holding his visitation at Dromore, appears to have been desired to examine Traverner respecting what he had seen and heard ; and is said by the narrator of the story, a certain Mr. Alcock, his secretary, to have been satisfied as to the truth of the narration. On a second meeting, however, with Taverner, at Lord Donegal's house, and in company with my *' Lady Conway and other persons of quality," — he furnished Taverner with a string of interrogatories which he 112 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. was to propose to the spirit on its next appearance, which sufficiently prove he was little inclined to " take the ghost's word for a thousand pounds." The attention, however, attracted by Taverner's story, was sufficient, the following year, to make one David Hunter, the bishop's own neat-herd, commence ghost-seer in liis turn, and leave his bed every night, for three quarters of a year, to follow, though sorely against his will, the spirit of an old woman through the neighbouring woods, till at length, he had the courage to speak to her. Good Lady Conway was convinced of his being really under no delusion, but it does not appear that Taylor paid any attention to his story. The narrative, however, is, on all accounts, curious, and not the less so as proving the fact of the bishop's residence and farm at Portmore. On the questions proposed to Taverner's aerial visitant, some bitter criticisms appear in the " Illustrious Providences" of Increase Mather, printed at Boston, 168^, p. 225. The pre- sent generation will pass a milder censure on him. What Taylor's sentiments were on the general question of departed spirits re-appearing, may be learned from the manner in which he treats the apparitions alleged by the Romish priests in behalf of the doctrine of purgatory, — after instancing some of which in a strain of powerful sarcasm, he goes on to say that, ** Against this way of proceeding we think fit to admonish the people of our charges, that, besides that the Scriptures expressly forbid us to inquire of the dead for truth ; the holy doctors of the church, particularly Tertullian, St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, Isidor, and Theophylact, deny that the souls of the dead ever do appear; and bring many reasons to prove that it is unfitting they should ; saying, if they did, it wovdd be the cause of many errors, and the devils, under that pretence, might easily abuse the world with notices and revelations of their own ; and because Christ would have us content with Moses and the prophets, and especially, to ' hear that prophet whom the Lord our God hath raised up' amongst us, our blessed Jesus, who never taught any such doctrine to his church'." ' Di&siiasive from Popery, vol.x. p. 152. Note (J J)- LIFE OF JKRK.MV TAYLOR, D.D 113 He had, as we have seen, complained to Evelyn of the interruptions which his present duties offered to his more beloved studies ; and, in 1662, nothing of liis composition issued from the press but the " Via Intelligentise," a sermon preached before the university of Dublin, on the same plan (he tells us), and following the same ideas, though in different words, with that which he had preached, but not published, the year before, at the archiepiscopal visitation. Its purport is, in a great measure, the same which he had partly insisted on in his Liberty of Prophesying, — that the likeliest way to avoid all religious errors, and the only and certain way to prevent our errors from being damnable, is to apply our- selves to the practice of holiness, piety, and charity, and to the teaching of that Holy Spirit, whose aid, in all things essential to salvation, will never be wanting to the sincere, the humble, and the pure. There are some expressions in this discourse which have been too hastily interpreted into an abandonment, or at least a qualification, of the large notions of religious liberty which, in his QsoXoytu szXszrr/.ri, he had so powerfully supported. A comparison of the cor- responding passages in each will, however, clear him from this imputation, and prove that, in admitting the legality of any coercion in such matters, he only means, what he had never denied, that if the consequences of the opinion are injurious to the peace of society, it may, accidentally, become a question of policy, how far the publication of the opinion should be allow^ed. Thus, in his Liberty of Prophesying, he had explicitly admitted, that, " if either the teachers of an opinion themselves, or their doctrine, do really, and without colour or feigned pretext, disturb the public peace and just interests, they are not to be suffered "\" And this is all which he can be fairly said to allow in his present sermon, when, after saying, what is most true, that the object of toleration is, in the first instance, not truth, but peace, he urges, that when " by opinions men rifle the affairs of kingdoms, it is also as certain, they ought not to be made public and permitted"." I do not say that such an admission, unless restricted within narrow "" Lib. of Proph. voL viii. p. 145. " i>ermon before the Univ. of Dublin, vol. vi, p. 37??. 114 L 1 y K O F J K R E M Y T A \' L O li , I) . I) .- bounds, and guarded with greater precision than, either here or in the Liberty of Prophesying, Taylor has employed, may not be dangerous to the principals which he has else- where, with such admirable ability, supported. A better opportunity will, ere long, present itself, of examining the extent and clearness of his views on this most interesting- subject. But it is of consequence to his moral, no less than his philosophical character, to show that his opinions were the same at different periods of his life, and under very different circumstances. And it is perfectly apparent, from the general tenour and tendency of the discourse of which I am speaking, that he was as tolerant as ever of religious differences, simply taken. Nor am I acquainted with any composition of human eloquence which is more deeply imbued with a spirit of practical holiness, — which more powerfully attracts the attention of men from the subtilties of theology to the duties and charities of religion, — or which evinces a more lofty disdain of those trifling subjects of dispute which, then or since, have divided the Protestant churches. " The way," he tells us, '' to judge of religion, is by doing of our duty : and theology is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge. In heaven, indeed, we must first see, and then love ; but here, on earth, we must first love, and love will open our eyes as well as our hearts ; and we shall then see, and perceive, and understand." In pursuance of this train of thought, he goes on to show how strangely vice and self-interest have power to clog and hebetate the understanding ; how necessaiy is the aid of God's Spirit to direct the will aright ; and how much that spiritual assistance, which is really and ordinarily pro- mised in Scripture, differs from the new revelations, the visions, and the ecstacies, which fanatics, both in the Roman and Protestant churches, have expected or pretended to. He describes the Holy Ghost as a Spirit who ** does not spend his holy influences in disguises and convulsions of the understanding ;" who " does not destroy reason, but heightens it ;" who " goes in company with his own ordi- nances, and makes progressions by the measures of life ; his infusions are just as our acquisitions, and his graces pursue the methods of nature : that which was imperfect, he LIFK or JKUKMV TAYI.OK, D.D. lib leads on to perfection ; and that which was weak, he makes strong : he opens the heart, not to receive murmurs, or to attend to secret whispers, but to hear the word of God ; and then lie opens the heart, and creates a new one ; and without this new creation, this new principle of life, we may hear the word of God, but w^e can never understand it ; we hear the sound, but we are never the better ; unless there be in our hearts a secret conviction by the Spirit of God, the Gospel itself is a dead letter, and worketh not in us the lioht and riohteousness of God." After enlarging, in a strain of exalted eloquence and poetry, on the internal privileges of the truly good and sanctified by the communion of God's Spirit, he explains the knowledge which a holy man possesses of the mysteries of religion, compared with that of a more learned but worldly professor of Christianity, as excelling the latter in the same way that experience excels theory, and practice speculation. " What learning is it to discourse of the philosophy of the sacrament, if you do not feel the virtue of it ? and the man that can w^th eloquence and subtilty discourse of the in- strumental efficacy of baptismal waters, talks ignorantly in respect of him, who hath the answer of a good conscience within, and is cleansed by the purifications of the Spirit. If the question concern any thing that can perfect a man and make him happy, all that is the proper knowledge and notice of the good man. How can a wicked man understand the purities of the heart ? and how can an evil and unworthy communicant tell what it is to have received Christ by faith, to dwell with him, to be united to him, to receive him in his heart ? The good man only understands that : the one sees the colour, and the other feels the substance ; the one dis- courses of the sacrament, and the other receives Christ ; the one discourses for or against transubstantiation, but the good man feels himself to be changed, and so joined to Christ, that he only understands the true sense of transub- stantiation, while he becomes to Christ bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, and of the same spirit with his Lord. * The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.' Well : there is our teacher told of plainly ; but how shall we obtain this teacher, and how shall we be taught ? Christ will pray 116 LIFK OF JEREMY TAYLOK. D.D. for US, that we may have this spirit. That is well : but shall all Christians have the Spirit ! Yes, all that will live like Christians ; for so said Christ, — ' If ye love me, keep my commandments ; and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that ho may abide with you for ever.' Mark these things. The Spirit of God is to be our teacher ; he will abide with us for ever to be our teacher ; he will teach us all things ; but how ? If ye love Christ, if ye keep his commandments, but not else : if ye be of the world, that is, of worldly affections, ye cannot see him, ye cannot know him." After applying the test of conformity to God's com- mandments to the spirit in which the religious disputes of his time had chiefly been carried on, and the doctrines which had been insisted on ; — after observing, that '' he that shall maintain it to be lawful to make a war for the defence of his opinion, be it what it will, his doctrine is against godliness ;" that he who, " for the garments and outsides of religion," neglects the duty of obedience to his superiors, " is a man of fancy and of the world," rather than of God and the Spirit ; and that " that is no good religion that disturbs governments, or shakes the foundation of public peace ;" — he closes his discourse with an exhorta- tion to those who were his immediate auditors, which they can hardly have heard without their hearts burning within them. " To you, fathers and brethren, — you, who are, or intend to be, of the clergy ; you see here the best compendium of your studies, the best abbreviature of your labours, the truest method of wisdom, and the infallible, the only way of judging concerning the disputes and questions in Christen- dom. It is not by reading multitudes of books, but by studying the truth of God : it is not by laborious com- mentaries of the doctors that you can finish your work, but by the expositions of the Spirit of God : it is not by the rules of metaphysics, but by the proportions of holi- ness : and, when all books are read, and all arguments examined, and all authorities alleged, nothing can be found to be true that is unholy. ' Give yourselves to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine,' saith St. Paul. Read all good books you can ; but exhortation unto good life is the LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 117 best instrument, and the best teacher of true doctrine, of that which is according to godliness. " And let me tell you this : the great learning of the fathers was more owing to their piety than to their skill ; more to God than to themselves: and to this purpose is that excellent ejaculation of St. Chrysostom, with which I will conclude : ' O blessed and happy men, whose names are in the book of life, from whom the devils fled, and heretics did fear them, who (by holiness) have stopped the mouths of them that spake perverse things ! But I, like David, will cry out. Where are thy loving-kindnesses which have been even of old ? Where is the blessed quire of bishops and doctors, who shined like lights in the world, and contained the word of life? * Dulce est meminisse ;' their very memory is pleasant. Where is that Evodias, the sweet savour of the church, the successor and imitator of the holy apostles ? Where is Ignatius, in whom God dwelt? Where is St. Dionysius, the Areopagite, that bird of Para- dise, that celestial eagle? Where is Hippolytus, that good man, dvrip y^ri^rhg^ that gentle sweet person ? Where is great St. Basil, a man almost equal to the apostles ? Where is Athanasius, rich in virtue ? Where is Gregory Nyssen, that great divine? And Ephrem, the great Syrian, that stirred up the sluggish, and awakened the sleepers, and comforted the afflicted, and brought the young men to discipline ; the looking-glass of the religious, the captain of the penitents, the destruction of heresies, the receptacle of graces, the habitation of the Holy Ghost?' — These were the men that prevailed against error, because they lived according to truth; and whoever shall oppose you, and the truth you walk by, may better be confuted by your lives than by your disputations. Let your adversaries have no evil thing to say of you, and then you will best silence them : for all heresies and false doctrines are but like Myron's counterfeit cow, it deceived none but beasts ; and these can cozen none but the wicked and the negligent, them that love a lie, and live according to it. But, if ye become burning and shining lights; if ye do not detain the truth in unrighteousness; if ye walk in light and live in the Spirit; your doctrines will be true, and that truth will prevail. But if ye live wickedly and scandalously, every little schismatic shall put you to 118 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. shame, and draw disciples after him, and abuse your flocks, and feed them with colocynths and hemlock, and place heresy in the chairs appointed for your religion. ** I pray God give you all grace to follow this wisdom, to study this learning, to labour for the understanding of godliness ; so your time and your studies, your persons and your labours, will be holy and useful, sanctified and blessed, Ijeneficial to men, and pleasing to God, through him who is the wisdom of the Father, who is made to all them that love him wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re- demption." In 1663, Taylor published his x^/c/j TsXs/wr/z??, " a Defence and Introduction to the Rite of Confirmation," dedicated to the duke of Ormond; — three Sermons, preached at Christ Church, Dublin; — and a Funeral Sermon on the Primate Bramhall, full of curious information concerning the secret history of the times, and the pains which had been taken, with more success than was then generally known or appre- hended, to pervert the exiled king from the faith of his countrymen. He was now also busied on the last consider- able w^ork which he lived to publish, — his " Dissuasive from Popery," — which appeared in 1664. This task he had undertaken by desire of the collective body of Irish bishops; and their injunctions, and the obvious necessity of the measure, he represents as his only motives for again embarking in so troublous a sea, notwithstanding his great and increasing aversion to that and every other controversy. It was difficult, however, for any good man to survey the follies and idolatries of popery, as they sub- sisted around him in their most revolting forms, without being anxious, by every means in his power, to abate the evil, or prevent its farther diffusion. No part, indeed, of the administration of Ireland by the English crown, has been more extraordinary and more unfortunate, than the system pursued for the introduction of the reformed religion. Instead of sending, in the first instance, missionaries well skilled in their native tongue to convince the inhabitants of the errors of their ancient faith, and conciliate them to a reception of the new, the churches were filled with English preachers, whose nation made them unpopular, and whose ignorance of the language, which only LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 119 their parishioners could speak or understand with readiness, prevented all extensive benefit from their zeal, however warm, and their abilities, however considerable. It was not even thought necessary to furnish them with a transla- tion either of the liturgy or the Scriptures : though, by a refinement in absurdity, they were to be compelled by a fine (Avhich, indeed, was rarely enforced,) to attendance on a church service, which was still more unintelligible to them than their ancient mass book, without having the same early associations to recommend it to them. Accordingly, while Wales, from an opposite line of treatment, received the doctrines of the Reformation with avidity, and, at an early period, was become almost exclusively Protestant; — while the Norman Isles have ever since been amongst the most faithful adherents of the episcopal church, from the advan- tage of French preachers and a French service book, — Ireland, with a people above most others docile and sus- ceptible of new impressions, has remained, through a great majority of her population, in the profession of a creed discountenanced by the state, and under the dominion of prejudices which, even to the present moment, no effectual measures have been taken to remove. A few unconnected, though zealous, and, so far as they went, successful efforts to remove this ignorance, were made by such men as Usher and the excellent bishop Bedell, and afterwards by Mr. Boyle. But government, which ought to have given the first impulse, was bent on a narrow and illiberal policy of supplanting the Irish by the English language, to which the present moral and religious instruction of millions was to give way, and which, though it has in part succeeded, (through circumstances of which the march was altogether independent of the measures taken to forward it,) has left a division of the national heart, far worse than that of the tongue, and perpetuated prejudices which might at first have been easily removed or softened. Even now, though the liturgy has been translated, and though there are many parishes where English is almost unknown, — throughout Ireland, if I am rightly informed, no public prayers are offered up in the ancient language; and though a version of the Scriptures has long existed, it is only within the few 120 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. last years, that any attempts have been made to ch'culatc them among the poor. It was, indeed, the misfortune of Ireland, and one which materially prevented the application of any active means for the conversion of her natives to a pure mode of faith and w^orship, that among the English clergy, who were the first heralds of Protestantism to her shores, a large proportion were favourers of the peculiar system of Calvin; — a system, of all others, the least attractive to the feelings of a Roman Catholic ; and the professors of which, as they looked on their brethren of the church of England as themselves little better than idolaters, have generally been more inclined to spend their zeal in a disturbance of the internal peace of their own communion, than in an energetic extension of the general principles of Protestantism among those who are v/ithout its pale. In England, during the reign of king Edward, when the great impression was, in fact, given to the public mind in favour of the monarch's creed, the points of difference which afterwards arose among its supporters were happily unknown, or wisely suppressed; and the transi- tion in the external forms of worship was so small, and the changes w4iich struck the common people most were all so obviously for the better, that even the ministers of the old religion had no good plea for withdrawing themselves from the church, and the body kept its ancient shape and sub- stance, thouoh its deformities were removed, and new blood infused throughout the system. To the Irish, Protestantism presented itself as a system on which its own members were not agreed ; and of Protestants, that party which for a time gained the victory was precisely that one whose rites and doctrines were most at variance with all to which the Irish had been accustomed, and whose professors regarded the Irish Roman Catholic with most contempt and abhorrence. The unhappy rebellion of More and O'Nial, in 1641, loaded as the memory of its instigators must ever remain with the stain of folly, blood-guiltiness, and cruelty, was accelerated, no doubt, if not occasioned, by the oppression of Sir William Parsons, and the other headn of the puritan faction ; by a dread of those severities, the not inflicting of which on the Papists, tlic Calvinists, both in Ireland and England, made LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOR, D.T). 121 a leading charge against their sovereign, and by the inter- ruption, through the influence of the same rising party, of the wise and benevolent, though vigorous policy, introduced in Ireland under the Stuart dynasty". On the consequences of that rebellion, — consequences even at the present day most deeply and injuriously felt by the church of Ireland and her national prosperity, — this is not the place to enlarge. It is only necessary to observe, that during Taylor's life, and at the time of w^hich I am speaking, they existed in all their greatest and most recent deformity ; and that, more particularly, the maintenance of the ancient religion was, with the original Irish, a bond of union and mutual support, — a guarantee to their political existence, — a title to their alienated possessions, — and a pledge of their future vengeance on those by whom they had been despoiled. And while the more educated classes of society had these cogent reasons for listening with reluctance to any thing which might be urged against the faith of their ancestors, the understandings and consciences of the illiterate peasantry were in the keeping of those who had still stronger motives of prejudice and interest to retain them in the old super- stition. " The Roman religion," as Taylor himself observes, " is here amongst us a faction, and a state party, and design to recover their old laws and barbarous manner of livino;, — a device to enable them to dwell alone, and to be ' populus unius labii,' a people of one language and unmingled with others. And if this be religion, it is such an one as ought to be reproved by all the severities of reason and religion, lest the people perish, and their souls be cheaply given away to them that make merchandise of souls, who were the purchase and price of Christ's blood ! " Such obstacles as these a learned treatise on the errors of popery was not very likely to batter down, and the author himself appears to have been extremely far I'rom participating an immediate or extensive success of his labours. " Having given," are his words, " this sad account, why it was neces- saiy that my lords the bishops should take care to do what they have done in this affair, and why I did consent to be engaged in this controversy, otherwise than I love to be ; " Carte's liifc ff Oimond. vol. i. n. i;{?». 122 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. and since it is not a love of trouble and contention, but charity to the souls of the poor deluded Irish ; there is nothing remaining, but that we humbly desire of God to accept and to bless this well-meant labour of love ; and that, by some admirable ways of his providence, he will be pleased to convey to them the notices of their danger and their sin, and to deobstruct the passages of necessary truth to them ; for we know the arts of their guides, and that it will be very hard that the notice of these things shall ever be suffered to arrive to the common people, but that which hinders will hinder, until it be taken away : however, we believe and hope in God for remedy p/' The remedy may, at first sight, appear to have been more in the power of Taylor and his brethren than they were themselves, perhaps, aware of. If the Roman Catholics, as he had previously complained in this same preface, were so studiously kept back by their spiritual guides from acquiring a knowledge of English, it was surely a very obvious measure for the preachers of the true faith to inform them- selves in the ancient Irish. It was a course which Bedell had already tried with success, to introduce, as far as pos- sible, the Scriptures and the liturgy in that language into the churches ; and to promote to the care of parishes in preference to all others, such ministers as were able to cope with the friars on their own ground, and enable the peasants to hear the Gospel, every man in his own tongue wherein he was born. Had such a system even then been adopted, it is impos- sible to suppose that much good might not have been effected ; and this very discourse of Taylor's, though too long and too learned to penetrate among the mountains and into the cottages ; yet, as furnishing the agents in the work of conversion with arguments adapted alike to the ignorant and the learned ; with zeale increased in proportion to their own knowledge of the importance of the truths which they conveyed ; and with that celestial armoury of spiritual weapons which his admirable knowledge of Scripture has supplied, — might have itself been a source of light to thousands ; a means, in God's hand, of drying up the waters of bitterness, r Preface to " Dissuasiv^e from Popery," vol. x. p. cxxv. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 123 and removing the greatest obstacle which has existed to the peace and prosperity of the empire. What peculiar hi ?7derances they were to which he alludes, (and it is but reasonable as well as charitable to believe that some such intervened to prevent the adoption of a plan so apparently obvious,) whether they were confined to Taylor's own diocese, or arose from the general state of the country and the neglect or impolicy of its government, it is now by no means easy to determine. The restoration of the Pro- testant episcopal church seems to have been a juncture pecu- liarly favourable for such exertions as I have mentioned ; and it is difficult to suppose that forms so like their own, and doctrines so conformable to reason, would have produced a less effect on the minds of the Irish, than has since been done by the preaching of the wildest and most ignorant sectaries. But, for the neglect or the oversight, if such existed, it was not Taylor who was chiefly answerable. He w^as one of many, and in rank not among the most eminent ; and he was already sinking under the burthen, not of years, but of a constitution broken with study and adversity'', and which was still more effectually crushed by severe domestic affliction. Of the second marriage, as we have already seen, one son only, Edward, had escaped the small-pox, and him he had buried at Lisburn. Of his two first, according to lady Wray, two sons survived. The eldest of these, whom she calls "her uncle Edward," though, as I conceive, mistakenly, was a captain of horse in the king's service, and fell in a duel wuth a brother officer of the name of Vane, who also died of his wounds. The second, Charles, w^as intended for the church, and remained, till of standing for his degree of Master of Arts, at Trinity College, Dublin. His views of life, however, and, as it should seem, his conduct, did not correspond with his father's hopes and example : and he became the favourite companion, and at length the secretary of Villiers, duke of Buckingham. He died of a decline, at the house of his patron at Baynard's castle, and was buried in St. Margaret's church, Westminster, August 2, 1667 \ The bishop himself, who had, as may be well believed, and T Xotc(KK). >■ Notp (LL). 124 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. as his grand-daughter assures us, nearly sunk under the loss of his eldest son, and its unfortunate circumstances, can hardly have heard of this second blow before his own release. He was attacked by a fever, on the 3d of August in the same year, at Lisburn, where he appears, during the latter part of his life, to have often occasionally resided ; and died, after, a ten days^ sickness, in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and the seventh of his episcopacy. His remains were removed to Dromore, to the church of which place he had been a liberal benefactor. Dr. Rust, his friend, and his successor in that see, preached a funeral sermon, which, in itself, is no bady copy of Taylor's peculiar style of eloquence, and is well calculated to shew the vene- ration in which he was held, the sweetness of his temper, and the variety of his accomplishments. No monument, however, was erected to his memory, and about a century afterwards, his bones, and those of his friend Rust, were disturbed from their vault to make room for the coffin of another bishop ^ The late venerable bishop Percy had them carefully collected and replaced. That their repose was ever violated, or that they were suffered to lie neglected so long, is not to be recorded without indignation. At the time of his death he had already sent to the press the *' Second Part" of his " Dissuasive from Popery," being, in a great measure, an answer to " Sure Footing in Christi- anity," a work by John Serjeant, a Romish priest, who, in one of his appendices, had attacked some of Taylor's former positions. He had also written a *' Discourse on Christian Consolation," which was published in 1671, and was followed, in 1684, by '' Contemplations on the State of Man," a work which is marked as his on unquestionable authority, though it has the appearance of an unfinished production, and is by no means equal to the general style of his compositions. His widow survived him many years, but the place and time of her death is unknown. He left three daughters, of whom the eldest, Phoebe, died unmarried. The second, Mary, was the wife of Doctor Francis Marsh, successively dean of Connor and Armagh, bishop of Limerick and Kilmore, and archbishop of Dublin ; whose descendants, of the same name, " Mr. Jones's ]\ISS. LIFE OF JEREAIY TAYLOR, D.D. 125 are numerous and wealthy. She is mentioned by Evelyn, who once met her, with her husband, at a meeting of the Royal Society, as a woman of abilities and attainments above the usual standard. The third, Joanna*, was married to Edward Harrison, of Maralave, esquire, member during many successive parliaments for the borough of Lisburn, whose daughter, already mentioned, married Sir Cecil Wray, and from whom was lineally descended William Todd Jones, of Homra, esquire, to whose MS. remains the present work in so materially indebted. A further account of these different branches will be found in the Notes". The comeliness of Taylor's person has been often noticed, and he himself appears to have been not insensible of it. Few authors have so frequently introduced their own por- traits, in different characters and attitudes, as ornaments to their printed works. So far as we may judge from these, he appears to have been above the middle size, strongly and handsomely proportioned, with his hair long and gracefully curling on his cheeks, large dark eyes, full of sweetness, an aquihne nose, and an open and intelli- gent countenance. He w^as thus represented in an original picture, once in the possession of the Marsh family, but unfortunately lost by his great-grandson, Jeremy Marsh, together with other property, in a dangerous ford which it was necessary to pass in removing to a fresh place of resi- dence''. It is from a copy of this painting, still in the pos- session of Mrs. Digby, that the engraving is taken which is prefixed to Mr. Bonney's volume. I suspect, however, that, in this copy, a liberty has been taken in altering the dress of the original ; inasmuch as the face is younger than is con- sistent with the age at which he became qualified to wear the episcopal robes. And it is remarkable, that in no instance do any of the engravings made during his lifetime represent him in the chimara and rochet. Another portrait, whose claims to originality are, I believe, undoubted, was presented by Mrs. Wray, of Anne's Vale, near Rosstrevor, to All Souls' College, displaying the same features and style of countenance, but at a more advanced period of life, and marked with a cast of melancholy which it is not difficult * Note (MM). " Note (NN). '^ Bonnoy, 3IS. note. 126 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. to account for from the domestic afflictions of his latter years. This is the likeness which is given with the present work, and I gladly take this opportunity of acknowledging my obligations to the admirable pencil of my friend, the Honourable Heneage Legge, who made a drawing of it for the use of the engraver. Of Joanna Taylor also, there is a portrait in the possession of Mrs. Wray, representing a fine woman with a pleasing oval countenance, and naked hands and arms of much beauty, — standing in an arbour, and sus- pending a branch of laurel over a bust of Charles the First, which is placed beside her. These, with the watch which Taylor received from his unfortunate sovereign, and which is still preserved by the Marsh family, are, so far as I have discovered, the only relics remaining of this great and good man, and the person most closely united to him by alliance and afTection^. Of Taylor's domestic habits and private character much is not known, but all which is known is amiable. " Love,'' as well as ** admiration/' is said to have " waited on him," in Oxford. In Wales, and amid the mutual irritation and violence of civil and religious hostility, we find him con- ciliating, when a prisoner, the favour of his keepers, at the same time that he preserved, undiminished, the confidence and esteem of his own party. Laud, in the height of his power and full-blown dignity ; Charles, in his deepest reverses ; Hatton, Vaughan, and Conway, amid the tumults of civil war; and Evelyn, in the tranquillity of his elegant retirement ; seem alike to have cherished his friendship, and coveted his society. The same genius which extorted the commendation of Jeanes, for the variety of its researdh and vigour of its argument, was also an object of interest and affection with the young, and rich, and beautiful Katharine Philips ; and few writers, who have expressed their opinions so strongly, and, sometimes, so unguardedly as he has done, have lived and died with so much praise and so little censure. Much of this felicity may be probably referred to an engaging appearance and a pleasing manner; but its cause must be sought, in a still greater degree, in the evident kindliness of heart, which, if the uniform tenour of a man's y Note (OO). LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOK, D.D. 127 writings is any index to his character, must have distin- guished him from most men living : in a temper, to all appearance warm, but easily conciliated ; and in that which, as it is one of the least common, is of all dispositions the most attractive, not merely a neglect, but a total forgetful- ness of all selfish feeling. It is this, indeed, which seems to have constituted the most striking feature of his character. Other men hav^ been, to judge from their writings and their lives, to all appearance, as religious, as regular in their devotions, as diligent in the performance of all v/hich the laws of God or man require from us ; but with Taylor, his duty seems to have been a delight, his piety a passion. His faith was the more vivid in proportion as his fancy was more intensely vigorous ; with him the objects of his hope and reverence were scarcely unseen or future ; his imagination daily conducted him to " diet with gods," and elevated him to the same height above the world, and the same nearness to ineffable things, which Milton ascribes to his allegorical " cherub Contemplation." With a mind less accurately disciplined in the trammels and harness of the schools — less deeply imbued with ancient learning — less uniformly accustomed to compare his notions with the dictates of elder saints and sages, and submit his novelties to the authority and censure of his superiors — such ardour of fancy might have led him into dangerous errors ; or have estranged him too far from the active duties, the practical wisdom of life, and its dull and painful realities : and, on the other hand, his logic and learning — his veneration for antiquity and precedent — and his monastic notions of obedience in matters of faith as well as doctrine — might have fettered the enero-ies of a less ardent mind, and weisfhed him down into an intolerant opposer of all unaccustomed truths, and, in his own practice, a superstitious formalist. Happily, however, for himself and the world, Taylor was neither an enthusiast nor a bigot : and, if there are some few of his doctrines from which our assent is withheld by the decisions of the church and the language of Scripture, — even these (while in themselves they are almost altogether speculative, and such as could exercise no injurious influence on the es- sentials of faith or the obligations to holiness,) maybe said to have a leaning to the side of piety, and to have their founda- 128 LIFE OF JEREI\rV TAYLOR, D.T>. tion in a love for the Deity, and a desire to vindicate his goodness, no less than to excite mankind to aspire after greater degrees of perfection. His munificent charity was in part shown by his under- taking, at his own expense, the rebuilding of his cathedral. It is also warmly praised by Rust, who tells us that, when the great preferments which he enjoyed were compared with the small portions which he left to his daughters, charity would be proved to have been the principal steward of his revenues. Yet, his daughters married wealthy husbands, and his widow seems to have been well provided for. During the latter part of his life he was engaged in a law-suit, together with his friend lord Conway, against colonel Moses Hill, one of Cromwell's officers, which might have eventu- ally greatly lessened his means ; but it seems, from the journals of the Irish House of Lords, to have been abandoned by his op«j)Onent. His ecclesiastical revenues, therefore, were certainly great ; and the estate of Mandinam, which his wife retained for her life, was, of itself, sufficient to keep her above poverty^. In conformity with the same simple and disinterested character which I have ascribed to him, we find him at one time contributing his endeavours to frame a grammar for children, at another composing prayers and hymns for the young and uninstructed. '"If," were his words on one occasion, " you do not choose to fill your boy's head with something, believe me the devil will ^ ! " The same temper seems to have made him affiible and facetious with his inferiors in rank and knowledge. ** It was pleasant," says his secretary Alcock, " to hear my lord talk with these poor people, the friends of Haddock, on the subject of their relation's spectre ^." On the whole, we have abundant reason for regret, that so little can now be recovered of the private life and daily conversation of one who was so accomplished and so much beloved, that we cannot believe him to have been otherwise than most amiable. The " family book," and the papers and letters preserved by his descendants, might have told us much. But these have, to all appearances, perished; and the admirers of Jeremy Taylor must be content to form '^ Note (PP). * Seward's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 45. ^ Glanville, p. 250. LIVE OF .IKRK.MV TAVJ.Oi:, D.D. 129 their opinion of him ahnost exclusively from a knowledge of his writinos. Of those writings some further account is yet to be given; in which it may be convenient to consider them in the same order which has been adopted in the present edition, and a& arranging themselves naturally, according to the subjects on which they treat, into the different descriptions of Practical, Theological, Casuistic, and Devotional. To the first of these classes may be referred, " The Life of Christ ;" the " Con- templations on the State of Man ; " the " Holy Living and Holy Dying ; " the " Sermons," and the posthumous work on '' Christian Consolation," which will be found in this volume. The second will comprise the series beginning with his " Episcopacy Asserted," and ending with his " Dissuasive from Popery." Under the third head may be classed the " Discourse on Friendship," and " Ductor Dubitantium ; " while the last contains all which instrumentally or directly refer to devotional exercises ; his " Divine Institution of the Office Ministerial;" his " Rules and Advices for the Clergy;" his " Golden Grove," and the other tracts which wdll be found in the last volume. It is true that, in the best and hiorhest sense of the term, all Taylor's w^orks are theological ; most of them are distinguished by an acute and discriminating appli- cation of general principles to particular cases and persons ; and there is none where he does not occasionally escape from the thorns and thistles of controversial questions, to those practical lessons of holiness, and those aspirations of heaven-directed feeling, which are the pervading and pecu- liar characteristics of his genius. Still, however, there are some of his works less practical and less devotional than others ; and, of those which professedly belong to these classes, there are some where the attention is chiefly drawn to the duties of the closet or the temple, and others where he expatiates through a wider range of holiness, and discusses with the same fervour, but with more diffuseness, . the obligations, the duties, the charities, and the faith of Christians. Such is the Life of Christ, or *' Great Exemplar," — a work undertaken, as he himself tells us in his Dedication to lord Hatton, with an intention of withdrawing the thoughts K 130 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of men from controverted and less important doctrines, to the great and necessary rallying points of Christianity, and those duties and charities on which all men are agreed, but which all men forget so easily. " In pursuance,'^ he says, "of this consideration, I have chosen to serve the purposes of religion, by doing assistance to that part of theology which is wholly practical, that which makes us wiser, therefore, because it makes us better. And truly, my lord, it is enough to weary the spirit of a disputer, that he shall argue till he hath lost his voice, and his time, and sometimes the question too ; and yet no man shall be of his mind more than was before. How few turn Lutherans, or Calvinists, or Roman Catholics, from the religion either of their country or interest ! Possibly two or three weak or interested, fantastic and easy, prejudicate and effeminate understandings, pass from church to church, upon grounds as weak as those from which formerly they did dissent; and the same arguments are good or bad, as exterior accidents or interior appetites shall determine. I deny not but, for great causes, some opinions are to be quitted : but when I consider how few do forsake any, and, when any do, oftentimes they choose the wrong side, and they that take the righter do it so by contingency, and the advantage also is so little, I believe that the triumphant persons have but small reason to please themselves in gaining proselytes, since their purchase is so small, and as incon- siderable to their triumph as it is unprofitable to them, who change for the worse or the better upon unworthy motives. In all this there is nothing certain, nothing noble. But he that follows the work of God, that is, labours to gain souls, not to a sect and a subdivision, but to the Christian religion, that is, to the faith and obedience of the Lord Jesus, hath a promise to be assisted and rewarded, — and all those that go to heaven are the purchase of such undertakings, the fruit of such culture and labours ; for it is only a holy life that lands us there. " And now, my lord, I have told you my reasons, I shall not be ashamed to say, that I am weary and toiled with rowing up and down in the seas of questions, which the interests of Christendom have commenced, and, in many propositions of which I am heartily persuaded, I am not LIFE OF JEREMY T VYI.OR, D.D. 131 certain that I am not deceived ; and I find that men are most confident of those articles wJiich they can so little prove that they never made questions of them. But I am most certain that, by living in the religion and fear of God, in obedience to the king', in the charities and duties of com- munion with my spiritual guides, in justice and love with all the world in their several proportions, I shall not fail of that end which is perfection of human nature, and which will never be obtained by disputing ""." The work thus introduced and inscribed, is, as it pro- fesses to be, of a nature entirely practical. It discusses no doctrines but those on which almost all Christians are agreed, and which necessarily are suggested by the prin- cipal events of our Saviour's history. It enters into no critical examination of facts or dates, of evidences or various readings. The author does not exercise his learning and discrimination, in explaining those peculiarities of ancient or local history and manners which, as they are little less than absolutely necessary to a competent understanding of writers like those of the New Testament, so no author of the present day would omit them in a history of our Saviour. He does not even distinguish between those facts which are recorded by the inspired historians themselves, and those which repose on uncertain tradition, or on the mere pre- sumptions of the ancient fathers; but relates, with almost the same apparent faith, the salutation of the angel to the Virgin Mary ; the Syriac prayer attributed to Christ at his baptism by St. Philoxenes ; and the prostration of tlie Egyp- tian idols, when the infant Jesus came into their country. Nor does he attempt, in any instance, to reconcile the diiTerent narrations of the evangelists with each other, or to. produce a regular and chronological harmony of the Gospel. His work is nothing else than a series of devout meditations on the different events recorded in the New Testament, as well as on the more remarkable traditions which have been usually circulated respecting the Divine Author of our religion, his earthly parent, and his followers. This is a plan far less extensive, less curious, and perhaps less rational, than would now be contemplated by an cmi- ^ DedicHtioii to Ilattou, vol. ii. p. 13, of tliis edition. 132 LIFE OF JEllE-An' TAYLOR, D.D. nent divine who should purpose to write a Life of Christ. But even a defective plan, in the hands of a mighty genius, may be clothed with beauties which mere learning and critical acumen could never bestow, and is susceptible of ornaments more rich and various than a more regular struc- ture could receive with propriety. It is even probable that, as a book of devotional instruction for every class and age, the Great Exemplar may hav^e gained an impressive and edifying interest, by the exclusion of every thing critical or antiquarian, and by the manner in which it calls our un- mingled attention to the narrative of the Gospel, heightened only by those picturesque and poetical accompaniments which, like the minute ornaments of an ancient cathedral, though, separately taken, some of them might seem out of place, yet communicate to the general building the effect of beauty the most luxuriant, the most impressive, the most solemn and sacred. Be this as it may, it must be confessed that this first popular work of Taylor's contains many splendid moral and devotional passages ; that the sermons which are introduced into it (for the disquisitions which occur all answer to this description, and might be delivered from the pulpit with so much effect, that it is hard to believe that this was not their first destination,) are conceived in the same spirit of devout and majestic eloquence which pervades his Ei//aurog ; and that, in the few instances where controversial discussion was unavoidable, no writer of the age has argued w4th more acuteness, with more extensive learning, or so warm and earnest a charity. Nor are these the only merits of the work which I am discussing. I am acquainted with no work of Taylor's (I might say with no work of any author) in which more of practical wisdom may be found, a greater knowledge of the human heart, and a more dexterous and touching appli- cation, not only of the solemn truths of Christianity, but of even the least important circumstances related in the life of our Saviour, to the development of sound principles of action, and to the correction and guidance of our daily con- duct. Thus, in his preface, not only the exact conformity of Christianity with right reason and natural instinct, — its fitness for the present wants, as well as the future prospects. J.IFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 133 of man, — and the manner in which it confirms, extends, and ilhistrates tlie law of nature, — are hiid down with admirable good sense and knowledge of his subject ; but many curious and interesting principles of metaphysical and political wisdom will be found incidentally, and, as if ex nhundatftl, scattered through it, which show the grasp and vigour of the author's mind, and that, though his choice confined him to those topics w^hich are the immediate subjects of his profession, there were few, indeed, in the treatment of which he might not have excelled. At the same time, there is none of these incidental topics which is not made conducive to the enforcement of practical piety and personal holiness. No part of his work can be read without some fruit of this kind ; but, in the application of general prin- ciples to particular but important instances of thought and action, the *' Exhortation to the Imitation of the Life of Christ," — the sermon on the " Duty of Nursing Children," — that on ** Obedience," — on " Mortification," — on " Bap- tizing Infants," — on " the Religion of Holy Places," — on " Scandal," — and on '' the Divine Judgments," are perhaps the most remarkable. In some instances, but in a very few, he is not to be followed without caution. He had already imbibed those opinions, the fuller exposition of which afterwards gave so much concern to some of the most distinguished members of the English church, on the subjects of original sin, and the consequences of Adam's transgression. Something of this sort may be traced in his apparently imperfect view of the causes of human corruption, when he tells us that " the law of nature, being decreed and made obligatory, was a sufficient instrument of making man happy, that is, in pro- ducing the end of his creation. But, as Adam had evil discourses and irregular appetites, before he fell, (for they made him fall,) — and as the angels, who had no original sin, yet they chose evil at the first, when it was wholly arbitrary in them to do so or otherwise ; so did man. ' God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions.' Some men," he continues, " were ambitious, and, by incom- petent means, would make their brethren to be their servants ; some were covetous, and would usurp that wliich, by an earlier distinction, had passed into private possession : and then they 134 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYEOR, D.D. made new principles, and new discourses, such which were reasonable to their private indirect ends, but not to the public benefit, and, therefore, would prove unreasonable and mischievous to themselves at last'^" That Adam must have had a capability of sinning before he actually sinned, is demonstrably, if not evidently true : and it must, in the same way, be conceded, — if this capa- bility of offending were all which were meant by original sin^ — that the angels also who sinned, must, in their degree, have had it as well as Adam. But it is neither consonant with reason nor with Scripture to assert, that all the evil which we hud in the world, and in ourselves, either was in Adam before the fall, or has been since accumulated by the free, though unhappy choice of his different descendants, gradually as they may have made the world worse, and added the contagion of example and precedent to the in- herited and universal propensity to wickedness. The existence of such a propensity in man, and the necessity of grace to give us the victory over it, Taylor has, in very many passages of his works, and in many of this work itself of which we are speaking, acknowledged with much clearness and humility. And it is strange that he did not perceive, that as Adam, at his creation, was certainly in a state of grace, — and as his descendants, at their re- spective births, are, as confessedly, in a state of corruption, — some change must have taken place in the nature, as well as the situation of mankind ; and that, though neither Adam nor the angels were, in the first instance, impeccable, it may well be, that, in consequence of his fall, we are by nature more inclined to sin than either he or they were. The question will be discussed more at length in another place. I will here only observe, that in one who, like Taylor, confessed his own corruption, whencesoever derived, and placed his whole hope of pardon in Christ's blood, and of sanctification in Christ's Spirit, the error was divested of its malignity so far as it respected himself, though an error it certainly was, and, in certain ways of applying the principle, a dangerous one. It is curious to see how extremes meet. Tavlor seems to have been, in a great measure, led into his •* Preface, vol. ii. p. xxxii L 1 1- K V J K R j: m \ 'J' a ^■ f . o u , J ) . 1 ) . 1 35 mistake by a horror of Calvinism, and an anxiety to avoid ascribing to God the apparent injustice of cursing all the world for the sins of one man. Yet he falls into the highest supralapsarian Calvinism, by merely throwing a little farther back the origin of man's misery, and representing him as coming immediately from the hand of his Maker with the same load of invincible corruption (invincible, unless by superadded grace,) which his descendants, in their present state, carry about with them. Surely there is little difference whether we say, with the ultra Calvinists, that God created man in order that he might fall, — or, that he so created him that he could not help falling. But, if Adam were framed not only with a capacity of sinnino- but also of remainino- without sin, he was then, certainly, in a state which his descendants do not experience ; and there is no event in the history of the world to which the loss of this state can be assigned, except the fall of Adam and its consequences. Nor is the justice of God impugned by the supposition that privileges which Adam had abused or neglected were not continued to his descendants, or that the race of men were, thenceforward, put under a new regimen of weakness and of repentance ; — the weakness receiving sufficient but inferior spiritual aids, the repentance rewarded with a bless- ing beyond the utmost which Adam could have hoped for. This is the light in which the question has been viewed by the English church, and this, it might be thought, was one which, while it sufficiently establishes the dependence of man on his Maker, sufficiently vindicates the Creator from being the cause of evil, and from desiring that any of his children should perish. Another instance in which Taylor has passed from a common and dangerous extreme to an opposite equally erroneous, is the case of death-bed repentance, which here, as in a succeeding work, he clogs with so many dangers and limitations as to render it but very little less than impossible. It has been, indeed, at all times, a vulgar and perilous self-flattery, to apprehend not only that repentance would, after a life of sin, be, at any time when we willed it, within our power ; but that a few expiring lamentations, extorted by the fear of approaching torment, were to expiate 13() J.JFK OF JKRK.MV 'J'AYJ.OR, D.D. for many years of obstinate transgression, and supply, in the heart of him who is passing to his account, that love, that purity, and those other Christian graces, without which even heaven itself would be a place of misery. It is even probable that the author may have been disgusted in those days, as he would have been in these of almost equal enthusiasm, with the spectacle of criminals advancing triumphantly to their scaffold, and looking forward to a death, which they had brought on themselves by their crimes, with the same exultation as a martyr might embrace his stake ; the same expressed and boasted assurance of bliss, as if the fiery chariot of the prophet were visibly waiting to receive them. Of the harm which may be done to the dying by such indiscriminate comfort • — of the harm which the living will, in all probability, receive from such exaggerated statements — I am fully and mournfully sensible. But to calculate, as Taylor does, the time w^hich is required for the acquisition of graces, which God may, if he pleases, at once communicate ; — to require the expression of outward and long-continued actions, as in all instances equally necessary to confirm the inward feeling in His eyes by whom that feeling itself may be inspired ; — is to make the narrow gate of salvation narrower than God has made it, and, in our anxiety for the holiness of men in health, to seal up in despair the sick soul that might other- wise have burst its bondage. There may, it should be recollected, even on a death-bed, and in a very short space of time, be the opportunity of rendering God acceptable service, and bringing forth, though amid darkness and terror, the fruits of repentance. We may have time for prayer ; we may have time for confession ; for forgiveness of our enemies ; for patience ; for resignation : perhaps for restitution. We may have time for some of these, for the rest we may have a desire ; — and for all of these, we know, in one illustrious instance, the penitent thief had not time or opportunity. The danger which there always must be, that in sickness we should neither have opportunity nor spiritual power to turn to God — the chance that our heads may be light, or our hearts hardened, when the day of sorrow comes on us — are terrors sufficiently great to lead every man who is not insensible of danger, to employ, to the best of his power, the day of salvation while it shines ; as well knowing that. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 137 whether others are called effectually in the eleventh hour or not, the time at which he is last called must be the eleventh hour to him. Still, however, the manner in which Taylor has painted the dangers of a sinner's death-bed displays no ordinary pencil ; and the colours (dismal as they are, and, in some instances, overcharged,) are marked, on the whole, with so much truth, that I could wish some of his frightful legends published in a popular form, as an antidote to those edifying deaths which are now in almost daily cir- culation^. These are the only particulars of importance which occur to me, in which this great and good man has, in the work now before us, departed from the usual sense of the church and the general analogy of Scripture. There are other, but, in comparison, very trifling points, on which he has pro- nounced with too much haste or positiveness. In his Dis- course on Repentance^, he takes it for granted that the angels who sinned had never any room for repentance, — that " their first act of volition was their whole capacity of a blissful or a miserable eternity : they made their own sentence when they made their first election." This he had learned from the schoolmen, who, apprehending that the production of the angels must have taken place on the same day with the creation of the heavenly bodies, were perplexed how else to find sufficient time for the apostacy of Satan, between the commencement of his being and his successful temptation of the woman " ; and thought the opinion, " pro- babiliorem et sanctiorem, quod statim post primum instans suae creationis, diabolus peccaverit." But Taylor has, in this instance, expressed himself with more positiveness than Aquinas ; and we surely know too little of the angelic nature and history, to assume any facts concerning either which are not clearly revealed in Scripture. That there are angels, and that some of them have not kept their first estate, we know, for it has been made known to us. But wherein their fault consisted, or how long they had pre- viously remained in glory and innocency, as God has not ^ " On Repentance," vol. ii. ]>]). 42(), 438. " On Denth," vol. iii. pp. 349, 351, 35G, &c. f Vol. ii. p. 392. B Thorn. Aquinat. Summa. Inia Pars. Qiia-st. Ixiii, art. (», p. 118. 138 LIKK OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. told us, it is useless to guess, and worse than useless to ground an argument on our conjectures. In another opinion, which he elsewhere, in different pas- sages of his works, repeats, he has fallen into the same mistake with Warburton. He tells us, that Balaam, when he prayed to die the death of the righteous, had only respect to length of days and tranquillity of mind, the promise of a life after death being hidden from the age in which he lived''. Without entering into such a discussion, it is enough to say, that Michaelis has shown that the writings of Moses contain abundant proofs that the immortality of the soul was familiarly known to his contemporaries \ There is some grave trifling in vol. ii. p. 72, about the letters of Jehovah's name, which he had from the Cabbalists. If he designed it as a poetical ornament, it savours of the taste of the time : if as an argument or illustration, it rests on too weak authority to be good for any thing. In all his works, he is fond of alluding to historical incidents, often with an admirable oratorical effect, though the stories alleged may be no more than idle legends. Here, however, he has twice quoted, as from Scripture, though without naming the place, a story of 23,000 Assyrians destroyed in one night for fornication, which, I confess, I never met with in Scripture or else- where "". But these are trifling blemishes in a work of so great length, of so distinguished beauty, usefulness, and learning, in which he has nobly fulfilled the purpose ex- pressed in his preface, '* To advance the necessity, and to declare the manner and parts of a good life. I have followed (he continues) the design of Scripture, and have given milk for babes, and for stronger men stronger meat ; and in all I have despised my own reputation, by so striving to make it useful, that I was less careful to make it strict in retired senses, and embossed with unnecessary but graceful ornaments. I pray God, this may go forth into a blessing to all that shall use it, and reflect blessings upon me all the way, that my spark may grow greater by kindhng my brother's taper, and God may be glorified in us both. If ^ Vol. iii. p. 151. ' IMichaelis, Argumenta Immortalitatis Animarum ex Mcse collecta. k Vol. ii. p. 34. — vol. iii. p. 233. LIFE OF JERK.MV TAVLOR, D.D. 139 tlie reader shall receive no benefit, yet I intended him one, and I have laboured in order to it ; and I shall receive a great recompense for that intention, if he shall please to say this prayer for me, — ' That while I have preached to others, I may not become a castaway' !' " In the " Literary Life of the Reverend John Serjeant, written by himself," inserted in the Roman Catholic Miscellany, entitled the *' Catholicon," vol. iii. the '* Great Exemplar" is said to be a mere translation of the Life of Christ by Ludolphus de Saxonia'". The assertion, however, is entirely groundless ; so much so, that, except in the circumstance that both authors intermix prayers and moral reflections with their narrative, it is scarcely possible to find two books written on any one subject which have so few coincidences of arrangement, sentiment, or expression. The merits of the works of Ludolphus, which, as a pious, useful, and practical treatise, I am very far from undervaluing, are of a nature entirely different from those of the Great Exemplar. Ludolphus, (as was necessary in an author who wrote for those by w^hom the Scriptures themselves were little known or studied,) gives a long and minute detail of almost every word and action of our Lord; — appending to each a string of moral and religious observations, extracted, chiefly verbatim, from the Fathers. Taylor passes rapidly over the greater part of this detail ; but expands, from time to time, into long and eloquent discourses on the more remarkable actions and doctrines of our Lord, to which his rival offers nothing correspondent. The style of the one is usually plain and simple, though his prayers are, many of them, conceived in a pleasing and fervent strain of piety. That of the other luxuriates in a richness of imagery and a grandiloquence of expression, which breathe, in every sentence, the vital and essential spirit of poetry. The reading of Taylor was so excursive that it is, indeed, most probable that he was not unacquainted with the work of Ludolphus, and it is possible that, from it, the outline and first conception of his own book may have been taken. But ' Vol. ii. p. 58. ■" " ^'ita Jesus Christi Redemptoris Nostri, ex JMedullis Evangelicis, et approbatis ab Ecclesia Doctoribus, sedule per Liidolphnm de Saxonia, Ordiiiis Carthusiensis collecta." — 1500. 140 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. more than this a comparison of the two Lives forbids us to allow, and for even this, so far as I am aware, there is no internal evidence whatever in the work of Taylor. I have already suggested the probability which there is that the extensive popularity of the Great Exemplar pro- duced the ** Holy Living" and the '* Holy Dying," works which were, in like manner, devoted to the promotion of practical holiness, and which, with the exception of some sermons, were the next in succession of his published labours. Both are dedicated to the earl of Carbery, the first in a splendid description of the miseries of the time, and the duty of a good man under those miseries. This dedication concludes with five rules for the application of the counsels which follow, so simple, so just, and displaying so accurate a knowledge of the dispositions and dangers of mankind, that they cannot be too firmly imprinted in the memory of a Christian. '' 1. They that will, with profit, make use of the proper instruments of virtue, must so live as if they were always under the physician's hand. For the counsels of religion are not to be applied to the distempers of the soul, as men used to take hellebore ; but they must dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be twisted about his understanding for ever : they must be used like nourishment, that is, by a daily care and meditation, not like a single medicine, and upon the actual pressure of a present necessity. For counsels and wise discourses, applied to an actual distemper, at the best are but like strong smells to an epileptic person ; sometimes they may raise him up, but they never cure him. The following rules, if they be made familiar to our natures, and the thoughts of every day, may make virtue and religion become easy and habitual ; but, when the temptation is present, and hath already seized upon some portion of our consent, we are not so apt to be counselled ; and we find no gust or relish in the precept ; the lessons are the same, but the instrument is unstrung or out of tune. *' 2. In using the instruments of virtue, we must be curious to distinguish instruments from duties, and prudent advices from necessary injunctions : and if by any other means the duty can be secured, let there be no scruples LIFE OF JEREMY TAVLOR, D.D. 141 stirred concerning any other helps : only, if they can, in that case, strengthen and secure the duty or help towards per- severance, let them serve in that station in which they can be placed. For there are some persons, in whom the Spirit of God hath breathed so bright a flame of love, that they do all their acts of virtue by perfect choice and without objection ; and their zeal is warmer than that it will be allayed by temptation : and to such persons mortification by philosophical instruments, as fasting, sackcloth, and other rudenesses to the body, is wholly useless : it is always a more uncertain means to acquire any virtue or secure any duty ; and if love hath filled all the corners of our soul, he alone is able to all the work of God. " 3. Be not nice in stating the obligations of religion ; but, where the duty is necessary and the means very reason- able in itself, dispute not too busily whether, in all circum- stances, it can fit thy particular ; but, * super totam materiam,' upon the whole, make use of it. For it is a good sign of a great religion, and no imprudence, when we have sufficiently considered the substance of affairs, then to be easy, humble, obedient, apt and credulous in the circumstances, which are appointed to us, in particular, by our spiritual guides, or, in general, by all wise men in cases not unlike. He that gives alms, does best not always to consider the minutes and strict measures of his ability, but to give freely, incuriously, and abundantly. A man must not weigh grains in the accounts of his repentance ; but for a great sin have a great sorrow and a great severity, and in this take the ordinary advices, though, it may be, a less rigour might not be insufficient. A>tor^odr/.aiov, or arithmetical measures, especially of our own proportioning, are but arguments of want of love and of frowardness in religion : or else are instruments of scruple, and then become dangerous. Use the rule heartily and enough, and there v>'ill be no harm in the error, if any should happen. " 4. If thou intendest heartily to serve God, and avoid sin in any one instance, refuse not the hardest and most severe advice that is prescribed in order to it, though pos- sibly it be a stranger to thee ; for, whatsoever it be, custom will make it easy. " 5. When many instruments for the obtaining any 142 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. virtue or restraining any vice are propounded, observe which of them best fits thy person or the circumstances of thy need, and use it rather than the other ; that by this means thou mayest be engaged to watch, and use spiritual arts and observation about thy soul. Concerning the managing of which, as the interest is greater, so the necessities are more, and the cases more intricate, and the accidents and dangers greater and more importunate, and there is greater skill required, than in the securing an estate, or restoring health to an infirm body. I wish all men in the world did heartily believe so much of this as is true : it would veiy much help to do the work of God "." The Holy Living is divided into four chapters, in the first of which he discusses the instrumental means of holi- ness, such as — care of our time, purity of intention, and a sense of the Divine presence ; and gives rules for producing and preserving all these habits in our hearts and behaviour, of which those for the improvement of time are perhaps the most useful and practical. The second chapter treats of Christian sobriety, which he divides into the five heads of Temperance, Chastity, Humility, Modesty, and Contentment, — and defines in general to be " an using severity, denial and frustration of our appetite, when it grows unreasonable in any of these instances^." He introduces the discussion of these different topics with some observations on voluptuousness according to this general definition, and with rules for subduing our natural tendency towards it, which will well reward the reader, and which, for the general reader, are perhaps better adapted than the remedies which follow for specific and grosser vices. In all cases, his rules for avoiding sin, when not too scrupulous and ascetic for practice, and therefore less likely to dc good than if they were less efiicacious but more attainable means of holiness, are better than the arguments which he uses against each sin in order. But of all his rules, the ** Acts and Offices of Humility" are, perhaps, the most impressive, — the most effectual, — the most sensible and rational, — the most applicable to the temptations and neces- sities of every man. " Vol. iii. pp. 7, 8, 0. " Page oG. LIFK OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 143 The third chapter is devoted to the discussion of Christian justice, defined as either commutative or distributive, and divided into the several heads of, 1. ** Obedience," as due from inferiors to superiors ; — 2. " Provision," or Protecting' Care, from Sovereigns, Judges, Parents, Masters, Guardians ; — 3. Negociation or Contracts; — 4. Restitution, which he defnies, as " that part of justice to which a man is obliged by a precedent contract or a foregoing fault, by his own act or another man's, either with or without his will p." His rules in this part of his work are admirable. They are casuistry in its highest and noblest sense, in which nothing is overstrained, nothing extenuated, and (so far as general principles and the compass of a short chapter can reach) nothing unprovided for ; inasmuch as, even where neither the obligations of default nor contract can extend, he has specified the no less strong and yet holier obligation of gratitude. The fourth chapter treats of the Duties of Religion, under the heads of its internal and external actions. The former are. Faith, Hope, and Love ; to his account of which is added an admirable digression on Zeal. ** The sum is this : that zeal is not a direct duty, no where commanded for itself, and is nothing but a forwardness in the circumstances of another duty, and therefore is then only acceptable, when it advances the love of God and our neigh- bours. That zeal is only safe, only acceptable, which increases charity directly : and because love to our neigh- bour and obedience to God are the two great portions of charity, we must never account our zeal to be good but as it advances both these, if it be in a matter that relates to both, or severally, if it relates severally. St. Paul's zeal was expressed in preaching without any offerings or stipend, in travelling, in spending and being spent for his flock, in suffering, in being willing to be accursed, for love of the people of God and his countrymen. Let our zeal be as great as his was, so it be in affections to others, but not at all in angers against them. In the first there is no danger, in the second there is no safety. In brief, let your zeal. 144 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. (if it must be expressed in anger) be always more severe against yourself than your neighbours^." The external actions of religion Taylor defines to be, " 1. Reading and hearing the word of God ; — 2. Fasting and corporeal austerities; — 3. Feasting, or keeping days of public joy and thanksgiving." On all these his observations are distinguished by sound good sense and earnest piety. Even on fasting, — a duty now so much neglected, and to disquisitions on which so few will turn with any other feeling than curiosity, — the reasonableness of his rules will strike many who, from carelessness or the habits of the age, are negligent of, or averse to, a practice sanctioned by the constitution of our nature ; the experience of ages ; the injunction of all Christian churches ; the example of all the good men of former times, of the apostles, and of the son of God^ He grounds the sanctity of the Lord's day, not on a divine commandment, as was the case with the Jewish sabbath, (for this commandment he conceives to have had respect to that day and that nation only,) but on the great duty for which the fourth commandment provides, of con- fessino; on all occasions God to be the Maker of heaven and earth, and on the institution of the apostles that the first day in the week should be set apart for doing this in solemn assemblies. The same opinion he afterwards expressed more at large in his Ductor Dubitantium ^ It seems to have been also the opinion of Laud, of Luther, of Calvin, of Spencer, and of almost all the early fathers, who agree in representing the fourth commandment as of temporary obligation only, and as merely applying to Christians in a spiritual sense ; as inculcating a devotion of ourselves to God's service on all proper opportunities, and that rest from worldly cares, of which, to the Jews, the sabbath was typical *. That the authority and example of the apostles, ■1 Page 202. ' See Ductor Dubitantium. On the interpretation and obligation of the Laws of Jesus Christ, vol. xiii. p. IL ^ Of the Christian Law, vol. xii. p. 412. ' Laud, Troubles and Trial, p. 345. Luther, Auslegung der X. Gebothen, Op. Lips. torn. iii. pp. 642-643. Calvin, Instit. lib. ii. c. viii. sect. 31, et seq. Op. Amstel. torn, ix. p. 99. Spencer de Leg. Hebraeor. lib. i. c. v. pp. 83, 94. LIFE OF JERE:MY TAYLOR, D.D. 145 the uniform tradition of the church, the reasonableness of the practice abstractedly considered, tlie necessities of men, and the precedent of God's corresponding- ordinance under the old law, are sufficient reasons for keeping the Lord's day holy, the great men whom I have cited were far indeed from doubting. Whether their view of the subject be more correct than that which makes the fourth commandment, in its literal meaning, a part of ^he moral and universal law, this is not the place for examining. They who apprehend that the sanctity of Sunday will be endangered by a contrary opinion, may read what Taylor himself says on the subject. — " The Jews," he observes, " had a divine connnandment for their day, which we have not for ours; but we have many commandments to do all that honour to God which was intended in the fourth commandment ; and the apostles appointed the first day of the week for doing it in solemn assemblies". Upon the Lord's day, we must abstain from all servile and laborious works, except such which are matters of necessity, of common life, or of great charity; for these are permitted by that authority which hath separated the day for holy uses. The sabbath of the Jews, though consisting principally in rest, and established by God, did yield to these. And, therefore, this is to be enlarged in the Gospel, whose sabbath or rest is but a circumstance, and accessary to the principal and spiritual duties. Upon the Christian sabbath, necessity is to be served first ; then charity ; and then religion, for this is to give place to charity in great instances, and the second to the first in all : and in all cases, God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth." His observations on prayer, and, incidentally, on vows; those on alms, together with the remedies which he sug- gests for the great causes of an unmerciful and unchari- table spirit, envy, anger, and covetousness ; his canons of repentance, and his directions for receiving the sacrament, are all equally devout, eloquent, and sensible. But I will not select, where all may be read with advantage, and can hardly be read without admiration. To clothe virtue in its most picturesque and attractive colouring, to enforce with " Holy Living-, vol. iv. pj). 214, 215. L 146 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. all the terrors of the divine law, its essential obligations ; and to distinguish, in almost every instance most successfully, between what is prudent and what is necessary ; what may fitly be done, and what cannot be safely left undone, — this is the triumph of a Christian moralist ; and this Jeremy Taylor has, in a great degree, achieved in his discourse on Holy Living. Each chapter is folio v/ed by a series of prayers^ adapted to those temptations or duties which have been discussed in it. Of these prayers, the merit is in a great measure proved by their popularity ; a popularity, perhaps, little less than that v/hich our beautiful Liturgy itself has obtained among Christians. Almost all of them contain passages of genuine poetry and eloquence, and all are pervaded by a tenderness and pathos of earnest piety which must have proceeded from the feeling which they express, and which few persons ever read without finding it in some degree contagious. But I must confess that I like those prayers the best which have the fewest of Taylor's peculiar ornaments; of those rhetorical augments which are never so little in their place as when addressing the Most High; — that accumula- tion of circumstances, and those sentences, almost endless, which distract attention when it ought to be concentrated, and compel us to take breath in the midst of our most earnest aspirations. My meaning will be plain to those who compare his four collects, *' for subjects when their land is overrun by barbarous and wicked people," with the few and simple, yet majestic words of the prayer in our church service '' in time of war and troubles;" or his "Act of Contrition," preparatory to the sacrament, with the General Confession, which is appointed for that occasion^. But the want of taste is still greater, when, in a solemn address of .the penitent to his Redeemer, the sufferings of that Redeemer are enumerated at full length, and with cir- cumstances added which rest on no authentic history or probable tradition. When we entreat Christ to have mercy on us, by '" his agony and bloody sweat, by his cross and passion," — we both quicken our own devotional feelings by * Pages 7:5, :J00. LIFE OF JFRKiMY TAYLOR, D.D. 147 the mention of what he lias done for us, and we plead with him, in behalf of our requests, considerations whicli we know to be prevaihng. But wdiere do we learn that the garden of Gethsemane was "set 7vifh nothhig hut briers and thorns;" that our Lord was '* dremhecV by his enemies in the brook Cedron ; that he was *' tormenled with a tablet, stuck ivith nails, at the fringes of his garment ;'' that his cross, " bei/ig set in a hollowness of the earth, did, in the fall, render his tvounds wider?" Surely such legends, borrowed from the " stations" of the Christians in the middle ages, and without any autho- rity of Scripture or antiquity, are altogether unfit to be spoken to Him who is not to be flattered by exaggerated representations of what he has himself done and suffered, and whose revealed and authentic sufferings and patience were too great and too glorious to need the improvements of human fancy ^, In all his Devotions, indeed, Taylor seems to have taken St Augustine as his model, rather than our own or the elder liturgies ; and both have erred in trans- ferring to prayer those ornaments which might, some of them, be not improper in a sermon. But who can wonder that it should be no easy task for man to find fit words to commune with the Almighty? What greater praise could Taylor have himself desired than that, in falling short of the excellencies of our Common Prayer, he has fallen short of that only ? The '' Holy Dying" is introduced by a Dedication, also to lord Carbeiy, in which the author, in a strain of touching eloquence, recommends his work to his patron as that which, in manuscript, had been seen and approved by the deceased object of his dearest affections. ** I am treating your lord- ship as a Roman gentleman did St. Augustine and his mother ; I shall entertain you in a charnel-house, and carry your meditations awhile into the chambers of death." *' My lord, it is your dear lady's anniversary, and she deserved the biggest honour, and the longest memory, and the fairest monument, and the most solemn mourning : and, in order to it, give me leave, my lord, to cover her hearse with these following sheets. This book was intended, first, to minister to her piety ; and she desired all good people -" Pages :iOi), 301. 148 l.Il'E OF JERK.MV TAYLOR, D.D. should partake of the advantages which are here recorded. She knew how to Uve rarely well, and she desired to know how to die and God taught her by an experiment." *' My lord, both your lordship and myself, have lately seen and felt such sorrow of death, and such sad departure of dearest friends, that it is more than high time we should think our- selves nearly concerned in the accidents. Death has come so near to you, as to fetch a portion from your veiy heart ; and now you cannot choose but dig your own grave, and place your coffin in your eye, when the angel hath dressed your scene of sorrow and meditation with so particular and so near an object; and, therefore, as it is my duty, I am come to minister to your sorrows, that they may turn into virtues and advantages." The remainder of the Address is occupied in an exposition of the principles and motives of his undertaking, in which, as might be expected from his known opinions, he enlarges on the vanity or uncertainty of a late and sick-bed repentance ; the idle folly of the extreme unction of the Romish church, and the unauthorised, as he esteems it, and unprofitable, though extremely ancient practice of prayers for the departed spirit. In some of his assertions, more particularly on the first of these topics, he here, as elsewhere, is, perhaps, too strict and uncompromising. Yet the caution which he founds, in part, on these doctrines, is one which may well tingle in the ears of those that live carelessly, — and it is one of which the truth is shown by very many considerations of undoubted and awful certainty. '* My lord ; it is a great art to die well, and to be learned by men in health, by them that can discourse and consider; by those whose understanding and acts of reason are not abated with fear or pains : and, as the greatest pait of death is passed by the preceding years of our life, so also, in those years, are the greatest preparations to it; and he that prepares not for death before his last sickness, is like him that begins to study philosophy, when he is going to dispute publicly in the faculty." " And, therefore," — " it is intended, by the necessity of affairs, that the precepts of dying well be part of the studies of them that are in health, and the days of discourse and understanding, which, in this case, hath another degree of necessity super- added ; because, in other notices, an imperfect study may be LIVE OF JEREMY TAVLOK, D.D. 149 supplied by a frequent exercise and renewed experience ; here, if we practise imperfectly once, we shall never recover the error\" The work itself is divided into seven chapters. The first consists of *' General Considerations preparatory to a Holy and blessed Death," — as of the vanity and shortness of man's life, a knowledge of which should induce us to make timely preparation for quitting it; — of the means and oppor- tunities which God has given us for this work, and which, if duly employed, will take off all objection that our lives are too short for our necessary preparation : and the miseries of man's life in this world, which should induce us to depart from it gladly. The second recommends " a general prepa- ration for a blessed death, by way of exercise ;" 1. by always looking for death; 2. by daily providing for it; and by 3. *' a life, severe, holy, and under the discipline of the cross ; under the conduct of prudence and observation, a life of warfare and sober counsels, labour, and watchfulness." In applying these precepts to particulars, he recommends, 1. a daily self-examination ; 2. a lifelong and constant charity. And, to encourage men to endure the burden and uneasiness of the first of these, he remarks, *' that we had better bear the burden of the Lord than the burden of a base and polluted conscience," — that '* religion cannot be so great a trouble as a guilty soul ; and whatsoever trouble may or can be fancied in this or any other action of religion, it is only to inexperienced persons." But, he proceeds. — ^** to examine our lives will be no trouble, if we do not intricate it with businesses of the world, and the labyrinths of care and impertinent affairs." — " He that covets many things greedily, and snatches at high things ambitiously, that despises his neighbour proudly, and bears his crosses peevishly, or his prosperity impotently and passionately ; he that is prodigal of his precious time, and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes, is not a man disposed to this exercise : he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory, and to dash his glass in pieces, because it must needs represent to his eyes an intolerable deformity." — " In the interim they are impatient of being examined, as a leper is of a comb, and are greedy ' Dedication, vol. iv. pp. cccxix. cccxx. 150 LIIK Ol" JEREMY TAYLOR, 13. D. of the world, as children of raw fruit ; and they hate a severe reproof, as they do thorns in their bed ; and they love to lay aside religion, as a drunken person does to forget his sorrow ; and all the way they dream of fine things, and their dreams prove contrary, and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow." — *' To be cozened in making judgments concerning our final condition, is extremely easy ; but, if we be cozened, we are infinitely miserable''." His observations on charity, " with its twin daughters, alms and forgiveness," are abundantly beautiful and sensible ; and he winds up the second chapter with a description in the highest strain of poetry, (somewhat too poetical, perhaps, for a religious and practical treatise,) of the different deaths of the good and wicked man ; in which the natural terrors of the one, and the natural hopes of the other, are heightened and prolonged, beyond the veil of mortality, into the regions where (as some of those legends have told, with which the studies of Taylor were familiar,) the soul becomes the object of contest between angels and devils. The picture is magni- ficent ; but he himself seems sensible that such speculations may be pursued too far, when he winds it up with the fol- lowing caution. " Fearful, and formidable to unholy persons, is the first meeting with spirits in their separation. But the victory which holy souls receive by the mercies of Jesus Christ and the conduct of angels, is a joy that we must not understand till we feel it, and yet such which by an early and persevering piety we may secure : but let us inquire after it no further, because it is secret ^ ! " In the next chapter he prescribes remedies against impa- tience in sickness, and against an immoderate fear of death, and adds some general rules to make sickness safe and holy, more particularly by continuance in prayer, and by an infinite solicitude that we '* at no hand commit a deliberate sin, or retain any affection to the old." " They were sad de- partures when Tigellinus ; CorneHus Gallus, the praetor ; Lewis, the son of Gonzaga, duke of Mantua ; Ladislaus, king of Naples ; Speusippus ; Giachetius of Geneva, and one of the popes, died in the forbidden embraces of abused women ; or if Job had cursed God and so died : or when a man sits • Pages 379—381. ^ Page 388. MTK OF JERE.AIV TAYI^OU, D.D. 151 down in despair, and in the accusation and calumny of the divine mercy; they make their night sad, and stormy, and eternal. When Herod began to sink with the shameful torment of his bowels, and felt the grave open under him, he imprisoned the nobles of his kingdom, and commanded his sister that they should be a sacrifice to his departing ghost ^. This was an egress fit only for such persons who meant to dwell with devils to eternal ages; and that man is hugely in love with sin, who cannot forbear, in the week of the assizes, and when himself stands at the bar of scrutiny, and prepared for his final, never to be reversed sentence. He dies sud- denly to the worse sense and event of sudden death, wdio so manages his sickness, that even that state shall not be innocent." The fourth chapter is occupied with rules for the practice of the graces proper to a state of sickness ; of patience, of faith, of repentance, of justice, and of charity. The last treats on the urgent necessity and best manner of visiting the sick by the ministers of religion ; and he concludes hiy subject with the duties of those who survive, as to the exe- cution of the will of their departed friends, and the modera- tion and decency of their funerals. On the whole it may be said, that the '' Holy Dying/' in point of composition, and in the display of the characteristic beauties of Taylor's style and language, exceeds the " Holy Living." The subject admitted of, and, indeed, invited him to, a o-reater indulofence in those touchins; and tender visions of affection, of natural images, and of supernatural aspirations, which were familiar to his mind, and were apt to intrude unbidden. As a practical work, its use may be, perhaps, less obvious and less extensive than its companion ; for a sick-bed it is too long, and, when men are in health, they read it, are delighted, and lay it down again. But, as a manual and directory for those whose office it is to converse with the sick and dying, its uses are manifold, and its im- portance only to be estimated by those who have themselves given some portion of their thoughts and their time to this most interesting, most charitable, and, when rightly managed, this most edifying and instructive duty of Christian morality. ' Note (QQ). 152 LIFE OF JEREMV TAYLOR, D.D. And it may often happen, perhaps it often has happened, that men, who have read it for its beauties, have been im- pressed by the lessons it conveys ; and, by beginning with the " Holy Dying" of Taylor, have been led to study his " Holy Living" with more advantage. It is remarkable that, though its general style is more than usually poetical, even for its author, the prayers subjoined to the different chapters are less so than those either in the " Holy Living," or the " Great Exemplar." Perhaps he had been told of that which was the main fault in his devotional writings. Perhaps the solemnity of the subject impressed him too deeply to allow his fancy to luxuriate as on former occasions. To the same class with the works now described, but to a very inferior standard of taste and eloquence, must be referred the ''Contemplations on the State of Man," and the treatise on " Christian Consolation." Both these were post- humous works ; both are ascribed to Taylor on unquestion- able authority; both have some passages conceived and expressed in his peculiar style, and the opinions delivered in both are so conformable to those of his acknowledged works, that there can be little doubt of his being the author. The former, however, is one which, in its present state, he v/ould hardly have sent out to the world. It is marked, indeed, throughout, with genuine and characteristic piety. It dis- plays, — even more ostentatiously than Taylor was accustomed to do, — a strange and almost boundless familiarity with all kinds of reading, from the fathers and the schoolmen down to the voyages of the Buccaneers. Its author is evidently one before whom the page of ancient and modern history lay open ; and whose mind was imbued with a recollection of the greatest poets and orators of antiquity. Nor are there wanting descriptions conceived in the powerful tone and animated feeling of a poet or an orator. But never were such powers and acquirements employed to garnish such a string of truisms; — to tell us that time is always on the wing ; — that all human things are transitory, because Thebes and Quinsay have both fallen into ruins'^ ; that the fame of the greatest of Europeans cannot hope to pass the barrier of the Riphean mountains, any more than the glory of " Veneata- <* Note (QQ). LI IE OF JEREMY TAV[.OK, D.D. 153 padino Ragium, king of Narsinga," hath sounded through the cities of the west. Life, he goes on to prove, is vain, because Homer hkened the race of men to the leaves of the forest; and the patriarchs, who sojourned on earth eight hundred years, esteemed their time but as a shadow. That it is miserable, he shows by divers strange instances of dis- ease, such as of" Feretrina, queen of the Barcaeans, whose flesh turned into maggots and grubs," and of Palaeologus the Second, emperor of Constantinople, *' whose infirmity, after a year's continuance, found no other remedy but to be conlhinalli/ vexed and displeased ; — his wife and servants, who most desired his health, having no ways to restore it but by disobedience, still crossing and opposing him in whatever he most desired." That life must have an end, and all the beauty and excellency of the body perish ; that death is certain, and may come very shortly, he proves not only by the examples of Adam, Cain, Methuselah, and many other eminent persons, who have all had the misfortune to die, but from the experience of those who attend on the dead, and witness the change of the body into corruption. By such considerations as these, no man was ever yet moved to think himself in danoer of death: to slio-ht the enticements of pleasure, or to despise the promises of ambition. He whose heart and hope are in the present life, is not the less likely to affix a high value on twenty years of worldly existence, because some men, who have lived eight hundred years, could have been content to live on longer. That our fame cannot reach to Japan or China, is no very appalling consideration to those who have never contemplated a wider theatre of glory than Europe or England. And the homage of a single parish, the applause of a domestic circle, has ordinarily no less power to excite the ambition or the vanity of the human heart, than the loudest praises of the mightiest nations. That we must die, and one day be turned into dust, the miser and the voluptuary are aware already ; but they are considerations of a different and higher nature which alone have power to prevent either the one or the other from indulging in those pursuits which enable him to pass that short time agreeably. Such considerations, indeed, Taylor was not likely to forget ; and after eight chapters filled with the ornaments which I have already described, he 154 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, U.D. at length arrives at the end of the world, and the terrible judgment to which it is a prelude. Even here, however, though it was impossible for him to avoid some bursts of sublimity, and though the subject itself is one which, in its bare enunciation, is sufficient to make the blood freeze and the ears tingle, — he has contrived, by a strange and laboured enumeration of circumstances, some unfounded on any scriptural authority, some fanciful or fabulous, some utterly triflino- and insig-nificant, to distract the attention of his readers as much as possible from the grander features of the picture, — the " melting of the elements with fervent heat," — '' the coming of the Son of God in the air, with all his holy angels with him," — " the throne of his glory," — the " trumpet of God," — and the simple, but awful terms of blessing and cursing. What commentator on the Revelations, since the time of Cornelius a Lapide, has believed that the allegorical locusts, described by St. John, are to be devils in that shape, who, at the end of the world, shall issue from the bottomless pit ? Who, that was really and fully impressed with the idea of all nature expiring in flames, could recollect that the works of Aristotle and Ulpian would then be consumed, or that the statue of massy gold erected by Gorgias the Leontine (//* not already destroyed,) '' shall perish in this great and general conflagration ? " Nor, though the circumstance is, in itself, picturesque and well imagined, and though abundant use of it has been made in the hymns and paintings of the Romish church, will Protestants in general read with much faith or interest, that '' before the Judge shall be borne his standard, which Chrysostom and divers other doctors affirm shall be the very cross on which he suffered." The second book is occupied in speculations on the glories of heaven and the miseries of hell, — pictures forcibly and ably drawn, but with much of bad taste, and still more of presumptuous fancy. Yet the practical observations of this latter part are far better than any in the preceding; and, while he expatiates on the glowing allegories employed in Scripture to express the rewards and punishments of eternity, as his imagination has a greater and more legiti- mate scope, so the images which he suggests are less mingled with trifling circumstances, and more calculated LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK, D.D. 155 to impress the mind of his reader with exalted delight or terror. On the whole, there are, perhaps, more and greater faults of style in the " Contemplations on the State of Man," than in any of Taylor's other writings ; but there are also beauties of description and of illustration, which, out of his writings, I know not where to find, and which, if he had written this work alone, would have raised him to no vulgar height among tlie divines of the seventeenth century. Such is, perhaps, the following description of Christ; which, if it be too daring for a Christian teacher, is at least conceived in a tone of high poetical feeling, and which, in the circumstance of the twofold appearance of the same divine countenance to the wicked and the good, bears a strong resemblance to a fine passage in the Kehama of Mr. Southey ^ *' The Saviour of the world shall sit upon a throne of great majesty ; his countenance shall be most mild and peaceable towards the good, and, though the same, most terrible towards the bad : out of his sacred wounds shall issue beams of light towards the just, full of love and sweetness ; but unto sinners full of fire and wrath, who shall weep bitterly for the evils which issue from them. So great shall be the majesty of Christ, that the miserable damned, and the devils themselves, notwithstanding the hate they bear him, shall yet prostrate themselves and adore him, and, to their greater confusion, acknowledge him for Lord and God : and those who have most blasphemed him shall then bow before him, fulfilling the promises of the eternal Father, that all things shall be subject unto him. " This is the end wherein all time is to determine ; and this the catastrophe, so fearful unto the wicked, where all things temporal are to conclude : let us, therefore, take heed how we use them ; and, that w^e may use them well, let us be mindful of this last day, this day of justice and calamity, this day of terror and amazement ; the memory whereof will serve much for the reformation of our lives : let us think of it, and fear it; for it is the most terrible of all things terrible, and the consideration most profitable and acceptable, to * Note (SS). 156 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. cause ill us a holy fear of God, and to convert us unto him ; while I live, I will therefore ever preserve in my memory this day of terror, that I may hereafter enjoy security for the whole eternity of God. Above all things, I will keep before my eyes the last of all days ; and all the moments of my life I will think, and for ever think of eternity ^" The *' Christian Consolations" were originally written, as we are informed by the publisher in his preface, for the private use of a noble and excellent Lady, probably Anne, daughter of Sir Heneage Finch, and wife of his patron Edward Lord Conway, of whose benevolence and piety we read much in the writings of the excellent Henry More. She appears, from some parts even of his eulogium, and still more, from different slight circumstances mentioned of her in the Rawdon Papers ^, to have been a woman of con- siderable powers of mind, and of a high and seraphical devotion, but credulous and low-spirited, suffering under continued ill-health, and indulging, more than her husband seems to have patiently endured, in the privileges and fears of a hypochondriac invalid, and the austere retirement of a religious votary ; a zealous pupil, at one period of her life, of the sublime absurdities of cabalistic Platonism ; at another the confiding patient of the miraculous Greatraiks, and, at length, entirely surrounded by Quakers and enthusiasts of a yet wilder character. To such a person the Consolations which Taylor could offer might have been abundantly necessary and valuable : and, in fact, there is none of his works better calculated to bind up, with rational and warrantable comfort, the wounds of an afflicted spirit, and to confirm a weak and wavering one in the safe and authentic path of faith and duty. The treatise begins with stating the necessity of applying comfort rather than terror to those who are really impressed with a deep sense of the solemn truths of Christianity, and with shortly laying down the sources whence Christian comfort may be derived, from faith, from hope, from the graces of the Holy Ghost, from prayer, and the two sacra- ments. All these, as conducing to our present happiness Vol. iii. pp. 479— 48L 5 Note (TT). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 157 as well as holiness, he discusses in five chapters, none of them distinguished by the glowing beauties of some of his other productions, but all sensible, judicious, and affecting. The following passage is interesting, not only from its own merit, but as in some respects (in all essential respects, indeed,) differing from the language which he would have held when he wrote the '' Doctrine of Repentance." The Christian Consolations, it may be observed, was one of Taylor's last compositions. '* Be merciful unto my siu, for it is great, says David. This is not the way to deal with mortal judges, when we stand at their bar : but this is the way to obtain propitiation from our God. Heal me, for I am sore wounded : cure me, for I am very sick : be merciful unto my sin, for it is very great ! Zozimus, a Pagan that envied the honour of Constantine the Great, makes this tale to discredit him in his history : that Constantine had put his wife Fausta and his son Crispus to death ; after which, being haunted with an ill conscience that gave him no quiet, he sought among the heathen priests for expiation, and they could give him no ])eace; but he was told that the religion of Christians was so audacious as to promise pardon to all sins, were they never so horrible. Is not this to commend both the emperor and his religion under the form of a dispraise ? For what rest could a troubled mind attain to from the rites and superstitions of idol gods ? But, in the immense treasure of the price of the blood of Christ, there is redemption for every sinner that repents and believes." Not that he, at any time, forgot the parts and offices of repentance. " And beware that you overlook not these multitudes of sins of the under size, as if little grief or anxiety would serve for them. Are they not numberless grains of sand ? And may not a weight of too much sand sink down a ship as soon as a burden of too much iron ? The dailiness of sin must be bewailed with the dailiness of sorrow ; and then, when thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid : yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet." The notions which he, at this time, entertained as to original sin, are also worth extracting. He is speaking of the difficulties which oppose us in our way to heaven ; and 158 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. what he now says sufficiently exculpates him from having imbibed the error of the Perfectionists. " These difficulties are either in ourselves or in our adventure : in ourselves partly through natural imbecility, partly through contracted impotency. Our natural languor is that of original contagion, which makes us so weak that there is none that doth good, no not one. Which is not to be extenuated, as if the mahgnity of it might be suppressed with a httle resistance. It is good to know the power of so strong an enemy, that we may be fortified against it. It is a root of bitterness never to be digged up out of corrupt nature : a coal of fire spitting out sparks of temptation continually, as inward to us as the marrow is in our bones. Yet there is hope in Christ to slake this fire, though not utterly, in this life, to quench it. Therefore, since God is our help against the insurrection of this rebellious sin, let us be comforted in his help and not in excuses. For we must not plead our personal maladies and natural incli- nations, and think that God will take it for an answer, and ask no more. To what purpose are the pourings out of the Spirit, but that what is wickedly inbred from our conception should be shaken off from the tree, and a better fruit spring- up in its place from the increase of God V His observations on spiritual influence, on prayer, and on the sacraments, are all excellent. On baptism he states that — " Spiritual regeneration is that which the Gospel hath set forth to be the principal correlative of baptism. O happy it is for us to be born again by water and the Holy Ghost ! For better it were never to be born than not to be born twice. I have assurance that the spirit is not disjoined from the water, for Christ's word cannot fail that we shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. But ye are washed, but ye are sa?ictijied, but ye are justified iu the nayne of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. There is another cavil made by some, that, notwithstanding baptism, original sin remains in us all the days of our life. True, the sin is not blotted out in the infant; but it is blotted out of the book of God. And, as actual sins are pardoned for Christ's sake, yet it cannot be brought to pass that they should never be done which are done and past, but it is enough that they LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 159 shall not be imputed ; so original sin cleaves unto us : it is not cast out, for I feel it in me, but it is remitted." Enough, however, has already been instanced to show the value of this long neglected and almost unknown manual, of which one single copy only was known to exist, in the Bodleian Library, from which the reprint is taken which appears in the present volume. I will only give two more extracts. The one is so characteristic of Taylor's manner, as to be, in itself, almost sufficient to establish the authen- ticity of the volume. *' Mark the rain that falls from above, and the same shower that, dropped out of one cloud, increaseth sundry plants in a garden, and severally according to the condition of every plant. In one stalk it makes a rose, in another a violet, divers in a third, and sweet in all. So the Spirit works its multiformous effects in several complexions, and all accordino; to the increase of God." The other I do not quote as praising or agreeing wdth it. It is a hard, and, I conceive, an unfounded statement of, at least in one very important instance, the spiritual state of the heathen. He maintains that neither Jews, nor TVlaho- metans, nor Pagans, get any thing by that prayer to which the promise is made, '' Ask, and ye shall have." — '' Such a faith as possessed idolaters is not that which impetrates mercy from God." Surely the instance, which he himself brings forward, of Nineveh, is a proof that even idolaters, and * a fortiori/ Mahometans and Jews, by prayer and repentance of some of their most ciying sins, may obtain from God very eminent and illustrious mercies. His Sermons next offer themselves to our obsei^vation, sixty-four in number, of which all, even those which were preached on public and political occasions, may be regarded as in a great degree practical. Of them a less accurate examination is necessary, inasmuch as no sermons of that age, perhaps of any other age, are more frequently on the tables and in the hands of general readers. To praise them would be idle and unnecessary ; and their faults, like their merits, are obvious even to a careless observer. To estimate, however, those merits sufficiently, it is necessary to bear in mind the difficulties attendant on this style of composition. 160 LIFE OF JKllEMV TAYLOR, J^.D. and the few good models (besides St. Chrysostoni, whom in many respects he much resembled,) which Taylor, at the commencement of his career, had before him. It would be a long inquiry, and one which is by no means necessaiy to my subject, to enter into the causes of that remarkable decay of eloquence, which may be said to have taken its rise among the Greeks and Romans, from the time at which the usurpation of the Caesars had reduced their world to the sullen calm of despotism. This deficiency, beyond a doubt, as it extended to Pagans as well as Christians, and was felt while Christianity was as yet politically insignificant, arose from causes distinct from any peculiar habits of the Christian church. Yet, so far as this last was concerned, (in which the popular form of government, and the sermons preached in their different assemblies, might have led us to expect a dif- ferent result,) it is evident that the system of homilies, of which description are most of the addresses of the fathers to their congregations, though of all others, perhaps, the best fitted for general edification, was in itself unfavourable to the exercise of oratorical talent. A running commentary requires conciseness, and even abruptness : and the necessity of discussing many dif- ferent passages in succession, is almost inconsistent with a connected and lucid chain of argument ; with a brilliant peroration, or a comprehensive exposition of general prin- ciples. And there were other causes which tended still more to corrupt the taste of preachers ; of which the first was that fondness, derived from the cabalistic Jews, of detecting an internal sense in the plainest passages of Scripture ; and still more, the custom of applying such passages " by way of accommodation," to subjects the most foreign from their known meaning, — of which a good many instances may be found in Jerome, in succeeding fathers still more, and, most of all, in the divines of what are called the dark ages. Thus, when Jerome allegorizes, in his epistle to Fabiola ^, the different ornaments of the Jewish high priest into the dif- '• Ilieron. Op. ii. 38. L Etl. Francof. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. IGl ferent virtues and graces of a Christian ; when Athanasius finds out the penitent thief on liis cross in tlie second verse of the second chapter of Habakkuk ; when Gregory the Great makes Jericho at once a symbol of the moon and of our mortal nature, and, above all, when Bernard derives the word diabolus from *' two pockets"/' it is difficult to believe that they ' can have intended these fancies as argumentative, or to prove to their hearers any thing but the talents and acuteness of their teachers. Such, however, were the favourite ornaments of Christian orators for a lono- o lapse of ages ; and this taste, which of course, by degrees, degenerated into mere quibbling, was not yet extinct, as we learn from Echard's Contempt of the Clergy, in England during the life of Taylor, and prevailed, if we may believe the author of " Fray Gerundio," in Spain at a much later period. Another cause which materially contributed to detract from the elegance and eloquence of sermons, was the slavish subjection under which all Christendom was brought by the schoolmen, wdiose dicta were quoted as, in all cases, a definitive authority, and whose subtle distinctions and endless subdivisions were, no less than their peculiar and technical phraseology, made the model of style as well as the landmarks of intellect. I am far, indeed, from being inclined to join in an indis- criminate neglect or ridicule of those laborious and able men, whose w^orks, to judge from a very small acquaintance with them, are often models of fair and patient investigation, and whose errors are rather from their imperfect means of know- ledge, than from any defect in (what they principally pro- fessed) their mode of arranging knowledge already acquired. Still farther am I from considering a familiarity with the forms and principles of logic as otherwise than most advantageous to whoever would think accurately, or ex- press himself with clearness. But the unseasonable application and ostentatious pro- duction of these studies, as the first perplexed an eminent truth in a multiplicity of insignificant distinctions, so the second resembled the fault of those unskilfid painters who strip the skins from their figures, that the muscles and N()te(ITlT). M 1G2 LIKE OF JERKMV TAVLOH, D.I), anatomy may be admired. The accuracy of the skeleton should be traced in the correct proportion of the perfect limbs ; the logical precision of the orator should be felt in the invulnerable nature of his arguments ; but neither the bones nor the syllogisms need be exposed to view, in the finished picture or the finished oration. Yet thus unprofit- ably minute, thus repulsively scholastic, are by far the greater part of the most eminent divines from the middle ages down to the civil war ; while those others who, like the Franciscans, the early reformers, and the puritans^ found a more popular style indispensably necessary to their pur- poses, sought popularity in a homeliness of language and allusion ; in a merriment misapplied, and a robust and striking, but rustic familiarity with sacred things, which often impresses us with its vigour and amuses us with its quaintness ; though, at the present day, no preacher in his senses *would venture on it, nor would any audience endure it. Even when the usual style of other compositions was sin- gularly flowing and majestic, these errors of stiffness or bad taste continued long to cleave to the pulpit ; and though the homilies of the church are an early and illustrious exception, abundant specimens of all the several faults which I have noticed may be found in most sermons from the Reformation down to the time of Taylor. Of these very faults, indeed, though he himself, in his subsequent works, has almost entirely escaped the con- tagion, we find, in his earliest Sermon, on the Gunpowder Treason, some evident traces, though, even here, they are blended with and redeemed by merits, which gave ample promise of the fruit which his maturer years might supply. The text is that verse of St. Luke, (chapter ix. verse 54,) in which the disciples of our Lord ask permission to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritan villagers. In applying this passage to the event w^hich he commemorates, he proposes to discuss, first, the persons hy whom, in either case respectively, (that of the instance recorded in the Gospel, and that of the gunpowder con- spiracy,) the proposition was made to bring destruction on men of a difierent religion : secondly, the reasons alleged for such a proposition : thirdly, the persons to whom the proposition was made : fourthly, the nature of the propo- I LJFK OF JKRK.MV TAV !,()]{, D.U. 1G3 sition itself: fifthly, the example, or precedent which was pleaded for it. Here is enough, and more than enough, of the formality of scholastic arrangement; but I fear we shall not find much of the clearness and accuracy which alone can make such a formal arrangement valuable. Of these heads, the greater number are merely solemn trifling, inasmuch as the answers to them are either too self-evident to admit of discussion, or too remote in their bearing on the general course of his argument, to be valuable to the purposes of a logician. The last topic of inquiry, (the example or pre- cedent of Elias,) which might have been made extremely interestino' and instructive, as involvinor the same sfrand question of religious persecution which Taylor afterwards discussed so ably, he, in this place, merely notices without any discussion whatever. In treating of the remainder, and in comparing the relative situation of the apostles and the Romish clergy, he is not satisfied v/ith the real point of similarity in both being professed followers of the Messiah ; but runs into a string of frigid conceits to show that the proposal was in both instances of apostolic origin, inasmuch as, though the immediate contrivers of the powder plot were laymen, yet the Church of Rome (originally founded by the apostle Peter,) having allowed and applauded similar acts of atrocity, had given the first encouragement to such a project! Taylor may be thought to have forgotten both the new and the old organon when he quibbled thus egregiously ; but this was the style of ornament in favour with his age, of which I have prepared the reader to expect some instances, and which was, in fact, intended to prove nothing but the wit and ingenuity of the preacher. This trifling is, however, mixed up with much graver and more powerful matter. The proofs which he advances to show the opinion of the Romish church as to the lega- lity of deposing and destroying heretical sovereigns, (from Saunders, who advised a crusade against them, to Emanuel Sa, who justified their assassination, and Ma- riana, who recommended poison as the surest means of accomplishing it,) are, unhappily, but too cogent and con- clusive. But these arc here clearly out of their place, and, according to his own proposed arrangement, belong more 1G4 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.U. properly to the second branch of the inquiry ; in which, (after examining and combating the causes alleged by the Romanists themselves for the atrocious attempt in question, and the general disaffection of their party, which led them to it,) he insists, that it is futile to speak of our severities as having been the occasion of the gunpowder-plot, when their own accursed principles, if not necessarily or universally, yet naturally and regularly conducted and compelled them, even as a matter of reason and conscience, to the de- thronement and destruction, by any and every means, of heretical sovereigns and senates. In combating, however, the pretexts for discontent alleged by the Papists, as arising from the conduct of the English government towards their sect, the preacher is not altogether successful. Thus, the fine imposed on recusants, for not at- tending the public worship of the national church, he endea- vours to clear from the stain of religious persecution, by urging that such recusancy could not have proceeded from relio;ious motives. The Romanists, he observes, had actually and usually attended the service of the Church of England, from the first to the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth, when Pius the Fifth sent forth his bull for the excommunication and dethronement of that princess. " It is plain," he argues, " that religion did not make them absent themselves from our churches, unless they had changed their religion since the bull came over. For, if religion could consist with their communicating with us before the bull, (as it is plain it did,) then why not after the bull, unless it be part of their religion to obey the Pope rather than God, commanding us to obey our prince?" This is, surely, a quibble unworthy both of the cause and its advocate. Taylor knew perfectly well that it is a part of the religion of the sect in question to deny that God has given to the temporal prince any power whatever, " circa res sacras," and to believe that all authority of this kind, under God, was centered in the Pope alone. And he must have perceived that, though they might lawfully attend the ordinances of the national relio;ion, so Ions: as that religion was tolerated or not condemned by the Pope ; and though, in acting thus, they showed a laudable desire to obey their temporal sovereign as far as possible, yet, when the king and LIFE OF JEREiMY TAYLOR, D.I). 165 the Pope issued contrary mandates on such subjects, they were bound by their rehgion to obey the latter rather than the former. The question was not, whether they acted reasonably in receiving and maintaining such an article of faith, — but whether this 7cas an article of faith for acting on which they were punished ; and, this being certain, it is altogether as certain that the mulct imposed on the popish recusants was, to all intents and purposes *' soul money," and liable, as such, to all the unanswerable objections which Taylor has himself elsewhere brought forward against the principle of persecution for conscience sake. He is more fortunate, however, in his apology for tlie severities denounced against the publishers of the bull in question, and against the toleration of the Romish priests in a land whose tranquillity their daily conduct menaced. The publication of the bull was evidently seditious, and what no sovereign could endure without virtually renouncing the sovereignty. The priests were the avowed agents of a foreign and hostile potentate, and had already begun those practices against the authority and life of the queen, which were only rendered more atrocious by the fact that they were many of them her native subjects. And, in the exposure which fol- lows of the language held, the doctrines sanctioned, and the line of conduct pursued by the Romish hierarchy towards Elizabeth, and other princes similarly situated, the author may be said to have almost justified the severe reprobation with which he winds up this part of his discourse, that " so far from its being strange that their people call for fire to consume the Protestants, it would be rather a wonder if they did not ; " and that, " although it be no rare and unusual a thing for a Papist to be de facto, loyal or duteous to his prince, yet it is a wonder he is so, since such doctrines have been taught by such masters." In considering the persons to whom the contrivers of the plot intrusted their intentions, their confessors, namely, and spiritual guides, he discusses at some length, and with great learning and acuteness, the question of how far those confessors were bound to conceal or disclose the horrible secret communicated to them. He maintains, first, that the communication made to Garnet did not come under the cha- racter of a confession at all in the ecclesiastical sense of the 166 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. term ; inasmuch as it was not the acknowledgement of a sin already passed and then repented of, but the proposition of a measure prospectively determined on, which the propounders did not regard as sinful, but on the expediency of which they consulted their spiritual guides; and which, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of those guides, they still continued to meditate. It was allowable, therefore, in Garnet and his bretliren, even on their own principles ; and, if allowable, it was, on every principle of justice and charity, incumbent on them to disclose the crime which they had no other means of preventing. But this is not all : for, secondly, he examines into the antiquity and authority of that rule which they pretend for the inviolable secrecy and sanctity of confession ; and proves most triumphantly, from the admission of the best casuists of their own sect, that there are certain cases in which con- fessions may and must be divulged : as, where it is necessary to prevent an incestuous marriage ; to bring to light a lurk- ing heresy ; or where the penitent himself allows the confes- sor to reveal his secret. But treason, he argues, is, at least, as criminal and dangerous as incest or heresy ; and, if the permission of the individual dispenses with the oath of the priest, much more will this be the effect of the prior relation in which both priest and penitent stand to the nation of which they are members, and the sovereign to whom they owe allegiance. And, in the particular case of treason, he shows, that, both in France and at Rome, it has been usual, and always accounted allow^able, to reveal such confes- sions as involved the death of the sovereign. And that the obligation to keep all confession secret, rests, in fact, on no other or stronger sanction than that which binds every good man to conceal, in ordinary cases, a secret imparted to him, he shows, by the ancient 'practice of both the Eastern and Western Churches. Both these, he observes, not only authorized, but, in some instances, enjoined the priest to reveal to the whole congregation whatever more crying sins had been, under this seal, communicated to him. He proves that it was, at one time, esteemed the duty of the confessor to impart to the church all the transgressions which thus came to his knowledge ; and that the decree of St. Leo, which relaxed this inconvenient obligation, ex- LIFE OF JEREEY TAYLOR, D.D. 167 tended no farther than to permit and enjoin the priest, at his discretion, to keep some sins secret, " lest men, out of in- ordinate love to themselves, should rather refuse to be washed than buy their purity with so much shame." He concludes, therefore, that the confessors of Digby and his associates were bound, on every principle of their own canons, and of general Christianity, to divulge the meditated treason. The rest of the sermon is occupied in descanting on the nature and enormity of the destruction which was contem- plated, and he concludes with a pathetic exhortation to thankfulness and piety. Of the affectation and frigid pedantry which pervaded most of the writings of that age, and from which Taylor, in his subsequent works, to a great degree emancipated him- self, several instances may be found in this sermon. Some- times the preacher indulges himself in the use of foreign terms and modish barbarisms, such as no judicious orator would introduce into a solemn or pathetic composi- tion. " There is fire in the text," he tells us, " consum- ing fire, like that whose antevorta we this day commemo- rate." After the coming of the Messiah, the spirit of Elias is said to be *' out of date ;'' and in the Jesuits, '' we may quickly find out more than a |;a7e// for St. James and St. John, the Boanerges of the text." Such terms as these have neither the homely vigour of colloquial English, nor the pomp and gravity of derivatives from the learned languages : — they were, in their day, the mere cant of travelled foppery, and were the last remnants of that Baby- lonish euphuism, which, from the example of the court, had infected the language of the bar, the parliament, and the pulpit. Sometimes, in his attempt (a very needless one) to exaggerate the enormity of the transaction, he lays a stress on circumstances in themselves merely indifferent. If a base and cowardly destruction of the whole nobility of a country were resolved on, it mattered little or nothing by what agent their death was to be effected. Taylor, however, is of a different opinion, and makes it a leading aggravation of the crime of the conspirators, that they designed to employ so devilish an agent a^ gunpowder. The apostles. 168 LIFE or JEUE-MY TAYLOK, D.D. he tells us, " would have had their fire from heaven, but these men's conversation was not there ; Ta xarc^jDtv, things from beneath, from an ortificinl hell, but breathed from the natural and proper, were in all their thoughts!" Some- times the preacher is facetious — " If his HoUness be wronged in the business, I have no hand in it. The speech was avouched for as authentic by the approbation of three doctors. Let them answer it. I wash my hands of the accusation." — Again: " If to their anathemas they add some faggot of their own and gunpowder, 'tis odds but we may be consumed indeed !" There are other passages, however, far more in the usual and appropriate style of Taylor, and which should abun- dantly redeem this earliest of his writings from indiscrimi- nate neglect or censure. That cause, he says, bore a fair excuse, which moved James and John to a wrath so incon- siderate. '' It would have disturbed an excellent patience to see him whom, but just before, they beheld transfigured in a glorious epiphany upon the mount, to be so neglected by a company of hated Samaritans, as to be forced to keep his vigils where nothing but the welkin should have been his roof, nor any thing to shelter his precious head from the descending dews of heaven." — " When first," he shortly afterwards observes, *' when first I considered they were apostles, I wondered that they should be so intem- perately angry. But, when I perceived they were so angry, I wondered not that they sinned. Not the pri- vilege of an apostolical spirit, not the nature of angels, not the condition of immortality, can guard from the danger of sin ; but, if we are over-ruled by passion, we almost subject ourselves to its necessity. It was not, therefore, without reason, that the Stoics afl[irmed wise men to be void of passions ; for, sure I am, the inordination of any passion is the first step to folly. And, although of them, as of waters of a muddy residence, we may make good use, and quencli our thirst, if we do not trouble them ; yet, upon any ungentle disturbance, we drink down mud instead of a clear stream, and the issues of sin and sorrow, certain consequents of a temerarious or inordinate anger." In the conclusion, after instancino- " the sacrilee:ious ruins of the neighbouring temples, which must needs have LIFE OF JEllE.^IY TAYLOR, D.D, 1G9 perished in the flame," — "the disturbing the ashes of our entombed kings, devouring their bodies like sepulchral dogs;" and observing that ''these are but minutes in respect of the ruin prepared for the living temples," he proceeds : " Stragem sed istani iioii tiilit Christus, cadentum principuni Impiine, ne forsan sui Patris periret fabrica. " Ergo qu?e potuit lint^ia retexere Laudes, Christe, tuas, qiii doniitum struis, Infuhiin popixlum cum diice perfido ''." ** Let us, then return to God the cup of thanksgiving, he having poured forth so largely to us of the cup of sal- vation ! — We cannot want wherewithal to fdl it. Here is matter enough for an eternal thankfulness, for the expression of v/hich a short life is too little ; but let us here begin our hallelujahs, hoping to finish them hereafter, where the many choirs of angels will fill the concert^*" On this first production of Jeremy Taylor's abilities I have bestowed a large, and what may seem perhaps to some, a disproportionate share of notice. But it is his first produc- tion. Its very faults belong to the history of the time, and increase our respect for his subsequent and more illustrious labours ; and the topics which it discusses are of no slight or transient importance; but have reference to disputes of which we are not likely to see the end, to principles which, in every age of the church, are important. And though his style had not yet received its full polish, and thouoh his aro-uments are, in some instances, not well con- cocted, the facts which he has collected in the history and philosophy of religion are such as to mark his Sermon on the Gunpowder Treason for one of the most important and powerful attacks on the Jesuits and the Romish hierarchy. This sermon, which at first appeared separately, was never, I believe, reprinted by Taylor during his life-time. His next publication of the same kind was a collection of fifty-two Sermons, described as '* a Yearly Course," or Ev/ayroc, divided into two volumes, for the winter and summer half ^ Note (I). ' Vol. \i. p. 025 170 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. years ; of which that was first pubhshed which now stands last in order. Why he thus denominated them I am at a loss to conjecture ; since, with the exception of two Sermons for Whitsunday, and three on the Advent of Christ to Judgment, there are none which, either by text or matter, are more adapted to one day than another ; while even the solemn festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Trinity,' are passed over without any particular notice. Nor is this deficiency supplied by any of the sermons in the supple- ment : these are, with three exceptions which might have been preached at any time, preached on diflTerent local topics, or before different public bodies; but none of them are for those days when an appropriate composition is ordinarily called for by the practice of the Church of Eng- land. The cause of this singularity I cannot conjecture. If he had not named Whitsunday, it might have been ascribed to a necessary compliance with the prejudices of the faction then in power, whose aversion from all such ecclesiastical distinction of days is sufficiently known to have been exces- sive. But, when one festival of the Church was named, it could have, in this respect, availed him nothing to pass over the others in silence ; and in his other writings he has paid no such respect to the prejudices of his contempo- raries. I own, I regret the want of some such discourses in the present collection ; because, with Taylor's peculiar talent for whatever is picturesque or poetical in religion, we might have anticipated from him some very splendid displays of oratory and pathos, when discussing those awful images of power, of mercy, and of suffering, which the return of days like these is intended to recal more forcibly. And when it is recollected how greatly we have most of us been affected, by the conformity observed between the day and its devotions ; the Scriptures read, and the sermons preached on such occasions, we may well conceive to how good purpose these advantages must have been em- ployed by the impassioned and affectionate eloquence of Jeremy Taylor. Nor is this the only circumstance which may, at first, surprise us. It may still more excite our wonder that such sermons as these should have been addressed to any but an audience exclusively academical. An university alone. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 171 and ail university of no ordinary erudition, appears the fitting theatre for discourses crowded, as tliese are, with quotations from the classics and the fathers ; with allusions to the most recondite topics of moral and natural philosophy ; with illus- trations drawn from all the arts and sciences, and from history ancient and modern, clothed in a language rich and harmonious, indeed, beyond all contemporary writers, but abounding in words of foreign extraction, and in unusual applications of those which are of native origin. Nor sliould I have hesitated to conclude, that most of Taylor's sermons had been really composed and intended only for an acade- mical audience, had not the author himself informed us, in his title-page and his dedication to Lord Carbery, that they were preached at Golden Grove, to the family and domestics of his patron ; or, at most, to a few gentlemen and ladies of that secluded neighbourhood, and to as many of the peasantry on the estate as could understand English. It is true, perhaps, that in those days a learned style of preaching was not only more frequently affected by divines, but more generally popular with their auditories, than it has been during the last century ; and that they who could least understand a sermon, were not, therefore, the least ready to applaud it. The popularity of some preachers has descended to our times, who seem to have had scarcely any other stock in trade than a quantity of good and suffi- cient Greek and Hebrew quotations ; while, on the other hand, the simplicity and unaffected plainness of the ad- mirably learned Pocock was regarded by the rustics of his parish, as a proof that, ''though a kind and neighbourly man, he was no Latinist." Taylor, however, had no need of such arts, and was by far too conscientious to employ them. He was too good, as well as too wise ; too earnestly intent on amending the hearts and saving the souls of his hearers, to have amused their ears with that which could not reach their understanding ; and I am therefore much inclined to believe, that, in preparing his sermons for the press, he materially changed them from the compositions which he had delivered to his rustic auditory in South Wales ; or, that they had really been, in the first instance, designed for the university pulpit; and that, when preaching them at Golden Grove, he had recourse to such extemporaneous 172 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. omissions or alterations as suited the abilities and cir- cumstances of his conoTeo;ation, Such omissions or alterations would, in fact, leave the essential merits of the discourse in a great measure unim- paired. The tenor of its reasoning would remain unbroken, thouoh the recondite illustrations were withdrawn. Those illustrations and images which, as is the case with no small number in Taylor's works, are borrowed from natural objects, would produce a yet more powerful effect in proportion as those objects were familiar to his hearers. The practical wisdom of his counsels ; his awful denun- ciations of God's judgments against sin ; his admirable topics of consolation to the penitent ; his affectionate earnestness, and his yet more persuasive piety, would lose none of their power if delivered in more homely language ; and those persons are mistaken, who apprehend that a congregation in the humble ranks of life are unequal to the task of follow- ing up the most accurate chain of reasoning, if conveyed in words of which they know the meaning. To lay down a general rule for the selection of such a popular language is not, indeed, very easy; but it will be found, for the most part, that words of Saxon or Teutonic derivation, as they are more forcible and expressive to all English ears, so to an uninstructed English ear they are usually far more intel- ligible than those terms, (however familiar to the educated part of the nation,) which are of French or Latin origin. But whatever the sermons of Taylor may have been, as delivered from the pulpit and to a miscellaneous or vulgar auditory, it is certain that, as essays for the closet, and as intended for those into whose hands they usually fall, few compositions can be named so eminently distinguished by fancy, by judgment, by learning, and by powers of rea- soning ; fev/, where the mind is so irresistibly allured, if not to agree with, the author, at least to think Vv^ell of him ; or where so much luxuriance of imagination, and so much mellowness of style, are made the vehicles of divinity so sound, and holiness so practical. Those persons will, in fact, be much deceived, (they may be, perhaps, deceived to their own infinite advantage,) who take up his sermons as a book of amusement only ; in wliich little is to be found but quaint singularities of expression, and pedantic though brilliant and LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 173 characteristic ornament. As little will those do justice to their merits, who draw back from their perusal in the ex- pectation of finding precepts too rigid and ascetic for our nature, or the general frame of society ; the dicta of one who had forgotten or never experienced the temptations of the world, or the inexpediency of laying down an imprac- ticable measure of duty. No writer, with whose works I am acquainted, has spoken more wisely, or with a greater know- ledge, of the human heart ; none more moderately, or (except in those particulars where the souls of men are really endan- gered,) more indulgently, than Taylor in his ¥.vtu-j7og ; and, while his sermons on " Godly Fear " lay bare with a need- ful and scrupulous austerity the ruinous self-deceptions of a pretended repentance, and of that transient sorrow for sin or its consequences, which too many mistake for amend- ment, no wTiter has given a more just and beautiful picture of the goodness and gentleness of our Almighty Parent, than may be found in his discourses on the Miracles of the Divine Mercy""." Of the rest, the " House of Feasting," and the " Marriage Ring," are perhaps the most characteristic, and distinguished by the greatest liveliness of fancy ; while a very curious and difficult question is acutely and profit- ably discussed in the sermon on *' the Entail of Curses." And, (though some of his positions are here, as on fonner occasions, laid down with too great and unqualified severity,) many awful and alarming truths are powerfully expressed, where he is treating of what he considers '* The Invalidity of a Death-bed Repentance." Of all, the most likely to be practically useful are, perhaps, the two on " the Flesh and the Spirit," and those on the " Growth of Sin, and the several Estates of Sinners." All, however, may be read with profit ; and, by a man of genius, none can be read with- out delight and admiration. To the Ewcc'jro^ the Asxa; £/x£o>.//xa/o; appeared as a supple- ment, several years after, with a Dedication to the high- minded and stately Dutchess of Ormond ; who, though pro- fuse in her expenses, and haughty in her demeanour, was fond of religious reading, and really endowed with many distinguished and some amiable qualities. It consists, (1), ■" Vol. V. }). \)n ; Vol. vi. p. l(;8, et seci- 174 LIFE OF JKREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of three Sermons on subjects referring to general practice, preached in Christ Church, Dubhn, but adapted to any occasion and to any well-informed audience; (2). Three Sermons on Public Occasions, already spoken of, at an Episcopal Consecration, before the Irish Parliament, and before the University of Dublin ; (3.) Two funeral Sermons, on the Death of the Primate, and on that of the Countess of Carbery; and, (4.) Two, to the Clergy of his Diocese, on the duties of the Christian Ministry. They are followed, in the present edition, by his first published sermon, and by the Funeral Sermon in Memory of Sir George Dalstone. Of these, the Sermons preached before the Parliament and the University of Dublin have been sufficiently noticed, as well as the Funeral Sermon on Archbishop Bramhall : they are parts, indeed, of Taylor's public life, and could not, without iinpropriety, be separated from it. For the rest, those preached at the Funerals of Lady Carbery and Sir George Dalstone, are remarkable not only for the beauty of their language and imagery, (in which respect the former is not surpassed by any of his most elaborate productions,) but for the powerful and persuasive manner in which, while rendering due honour to the dead, they warn and instruct the living, and improve the moments of grief and serious thought to the lasting advantage of their hearers. In other compositions of a similar character, we often find the main body of the discourse engrossed by a laboured panegyric ; while the religious lesson is crowded into a narrow corner, and treated as an accessary only. Such funeral sermons as these can lay claim to no further merit than belongs to a hat-band or a mourning-ring, — mere testi- monies of respect and regret, in which the friends of the deceased alone are concerned ; or which have, at best, no general value but what arises from the material or the work- manship. But in the labours of Taylor, the foremost place was always given to the glory of God and the salvation of his hearers. From the death of his patroness, he takes occa- sion, (in the first instance, and before he describes her virtues,) to enl-oige, in a strain of moving eloquence, on the uncertainty of life, and the method of enabling ourselves to meet death hopefully. And his account of Sir George LIFE OF JFK E:\IV TAYLOR, D.D. 175 Dalstone is introduced by an able and interesting inquiry on the sources whence the heathen obtained their knowledire of a hfe to come ; on the usual lot of holy men in the jDresent life ; and on the abode and condition of the soul between death and the resurrection. The two Sermons on the " Minister's Duty in Life and Doctrine/' may yet call for some observations ; inasmuch as, in the first of these, while enforcing, with much earnest and awful eloquence, the paramount necessity of personal holiness in the clergy, he has been hurried to a length incon- sistent with sound reason, with the analogy of Scripture and the usual faith of Christians. After magnifying in a strain which is not unusual with him, the dignity of the ministerial office, by the consideration that, as Christians in general are chosen and sanctified from the world, so the clergy are chosen and sanctified from the general body of Christians, he urges, with great force and justice, that, — *' If, of every one of the Christian congregation, God expects a holiness that mingles with no unclean thing ;" — " If he accepts of none of the people, unless they have within them the conjugation of all the Christian graces ;" — " If he hath made them fights in the world, and salt of the earth, to enlighten others with their good example, and to teach them and invite them by holy discourses and wise counsels ;" — " What is it, think ye, or with what words is it possible to express what God requires of you ? They are to be examples of good life to one another ; but you are to be examples even of the examples themselves ""." This is as true as it is eloquent and awful. He also urg^, with great reason, that a wicked life is the greatest impe- diment to the success of any man's ministry ; inasmuch as his bad conscience is a continued reproof of his own teaching, and his bad example a no less continued dissuasive to his people's learning. Him, therefore, who teaches what he does not practise, he describes as " sitting in the chair of the scornful ;" as " mocking God, and mocking the people ;" as " destroying the benefits of the people, and diminishing the blessings of God." " Vol. vi. p. 4 DO. 176 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. What follows, however, is of mere doubtful character : ** This is but the least evil : there is yet much w^orse behind. A wicked minister cannot, with success and benefit, pray for the people of his charges." — " This is the priest's office ; and if the people lose the benefits of this, they are undone." — ** What, then, do you think will be the event of those assemblies, where he that presents the prayers of all the people is hateful to God ? Will God receive the oblation that is offered to him by an impure hand ; and can we hope that the minister who, with wrath, and doubting, and covet- ousness, presents the people's prayers, that even those intercessions shall pierce the clouds and ascend the mercy- seat, and descend with a blessing?" — '* The ecclesiastical order is by Christ appointed to minister his Holy Spirit to the people ; the priests in baptism, and the holy eucharist, and prayer, and intercession ; the bishop in all these, and in ordination beside, and in confirmation, and in solemn bless- ing. Now, then, consider what will be the event of this without effect : Can he minister the Spirit, from w^hom the Spirit of God is departed ° ?" &c. It is hardly necessary to point out the inconsistency of such a statement with the doctrine laid down by the Church of England in her 26th article, or with all our usual notions of the justice and mercy of that God, who can never, it may be presumed, allow the devotions of his people to be vitiated by offences over w^hich they have no control, and for which they have no remedy. Of this, Taylor himself seems sensible, wdien he admits that, " without his own fault, no man shall perish ;" that, ** He that says amen, if he heartily desire what the other per- functorily and with his lips only utters, not praying wath his heart and with the acceptabilities of a good life, the amen shall be more than ail the prayer, and the people shall prevail for themselves when the priest could not J'." The misfortune is, that he speaks of this aid and comfort of the Holy Ghost, which the believing assistant shall ob- tain, notwithstanding the sins of his priest, as something " extraordinary " and " irregular ;" as if God, in this case. ° VoL vi. p. 407. »' Ibitl. p. 50 L LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 177 " did his work alone ;" as if the Spirit came " in ways of his own, and prevented the external rites and prepossessed the hearts of his servants," while the people became, under such circumstances, their own priests, and got " nothing, or but very little, by the ministration of their minister ;" or even, as he elsewhere expresses it, " the prayers of innocent people, being presented by an ungracious minister and intercessor, were very much hindered in prevailing." Now, it is plain that this principle, if carried to its full but legitimate extent, would overturn all church government whatever ; since, if the people get " nothing, or but very little, from the ministry of the priest," there can be no reason for attending on that ministry. Every man who found, or fancied he found, some human frailty in the *' angel of his congregation," would be justified in withdrawing from a place where " his prayers were very much hindered in prevailing." And if, under such circumstances, *' them- selves also become priests unto God," it is evident that their solitary devotions, or devotion offered by them in conventicles, would be so far from schismatical, that they would be in the likeliest course to be accepted. If this had been true, the Israelites would have done well in " abhorring the offering of the Lord," when Hophni and Phineas ministered at his altar ; which yet, we find, was so far from being the case, that it was charged as an additional sin on these profane sacrificers, that " they made the Lord's people to transgress.'* *' The Scribes and Pharisees," said our Lord, *' sit in Moses' seat; whatsoever therefore they say unto you, that do and observe, but after their works do ye not." The truth is, that Taylor has strangely confounded the personal w ith the official character of the minister ; that character by which he is himself to stand or fall, with that which he possesses as the appointed instrument of God's mercies, and in consequence of the covenant between Christ and the whole congregation of the faithful. The personal and private prayers of a wicked priest must, cer- tainly, fail of their effect, or bring down a curse instead of a blessing. But his public and ministerial prayers are not his own, but those of the great body of his constituents, which he, in their names, and as their organ, offers to God ; while, on the other hand, the spiritual graces which he 178 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. conveys in the sacrament are not his own, (perhaps he may have no share in them,) but the bounty of God, of which he is the unworthy channel. It is, indeed, most true that tlie priest is bound to pray for the people not only publicly but privately, not only in his offi- cial but also in his personal capacity. And as, in the discharge of his ministerial function, he prays on his own behalf as well as theirs, the obligation is most powerful which rests on those of our profession, so to frame our lives that our devotion may be acceptable. The fervent prayer of any righteous man availeth much, and the public service of the church may avail the more, when he who pronounces it is one whom the Almighty hears with favour. But though the prayers of the whole body may gain force, from the intercessions of a holy minister, they cannot be supposed to lose their proper efficacy, though the congregation should be less fortunate in their prolocutor. I admit that in all cases where the people are in any degree answerable for their minister's guilt, they are likely to derive no advantage from his ministry. If he has departed from the church, and they support him in his schism; if, knowing his life or doctrine to be scandalous, they elect him in the first instance as their functionary ; or if they refuse or neglect to complain of him to those superiors who have power to correct or displace him, the sin is theirs as well as his, and they have reason to fear that such answers only will be given to their prayers as petitions usually receive when sent by an obnoxious messenger. But, where the people have no knowledge of the crime, or can obtain no redress or abatement of the scandal ; when the function is not only public, but recognised by God's word and the authority of ecclesiastical superiors, that cannot be imputed to them as a fault which is only their great misfortune : nor can the mutual communication of prayer and grace be impeded by the unworthiness of the channel, any more than the bad character of a public carrier can vitiate the letters which pass through his hands. In the instance already mentioned, Hannah prayed and was accepted, though the sacrificers were sons of Belial. Nor can it be said with truth that, where no remedy is to bchad, the people "" get nothing, or very little," by attendance LITE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 179 on the ministry of a wicked person. Through his ministry they may, snrely, obtain the ordinary means of grace, *' the sacraments generally necessary to salvation :" they may offer up their prayers, through his ministry, under the circumstances to which a peculiar blessing and the especial presence of Christ is promised. The very unworthiness of their elder may be improved into an opportunity of exercising their faith, their obedience, and their charity ; their faith, as relying on God alone for the performance of his gracious promises ; their obedience, as complying with the com- manded rite under discouraging and disgusting circum- stances ; their charity, as bearing with their brother's faults, as praying with him, and for him. But while such as these may, by God's grace, reap grapes from thorns and figs from thistles, " they who have preached to them" (to use Taylor's own words,) " shall have the curse of Hananeel and the reward of Balaam, the wages of unrighteousness. But thus it was, when the wise men asked the doctors where Christ should be born ; they told them right, but the wise men went to Christ, and found him; and the doctors sate still and went not." The rest of the first discourse, and the whole of the second, are unexceptionable in point of theology ; and, in piety, learning, eloquence, and good sense, are admirable. Nothing can be more awful than the manner in which he concludes his first Sermon, with a description of the labour, the difficulty, the danger, and, on the other hand, the blessed- ness of the ministerial office ; with a warning that many things are lawful for the people which are scandalous in the clergy, and that the common life of the one must exceed the piety of the other. " Remember," he exclaims to his clerical hearers ; *' Remember your dignity to which Christ hath called you !" " Shall such a man as I flee?" said the brave Eleazar, — ** shall the stars be darkness, — shall the ambassadors of Christ neglect to do their king honour, — shall the glory of Christ do dishonourable and inglorious actions?" ''Ye are the glory of Christ," saith St. Paul; " remember that ! I can say no greater thing ; unless pos- sibly this may add some moments for your care and caution, that ' potentes potcnter cruciabuntur'^ !' " It was thus that Taylor pressed on the consciences 1 Vol. \i. p. 506. 180 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of his brethren, '' not only to be innocent and void of offence, but also to be holy ; not only pure, but shining ; not only to be blameless, but to be didactic in your lives ; that as, by your Sermons, you preach in season, so, by your lives, you may preach out of season, that is, at all seasons, and to all men, that they, seeing your good works, may glorify God, on your behalf and on their own !" His second Sermon, on the Doctrine of Ministers, may surprise a modern divine by the little remembered names of those authors whose commentaries he recommends, and whose works are now of no frequent occurrence in any but college libraries. There are not many scholars of the present day who owe very many or very great obligations to ** Sixtus Senensis," — to *' the excellent book of Hugo de Sancto Victore," — to " the Prolegomena of Serarius," — " Andreas Hyperius," — or the ** Hypotoposes of Martinus Cantipra- tensis." It may excite, also, some surprise that no English work is named, and that those of Erasmus, Castellio, Melancthon, and Grotius, are passed over in silence. Those will be, however, agreeably disappointed, vt^ho anticipate, from the honour paid to these obsolete writers, an obsolete, and, for modern times, an unprofitable rationale of doctrine. No work that I am acquainted with displays more sound and enlarged views of scriptural interpretation : in none of equal length are so many useful hints afforded for the choice of subjects; — the avoiding of useless controversies; — the inculcation of truth in the manner least likely to provoke hostility; — the deference to authority which a Christian teacher should always display; — and the avoiding of all such topics as " serve a temporal end,'' or blend '* a design of state" with religion. But for these I must refer my readers to the discourses themselves, convinced that I shall be well entitled to their thanks, if I have now first introduced them to their notice. I have, indeed, been the more exact in noticing their single error, on account of their numerous excellencies, and because I was unwilling that a misapprehension of so much import- ance should pass current under the authority of such a writer, or that it should derogate from the utility of what I conceive to be one of his ablest and most useful com- positions "■. ' Note (WW). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 181 Of the second class of his writings, namely, the Theo- gical, the earliest in date is the Defence of Episcopacy, published in 1642, soon after the king's retirement to Oxford. In gracefulness of diction, in richness of imagery, and in that warmth and kindliness of feeling which is in a great measure Taylor's jjeculiar characteristic, it is inferior, as might well be expected, to such of his writings as relate immediately to morals or devotion. It is also less meta- physical, in the highest sense of the term, less distinguished by enlarged views of the human mind, and the limits between circumstantials and essentials, than the Rule of Conscience or the Liberty of Prophesying. But it is, at least, a specimen of manly and moderate disputation; of a variety of learning, such as, even in that learned age, few other writers have brought to bear upon the same subject ; and of a style vigorous and elastic, which, both in taste and energy, leaves far behind it the greater number of contemporary theologians, and only falls short of that which few, indeed, have equalled, the sustained and majestic harmony of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Of the arguments, however, which he has advanced in favour of an institution which, through life, he regarded with more than common veneration, there are not many which strike me as new ; and, in the few particulars where he has taken a different ground from that generally occupied by the assertors of episcopal government, I am not sure that he has been fortunate. He sets out with asserting the absolute necessity that some form of church government should be found laid down in Scripture ; an assertion of precisely the same kind with that which was maintained by the Puritans in the reign of Eliza- beth, and which was so ably refuted by Hooker in the third book of his immortal work already referred to. The reasons, indeed, on which Taylor rests his position are as unsound as the position itself is, prima facie, questionable. " If,'' he urges, " for our private actions and duties ceconomical, they will pretend a text, I suppose it will not be thought possible Scripture should make default in assignation of the public government, insomuch as all laws intend the public and the 182 LUE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. general directly, the private and the particular by conse- quence only and comprehension within the generaP." But this argument, if it proves any thing, will prove too much, and will send us to our Bibles for the model not only of ecclesiastical but of civil regimen ; inasmuch as the cases are both the same, and, in both, the presumption, if there were any, would be equal, that the general good should be provided for before the individual. We find, however, in fact, that, while the duties of individuals are marked out, in both the Old and New Testament, in the broadest characters and with the most scrupulous care, those individuals are left entirely to themselves and the decision of their own reason as to the manner in which they are to unite into nations or clans for mutual protection, and as to the persons and powers of those public functionaries whom they are to appoint as guardians of the general happiness and deciders of private differences. The truth is, that, however we may deceive ourselves with the term of an imaginary public, whom we dress up in the attributes of a real personage, and to whom we ascribe, in common speech, an existence and an interest distinct from those individuals of whom it is, in fact, only the collective name, no wise lawgiver will attempt to separate public from private happiness and virtue, or expect to obtain an aggregate of prosperity any otherwise than by consulting the prosperity of those individuals of whom that aggregate is made up. The moral laws, accord- ingly, (to which Taylor would liardly have denied a prece- dence over all other institutions,) not incidentally or mediately, but in the first instance, respect the conduct of individuals. And as all other laws, whether relating to forms of government or the internal regulations of society, are, in fact, modal and instrumental only, in order to the due discharge and observance of these higher and more holy obligations, it is reasonable that God, having taught us these last, should leave us, as, in nine instances out of ten, he has confessedly left us, to pursue, by such means as our human experience and natural faculties point out, the ends which his revelation has set before us. ^ Episcopacy Asserted, sect. 1. vol. vii. p. 7- LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 183 But Taylor goes on to urge that *' if Christ himself did not take order for a government, that we nuist derive it from human prudence and emergency of conveniences, and concourse of new circumstances, and then the government must often be cliangcd, or else time must stand still, and thing's be ever in the same state and possibility. Both the consequents," he tells us, " are extremely full of incon- venience. For, if it be left to human prudence, then either the government of the church is not in immediate order to the good and benison of souls ; or, if it be that such an institution, in such immediate order to eternity, should be dependent upon human prudence, it were to trust such a rich commodity in a cock-boat, that no wise pilot would be sup- posed to do. But, if there be often changes in government ecclesiastical, (which was the other consequent,) in the public frame, I mean, and constitution of it ; either the certain infinity of schisms will arise, or the dangerous issues of public inconsistence and innovation, which, in matters of religion is good for nothing but to make men distrust all ; and, come the best that can come, there will be so many church governments as there are human prudences*.*' In the first of these supposed consequences, Taylor assumes that " the government of the church is in immediate order to the good and benison of souls." But this is plainly untrue, since for this great end nothing more is immediatelif necessary (speaking always in subordination to the merits and sacrifice of Christ,) but the sincere word of God, as delivered in Scripture, to enlighten and establish our faith and the means of grace, which are afforded us in baptism and the Lord's supper. The government of the church is in immediate order to the faithful preaching of the truth and the decent and orderly ministration of the sacra- ments, but it is only through their means, and as a conse- quence of them, that it seeks the salvation of souls. It must rank, therefore, as Hooker wisely teaches, not among the points essential to salvation, but " those things that are accessary hereunto, those things that so belong to the way of salvation, as to alter them, is no otherwise to change that way than a path is changed by altering only the uppermost ^ Episcopacy Asserted, sect. 1. vol. vii. p. 7- 184 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. face thereof, which, be it laid with gravel, or set with grass, or paved with stones, remaineth still the same path "." To his observation respecting the danger of frequent changes or schisms, or both, it may be answered, that the risk of these in religious affairs is not greater than of muta- bility or rebellion in civil ; and that for both these, (even supposing us left to human prudence and experience as our only guides in framing our polity,) our natural caution and our natural respect for authority are, as well as our Christian prudence and Christian charity, the proper and efficacious remedy. In the eagerness, indeed, of his argument, he does not stop with the enumeration of these probable incon- veniences of the supposition which he deprecates, but pursues his consequence to an extent which would be sub- versive of all principles of human government, and leave no adequate means to preserve the peace of the world but a necessary tyranny or a direct theocracy. " If,'^ he urges, *' there be no opinion of religion, no derivation from a divine authority, there will be sure to be no obedience, and, indeed, nothing but a certain pubhc, calamitous irregularity. For why should they obey ? Not for conscience, for there is no derivation from divine authority. Not for fear, for they have not the power of the sword." Surely, when Taylor wrote thus, he had forgotten the apostolical precept, " Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sakeM" Though Christ, therefore, were admitted to have left no definite law for the manner in which his church was to be governed, and though episcopacy were allowed to stand on the single basis of human institution, there would be still abundant reason against hasty or needless change of such an institution on the part of sovereigns, as well as against schism in particular persons, on this account, and from a church which exacted no unchristian terms of communion. But, it is certain that any positive institution of Christ, if really traced to him, is obligatory on the conscience of Christians; and, if Taylor had made good his second position, that our Lord, while on earth, appointed the two distinct offices of bishop and presbyter, no doubt could " Ectles. Polity, lib. iii. sect. 3. ^1 Pet. ii. 13. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 185 remain but that both of these would rest on the same foundation with that of those sacraments themselves, which all men allow to be immutable. But here, too, the author, while attempting to prove too much, has assumed facts in which he is neither borne out by antiquity, nor the tenor of the gospel history, when he finds in the apostles, during the abode of their Lord on earth, the first bishops, and in the seventy-two disciples whom Christ also selected from his followers, the first presbyters of his church^. That the latter w^ere appointed by Christ to any thing more than a temporary and occasional function, is doubted by a writer not inferior to Taylor either in judgment or learning, — and inferior to none in his ardent devotion to the primitive institution of episcopacy, — the wise and excellent Hammonds That the office which they filled, even supposing it to be permanent, answered to the presby- terate, is opposed by the tradition of the church, preserved by Epiphanius, (and which Taylor unsuccessfully endeavours to reconcile with his own opinion,) that from their number the seven Deacons (or some of them at least,) were afterwards selected*. And it is opposed, above all, by the fact, that if the seventy had been made presbyters by Christ, they would have been the equals, at least, if not the superiors, of the apostles themselves ; whose priesthood, probably, and certainly their episcopacy, dates only from the time when their Divine Master sent them forth, with the Holy Ghost for their seal, from Mount Olivet, after his resurrection ^. That the apostles, thus left in charge of the faithful, thus y Luke, X. L * Hammond, Diss. 3. De omnibus Evangeliorum periochis, cap. i. sect. C. Op. t. iv. p. 776 ; ib. cap. v. sect. 5 ; cap. vi. sect. I. ^ Epiphanius Haeres. lib. i. t. i. Op. voL i. p. 50. ^ Some of the Romanists have, indeed, a strange fancy that Christ made the apostles priests when he instituted the eucharist. Boileau de Pr?ecept. Div. Comm. in utraque specie, p. 189. " Creavit et instituit sacerdotes his vobis, ' Hoc facite.' " — This notion is, however, justly reproved by Estius, Dist. xii. sect. 11, and Alphonsus a Castro, contr. Haereses, tit. Euch, p. 99. In general, all Christians agree to find the ordination of the apostles in Matt, xxviii. 10. and in John xx. 22. See what Taylor himself says in his Ductor Dubitantium, vol. xiii. p. 19, et seq. 186 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. commissioned by Christ, and thus guided by the Paraclete, delegated to three different orders of men, distinct and different portions of the authority which they had themselves received ; that they ordained in different parts of the world apostles or bishops like themselves ; elders to act in subser- viency to those bishops, and deacons to assist those elders, — the author, in what follows, has, indeed, satisfactorily established. And it is plain, that not only is the fact that episcopacy was instituted by the followers of Christ and the possessors of the Holy Spirit, sufficient to prove it neither an irrational nor unchristian form of polity, but that a very great and evident necessity must be shown, before any human hand can be authorized to pull down or alter a fabric erected under such auspices. This, and this only, is the strong, and, if I may be allowed the expression, the impregnable ground of the episcopal scheme, and of Taylor's defence of it. It is not as thinking lightly of the advantages of that scheme, nor as underrating its real authority ; far less is it as desiring to detract from the reputation of an author, whom none can read without delight and improvement, that I have ventured these few remarks on arguments to which he himself has appeared to ascribe an undue degree of value. But I have done it to prevent other champions in the same good cause from being induced to commit the same error, and to show how needless it is to have recourse to doubtful or inapplicable proofs and presumptions, when, in an universal and apostolical tradition, every proof is contained, which can be, in such a case, desired or expected. — And, though I am far from confounding the relative value of institutions immediately authorized by Christ, immediately tending to the salvation of souls, or of visible and universal advantage to them, with those which chiefly respect ecclesiastical order, — it can hardly, I think, be denied that those churches are wisest who retain episcopacy ; those sectaries least excusable who dissent from it ; and that the authority of apostolical tradition cannot be reasonably rejected in this case, without endangering many other ob- servances of Christianity, which are almost universally accounted essentials. — With some qualification as to the case of infant baptism, in favour of which there is something LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 187 very like a positive command of Christ, and respecting the Scripture proofs of which Taylor himself afterwards thought more reverently, the passage which follows, is well worthy the serious consideration of all who thoughtlessly or con- scientiously impugn episcopacy. " The sum is this. Although we had not proved the immediate divine institution of episcopal power over pres- byters, and the whole flock, yet episcopacy is not less than an apostolical ordinance, and delivered to us by the same authority that the observation of the Lord's day is. For, for that in the New Testament we have no precept, and nothing but the example of the primitive disciples meeting in their synaxes upon that day, (and so also they did on the Saturday in the Jewish synagogues,) but yet (however, that at Geneva, they were once in meditation to have changed it into a Thursday meeting, to have shown their Christian liberty,) we should think strangely of those men that called the Sunday festival less than an apostolical ordinance, and necessary now to be kept holy with such observances as the church hath appointed. " Baptism of infants is most certainly a holy and charitable ordinance, and of ordinary necessity to all that ever cried, and yet the church hath founded this rite upon the tradition of the apostles; and wise men do easily observe, that the Anabaptist can, by the same probability of Scripture, enforce a necessity of communicating infants upon us, as we do of baptizing infants upon them, if we speak of immediate divine institution, or of practice apostolical recorded in Scripture ; and, therefore, a great master of Geneva, in a book he writ against the Anabaptists, was forced to fly to apostolical traditive ordination. And there- fore the institution of bishops must be served first, as havino- fairer plea and clearer evidence in Scripture, than the bap- tizing of infants ; and yet, they that deny this, are, by the just anathema of the catholic church, confidently con- demned for heretics. *' Of the same consideration are divers other things in Christianity, as the presbyter's consecrating the eucharist : for if the apostles in the first institution did represent the whole church, clergy and laity, when Christ said, ' Hoc facitej — ' do this,' then why may not every Christian man 188 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. there represented, do that which the apostles in the name of all were commanded to do? — If the apostles did not represent the whole church, why then do all communicate ? — Or, what place or intimation of Christ's saying is there, in all the four gospels, limiting * hocfacite/ id est, * benedicite/ to the clergy, and extending ' hoc facite/ id est, ' accipite et manducate,' to the laity ? This also rests upon the practice apostolical and traditive interpretation of holy church, and yet cannot be denied that so it ought to be, of any man that would not have his Christendom suspected. ** To these I add the communion of women; the dis- tinction of books apocryphal from canonical ; that such books were written by such evangelists and apostles ; the whole tradition of Scripture itself; the apostles' creed; the feast of Easter (which, amongst all them that cry up the Sunday festival for a divine institution, must needs prevail as caput institutionis, it being that for which the Sunday is commemorated). These, and divers others of greater con- sequence (which I dare not specify for fear of being mis- understood,) rely but upon equal faith with this of epis- copacy (though I should waive all the arguments for imme- diate divine ordinance) ; and therefore it is but reasonable it should be ranked among the credenda of Christianity, which the church hath entertained, on the confidence of that which we call the faith of a Christian, whose master is truth itself ^" On the remainder of Taylor's argument, a very few observations are sufficient. — He obviates with much skill and learning, in his twenty-first section, the objection against the sole jurisdiction of the bishop, which is taken from an expression of Jerome, and discriminates between the separate functions and dignities of bishops and presbyters, whether these last are spoken of singly, or as assembled in diocesan councils. He solves that which is sometimes urged, from the indiscriminate manner in which, in the earliest times, the terms bishop and presbyter were sometimes applied, and defines the power and dignity of the ancient officer who was called " Chorepiscopus." — He then enlarges on the authority, influence, and honour, possessed by bishops in elder times ; •= Episcopacy Asserted, sect. 19. vol. vii. p. 74. LIFE OF JEllKMV TAYLOR, D.D. 189 on the extent of their dioceses, and the allegiance paid them by their clergy, and concludes with proving, against the Church Pohty of Calvin, that at no period of antiquity did laymen hold office in the church. On the general style and spirit of this treatise I have already spoken, and the specimen which I have given may afford the reader a sufficient idea of both. The care is, however, worthy of notice, with which Taylor had already begun to guard against any thing which might sanction persecution, and which has led him, in two different places of his present work, to deny to the church the right of employing any but ecclesiastical censures. This denial is, as we have seen, employed by him as an argument for the necessity of an immediate divine commission to the episco- pacy, and he expresses himself still more strongly in sect. 35. *' As no human power can disrobe the church of the power of excommunication, so no human power can invest the church with a lay compulsory. For, if the church be not capable of a *jus gladii,' as most certainly she is not, the church cannot receive power to put men to death, or to iriflict lesser pains in order to it, or any thing above a salutary penance." ''Her censure she may inflict upon her de- linquent children without asking leave. Christ is her aukvria for that ; he is her warrant and security. The other [the power of secular punishment] is begged or borrowed, none of her own, nor of a Jit edge to he used in her abscisions and coercions. ^^ The " Defence of Episcopacy" was followed by his ** Apology for authorized and set Forms of Liturgy," which first appeared in 1646, though it was enlarged in a second edition three years afterwards. It is a sufficient proof that he was no time-server, when a work of this kind appeared with his name, and with a reprint of his dedication to the king, at a time when that sovereign was already removed to another state of existence. The work, thus enlarged and improved, is, perhaps, among the best of Taylor's polemical discourses. It was a subject which gave abundant scope to his extensive know- ledge of antiquity and of human nature, and it was one above all, which, from its connexion with practical piety, was adapted to call into action much of that higher strain of 190 eloquence by which his practical works are more peculiarly distinguished. On prayer, indeed, he always seems to have felt and written '* with all his heart, with all his soul, and wnth all his strength;" and it is a subject, therefore, on which, of all others, his opinion is most valuable. The most stre- nuous admirers of extemporaneous prayer can hardly refuse their serious attention to the objections offered against its practice by one who was himself endued with so remarkable gifts both of eloquence and piety. And those whom his arguments fail to convince, or who need no arguments to convince them, will not the less be impressed by the majestic eloquence of his preface, in which he laments over the then persecuted condition of the English church, and concisely, but with a degree of clearness and elegance which has been seldom surpassed, reviews and regrets the merits of the proscribed liturgy. " In these things," he says, when comparing the calami- ties of England to those of Israel, in the days of Hophni and Phineas ; " in these things we also have been but too like the sons of Israel ; for, when we sinned as greatly, we also have groaned under as great and sad a calamity. For we have not only felt the evils of an intestine war, but God hath smitten us in our spirit, and laid the scene of his judgments especially in religion ; he hath snuffed our lamp so near that it is almost extinguished, and the sacred fire was put into a hole of the earth, even then when we were forced to light those tapers that stood upon our altars, that, by this sad truth better than by the old ceremony, we might prove our succession to those holy men, who were constrained to sing hymns to Christ in dark places and retirements." " But I delight not to observe the correspondences of such sad accidents, which, as they may happen upon diverse causes, or may be forced violently by the strength of fancy, or driven on by jealousy, and the too fond openings of troubled hearts and afflicted spirits ; so they do but help to vex the offending part, and relieve the afflicted but with a fantastic and groundless comfort. I will, therefore, deny leave to my own affections to ease themselves by com- plaining of others. I shall only crave leave that I may remember Jerusalem, and call to mind the pleasures of the temple, the order of her services, the beauty of her buildings. LIFE OF JEllEMV TAYLOR, D.D. 191 the sweetness of her songs, the decency of her ministrations, the assiduity and economy of her priests and Levites, the daily sacrifice, and that eternal fire of devotion that went not out by day nor by night : these were the pleasures of our peace, and there is a remanent felicity in the very memory of those spiritual delights which we then enjoyed as ante- pasts of heaven, and consignations to an immortality of joys. And it may be so again when it shall please God, who hath the hearts of all princes in his hands, and turneth them as the rivers of waters ; and w^hen men will consider the inva- luable loss that is appendant to the destroying such forms of discipline and devotion in which God was purely wor- shipped, and the church was edified, and the people instructed to great degrees of piety, knowledge, and devotion."- — *' For to the churches of the Roman communion we can say that ours is reformed ; to the reformtjd churches we can say, that ours is orderly and decent : for we were freed from the im- positions and lasting errors of a tyrannical spirit, and yet from the extravagancies of a popular spirit too : our reforma- tion was done without tumult, and yet we saw it necessary to reform; we were zealous to cast away the old errors, but our zeal was balanced with consideration and the results of authority. Not like women and children when they are affrighted with fire in their clothes; we shake off the coal indeed, but not our garments, lest we should have exposed our churches to that nakedness which the excellent men of our sister churches complained to be among themselves'^." The advantages of set forms of prayer in general ; the peculiar merits of the English liturgy ; the weakness of the objections urged against its different particulars ; the testi- mony borne to its merits by the most celebrated among the martyrs of the reformation, (among whom he instances, with peculiar respect, the name of his own ancestor, Rowland Taylor,) contrasted with the obvious imperfections and arrogant claims of the recent " Directory/' are, all in their turns, concisely and eloquently treated : till he returns again to the excellence and misfortunes of the Common Prayer. " And yet this excellent book hath had the fate to •^ Preface to Ap.)lo£ry, sect. 2, 'i — 0". Vol. \\\. pp. 2IJ4 — 2»G. 192 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. be cut in pieces with a pen-knife, and thrown into the fire ; but it is not consumed. At first, it was sown in tears, and is now watered with tears, yet never was any holy thing drowned and extinguished by tears. It began with the martyrdom of the compilers, and the church hath been vexed ever since by angry spirits, and she was forced to defend it with much trouble and unquietness ; but it is to be hoped, that all these storms are sent but to increase the zeal and confidence of the pious sons of the church of England. Indeed, the greatest danger that the Prayer- Book ever had, was the indifferency and indevotion of them that used it but as a common blessing; and they who thought it fit for the meanest of the clergy to read prayers, and for themselves only to preach, though they might inno- cently intend it, yet did not in that action consult the honour of our liturgy, except where charity or necessity did interpose. But, when excellent things go away, and then look back upon us, as our blessed Saviour did upon St. Peter, we are more moved than by the nearer embraces of a full and actual possession. I pray God it may prove so in our case, and that we may not be too willing to be dis- couraged ; at least, that we may not cease to love and to desire what is not publicly permitted to our practice and profession^." In this fine preface there is one passage, which I could wish had been differently worded. In commending, with good reason, the manner in which different passages from the Epistles and Gospels are selected to be read in the Communion Service, he thus expresses himself: — " If we deny to the people a liberty of reading Scriptures, may they not complain, as Isaac did against the inhabitants of the land, that the Philistines had spoiled his well, and the fountains of living water ? If a free use to all of them, and of all Scriptures, were permitted, should not the church herself have more cause to complain of the infinite licen- tiousness and looseness of interpretations, and of the com- mencement of ten thousand errors, which would certainly be consequent to such permission ? Reason and religion will chide us in the first, reason and experience in the « Preface to Apologry, sect. 47. p. 31 L LIFE OF JERE-AIY TAYLOR, D.D. 193 latter. And can the wit of man conceive a better temper and expedient than that such Scriptures only, or principally, should be laid before them all in daily offices, which contain in them all the mysteries of our redemption, and all the rules of good life?" " And were this design made some- thing more minute, and applicable to the various necessities of the times, and such choice Scriptures permitted indif- ferently, which might be matter of necessity and great edi- fication, the people of the church would have no reason to complain that the fountains of our Saviour were stopped from them, nor the rulers of the church, that the mysteri- ousnesses of Scripture were abused by the petulancy of the people, to consequents harsh, impious, and unreasonable, in despite of government, in exauctoration of the power of superiors, or for the commencement of schisms and heresies." If, in these words, he means no more than to propose that, for the occasions of the public service of the church, and instead of the now almost continuous order in which the Bible is read in our congregations on week-days, a selection w^ere made after the manner of the ancient lectionaries, leaving the entire Bible as free as before to the private studies of all Christians, — I do not know that the measure which he recommends would be liable to any serious objections. It has been already adopted, to a certain extent, by the church, in her selection of the proper lessons for Sundays and saints' days throughout the year; and, even in the regular course of the daily chapters, it is w^ell known that the principle,, at least, is admitted by the exclusion of some particular passages. But it is not easy to &ee how a choice of Scriptures for public reading could prevent those which were read in private from being abused in the manner which he deplores ; and, if it were his design to permit the Scriptures to the laity only in such an abridged and garbled form as their spiritual rulers might think advisable, it could only remain for us to regret, that the danger of the times, and the bitter fruits of enthusiasm and fanaticism then before his eyes, had so far overpowered the better understanding and better feeling of a man like Taylor, as that they should betray him into a proposal at once so foolish and so blamable, so contrary to the maxims of an enlarged worldly prudence, o 1 9 4 1 - 1 F K I' J F R ]-: -M V TAYLOR, D . D . and so dangerous to genuine Christianity. The strangest circumstance of the whole, and that which induces me still more to think that the author has here spoken inconsider- ately, is that, a few sections further on, he expresses an opinion directly contrary to that which he has here advanced, and praises the church of England, in the highest terms, for her orderly, and (with few exceptions) her indiscriminate reading of the Old and New Testament. " Certainly," are his words, " it was a very great wisdom, and a very prudent and religious constitution, so to order that part of the liturgy wdiich the ancients called the * Lectionarium," that the JPsalter should be read over twelve times in the year, the Old Testament once, and the New Testament thrice, besides the Epistles and Gospels, which renew, with a more frequent repetition, such choice places as represent the entire body of faith and good life. There is a defalcation of some few chapters from the entire body in the order ; but that also was part of the wisdom of the church, not to expose to public ears and common judgment some of the secret rites of Moses's law, or the more mysterious prophecies of the New Testament, whose sense and meaning the event will declare, if we, by mistaken and anticipated interpretations, do not obstruct our own capacities, and hinder us from believing the true events, be<5ause they answer not those expectations with which our own mistakes have prepared our under- standings ^" The treatise itself is occupied in discussing the arguments usually advanced either by those who object to all set and premeditated forms whatever, or by those who admit of a premeditated form, so it be not enjoined by authority, but every minister of the Gospel be left to the best use of those gifts of prayer which he possesses. Against the first of these he urges the counsel of Solomon, ** Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God," demanding — *' who keeps the precepts best, he that deliberates, or he that considers not when he speaks?" — He proceeds to instance, to the same effect, the example and authority of the wisest nations and most sober persons of antiquity : and examines, with much learning and Pref. sect. 37- p. 303. i.rrK or jerf.mv taylor, ]).i). 195 acuteness, the pretence of a promise in tlie Gospel of a spirit of prayer, and of a peculiar assistance to our unpre- meditated devotions. What he here lays down as to the nature of the ordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, and those celestial aids which are purchased for us by Christ's blood, is extremely useful and important, inasmuch as he proves ** that the aids of the Holy Ghost are only assistances to us in the use of natural means," and thaf labour, and hard study, and premeditation, will soonest purchase the gift of prayer, and ascertain us of the assistance of the Spirit." He shows that, even w^here the extraordinary aids of the Holy Ghost were most largely given in the case of the inspired writers of the New Testament, " yet, in the midst of those great assist- ances and motions, they did use study, art, industry, and human abilities." " This," he proceeds, " is more than probable in the different styles of the several books ; some being of admi- mble art, others lower and plain. The words were their own, at least sometimes, not the Holy Ghost's. And, if Origen, St. Hierome, and especially the Greek fathers, scholiasts and grammarians, were not deceived by false copies, but that they truly did observe sometimes, to be impropriety of an expression in the language, sometimes not true Greek, who will think those errors or imperfections in grammar were, (in respect of the words, I say,) precisely immediate inspirations and dictates of the Holy Ghost, and not rather their own productions of industry and humanity ?" " But, clearly, some of their words were the words of Aratus, some of Epimenides, some of Menander, some of St. Paul, [This speak I, not the Lord.]'' — " And, since that we cannot pretend on any grounds of probability to an inspiration so immediate as theirs, and yet their assistances, which they had from the Spirit, did not exclude human arts and industry, but that the ablest scholar did write the best, much rather is this true in the gifts and assistances we receive, and particularly in the gift of prayer. It is not an extempore and an inspired faculty ; but the faculties of nature, and the abilities of art and industry, are improved and ennobled by the supervening assistance of the Holy Spirit. And, if those who pray extempore, say, that the assistance thev receive from the Spirit is the inspiration 196 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of words and powers, without the operation of art and natural abihties, and human industry ; then, besides that, it is more than the penmen of Scripture sometimes had, (because they needed no extraordinary assistances to what they could of themselves do upon the stock of other abilities). Besides this, I say, it must follow that such prayers, so inspired, if they were committed to writing, would form as good cano- nical Scripture as any is in St. Paul's Epistles : the impu- dence of which pretension is sufficient to prove the extreme vanity of the challenge ^." *' But," (he goes on to argue,) having thus shown that the gift of praying by the Spirit, whatever it means, may, like all other spiritual gifts, be acquired by human industry, — '* Let us take a man that pretends he hath the gift of prayer, and loves to pray extempore. I suppose his thoughts go a little before his tongue. I demand, then, whether cannot this man, when it is once come into his head, hold his tongue, and write down what he hath conceived ? If his first conceptions were of God and God's Spirit, then they are so still, even when they are written. Or, is the Spirit departed from him at the sight of a pen and inkhorn ? It did use to be other- wise among the old and new prophets, wliether they were prophets of prediction or of ordinary ministry. But, if his conception may be written, and, being thus written, is still a production of the Spirit, then it follows that set forms of prayer, deliberate and prescribed, may as well be a praying with the Spirit as sudden forms and extempore outlets." — " So that, in effect, since, after the pretended assistance of the Spirit in our prayers, we may write tliem down, consider them, try the Spirits, and ponder the matter, the reason, and the religion of the address; let the world judge whether this sudden utterance and extempore forms be any thing else but a direct resolution not to consider beforehand what we speak \" He then examines, with the same clearsighted discri- mination, the difterent meanings in which we may under- stand the scriptural expression of " praying by the Spirit;" which he defines to be, " first, when the Spirit stirs up our desires to pray, per motionem actiialis auxilii ; or, secondly, s Apology, sect. 32, p. 333. ^ Ibid. sect. 34, 35. pp. 335, 33G. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 197 when the Spirit teaches us what or how to pray, telhng us the matter and manner of our prayers ; thirdly and histly, dictating the very words of our prayers. Tliere is no other way in the world to pray with the Spirit that is pertinent to this question ; and of this last manner the Scripture deter- mines nothing, nor speaks any thing expressly of it. And yet, suppose it had, we are certain the Holy Ghost hath supplied us with all these, and yet in set forms of prayer best of all ; I mean, where a difference can be. " For, first : As for the desires and actual motions or incitements to pray, they are indifferent to one or the other, to set forms or extempore. " Secondly : But as to the matter or manner of prayer, it is clearly contained in the expresses and set forms of Scripture ; and there it is supplied to us by the Spirit, for he is the great dictator of it. " Thirdly : Now, then, for the very words. No man can assure me that the words of his extempore prayer are the words of the Holy Spirit. It is neither reason nor modesty to expect such immediate assistances to so little purpose, he having supplied us with abilities more than enough to express our desires, aliunde, otherwise than by immediate dictate. But, if we will take David's Psalter, or the other hymns of Holy Scripture, or any of the prayers which are respersed over the Bible, we are sure enough that they are the words of God's Spirit, mediately or im- mediately, by way of infusion or ecstacy, by vision, or, at least, by ordinary assistance. And now then, what greater confidence can any man have for the excellency of his prayers, and the probability of their being accepted, than when he prays his Psalter, or the Lord's Prayer, or any other office which he finds consigned in Scripture ? When God's Spirit stirs us up to an actual devotion, and then we use the matter he hath described and taught, and the very words which Christ, and Christ's Spirit, and the apostles and other persons full of the Holy Ghost did use ; if, in the world, there be any praying with the Spirit, (I mean, in vocal prayer,) this is it'." In replying to the second objection, which admits of ' Apol. sect. 47, 48, 49, p. 343. 198 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. premeditation, but attacks the restriction of all men to a sinp-le form, he admits, in the first place, that " the gift or ability of prayer given to the church is used either in public or private, and that which is fit enough for one is incon- venient in the other ; and, although a liberty in private may be for edification of good people, when it is piously and discreetly used, yet, in the public, if it were indifierently permitted, it would bring infinite inconvenience, and become intolerable." Then, after some intermediate observations, evincing a profound acquaintance with the human heart, and a large personal experience of those seraphic ardours of devotion which, in private, *' may descend, like an anointing from above, and which are not to be restrained within the margent of prescribed forms,'' he urges that such a spirit may nevertheless keep silence in the church, and speak unto himself and unto God;" and that, "though public forms cannot be fitted to every man's fancy and affections," — " yet they may be fitted to all necessities, and to every man's duty." That, even if every minister were permitted to pray his own forms, his form could not comply with the great variety of affections which are amongst his auditors : though it might hit casually, and by accident be commensurate to the present fancy of some of his congregation, with which, at that time, possibly the public form would not. " This may be thus, and it may be otherwise ; and, at the same time in which some feel a greater gust and relish in his prayer, others might feel a greater sweetness in recitation of the public forms. This thing is so by chance, so singular and uncertain, that no wise man, nor no providence less than Divine, can make any provision for it ''." After all, he urges, it is nothing but the fantastic and the imaginative part that is pleased ; and when men, out of fancy, prejudice, or passion, are not edified by that which, in itself, is good, wholesome, and apt to edify, more particularly when this is prepared by those men who, in all reason, are to be supposed to have received from God all those assistances which are effects of the " spirit of govern- ment," — " the way to cure the inconvenience is to alter the men, not to change the institution." ^ Apol. srct. 01—02. pp. 344, 350. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYI.OK, D.D. 199 Having thus cleared up the question of edification, he proceeds to discuss the points of right and authority. He shows, that the power of appointing certain forms of prayer is, by a necessary analogy, to reside in the rulers of the church ; both as stewards of sacred things, and as, like the old prophets, bound to pray for the people, and to provide that so solemn a duty as public prayer be performed without disorder or scandal. And, as the Presbyterians were agreed with him, that the ministers, and not the people, were to prescribe the words of the prayer in which all should join, he goes on to urge, that the church, in general, might more fitly execute this office for all, than every single minister for his congregation : inasmuch as, whatever promises of spiritual assistance are made to individual believers, are more fully and definitely accorded to the church at large ; and, since the church at large, in her collective and corporate capacity, can only exercise whatever spirit of prayer she may possess in limited and determined forms, no private minister can expect to pray better than a council ; few are so confident in them- selves as to say, that they can do it as well ; and *' quod spectat ad omnes, ab omnibus tractari debet." He proceeds to show, by the precedents of all former, the form of benediction prescribed by God to Moses j the psalms employed in the service of the Temple ; the example of John the Baptist, and of Christ himself, that some set forms of prayer were of inspired and Divine authority. He proves the injunction of Christ to extend to the form of words as well as to the purport of the petitions ^ ; and ob- serves, " that if ever any prayer was, or could be, a part of that doctrine of faith by which we received the Spirit, it must needs be this prayer, which was the only form our blessed Master taught the Christian church." The practice of the ancient church, both in prayers and hymns, restricting both to set forms, and permitting such forms only to be introduced by persons in authority, he next establishes and comments on. He instances some of the advantages of a w ell-constructed liturgy, in conveying truths to the heart as well as the understanding of the ' Apol. sect. I'l — 7''- PP' '^'"jH, 358. 200 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. assistants ; in preserving concord and catholic communion ; and in restraining the conceit and curiosity of individual ministers of religion, whose devotion may be spoiled by the same applauses which encourage and augment their fluency. " But these things/' he observes with characteristic mode- ration and gentleness, " are accidental to the nature of the thing ; and, therefore, though they are too certainly conse- quent to the person, yet I will not be too severe, but pre- serve myself on the surer side of a charitable construction ; which, truly, I desire to keep not only to their persons, whom I much reverence, but also to their actions. But yet I durst not do the same thing even for these last reasons, though I had no other"'." The objection, that individual ministers may as well be left to the composition of their own prayers as their own sermons, he answers by pointing out the many points of difference which exist between the two things ; the greater necessity that the people should agree with what they join in than vv^hat they hear ; the greater reverence required in an immediate address to the Most High ; the greater variety and latitude in a theological argument than in a prayer ; and the fact, that many persons preach, whom, even in the opinion of the divines of Westminster themselves, it might be as well to restrain from that liberty. The following passage may lead us to suspect that the Presbyterian clergy of those days had not yet usually begun the practice, which is now almost universal amongst them, of preaching extempore, or what passes as such. ** Yet, methinks, the argument objected, so far as the extempore men make use of it, if it were turned with the edge the other way, would have more reason in it ; and, instead of arguing, * Why should not the same liberty be allowed to their spirit in praying as in preaching ? ' it were better to substitute this : * If they can pray with the Spirit, why do they not also preach with the Spirit?'" — "Let them make demonstration of their spirit by making excellent sermons extempore : that it may become an experi- ment of their other faculty, that, after they are tried and approved in this, they may be considered for the other : '" Apol, sect. 114. p. 379. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 201 and, if praying with the Spirit be praying extempore, why shall they not preach extempore too, or else confess they preach without the Spirit, or that they have not the gift of preaching"?" He concludes by observing, that there is no promise in Scripture, that he who prays extempore shall be heard the better, or assisted at all to such purposes ; that this way of prayer is without precedent in antiquity or warrant in Scrip- ture ; that it is unreasonable, because without deliberation ; innovating, because without authority : detracting from our first reformers, and encouraging to the cavils of the Church of Rome ; favourable to the introduction of heresy, and dangerous to the right administration of the sacraments themselves. *' He," he proceeds, *' that considers all these things, (and many more he may consider,) will find that particular men are not fit to be intrusted to offer in public, with their private spirit, to God, for the people, in such solemnities, in matters of so great concernment ; where the honour of God, the benefit of the people, the interest of kingdoms, the being of a church, the unity of minds, the conformity of practice, the truth of persuasion, and the salvation of souls, are so much concerned as they are in the public prayers of a whole national church. An unlearned man is not to be trusted, and a wise man dare not trust himself; he that is ignorant cannot, he that is knowing will not^" We are now arrived at the *' Liberty of Prophesying," introduced by an Epistle to Lord Hatton ; from which some passages have been already quoted, and in which he justifies himself from the charge of a latitudinarian indifierence to all religions, and recommends to the champions of the faith the use of no other weapons than those which suit the Christian warfare : such as ** preaching and disputation, (so that neither of them breed disturbance,) charity and sweetness, holiness of life, assiduity of exhortation, the word of God, and prayer." " For these ways," he continues, *' are most natural, most prudent, most peaceable and effectual. Only, let not men be hasty in calling every disliked opinion by the name " Apol. sect. 34. p. 385. " Ibid. sect. I U. i'. 31)0. 202 LIFE OF JERtMY TAYLOR, D.D. of heresy ; and, when they have resolved that they will call it so, let them use the erring person like a brother, not beat him like a dog, nor convince him with a gibbet, or vex him out of his vmderstanding and persuasions." As a still further means of obtaining a patient hearing to his arguments, he gives a very short but very learned and curious sketch of the opinions and practice of the Christian church as to the question of toleration : in which he shows that persecution was a practice unheard of among Christians till the church became worldly and corrupted ; that it was first used by the Arians and other heretics ; and that, when the orthodox began to retaliate, they were con- demned for so doing by all the best and wisest of the fathers. He proves, how comparatively recent, in the Western church, has been the rise of religious persecution ; and that, though the Roman pontiffs showed themselves more encroaching and oppressive than any other prelates, yet no capital punishments were inflicted for heresy till the persecution of the Albigenses at the instigation of the ferocious Dominic. In England more particularly, (he ob- serves,) though the power of the Pope was no where greater than here, yet there were no executions for matters of opinion, till Henry the Fourth, having usurped the crown, endeavoured, by these bloody sacrifices, to conciliate the priesthood. All those Christian sovereions, he uroes, who have received from succeeding ages the praise of eminent virtue and wisdom, have been favourable to religious toleration. The blessing of Providence appears, in an especial manner, to have been bestowed on all governments by which it has been maintained ; and he gives some remarkable examples of a contrary policy being chastised by foreign invasions, by civil calamities, and by a decay of internal prosperity and national power. He concludes with expressing his wonder, (though with- out denying the real guilt and danger of heresy,) that men should show so much zeal against false opinions, and so little against vicious practices : and that, while thus curiously busy about points of less importance, " they should neglect those glorious precepts of Christianity and holy life which are the glories of our religion, and would enable us to a blessed eternity." I LIFK OF JERE-MY TAYLOR, U.D. 203 The essay for which he thus endeavours to conciliate a favourable reception, is somewhat less extensive in its object than many have been led to believe, and can by no means lay claim to the character which has been assigned to it, of a plea for universal toleration. The forbearance which he claims, he claims for those Christians only who unite in the confession of the apostles' creed. Of those sects who refuse their assent to this symbol, (as, indeed, there were none then in existence,) he says absolutely nothing ; and the exceptions w hicli he makes to his pro- posed act of peace, in the thirteenth section, must, in effect, exclude from its benefit a very large proportion of those w'ho profess religions hostile to Christianity. It is pro- bable, indeed, that, considering the prejudices with which he had to contend, he w^as not anxious to follow^ up his own principles to the full extent to which they conducted, and that, in his earnestness to remedy the mutual bitterness of Christian sects, he purposely avoided treating of a case which had not yet arisen, or pleading the cause of those who were in no present or apparent danger of incurring the weio;ht of relio^ious violence. If, however, he in this respect has taken a view of his subject narrower than he is often supposed to have done, in another respect he extends his principles considerably beyond the limit of a bare abstinence from persecution. He would not only dissuade us from killing or imprisoning our brethren, he would have us unite with them in com- munion, and he appears to have flattered himself with the hope that the greatest diversity of opinions, on topics not absolutely essential, might be made to consist not only with general charity but with complete church-union, by the mere non-interference of authority, and by a permis- sion to all Christians to think and preach on such points according to their consciences. It is the authoritative decision, according to him, which, in such differences, occasions the schism ; and he appeals to the experience of Christendom for the fact that there are some points of the greatest practical importance, on which the greatest dif- ference of opinion exists, which yet, because men are permitted to differ respecting them, have led to none of those divisions and heart-burnings v/hich liave arisen from disputes of far less moment. '" It is of greater consc- 204 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. quence," he urges, " to believe right in the question of the vaHdity or invalidity of a death-bed repentance, than to believe aught in the question of purgatory ; and the conse- quences of the doctrine of predetermination are of deeper and more material consideration than the products of the belief of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of private masses ; and yet these great concernments, where a liberty of pro- phesying in these questions hath been permitted, hath made no distinct communion, no sects of Christians, and the others have, and so have these too in those places where they have peremptorily been determined on either side." " For," he shortly afterwards more fully explains himself, " if it be evinced that one heaven shall hold men of differing opinions, — if the unity of faith be not destroyed by that which men call differing religions, and if an unity of Christian charity be the duty of us all, even towards persons that are not persuaded of every proposition we believe, then I would fain know to what purpose are all those stirs and great noises in Christendom ; those names of faction, the several names of churches not distinguished by the division of kingdoms, ut ecclesia seqiiatiir i?npe?ri(7?i, which was the primitive rule and canon, but distinguished by names of sects and men ? These are all become instru- ments of hatred, thence come schisms and parting of com- munions, and then persecutions, and then wars and rebel- lion, and then the dissolutions of all friendships and societies. All these mischiefs proceed, not from this, that men are not of one mind, (for that is neither necessary nor possible,) but that every opinion is made an article of faith, every article is the ground of a quarrel, every quarrel makes a faction, every faction is zealous, and all zeal pretends for God, and whatever is for God cannot be too much. We by this time are come to that pass, we think we love not God except we hate our brother, and we have not the virtue of religion unless we persecute all religions but our own ; for lukewarmness is so odious to God and man, tliat we, pro- ceeding furiously upon these mistakes, by supposing we preserve the body we destroy the soul of religion, or by being zealous for faith, or, which is all one, for that which we mistake for faith, we are cold in charity, and so lose the reward of both p." , 1' Lib. Proph. Introduction, ^ ol. Aii. p. 440. LIFE OF. JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 205 In pursuit of this great scheme of general union, he begins by proving that *' the duty of faith is completed in believing the articles of the apostles' creed," the com- position of which, (with the exception of the article of Christ's descent into hell,) he ascribes to the apostles them- selves, or to apostolical men in the first ages of Christianity, and which, as it contains nothing superfluous or which does not relate to those truths '' which directly constitute the parts and work of our redemption," so must it have been necessarily esteemed sufficiently minute by its composers, and by that primitive church which adopted it as " the characteristic note of a Christian from a heretic, or a Jew, or an infidel." He admits, indeed, that it is neither unlawful nor unsafe for any of the rulers of the church, or any other competent judge, to extend his own creed to any further pro- positions which he may deduce from any of the articles of the apostles' creed. But he denies that any such deduction or exposition (unless it be such a thing as is at first evident to all), is fit to be pressed on others as an article of faith, or can *' bind a person of a differing persuasion to subscribe under pain of losing his faith or being a heretic." '"For," he urges, ** it is a demonstration that nothing can be neces- sary to be believed under pain of damnation, but such propositions of which it is certain that God hath spoken and taught them to us, and of which it is certain that this is their sense and purpose. For, if the sense be uncertain, .we can no more be obliged to beheve it in a certain sense, than we are to believe it at all, if it were not certain that God delivered it. But, if it be only certain that God spake it, and not certain to what sense, our faith of it is to be as indeterminate as its sense, and it can be no other in the nature of the thing, nor is it consonant to God's justice to believe of him that he can or will require more." And he concludes the section with a quotation from Tertullian, that, if the integrity and unity of this rule of faith be preserved, *' in all other things men may take a liberty of enlarging their knowledges and prophesyings, according as they are assisted by the grace of God "i." This position he illustrates and enforces in the following sections: — 1st; by the moderation shown in the j)rimitive 'I Ubi supra, p. 455. 20G LIFK or JI.HK.MY TAYLOR, D.l>. church to such erroneous opinions as related not immediately to the fundamentals of Christianity ; and were maintained by their professors in sincerity and piety: — 2nd; from the utter impossibility of obtaining any certain and universal rule of faith which shall be more definite and minute than the apostles' creed, either from Scripture, tradition, the decisions of councils, the dicta of the ancient fathers, the authority of the Pope, or the opinion of the church universal. He thus arrives at the conclusion, that no man or body of men being competent to judge for others in matters of faith, every man must judge for himself, and according to the dictates of his own reason, either by choosing what guides or teachers he will follow, (which he admits in some cases to be the wisest and in all the easiest course,) or by choosing for himself his opinions in detail, and following his guides no further than his reason agrees with their dictation. That such a course is liable to error, he admits ; but he contends that such error, whether arising from confusion of under- standing or honest prejudice, or any cause but such wicked and interested notions as cannot sway a pious person, is, in a pious person, innocent before God ; " who is so pitiful to our crimes that he pardons many de toto et integro, in all makes abatement for the violence of temptation and the surprisal and invasion of our faculties, and there- fore much less will demand of us an account of our weak- nesses." Having reached this point in his argument, he proceeds, by a natural transition, to show the folly and wickedness of punishing, by death or other severities, the exercise of that choice which he has shown to be in itself legitimate ; a folly and wickedness which he further illustrates by the danger which exists that the same weapon which is em- ployed to extripate error, may, in some instances, be turned to the injury of truth ; by the inefficacy of force in matters of opinion ; by the manner in which a resort to such mea- sures derogates from the honour of the Christian religion, and by the fact that God alone has power over the soul of man, " so as to command a persuasion or to judge a disagree- ino\" He shows more at length than in his Dedication, how strongly the stream of precedent and ecclesiastical antiquity sets against persecution ; and defines with admirable ac- LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 207 curacy and clearness the limit and nature of ecclesiaslical censure, and the single species of severity (excommunication), which, even in cases of the most notorious heresy, the church has the power of exercising. But even this mild and moderate and altogether spiritual jurisdiction, can only, he repeats, be exercised to remedy practical inconveniences, or to reprove such opinions as, by the rules which he had previously laid down, are formal heresies. ** The peace of the church and the unity of her doctrine is best conserved when it is judged by the proportion it hath to that rule of unity which the apostles gave, that is, the creed, for the articles of mere belief, and the precepts of Jesus Christ and the practical rules of piety, which are most plain and easy, and without controversy, set down in the Gospels and writings of the apostles. But to multiply articles, and adopt them into the family of the faith, and to require assent to such articles which (as St. Paul's phrase is) are doubtful of disputation, equal to the assent which we give to matters of faith, is to build a tower upon the top of a bulrush ; and the further the effect of such proceedings does extend, the worse they are. The very making such a law is unreasonable. The inflicting spiritual censures upon them that cannot do so much violence to their under- standing as to obey it, is unjust and ineffectual ; but to punish the person with death, or with corporeal infliction, indeed it is effectual, but it is, therefore, tyrannical." Having thus limited the ecclesiastical authority in matters of religion, the author proceeds to the secular governor, whom he shows to be bound in conscience to tolerate all religious opinions, because an opinion is in no point of view subject to his jurisdiction; and to be bound no less, both in conscience and policy, to suffer men to teach and profess any system of Christianity which they them- selves believe, so long as the public peace is not broken nor endangered, either by the evident tendency of the doctrines themselves, or the manner in which their supporters endeavour to disseminate them. And he cautions him with much earnestness, before he has recourse to any measures of severity, not to *' call every redargution or modest discovery of established error by the name of disturbance of the peace;" not to be himself the first to break the peace by peevishness and impatience of contradiction ; to remember 208 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. always the gentle spirit of Christianity and the natural claim which all men have to liberty of conscience : and to remember, above all, the saying of Thuanus, " Hccretlci qui, pace data,faciio)nbus schidiintiir , persecutione wiiuntur contra regem." " The sum," he concludes this section by observing, " is this. It concerns the duty of a prince, because it concerns the honour of God, that all vices and every part of ill life be discountenanced and restrained ; and, therefore, in relation to that, opinions are to be dealt with. For the understanding being to direct the will, and opinions to guide our practices, they are considerable only as they teach impiety and vice, as they either dishonour God or disobey him. Now all such doctrines are to be condemned ; but, for the persons preaching such doctrines, if they neither justify nor approve the pretended consequences which are certainly impious, they are to be separated from that con- sideration. But, if they know such consequences and allow them, or if they do not stay till the doctrines produce impiety, but take sin beforehand, and manage them impiously in any sense; or if either themselves or their doctrines do, really and without colour or feigned pretext, disturb the public peace and just interests, they are not to be suftered. In all other cases it is not only lawful to permit them, but it is also necessary that princes and all in authority should not persecute discrepant opinions. And, in such cases wherein persons not otherwise incompetent are bound to reprove an error, (as they are in many,) in all these, if the prince makes restraint, he hinders men from doing their duty, and from obeying the laws of Jesus Christ ^" The following sections are taken up with the practical application of these principles to the then prevailing dis- sensions among Christians, with an ingenious and candid apology for the errors of the two sects who were, in Taylor's time, most obnoxious, the Anabaptists and the Papists, and with a brief conclusion that churches ought to allow com- munion to all who agree with them in essentials, and that it is the duty of private Christians to communicate with the national church where that church requires no unlawful conditions of communion. From this he takes occasion ' Lib. Proph. sect. IG. vol. viii. p. 144. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 209 again to remark on the danger and impropriety of driving men into schism by multiplying syml)ols and subscriptions, and contracting the bounds of communion, and the still greater wickedness of regarding all discrepant opinions as damnable in the life to come, and, in the present, capital. "It concerns all persons to see that they do their best to find out truth, and, if they do, it is certain that, let the error be never so damnable, they shall escape the error, or the misery of being damned for it. And, if God will not be angry at men for being invincibly deceived, why should men be angry one at another ? For he that is most displeased at another man's error may also be tempted in his own will, and as much deceived in his understanding. For, if he may fail in what he can choose, he may also fail in what he cannot choose ; his understanding is no more secured than his will, nor his faith more than his obedience. It is his own fault if he offends God in either ; but whatsoever is not to be avoided, as errors, which are incident sometimes even to the best and most inquisitive of men, are not offences against God, and therefore not to be punished or restrained by men ; but all such opinions in which the public interests of the commonwealth, and the foundation of faith and a good life, are not concerned, are to be permitted freely. Quisque ahiindet in sensu suo, was the doctrine of St. Paul, and that his argument and conclusion too : and they were excellent words which St. Ambrose said in attestation of this great truth. Nee imperiale est, Ubertatem dicendl negare, nee sacerdotcde id quod sentias non dicereJ" He concludes his treatise with the celebrated story of Abraham and tlie idolatrous traveller, which Franklin, with some little variation, gave to Lord Kaimes as a '' Jewish Parable on Persecution," and which this last-named author published in his " Sketches of the History of Man." A charge of plagiarism has, on this account, been raised against Franklin ; though he cannot be proved to have given it to Lord Kaimes as his own composition, or under any other character than that in which Taylor had previously published it ; that, namely, of an elegant fable by an uncertain author which had accidentally fallen under his notice. It is even possible, as has been observed by a writer in the Edinburgh p 210 LIFE Of JKHKMV TAYLOR, D.D. Review ', that he may have met with it in some magazine without Taylor's name. But it has been unfortunate for him, that his correspondent evidently appears to have regarded it as his composition ; that it has been published as such in all the editions of Franklin's collected works ; and that, wdth all Franklin's abilities and amiable qualities, there was a degree of quackery in his character which, in this instance, as well as in that of his professional epitaph on himself, has made the imputation of such a theft more readily received against him, than it would have been against most other men of equal eminence. Whether Taylor himself really found this story where he professes to have done it, has been long a matter of suspicion. Contrary to his general custom, he gives no reference to his authority in the margin ; and, as the works of the most celebrated Rabbins had been searched for the passage in vain, it has been supposed that he had ascribed to these authors a story of his own invention, in order to introduce with a better grace an apt illustration of his moral. My learned friend Mr. Oxlee, whose intimate and extensive acquaintance with Talmudic and Cabalistic learning is inferior to few of the most renowned Jewish doctors themselves, has, at length, discovered the probable source from which Taylor may have taken this beautiful apologue, in the Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to the translation of a Jewish work by George Gentius, who quotes it, however, not from a Hebrew writer, but from the Persian poet Saadi. The story is, in fact, found, word for word, in the Bostan of this last writer, as appears by a literal translation which I have received from the kindness of Lord Teignmouth. The w^ork of Gentius appeared in 1651, a circumstance which accounts for the fact that the parable is introduced in the second, not the first edition of the " Liberty of Prophesying." That Taylor ascribes it to " the Jews' books," may be accounted for from his quoting at second-hand, and from the nature of the work where he found it ^ On a work so rich in intellect, so renowned for charity ; which contending sects have rivalled each other in ' Edinburgh Review, Sept. 1816. *■ Note (XX). LIFE OF JKRK.MV TAVFOU, D.D. 211 approving, and which was the first, perhaps, since the earliest days of Christianity, to teach those among- whom differences were inevitable, the art of difiering harmlessly, it would be almost impertinent to enlarge in commendation. A more useful, though by far more difficult task, will be to discriminate between these general excellencies, and those points in which the author may be thought to have extended his principles too far, or to have fallen short, in his con- clusions, of that universal charity to which his principles naturally conducted him. The leading position of his discourse, as it relates to the terms of communion, or those articles, a faith in which is sufficient to entitle us when alive to the sacraments of the church, and, in another world, to the mercies of our Redeemer, he may be said to have incontestably established ; and by so doing to have lent a full confirmation to the principles and practice of the church of England, who, neither in baptism nor in the Lord's supper, requires more from any of her members than a confession of the apostles' creed, and a promise to keep God's commandments. But, the question becomes much more difficult, if, as Taylor seems to have meant, and as is implied in the very title of his discourse, we extend this same principle to the admission of persons into the public ministry. That office, as it cannot be exercised by all, in its very nature supposes a selection of some and rejection of others ; and it is not only natural but allowable, and, generally speaking, a duty in the selectors, to fix on such persons as, being otherwise pro- perly qualified, entertain not only on the essentials of religion, but on its important and practical, though possibly its subordinate features, what the Antistifes Reiig{o?iis themselves conceive to be the true opinion. Where a limited number only is to be admitted, this preference given to some need be considered as no reflection either on the, morals or the Christianity of the rest. A man may be fit for heaven himself, whom we do not reckon lit for the office of guiding others thither by his public doctrine ; and, whether this unfitness arise from defective abilities, defective temper, defective learning, or erroneous opinions, — there is no necessary oppression or intolerance in requesting him to keep silence in the church, or forbidding him to disturb the 21^ LIFE OF JEREMY TAY^LOll, 1>.D. weak, and encourage the factious, by the circulation of tenets- at which the majority of his brethren are offended. It is by no means enough to object to such a Une of pro- cedure, that the points on which we require conformity in our candidates for orders, are such as the apostles and their immediate successors passed over in silence. If it could be proved, (which it cannot,) that a confession of the symbol known by their name was all which the apostles required in their deacons and presbyters, it would not follow but that, as false doctrines arose in the church, it might become necessary to guard against their dissemination. But in the instance which he mentions of the question which arose con- cerning circumcision, he appears to have misunderstood the sacred writers, and the obvious purport of that sentence which was given in the council of Jerusalem. The point to be determined on that occasion was, not whether the Christians of the Jeivish nation were to cease from circumcising their children, or from the observation of the ceremonial laws of Moses. There is no reason from Scripture to suppose that such a change as this was, in the first instance, contemplated by either party. The uniform practice, both of the apostles themselves and their immediate followers, had been, and was, through life, to '* walk orderly and keep the law " ;" and, however they may have held out to both Jews and Gentiles the fact that the " curse of the law was removed," and that the religious obligation to observe the Mosaic types had expired when those types were fulfilled, they seem to have been anxious not to press the abandonment of customs which, in themselves, were innocent, and, from their antiquity and divine appointment, venerable ; but to leave the abolition of such unnecessary badges of distinction to the hand of time, and to the changes introduced by Providence. Accordingly, the sentence which St. Peter proposed, and which St. James, by the common consent of the apostles, promulgated, was, that the Gentiles should not be compelled to circum- cise their children, not that the Jews should be restrained from doing so" ;" and the several bishops of the Jewish na- tion, who successively presided over the church of Jeru- salem, till the time of Adrian, in retaining the practice " Acts, xxi. 2-1. ^ Acts, XV. 10, 20. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 213 of circumcision, did no more than exercise a discretion which the apostles had exercised before them, and which the Holy Ghost had no where forbidden. It is no wonder, then, that those Jewish Christians who adhered to the customs of their fathers, were, notwithstand- ing this distinction, accounted a sound and orthodox part of the Catholic church. The wonder would have been, had they received a different treatment. But a very different treatment those persons did receive who, not content with retaining the yoke of the law themselves, sought also to impose it on the Gentile converts. The most careless reader of St. Paul's Epistles must observe this distinction ; and that of such teachers he himself expressly says, that " their mouths must be stopped y." But, if a Christian teacher may be silenced by authority for promulgating a doctrine which, as Taylor himself would have admitted, is not ex- pressly contradicted in the apostles' creed, nor manifestly contrary to good morals ; a fortiori, a candidate for the office of teacher may be repelled if he avows that doctrine. So that we have here a death-blow given to that entire and unrestrained liberty of prophesying which Taylor seems to call for, and the question of what doctrine shall be pub- licly taught in the church devolves again on those ecclesi- astical rulers, to whom is subject the spirit, not of preaching only, but of prophecy ^." But if, in such cases, a further rule is allowed besides the apostles' creed and its self-evident consequences, the question will arise, by whom that rule is to be settled. Shall each individual bishop, each separate presbytery, have a rule of their own, and, according to their several views of Christian truth and of doctrines essentially necessary or otherwise, repel the candidate and silence the preacher ? Or, would not this give rise to an uncertainty and variation of the test required, far more oppressive to those subject to it, and far more injurious to the general peace and edification of the church, than any thing which subsists in Christian churches as they are now constituted ? And is it not far better to act as all Christian churches have acted, in giving to the world, beforehand, a public and general exposition of the leading 7 Titus, i. 2. '1 Coi- xiv. 32. 214 LIFE OF JEllKMY TAYLOR, D.D. doctrines ^v hich they profess to teach ; with which they re- quire a conformity in those who seek for admission to the office of public instructor ; and which shall neither be added to by the meddling preciseness, or detracted from by the injudicious laxity of any single ecclesiastical governor ? That there is, in all such confessions, a danger, and a great one, (since what human institution is exempt from abuse ?) of attempting to define what God's Spirit has left undetermined, and of laying an equal stress on the essentials and circumstantials of Christianity, is what the advocate of tests is by no means called on to deny. But that is no sound logic which reasons from the abuse of a thing against its temperate use ; and the evil, where it exists, is a question of detail, not of principle, and to be remedied, not by an aboli- tion of tests in general, but by a reformation of the par- ticular test complained of. And, to promote such reforma- tion, and to escape such dangers, no considerations can be better adapted than those which Taylor has himself sug- gested at the beginning of his concluding section. It is, how^ever, necessary to observe, that the power which is here claimed for each Christian church, of exclud- ing from its public ministry the teachers of erroneous doc- trines, is claimed for the church only in its spiritual capa- city, and that it has no reference to those who are without its pale, and involves in itself no civil pains or penalties whatever. Such penalties, it cannot be too constantly borne in mind, the church of Him, whose kingdom was not of this world, has no power or title to inflict ; and for the civil ruler to inflict them on religious grounds, Taylor has clearly shown to be at once an intrusion, a tyranny, and an absur- dity. If, indeed, Taylor may be thought, in his zeal for the liberty of prophesying, to have made it too completely inde- pendent of ecclesiastical control, he may be said, on the other hand, to have been too bounded and cautious in his views of civil toleration, when he gives a general power to the civil ruler to repress or punish whatever he may be taught to consider as blasphemy, or open idolatry^. The first of these crimes, if not very accurately defined, * Sort. xiii. 1, 2, vol. Aiii. p. 11 7. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 215 might involve within its net very many descriptions of per- sons whom Taylor w^ould have been sorry to behold the victims of religious severities. The Deist and the Jew, who maintain Christ to be an impostor, unquestionably blaspheme the Divine Teacher of Christians ; the modern Unitarian, who maintains him to be a mere man of men, the Son of Joseph, as surely detracts from the dignity of that Person whom the majority of Christians adore, and, by departing from the apostles' creed, has completely excluded himself from its protection; and, if known idolatry may be re- pressed by violence, or punished by the sword, we justify at once all the odious severities of the Spaniards and the Portuguese towards their heathen subjects, if we do not involve in the same snare our fellow Christians of the Greek and Roman communions. It is probable, indeed, as none of these persons were, at that time, in any immediate danger of persecution, (since for the case of the Roman Catholics he afterwards provided, and the Socinians had not as yet advanced to their modern pit(?h of free thinking,) that Taylor was not anxious to pursue his own principles to an extent which might give offence to those whom he desired to conciliate. It is certain, that his aro-uments against punishing men for following the dictates of an erroneous conscience, as well as that which is taken from the dishonour done to Christianity, by supposing it to need any other defence than those weapons of argument and good life by which it subdued the world, are no less cogent against all persecution whatever, than against that which has for its subject the minor dissensions of Christen- dom. Nor is there any real weight in the difficulty which appears to have perplexed him, in what manner to reconcile the duty incumbent on every magistrate to repress all open acts of sin and impiety, with the toleration which the same magistrate may be called on to grant to the worshippers of idols, or to the assailant of Christianity. That difficulty arises from a misapprehension of the magistrate's power, whose office, as it is purely civil and secular, has no direct concern with the souls of men, and who is neither bound nor autho- rized to interfere between man and his Maker, or to take on himself the punishment of offisnces against God, except 216 where those offences disturb the temporal peace, or endanger the temporal property of the subject. Thus, as idolatry, abstractedly considered, is a crime against God, and not against man, it is a crime, the punish- ment of which God may be conceived to have reserved to himself, and which the secular prince is not called on to punish, or to repress any otherwise than by his own example, and by securing to his subjects the means of religious in- struction. Nor can the precedent of the Jewish law avail to lead us to a different conclusion ; since, that which might be expedient and necessary under the peculiar circumstances of their theocracy, is no example for us who live under dis- pensations entirely different ; and since, though God may be conceived, as He did in this instance, to delegate a part of his power to a particular magistrate, yet other magi- strates, who have no such express commission or direct command, would be guilty of usurpation no less than cruelty, if they presumed to determine on the conduct of " another man^s servant." But, if the particular species of idolatry complained of be attended with obscene or cruel rites ; or, if the public processions or ostentatious sacrifices of its votaries have an evident tendency to shock the feelings of the majority of their fellow-citizens, and disturb the public tranquillity, the magistrate is not only permitted, but obliged in conscience to punish or restrain them according to his power, and in such measure as the interests of the community under his charge may require. Thus the Persians did ill under Xerxes, in destroying the Grecian temples, because not only has a foreign power no right to interfere in the national religion of any state, but because the idolatry of Greece involved no practices, that we know of, inconsistent with the general peace of society. But the Roman senate did well, in repressing and punishing the Bacchanalians, because they had sufficient evidence of the debauchery and violence with which those infernal rites were celebrated. Nor is it useless to observe, that the pic- ture which is handed down to us of the open whoredom and human sacrifices with which the gods of the Canaanites were worshipped, would be, in itself, and without any divine injunction, a good reason w^hy Moses should have prohibited. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 217 under the severest penalties, the practice among his own ])eople of such forms of pollution and bloodshed. In like manner, though it would, indeed, be the height of wickedness and folly, to forbid the Hindoos, in their own country, to address their devotions to whatever idols, and in whatever form they pleased ; yet, if certain Hindoos, resident in London, were to institute a public procession in honour of Juggeniaut, it would be no persecution to command them to perform their acts of faith in private; while, if in the course of those acts any thing actually criminal took place, it would not be the less an offence aoainst the laws, and punishable by the hand of justice, however it might have arisen from the dictates of a real or pretended superstition. Nor, whatever religious prejudice might be pleaded, did our Indian government do wrong in forbidding the murder of female children, nor would it do wrong, (however a real or mistaken policy may forbid the measure,) in preventing the sacrifice of widows on the funeral piles of their husbands. The distinction which has been laid down as to actions, will apply with equal accuracy to doctrbies. Those which are immediately, or in their evident and avowed conse- quences, injurious to civil society, and those only, are fit subjects for suppression and punishment; and they are so, not because they are offences against God, but because they are dangerous to mankind. Thus, if a man maintains in argument the falsehood of the apostles' creed, he is, perhaps, a blasphemer, certainly an infidel or an heretic ; but his crime is not one w^hich it belonos to the mag-istrate to punish. But the man who persuades his neighbours to insur- rection, murder, incest, a promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, or the invasion of private property ; the preacher of atheism, who lays the axe to the root of all moral obligation, and the impugner of a future state of retribution, who deprives morality of its only effectual sanction, — such men as these, being common enemies to the peace of the world, are to be put down and repressed by whatever severities are necessary to abate the nuisance. With tliese exceptions, I know no limit to the toleration of speculative opinions. It is true, indeed, that the teacher of any opinion, false or true, who seeks to inflame in his cause the bad passions of the multitude; who violates the decency due even to established 218 error, and who assails not only the opinions but the cha- racters and motives of those opposed to him ; will, under all circumstances be deserving of general indignation, and, under particular circumstances, may be a proper subject of legal coercion. But this is as a breaker of the public peace, not as an enemy to that religion, which, as it is founded on argument alone, can, by argument alone, be legitimately or effectually defended. The length of this digression will, I trust, be pardoned, on account of the importance of the interests which its subject involves, and the necessity which there appeared of defining more clearly what Taylor had left uncertain. On the beauty of particular passages in the "Liberty of Prophesying," — on its general eloquence and clearness of reasoning, as well as on the admirable temper and moderation which throughout distin- guish it, any further observations are needless. *' The Doctrine of Repentance," or " Unum Necessarium," is introduced by two letters dedicatory; the first to lord Car- bery, the second, which also is the preface, inscribed to Duppa, bishop of Sarum, and Warner of Rochester, as well as to the general body of the English clergy. In the first of these he apologizes for his so constant recurrence to the inculcation of repentance, by the neces- sity which there was of counteracting the devices which men had found out to excuse themselves from this necessary labour. In the second, he describes his work as suggested by the many false principles and dangerous errors respecting a death-bed repentance, venial sins, and sins of infirmity; — contrition and attrition; — confession, penance, and absolu- tion, which (during his preparatory studies in order to his great undertaking on the '•' Rule of Conscience,") he had met with in the works of preceding casuists. "It was in vain," he tells us, " to dispute concerning a single case v/hether it were lawful or no, when, by the general dis- coursings of men, it might be permitted to live in states of sin without danger or reproof, as to the final event of souls. I thought it, therefore, necessary, by way of address and preparation to the publication of the particulars, that it should appear to be necessary for a man to live a holy life : and that it could be of concern to him to inquire into the very minutes of his conscience : for if it be no matter how LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 219 men live, and if the hope of heaven can stand well with a wicked life, there is nothing in the world more imnecessary than to inquire after cases of conscience. And if it be suf- ficient for a man, at the last to cry out for pardon for having all his life-time neither regarded laws nor conscience, cer- tainly they have found out a better compendium of religion, and need not be troubled with a variety of rules and cautions of carefulness and a lasting holiness ; nor think concerning any action or state of life, whether it be lawful or not lawful ; for it is all one whether it be or no, since neither one nor the other will easily change the event of things." To illustrate his meaning more fully, he goes on to sup- pose a person in known habits of sin, fortifying himself against the rebukes of conscience by the topics of comfort usually suggested either by those who extenuate their per- sonal faults by ascribing them to the infirmity of nature, or by those who rely on the chance of a death-bed repentance, and on that " attrition," or terror of God's judgments against sin, which the approach of death and the clamours of con- science may reasonably be expected to generate. In this, in a tone of lofty sarcasm, he instances what he esteems the dangerous encouragements held out to sin by those who have been more careful of the sinner's ease than his soul ; and after a digression to which I shall hereafter have occasion to refer, he exhorts the clergy to employ the full influence of their prayers, their authority, and their wisdom, to effect " that the strictness of a holy life may be thought necessary, and that repentance may be no more that trifling little piece of duty to which the errors of the late schools of learning, and the desires of men to be deceived in this article, have reduced it." Such an opening would lead us to expect a severe book, and as " a severe book," he describes it in his dedication to lord Carbery. It does, indeed, inculcate the necessity of an earlier and more lasting, a more earnest, and a more par- ticular and minute repentance than the indolence of man is often willing to undertake, or his self-fiattery to consider necessary. Yet I am not aware that he has at all exceeded the strictness of his rules as laid down in his previous writings, or that he has expressed any greater austerity than is justi- 220 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. fied by the danger of sin, by the uncertainty of life, and the further uncertainty that, if Ufe is spared, God's grace may be also continued to us. In discussing the probable event of a death-bed repentance, he has even expressed himself with more caution than he had done on some former occasions, referring men not only to the secret mercies of God, but to the fact that no precise period of time is laid dov^^n in Scrip- ture as absolutely necessary to the work of repentance ; and concludino; with some admirable rules for the conduct of a penitent under such unhappy circumstances. Such a man, he tells us, by self-examination, confession, restitution, sub- mission to God's will, and a readiness to suffer whatever can come, by pouring out his complaints with great fervour and humility, and adding the best resolutions and the warmest charity in his power, may do " all that can be done at that time, and as well as it can then be done." He concludes this branch of his subject, as he does all his other chapters, with very moving and appropriate prayers, which are remarkably plainer, and, therefore, I think, much better than those in his *' Life of Christ," and his " Holy Living." I have mentioned this particular case of penitence, in the first instance, because it was this in which the harshness which Taylor predicates of his own work was chiefly likely to have appeared, and in which his previous expressions had been such as to excite a prejudice against the whole treatise. This, however, was not a question on which Taylor so much differed from contemporary divines, as he did on some other and very important topics which were naturally involved in the " Doctrine of Repentance," and, more particularly, of sins of infirmity. I mean the question of the origin and amount of man's natural inability to serve or please his Maker. On this point Taylor has expressed himself, in his pre- face, prepared to expect the charge of a departure from the doctrine of the church of England ; and, as we have seen, he had already, in a former work, used language which might justly expose him to that suspicion. It may, therefore, be desirable to enter a little more fully into the principles which he really maintained, and the grounds on which he maintained them, both because those principles, — though not always cautiously expressed, were, in fact, much nearer J.1FE OF JEREMY TAVEOU, D.U. 221 the truth than they have been sometimes represented ; and because it will not be very difficult to show wherein con- sisted that inaccuracy of reasoning which led him into a partial heterodoxy. The plan of Taylor's " Essay on Repentance," if not ne- cessarily, at least naturally, involved a discussion of original sin, and its consequences. He began by proving the neces- sity of repentance ; — secondly, he went on to discuss its nature ; — thirdly, he proceeded to examine the things which are to be repented of. Having, under the third head, discussed and overturned the Romish distinction between mortal and venial sins, (proving that all presumptuous and unrepented sin must be mortal,) and having prescribed the manner in which '* actual single sins," and '* habitual sins," were to be sorrowed for and forsaken, he w^as led to inquire what other sins, if any there were, which needed a particular repentance ? And here, two questions occurred, first, whether men are bound to repent of original sin ? And, secondly, in what light are sins of infirmity to be regarded ? The first question naturally arose from the tenets then popular among divines. The second from the large allow- ance which men of carnal minds were apt to make them- selves, w^hen they contended that the existence of extremely sinful habits ,might not be inconsistent with a state of grace, inasmuch as the corruptions of nature still clung to the elect, and it was not they who transgressed, but sin which dwelt in them. These points disposed of, the remainder of the discussion proceeded in its regular channel. The author, in the ninth chapter of his work, went on to show the possibility of repentance, and its efficacy to the remission of sin. Under this head were involved some very curious secondary topics, as to the principles and practice of the ancient church with regard to those who had fallen into transgression after bap^ tism ; and the nature of " the sin against the Holy Ghost, and in what sense it is or may be unpardonable." The tenth chapter treated of the fruits of repentance ; — of the efficacy or inefficacy of that imperfect sorrow for sin which the Roman Catholics call " attrition ;" — of the vanity of confession, absolution, penance, and all tlie other 222 LIFE OK JERE.MY TAYLOR, D.D. machinery of the Romish system, to procure pardon without a real " contrition," accompanied with some admirable ob- servations on the nature and proper use of these ecclesias- tical helps to repentance and comforts to the penitent. Each portion of the work concludes with applicable prayers, conceived in Taylor's warmest spirit of devotion, and in his improved and more simple style. The whole treatise evidently marks a man in earnest for the salvation of souls, and actuated by the feeling which he describes as his principal motive for undertaking it: — " Tu autem con- versus, confirma fratres !" — " I hope," are his words, " I have received many of the mercies of a repenting sinner, and I have felt the turnings and varieties of spiritual inter- courses ; and I have often observed the advantages in mi- nistering to others, and am most confident that the greatest benefits of our office may, with best effect, be communicated to souls in personal and particular ministrations. In the following book I have given advices, and have asserted many truths in order to all this. I have endeavoured to break in pieces almost all those propositions, upon the confidence of which men have been negligent of severe and strict living ; I have cancelled some false grounds on which many answers in moral theology used to be made to inquiries in cases of conscience ; I have, according to my weak ability, described all the necessities and great inducements of a holy life ; and have endeavoured to do it so plainly, that it may be useful to every man, and so inoffensively, that it may hurt no man^" I have stated these particulars both to show the manner in which the offensive section is connected with the body of the work, and, still more, to convince those who might other- wise have turned away from that work as controversial, or, perhaps, heretical, that by far the greatest proportion of its contents is purely and valuably practical ; that they who may dissent most strongly from his conclusions in particular chapters, may read the rest with abundant approbation and advantage, and that, more particularly, his observations on mortal and venial sins; on the sin against the Holy Ghost, — and, on the devices of the Romish clergy, are distin- ^ Vol. viii, p. ccliv. 1 . 1 1' E OF J F. R K M y r A V 1 .0 li , \).D. 223 guished by great originality and justness of sentiment, by acute argument, and a wide and critical acquaintance with Scripture and ecclesiastical antiquity. The question, *' Whether men are bound to repent of original sin?" — he might, perhaps, have answered by ob- serving simply, (as he has incidentally noticed,) that by the consent of those theologians who have attached most im- portance to it, original sin is remitted in baptism as to any punishment which might accrue from it ; that, though it adheres to us, it is not penally imputed to us, and that what is innate and unavoidable is a misfortune, not a transgression, and, therefore, no proper subject for repentance. Nor is the solidity of this answer shaken by the opinion of Augustine, that " all our life-time, we are bound to mourn for the inconveniences and evil consequences derived from original sin;" — or by the determination of our church that *' concupiscence" (which is allowed, on all hands, to be a necessary consequent of Adam's fall, and a mode in which the original corruption shows itself,) " partakes of the nature of sin." It is, no doubt, a legitimate cause for concern, in those who either desire God's glory, or the happiness of their fellow-creatures, that they have no worthier sacrifice to render to the one than such imperfect services as only are in our power, — and that the other are (under the present state of things) exposed to so much misery which we can neither remove nor materially alleviate. And a knowledge of our fallen condition, as it must necessarily make us humble and cautious, so it may well serve to excite in us an aspiration after a better and happier existence, — the very glories of which, while we are banished from them, must make the heart sick with hope delayed. If this, however, be called repentance, it is an improper use of the term, which is usually and correctly applied to such a sorrow as is excited by the commission of actions which we might have left undone, or by a neglect of such wise or virtuous deeds as have been in our power. It follows, therefore, that repentance, in its proper meaning, is not applicable to original sin. It is very true, (though Taylor has, in vain and very needlessly, laboured to get rid of the supposed difhculty,) 224 LIFE OF J ERE. MY TAYLOR, D.D. that whatever is displeasing to God and contrary to the purposes of his creation, is a sin ; though, if it arises from causes over which we have no control, a merciful God will not impute it to us. And it is thus that " concupiscence," like every evil thought, is said by our church to " partake of the nature of sin," inasmuch as the overt act of an unclean desire is in itself offensive to the God of purity, though, unless we encourage or indulge in it, the God of mercy may overlook it in us, as a necessary consequence of our fallen condition ; a monument of that wretchedness from which we are made free by Christ. But this will not put it into our power to repent of what we cannot help, though it may exalt our notions of God's goodness, as well as of our own daily dependance on his bounty and daily need of his foro-iveness. Still, however, the question remained, " if we cannot repent of original sin, why are we to be punished for it V a difficulty which Taylor solved by cutting the knot at once, and denying that any man, for original sin alone, would be punished with damnation. A conclusion this was which all Arminians and some Calvinists would join him in main- taining, but in arriving at which his process was not a happy one. The answer, apparently most obvious, and which, as I conceive, would have been most consistent with the general language of inspiration, would have been, that, without ex- tenuating the amount of human corruption, or the fatal consequences which, if things had been left to their natural course, must have been incurred by all Adam's posterity ; it is plain from Scripture that, in point of fact, the world never was thus left to itself. Where iniquity abounded, grace did much more abound. The promise of a Redeemer was made as soon as our first parents had sinned, and before they had earned their name of parent ; and the sacrifice of Christ is allowed, on all hands, to have had a retrospective as well as a prospective efficacy, which, in all those who were brought to a knowledge of him, either before or after his coming, was fruitful of grace to enable them to struggle against their innate corruption, and of merciful atonement to free them from the punishment of those stains which still adhered to their nature. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 225 To the objection that this dispensation only apphed to the converted and baptized, — to those who had received the knowledge and badge of salvation, while infants unbap- tized, and heathens, remained liable to God's wrath, and heirs of utter damnation, — he might have rejoined, that all such must be left to the uncovenanted mercies of a good and gracious Father; or he might have given, perhaps, a more plausible answer still, — that the merits of Christ's death and intercession may extend far beyond the limits of his visible church ; that his grace may supply the unavoidable deficiencies of those who have not heard his name ; and that many may be led by his Spirit, and saved by his blood, who have only known of God that " he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This is pretty nearly the account which is given by the bishop of Win- chester, in his able commentary on the eighteenth article of our church; nor do I know any solution which can more satisfactorily reconcile the certainty and greatness of the natural corruption of man, and his consequent need of a Redeemer, with the fact that the name of this Redeemer is not yet made known to all, and the presumption that a just and merciful God will not treat the impotent as if they were wilfully rebellious. Unfortunately, Taylor went to work by another process, and busied himself, first, in extenuating the greatness and evil consequences of Adam's fall ; next, in exalting the free- will and remaining powers of man ; lastly, in denying that concupiscence could be in itself sinful, unless it proceeded to a deliberate and cherished image, to which the soul reverted with pleasure. His opinion as to the first of these points was the same with some of the schoolmen^, who believed that Adam, as first created, was no better nor w^ser than any of his descendants ; but that, when he was placed in Paradise, a supernatural grace was given to him, which enabled him to please God; to resist temptation, — and, by the use of the appointed and sacramental means, to live for ever. Accordingly, the effect of his fall was, when thus ex- plained, no more than a return to his natural condition, and «= Note (YY). Q 226 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. his children lost nothing but the prospect of succeeding to certain valuable privileges which were theirs in reversion only, and were not inherent but superadded gifts, even in the instance of their first parent. If he erred in the adoption of this doctrine, he certainly erred in good company, inasmuch as the same was main- tained by Bull and by archbishop King'^. It is, however, a doctrine which can hardly stand the test of Scripture, which not only is silent as to any superadded qualifications con- ferred on Adam to enable him to keep the first covenant, but which, moreover, expressly tells us, that God created man upright. The question, however, is apparently of no prac- tical importance, since, at whatever time Adam received the perfections of his being, whether at or after his creation, the consequences of the loss of those perfections would be the same both to himself and his descendants. Taylor, however, went on to deny that the depravation of man's nature, after the fall, was so total as had been generally apprehended ; and to attack the conclusions of the West- minster divines, who maintained, not only that man was- ** very far gone from original righteousness," but that he was altogether perverted, and incapable of any thing but evil. He asserted, on the contrary, that, amid the deplorable ruin of the world, some frag-ments of the Divine image might yet be discovered ; that not only freedom of will remained, but that, in some particular cases, the tendency of man was on the side of virtue. — " A man cannot naturally hate God, if he knows any thing of him. — A man naturally loves his parents; he naturally hates some sort of uncleanness. He naturally loves and preserves himself; and all those sins which are unnatural, are such which nature hates ; and the law of nature commands all the great instances of virtue, and marks out all the great lines of justice." — " Here only our nature is defective. We do not naturally know, nor yet naturally love, those supernatural excellencies which are appointed and commanded by God, as the means of bringing us to a supernatural condition. That is, without God's grace, and the renovation of the Spirit, we cannot be saved ^." •* Bull — DiscoTirse on the first Covenant. Sermons, vol. iii. p. 1065. King on the Origin of Evil, chap. iv. sect. 8. p. 211. Ed. Cantab. « Vol. ix. p. 41. LIFE OF JKHEAIV TAVroU, D.I). 227 Here, too, it is probable that most Arminians will agree that he had a juster view of human nature as it now exists, and pursued a more correct interpretation of some well-known passages of Scripture, than his opponents. He has here, in fact, said no more than bishop Butler and the bishop of Winchester have both maintained in discussing the same intricate subject ^ The fact is, indeed, that, with the allowances which all these divines have made, — the difference between their view of man's corruption, and that which is taken by the Calvinists, is not, as to any practical consequence, worth disputing. Both sides allow that man is so far fallen as to be unable, without grace, to rise to heaven or escape ever- lasting punishment ; and Taylor, in particular, has, in many of his argumentative, and all his devotional passages, ad- mitted in the humblest language, his vileness, his helpless- ness, his worthlessness. But, if the ruin be effectual, it signifies little whether it be total ; and if man is, by nature, the heir of wrath, it is a question of very inferior importance, whether there may or may not be some scattered good qualities yet remaining about him, which may make a difference in his final lot, so far at least as a mitigation of punishment. Augustine himself never taught that Socrates and Marcus Aurelius were to be ranked in the same category of eternal suffering with Simon Magus and Nero ; but Augustine, nevertheless, like the Romish church, and the Calvinists, was peremptory in consigning them to some portion of everlasting misery, and, in fact, if it be allowed that no flesh can escape except through Christ, it seems absolutely necessary, if we would escape from these revolting consequences, to suppose, as has been already hinted, an extension of the merits of Christ's blood, and the help of his Holy Spirit, beyond the limits of the visible church, and the list of those who have heard the tidings of salvation. This Taylor appears, from some expressions in his ''further Explications," to have suspected*^. But he has not followed up this presumption to any length, and, in consequence, fluctuates between Augustine and Pelaf^ius, too deeply * Butler's Analogy, pp. .'!! and \'Ao. Tnmlino. Rot'ut. Calv. j)p, 2, .'{, 4. g Vol. ix. pp. 91, 92, 9:i. 228 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. impressed with the mercy of God to assent to the harsh doctrines of the first ; too conscious of the necessity of spiritual illumination to emi)race the self-flattery of the second. This is not the only instance, however, in which he has underrated the consequences of Adam's transgression. He conceives that the sin of Adam and its immediate conse- quences, were answerable only for a small, " the smallest part," of the present corruption of our species. — '* It is not his fault alone, nor ours alone, and neither of us is innocent." — "A great part is a natural impotency, and the other is brought in by our own folly." He imputes it, in great part, to the " many concurrent causes of evil which have influence upon communities of men, such as are, evil examples, the simiUtude of Adam's transgression, vices of princes, wars, impurity, ignorance, error, false principles, flattery, interest, fear, partiality, authority, evil laws, heresy, schism, spite and ambition, natural inclination, and other principiant causes, which, proceeding from the natural weakness of human constitution, are the fountain and proper causes of many consequent evils'"." Surely to represent those as concurrent causes, which, by his own account of them, proceed from the great and common cause, is neither good logic nor good divinity. It is not even correct to say that the evil which is within us, and always ready to break forth on occasion, is materially increased by what are, at most, its exciting causes, and some of which are only the different modes and places in which the same internal corruption shows itself. If it were true, which he supposes, after St. Chrysostom', that " Adam having begun the principal of sin, we have added the interest ;" that "' every age grows worse, and adds some iniquity of its own to the former examples," we should have long since arrived at an insuperable and insufferable height of iniquity ; the earth would have loathed us as she loathed the Canaanites, and the " cursed race" would have been, ere now, exterminated by its increasing vices and violence. But experience reads us a lesson extremely different. '' Vol. ix. p. 44. ' lb. p. 57. LIFE OF .lEKEMY TAVJ,OH, D.I). 229 She gives us no reason to believe that any given form of society which the world has yet seen, has less than its share of peculiar occasions of evil. If civilized and polished society has more temptations, it has also more salutary restraints ; and even the dangers which beset such a state of existence, are, if more numerous, hardly so formidable, as those of the earlier and ruder pages of history, where force is the law, and the strong man, and he only, " does that which is right in his own eyes." So far from a progressive increase of wickedness, from the hypothesis of a golden age, deteriorated slowly into silver, brass, and iron ; we find, on the contrary, while the family of man was small, and the intercourse of man with God not yet unfrequent ; while want and tyranny, and the snares of larger communities, were unknown, and while the recent punishment of the species, and the dreadful forms of the cherubim, yet visible on the ascent to Paradise, must have prevented all causes of depravity, but the one great cause, from operating, the first-born of Adam, for a very small oft'ence, if any offence at all, became the deliberate murderer of his brother. And while the natural life of man was yet a thousand years ; while the penitent father and monarch of men was scarcely cold in his grave ; we read of the earth being full of violence, and of sins which called down a common destruction on all but a single family. These facts may convince us that we suffer not from a slowly accumulated burden, but from a malady at once contracted ; that there is no reason to believe that the first access of wickedness was slighter than its more confirmed stages ; or that any one age of the world has sufficient reason to complain of a greater abundance of iniquity than its fellows. On the whole, perhaps, the more polished and educated ages have the advantage, and the admonition of Protagoras might apply to those who desire the homeliness of a more simple state of society. ' O'jTug lio'j xcc/ vZv, offr/g dot ddixurarog (patvsrat dvd^oj'rog vojv Iv \iO[Mrjig xai dM^oujrroig rg^^a/x/xsvwc, dixatov dvrov etvui, '/.ai br\iJbio\j^yov Tovrou rov rr^ay/Marog, si hioi durov x^ivsffOai rr^og dvd^oij'rovg oig jiii^re rraidcia sffri /jut^ts dixaffrri^ia, /Jt^rjrs vofMoi, dvayxr) fMrids/xta. diarravrog ava^/xa^ojca d^irrig s'7ri/M->.s7ffl}ai, dKX' hzv dy^ioi rtv-gy hm rrs^ oug ■r-pvtri (J?i^S7t^aryjg o 7roiy)T'/jc sb/du^sv stti A>ji'a/w* r fd^ob^a 3v ToTg 230 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. roiovroi; uvdowrroic yiMOiMivoc, oid-riP 6/ sv Ixsivcfj ru) y^ooui /jLiffavd^wroi, uyarr,(jOCic dv si svrv^oig 'Ev^vQaT'^j -/.ai (I>^uvuvdcc, y.a,i dvoXo(pv^ai^ dv rro&ojv TTiV tojv svdads dvi)^Cfj'7r(/j\/ rrovri^iav' . Tliere are other incidental topics in the Essay on Re- pentance, and its apologies, on which the dicta of Taylor must be received with caution. He, in one passage, while reckoning up the causes which have added to the stock of Adam's original corruption, mentions, as one of them, the silence of God, during the earliest ages of the world, on the subject of a life beyond the grave. ** The first great cause of an universal impiety is, that, at first, God had made no promises of heaven ; he had not propounded any glorious rewards, to be as an argument to support the superior faculty against the inferior, that is, to make the will choose the best and leave the worst, and to be as a reward for suffering contradiction." — " If God had been pleased to have promised to Adam the glories he hath promised to us, it is not to be supposed he had fallen so easily. But he did not, and so he fell, and all the world followed his example, and most upon this account ; till it pleased God, after he had tried the world with temporal promises, and found them also insufficient," — " to cause us to be born anew by the revelations and promises of Jesus Christ'." To say nothing of the inconsistency with which a writer, who is the strenuous advocate of man's free-will, lest God should be suspected to be the author of sin, imputes to God in almost express words, a suppression of those lights which only are effectual to keep men from sin ; there are few mistakes more palpable, or more easily refuted, than that which supposes the ancient Israelites, or their patriarchal ancestors, to have been without a knowledge of the immor- tality of the soul. The book of Job (perhaps the oldest in the world) expressly acknowledges it ; St. Paul, when rea- soning on the words of Jacob, respecting his pilgrimage, speaks in a manner which proves that, in his opinion, the father of the tribes expected such an enduring city ; — the I'epeated promises of the Messiah, to arise from the race of Abraham, could have been no comfort to those who w^ere, ^ riato, Protagoras, Op. iii. 12 L Ed. Bipont. ' Pp. 42, 43. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 231 many generations before his coming, to be laid to sleep in the cave of Macpelah, unless they expected that they also were to awaken, and, with their descendants, to share in the privileges which that great Redeemer was to purchase. It is humiliating to see any men of genius and learning involved in the defence of such a paradox ; but what shall be said, when those men are Jeremy Taylor and Warburton ? Still, as has been already shown, in the practical and devotional parts, and even in those chapters which, ex- clusively, contain the erroneous assertions to which I have alluded, there is abundance which may be read with admi- ration and improvement. He has sifted with uncommon force and learning the errors of Calvinism, as they respect the absolute decrees of God, and the damnation of unbaptized infants. His defence of free-will from the writings of the early fathers wdll, though shorter, bear no unfavourable comparison with bishop Tomline's learned and able treatise on the same subject; and, on the whole, though the work is by no means faultless, it is still the work of the same author with the ** Liberty of Prophesying," and the " Holy Living and Dying." Having thus largely discussed the difference which, on the topic of original sin, existed between Taylor and the majority of the Church of England, — it is unnecessary for me to take any further notice of the works in which he re-stated and justified his peculiar opinion, the letters to Warner, and that to the Countess of Devonshire. I pass on, therefore, to the essay which follows next in the series, and which is also dedicated to Warner; his ''Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation," — a pow^erful and learned disquisition, of which the conclusions and doctrines deserve unqualified praise ; though, even here, a desire to conciliate his antagonists, or an anxiety to raise as high as possible the honour of the Christian altar, has involved him occasionally in an illogical mode of reasoning, and thrown a needless obscurity around a plain doctrine of the Protestant church, and some very clear and comfortable texts of Scripture. Thus he begins with stating the doctrine of the Protest- ants as to Christ's presence in the sacrament, as if it were. 232 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. that "" the symbols become changed into the body and blood of Christ, after a sacramental, that is, in a spiritual real manner ; so that all that worthily communicate, do by faith receive Christ really, effectually, and to all the purposes of his passion." In these words his meaning is pretty evi- dent, but his manner of expression is hardly accurate. How does he understand the word sacramental'^ He would probably answer, that a sacrament is a symbol ; a sign of something besides itself, — " a means whereby we receive the thing intended, and a pledge to assure us there- of." In the present instance, then, it is a sign of Christ's body and blood; it is a means whereby our souls partake in the graces flowing from his sacrifice, and a pledge to assure us of our participation in those benefits. But, with *' sacramental," in this sense, the term real is utterly incon- sistent, inasmuch as the change which " sacramental" implies is figurative and conventional only. If a counter is taken to pass for a guinea, a change has undoubtedly taken place in its virtues and its effects, but it has not become a real golden coin. It is conventionally worth more than it was, but it is ivory and a counter still. And, though we reverence the bread and wine after consecration, as the authentic image of the body and blood of him who died for us, it is not correct to say that any real change has taken place in their nature, though they have undoubtedly become the means of our obtaining a spiritual blessing. There are, in Scripture, two meanings of the word spiritual: the one, something detached from and superior to matter ; which is, apparently the sense in which St. Paul (in Taylor's own illustration,) contrasts the hea- venly or spiritual tabernacle, with that tent which Moses set up as its image : the other, what we should more usually express by virtual, as when the same apostle speaks of him- self as present in spirit, in the sentence pronounced in his absence, but by his authority, on the incestuous Corinthian. In this latter sense, the thing signified or represented is always spiritually present with its sign or representation, provided that this last is, in the first place, authentic ; and, secondly, empowered to produce the same effect which its principal, if present would have done. Thus, Christ was spiritually present as a Redeemer and a sacrifice for sin, in all the rites of the Jewish law, which, by God's appointment. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 233 shadowed out the benefits which his death was to bestow ; and conveyed a share in those benefits to the Israehtes, who partook in them faithfully. And this, as I conceive, is the sense in which he is also apprehended to be present in his capacity of victim, and to give his body and blood for our spiritual support, in the sacrament of the eucharist. But this virtual presence is so far from a real one, that it is absolutely opposed to it. And this is the reason why the Romanists, who maintain the latter in its grossest sense, contend so strongly against the former ; so that the word realy as Taylor has introduced it, is unmeaning or worse ; inas- much as for the elements to be really changed into the body and blood of Christ, is the very thing for which the Roman- ists plead, and which is at complete variance with Tay- lor's previous statement, as well as with all his subsequent arguments. Still, it may be urged, the doctrine of Taylor is really the doctrine of the reformed churches ; as, where the Church of England teaches, that " the body and blood of Christ are ver'di/ and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper." And where Calvin main- tains, that, " in the supper, Jesus Christ (viz. his body and blood,) is truly and indeed given under the signs of bread and wine." But neither of these expressions favour the reality of the presence, though both explicitly set forth the efficacy of the symbols. These are very different assertions, and, in common life, a distinction is continually made between them. An estate is conveyed by the delivery of the title- deeds, a kingdom by the imposition of a crown. The enjoyment and possession both of the one and the other become, from that time, real and actual, though the estate may be in Cumberland, while the transaction of exchange or purchase takes place in London ; and though, unques- tionably, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland are not really within that golden circle which is the pledge and sign of sovereignty. What, indeed, is the meaning of any thing being present under its symbols or represent- ations, unless it be that the thing itself is not there, but that there is something else which supplies its place? Or, what but this can be the meaning of tlic spirit nal presence of 234 LIFE OF JEllKMY TAYLOR, D.D. a substance? It is plain, then, that our reformers, in deny- ing the bodily change of the elements, admitted no real change in them at all ; though they did not fail to recog- nise the presence of a Divine Power, which communicated to those who partook in them faithfully, a share in the sacri- fice, and an union with the mystical body, of the Lamb slain on Calvary. But, though he has thus encumbered his proposition with unnecessary difficulties, and expressed it in terms which hardly express the meaning of those whom he defends ; yet the proposition itself, that Christ's body is no otherwise than spiritually present in the sacrament, he has established in his following sections, with great acuteness and learning. He begins by proving that the doctrine of transubstan- tiation is not found in Scripture : first, by the admission of some of the most celebrated doctors of the Romish church ; secondly, by a critical examination of the two principal pas- sages which are usually urged in its behalf, — the 6th chapter of St. John, and the words in which our Saviour instituted the sacraments. On the first of these he has, perhaps, gone too far, in denying that it relates to the sacrament at all, or to any thing but Christ's doctrine, and the faith vv^hich lays hold on it. This is contrary to the general opinion of the church ; and it is strange that, if Christ had not, in this instance also, in- tended to allude to the eucharist, he should afterwards, when speaking of another thing, describe it in words not merely like, but identical. Taylor, indeed, urges, that if the eucharist were in- tended, it would follow that no man could be saved without partaking in it ; and therefore that infants, fools, and per- sons who are impeded by restraint or distance, must all neces- sarily perish. But this argument is worth little, since it would only put the one sacrament on the same footing with the other, as being, in subjecto capaci, the ordinary means of grace and salvation, without necessarily inferring that they who have not the means of obtaining are to perish, any more than the penitent thief perished for want of baptism. No man is bound to an impossibility ; but a neglect of the appointed means, when in our power, may be damnable in the one case as well as in the other. And this is all which necessarily LIFE OF JFllEMY TAYLOR, D.D. 235 follows from the supposition that Christ intended the sacra- ment, when he said, ** Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." He is more successful, however, when he goes on to ob- serve, that, supposing it to refer to the sacrament, it is plain that the eatnig and drinking here spoken of must not be material, but spiritual ; first, because the men of Capernaum were reproved for understanding his expressions in their gross and literal sense; secondly, because, whoever eats Christ's flesh hath eternal life. But this must be meant of a spiritual eating, and one which is eftected by faith alone ; since, if the eating were bodily, and the elements, as the Romanists pretend, were changed in substance, the wicked might eat Christ as well as the worthy communicant. But, again, what Christ calls his body, he also calls bread, (ver. 51, 58) ; if, therefore, the words are taken literally, they may prove consubstantiation, but not transubstantiation, since the last implies a total change of the element. And consubstan- tiation even the Romanists allow to be impossible. The argument drawn from the words of institution he invalidates with equal success. In the first place, he ob- serves, that, out of the w^hole sentence, " Take, eat, this is my body," Sec. the church of Rome separates, *' Hoc est corpus meum," and says, that ** these words, pronounced by the priest with due intention, do efiect the change of the bread into Christ's body."' — *' But, by what argument can it be proved that these words, ' take and eat,' are not as effective of the change as * Hoc est corpus meum V If they be, then the taking and eating do consecrate, and it is not Christ's body till it is taken and eaten; and then, when that is done, it is so no more; and, besides that reserva- tion, circumgestation, adoration, elevation of it, must of themselves fall to the ground, it will also follow, that it is Christ's body only in a mystical, spiritual, and sacramental manner. That Christ used these words is true, and so he used all the other ; but did not tell which were the conse- crating words, nor appoint them to use these words, but to do the thing, and so to remember and represent his death." St. Basil, he goes on to urge, affirms that the form of the consecration of the eucharist is not delivered to us ; and St. Gregory teaches, that " the apostles consecrated the 236 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. eucharist only by saying the Lord's Prayer; and, above all, it is apparent, that the apostles did not suppose these words to be of so vital importance to the efficacy of the sacrament, as the Church of Rome maintains, since the evangelists and St. Paul write these very expressions differently. But, if the Roman Catholics make use of these words in a proper y not in a figurative sense, then it is a declaration of something already in being, and not effective of any thing after it. " Est" is " is," not " shall be ;" but " by the con- fession of the Roman doctors, the bread is not transubstan- tiated till the inn in meum be quite out." — " They affirm, that it is made Christ's body, by saying it is Christ's body ; but their saying so must suppose the thing done, or else their saying so is false ; and, if it be done before, then, to say it, does not do it at all, because it is done already." The thing is simple, if the words are regarded as declaratory only of the designation of the elements ; but, if a change is to be operated, at what time does this change begin; and how, when it is, at most, only inchoate, can we speak of it as completed ? But, what is stronger and more to the purpose than all this ingenious fencing with the Romanists at their own wea- pons, he reminds us that, as the eucharist itself was, in the external and ritual part, an imitation of a sacramental custom already in use among the Jews ; so also were the very words which Christ spoke an imitation of the words which were used in that ancient ceremony. The Jews said, ** This is the bread of sorrow which our fathers ate in Egypt." — *' This is the passover ;" — and this passover was called the body of the Paschal Lamb ; nay, it was called the body of our Saviour, and our Saviour himself." — " So that here the words were made ready for Christ, and made his by appropriation." — '* He is the true passover, which he then affirming, called that which was the antitype of the passover, the ' body' of the true passover, to wit, in the same sacramental sense in which the like words were affirmed in the Mosaical passover"^." But, as an additional reason to make us conclude that Christ called the bread his body in a figurative sense, he '" ^'c)l. ix. p. 4f)9. LIVE OF JERE^rV TAYLOR, D.D. 237 urges that, in the language which he spoke, there is no word which can express " significat ; " but they use the word ** /5." — *' The Hebrews and the Syrians always join the names of the signs with the thing signified ; and, since the very essence of a sign is to signify, it is not an im- proper elegemcy, in those languages, to use est for signijical .'^ In the New Testament, the same manner of speaking is retained, as he proves from " the field is the world," — '' I am the door," " My Father is the husbandman," " the candlesticks are the churches," 8cc. It is reasonable, therefore, to believe that Christ spoke on this occasion as he spoke on others ; more particularly since the very institution of the sacrament is, in itself, representative, significant, and commemorative, (according both to St. Paul and our Saviour himself,) of the death and sufterings of the latter. And, that all sacraments and transactions of the kind were, in ancient days, accompanied with figurative and sig- nificant words and actions, he proves by the fact, that fjbv(frr,^tov is the word used by the Greeks to express our word sacra- ment ; that, in Exodus, the paschal lamb is called " the passover," that is, the passing of the angel over the houses of Israel ; and, that this instance is so much the more apposite, because it is the forerunner of the blessed eucha- rist, which succeeded that, as baptism did circumcision. — In this manner six sections are occupied. In the seventh section, he establishes the same fio;urative explication of the w ords, from the manner and circumstances of the institution, from the fact that, before his passion, his body was not really broken nor his blood shed ; so that the broken bread and the wine poured out must have been his body, not truly, but figuratively ; from the presumption that it cannot be imagined that the apostles understood it in the literal sense, when they saw his body stand by, unbroken, alive, integral, hypostatical ; and that, as the words of insti- tution show that it was designed to represent his death, which was then future, it could not be necessary or useful to introduce on such an occasion his real body ; since, if this had been the case, the shadow would have become the sub- stance, and the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world 238 hlFK OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. would have taken place before his sufferings on Mount Calvary. What follows is admirably clear and rational : — *' It is but an imperfect conception of the mystery to say, that it is the sacrament of Christ's body only, or his blood ; but it is ** ex parte rei/' a sacrament of the death of his body : and to us a participation or exhibition of it, as it became beneficial to us ; that is, as it was crucified, as it was our sacrifice. And this is so wholly agreeable to the nature of the thing, and the order of the words, and the body of the circumstances, that it is next to that which is evident in itself, and needs no further light but the considering the words and the design of the institution : especially, since it is consonant to the style of Scripture in the sacrament of the passover, and very many other instances. It wholly expli- cates the nature of the mystery, it reconciles our duty with the secret, it is free of all inconveniences, it prejudices no right, nor hinders any real effect it hath or can have ; and it makes the mystery intelligible and prudent, fit to be dis- coursed of and inserted into the rituals of a wise religion °." In the 8th and 9th sections, he discusses the arguments advanced from Scripture in favour of transubstantiation, and adduces many scriptural arguments for the opposite side. In the 10th, he shows, at considerable length, the absurdity of believing any thing which is in direct opposition to the senses. This is one of the most curious and able parts of the treatise, in which he discusses many important questions, of God's power ; of the distinction between things which may be the proper subject of a miracle, and things naturally im- possible ; of the different properties of body and of spirit ; of the distinction between a belief in transubstantiation and in the Holy Trinity ; of the remarkable circumstances under which Christ appeared to the apostles after his resurrection ; of the impossibility of conceiving an accident in a state of separation from its substance, and of the absurd and even blasphemous consequences which result from representing the body of Christ as contained under the accident of bread " Vol. ix. p. 494. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, O.D. 239 and wine. — The whole is a treasury of sound logical argu- ment and acute criticism ; but it would be difficult to find any particular specimen which would not be too long for selection. The 12th section is employed in shewing the compara- tively recent introduction of the doctrine in question into the church, and that it was unknown, or, at least, not received by the most considerable of the fathers. In discussing the sentiments of some of these, he had, certainly, expressions to encounter which might have perplexed an ordinary con- troversialist ; but Taylor's knowledge of their writings and their peculiar style was so extensive, that he was able to distinguish, with remarkable acuteness, between assertions which really apply to the point in question and those which are equally reconcilable with either hypothesis, — those which prove too much, or those which only seem to tell against the Protestants, through an ignorance of the hyper- bolical lano:ua2:e usual with the writers of those ag-es. To these alledged testimonies, he opposes many others, — from Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyprian, Eusebius, Ephren Syrus, Epiphanius, Macarius, Gregory of Nazianzum, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Augustine, and Gelasius. He very sensibly remarks, that, as his object is to prove a negative, and to show that the doctrine of transubstantia- tion was not the universal or catholic doctrine of the church, it was not necessary for him to produce a general consent, or even a majority of the ancient writers ; since, if even a smaller number of the eldest and most considerable dis- sented, it is plain that the doctrine which he opposed could not answer to the rule of Vincentius Lirinensis, " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." He also observes, that, though rhetorical exaggeration, hyperbolical expres- sions of love and reverence, and other causes of the same kind, may have led the fathers to use many phrases stronger than their sober opinion warranted, on the side of the Romish doctors; yet, in opposition to the hypothesis of a real bodily presence, they would never have spoken that which they did not seriously believe and intend to main- tain ; inasmuch as it could never be their object to under- 240 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. value or diminish from tlie intrinsic dignity of the holy sacrament. He remarks, that so far was transubstantiation from being a Catholic doctrine, that it was fiercely disputed among Catholics in the time of Charles the Bald ; when tlie con- trary was maintained by Rabanus, Bertram, and, above all, by the illustrious scholar Duns Scotus. In England, much later, the same opinion might be held unblamed; and even the Lateran Council pronounced nothing against it ; though, thirty-six years after, in 1251, a council of only fifty-four prelates, held at Rome, thought fit to declare the real presence an article of faith. Stephen, bishop of Augusto- dunum, in 1100, first invented the word " transubstan- tiation." — "He christened the article and gave the name, and this congregation confirmed it." In the thirteenth and concluding section, he examines the practical part of the dispute, and demonstrates, against the Romanists, the danger of paying divine honour to that which, even on their own principles, (through many cir- cumstances of secret imperfection in the words spoken, the intention, or the personal character of the minister,) may be no more than bread, and which no good or suffi- cient argument has been advanced to prove that it can be God. He relates, on the authority of Bishop Andrew^s, a remark- able instance in which the Jesuits, who were to die for the Gunpowder Treason, refused to stake their salvation on their assurance that the bread and wine were the very body and blood which had been sacrificed for their sins ; and when Garnet replied, that though the general doctrine was certain, a man might well doubt of the particular instance. And he urges, that " as we must pray with faith and without doubting, so it is fit we should worship ; and yet, in this case, and upon these premises, no man can choose but death, and therefore, he ought not to worship : * Quod diihitas nefeceris.' " He concludes with an eloquent picture of the scandal thus given to Jews and Turks, and the ill effects of the example on heathen idolaters. The style of this essay, as well as of those which follow it, is easy, clear, flowing, and vigorous, with less of his LIFE OF JEIIE.AIV TAYLOR, D.D. 241 characteristic eloquence tlian some of" those productions which I have already noticed, but extremely well calculated to sustain attention, and to carry his reader without fatigue through an intricate and lengthened argument. There are, however, some instances of eloquence as well as power, and there are several in which he has indulged in a tone of sarcastic humour, which seems to show that his talent for satire might have been (had he chosen to employ it) as con- siderable as any of his other powers of composition. Such a passage occurs in his dedication, where he observes that, because the doctrines of the Romish church " met with opponents at all hands, they proceeded to a more vigorous Avay of arguing : they armed legions against their adversaries ; they confuted at one time in the town of Beziers, sixti/ thousand persons; and, in one battle, disputed so prosperously/ and acutely, that they killed about ten thousand men that were sacramentaries. And this Bellarmine gives as an instance of the works of his church ; this way of arguing was used in almost all the countries of Christendom, till, by crusadoes, massacres and battles, burnings, and the constant carnificia and butchery of the inquisition, (which is the main proof of the papacy, and does more than * Tu es Petrus,') they pre- vailed far and near, and men durst not oppose the evidence on which they fought !" Such indignant satire was not ill employed on the sanguinary follies of popery. But of this kind of talent more instances are to be found in his two succeeding essays. The former of these was, as I have already had occasion to notice, — a task imposed on him by the bishops of the Irish church, and elicited, in a great degree, by the gross- and prevalent superstitions of the Irish populace, it is, however, not a work addressed to that populace ; indeed, from some expressions in his preface, he seems to have early despaired of its rendering such persons any immediate service. It is addressed, throughout, to the Irish clergy, and the educated part of the Irish laity ; nor am I aware of any work (out of the many which have appeared, and, in their time, done good service to the cause of Protestantism,) so well calculated to answer its object, or to excite, in the mind of a well-informed Papist, a conviction of the necessity of 242 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. reformation in his own church, and a belief that this necessary work has been competently effected in ours. The style is never oratorical, seldom even eloquent in that sense and character of eloquence which a person, who has formed his notions of Jeremy Taylor from his sermons and devotional works, would anticipate. But it is easy, buoyant, and elastic, effectually removed from the opposite evils of langour or inflation, or that tediousness which is the immediate consequence of both. The English is thoroughly good, natural, and unaffected ; with some considerable admixture, indeed, of scholastic terms ; but these, for a reason which will be shortly given, entirely appropriate to his subject and his readers. The tone of his controversy is simple, friendly, and affectionate; it is such as a Christian bishop may well hold towards the people of his charge; and he, throughout, abstains, with Christian care, from imputing to the individuals of the party opposed to him a concurrence in, or even a knowledge of, the odious con- sequences which he frequently deduces from their opinions. Against penal courses of every kind he, in his preface, speaks with the same abhorrence as when he wrote his " Liberty of Prophesying;" and the spirit of his treatise is the mild and ingratiating spirit of an apology for differing from the Romanists, rather than of a formal attack on their principles. Even his satire (of which formidable weapon he makes abundant and able use,) is conveyed under the form of " banter," rather than of scoff or insult. Without flattering their prejudices, without even sparing them, he talks to his adversaries as if they were already his friends, or one day to become so. And, above all, he talks to them as a Romanist; he addresses them with a perfect knowledge of their writers, — their ecclesiastical history, — their school- men, — their traditions, and their prejudices; a perfect familiarity with both their strong and their weak grounds ; a power and habit of appealing to their own writers as his best and most frequent authorities, and a dexterity which has never been exceeded in opposing the contradictions of those writers to each other, laying bare their fallacies, and gently but not insolently exciting indignation against their corruptions, and a smile against their absurdities. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D,D. 243 To confirm Protestants in their religion, it may or it may not have power. It presupposes a familiarity with Romish writers which Protestants rarely possess ; and those Protestants who are tempted to change their religion for a worse, are generally, as I apprehend, impelled to do so by some single broad and powerful, though mistaken prin- ciple or feeling, which is too concentrated and too closely intrenched in some peculiarity of habit or intellect, to give way to such a war of detail as is carried on by Taylor. But to shake the former opinions of an intelligent Roman Catholic, and to conciliate him for the reception of new ; — to detach him from an implicit confidence in his ancient guides, w^ithout inclining him, at the same time, to a sceptical aversion from all guides whatever ; — to point out the contra- dictions of a false religion, without making all religion appear ridiculous, — I know no work which has greater power than the '* Dissuasive" of Taylor ; except that which, in many respects, it greatly resembles, the " Lettres Pro- vinciales" of Pascal. As a composition, these last, perhaps, have the superiority in dramatic effect, from the lively and eloquent dialogue in which the first part is conveyed, and which is, in some degree, carried on by the tone and spirit of the following letters. But it is of more importance to observe, in an estimate of the merits of the two authors, that all the arguments, the instances, the examples, the *' badinage" of Taylor, are urged for the sake of a definite and calculated end ; while Pascal's exposition of the morals of the Jesuits and the politics of the court of Rome, conduct to consequences which the author was not prepared to adopt, and from which he would have shrunk back in horror. The " Dissuasive" is divided into three chapters ; the first devoted to the exposure of the different innovations whicli the church and court of Rome have introduced into the faith and devotions, and ecclesiastical government of Chris- tians. In this he shows that the power of imposing new articles of belief is, in itself, a comparatively modern usurpation ; that the same charge of novelty and departure from apostolic and primitive authority may be brought against indulgences, purgatory, transubstantiation and half- communion ; the injunction of public prayers in a foreign or obsolete language; the veneration of images; the pictures 244 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of God ; the papal supremacy , the invocation of saints ; and the supposed insufficiency of Scripture without tradition. On all these subjects he evinces a knowledge not only of the fathers, but the schoolmen, tht divines of the middle ages, and the modern Romish disputants ; which few of his antagonists could equal, and, perhaps, still fewer Protestants could have supplied. Against the alleged power of the church to dictate an article of faith, he urges the words of St. Paul, (Gal. i. 8.) the sentence of the third general council, held at Ephesus, and the notorious abuses of this power by the Romish church, who have determined points of history in opposition to known authorities, and continually, though gradually, added to the ancient staple of orthodoxy. Against the antiquity of indulgences he brings the testi- mony of many of their own writers, and fixes their com- mencement either in the 12th or the beginning of the 13th century. He urges the perfect silence of all antiquity on the subject, and that, in their origin, they were no abatement of any supposed sufferings in purgatory, but a simple absolution from some part of that penance which the con- fessor had imposed on his living penitent. And though indulgences were, in the time of the fathers, unknown, and no definite censure of them is, therefore, to be looked for in their writings, yet there are in those writings, as well as in Scripture, very many passages destructive of the principle on which indulgences rest ; as where the greatest saints are enjoined to regard themselves as unprofitable servants ; where we are taught that repentance merely consists in a return to a good life and a sound and active faith ; and, more particularly, where we find, as in St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and St. Bernard, the custom discommended of going to seek pardon of sins by pilgrimage. The same subject he pursues when discussing the ques- tion of purgatory, which doctrine he judiciously distinguishes from the really ancient doctrine or practice of prayer for the dead, and of which he proves the origin to reach no further back than the eleventh century after Christ, and then to have been held as no article of faith, but merely a speculative opinion. He proves its derogation from the merits of the LIFE OF JJ:REMV TAYLOR, D.D. 245 blood of Christ, and instances the folly of those legends on the credit of which the notion first gained ground among mankind. The other instances contained in the first chapter lie follows up with the same critical acumen, and concludes with the observation, that the Romanists " have taught every priest that can scarce understand his breviary, (of which, in Ireland, there are but too many,) and many of the people, to ask, * where our religion was before Luther V Whereas it appears by the premises, that it is much more easy for us to show our religion before Luther, than for them to show theirs before Trent. And although they can show too much practice of their religion in the degenerate ages of the church, yet we can and do clearly show ours in the purest and first ages ; and can and do draw lines, pointing to the times and places where the several rooms and stories of their Babel werebuilded, and where polished, and where furnished. " But when the keepers of the field slept, and the enemy had sown tares, and they had choked the wheat and almost destroyed it ; when the world complained of the infinite errors in the church, and being oppressed by a violent power, durst not complain so much as they had cause : and, when they who had cause to complain, were yet themselves very much abused, and did not complain in all they might ; when divers excellent persons, when almost all Christian princes did complain heavily of the corrupt state of the church and of religion, and no remedy could be had, but the very intended remedy" [the general council,] '* made things much worse, then it was that divers Christian kingdoms, and particularly the Church of England — (' Turn primiim, senio docilis, tua saecula, Roma, Erubuit ; pudet exacti jam temporis, odit Praeteritos foedis cum religionibus aniios !') being ashamed of the errors, superstitions, heresies, and impieties, which had deturpated the face of the church, looked in the glass of Scripture and pure antiquity ; and washed away those stains with which time, and inadvertency, and tyranny, had besmeared her ; and being thus cleansed and washed, is accused by the Roman parties of novelty, and condemned, because she refuses to run into the same 24G LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. excess of. riot and deordination. But we cannot deserve blame, who return to our ancient and first health, by prefer- ring a new cure before an old sore''." The second chapter relates to those doctrines and practices of the Roman church, which ** in themselves, or in their true and immediate consequences, direct impieties and give war- ranty to a wicked life/' In this part of his work, after exposing the danger of the Romish doctrines as to the legality of delaying repentance ; proving the inefficacy of what they call attrition, and the defective estimate which they make of that contrition which only can find favour with God ; pointing out the practical mischief resulting from confession, penance, and satisfaction, as now used by them ; and cross-examining and comparing the various and contradictory requisites which, even accord- ing to the estimate of their own doctors, are necessary to make indulgences available ; he goes on to discuss their erroneous distinctions between mortal and venial sins; and their fancy that the opinion of one grave doctor is enough to make a matter of faith or duty " probable." He here instances many of the abominable practical tenets which have, on this pretence, been received, or, at least, tolerated ; the cases in Toletanus, noticed by Pascal, that, ** if a nobleman be set upon and may escape by going away, he is not tied to it, but may kill him that intends to strike him with a stick," — " that mortal sins become venial when done in the violence of passion or drunkenness ;" — that '' it is lawful for a man to expose his bastards to the hospital, to conceal his own shame ;" — that *' if one of a married couple falls into heresy, the marriage is dissolved, and the other may marry another ;" with many similar circumstances of horror and absurdity. Nor can it be pleaded, he observes, in any of these cases, that such an opinion is but the private opinion of one or more of their doctors. This would, indeed, in an article of faith, be an insufficient proof of the opinion of the church in general ; but as a rule of life, and in questions between virtue and vice, it is their own avowed and general principle, that ° Vol. X. pp. 185, 18G. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOU, O.D. 247 " a private opinion of any one grave doctor may be safely followed, or the example of good men." Accordingly, he observes, " if an evil custom get amongst men, tliat very custom shall legitimate the action, and Christ is not your rule, but the examples of them that live with you, or are in your eye and observation/' Those who shall compare these sections with the corresponding passages in the *' Lcttres Provinciales," w^ill receive no small share both of amusement and advantage ; but they will see little reason to postpone the genius of Taylor to that of the learned and witty French- man. In piety, it is useless and unnecessary to compare such men as they were, the daily conversation of each of whom was elevated above the world, and who have long- since met in peace and happiness amid the quiet shades of paradise. The following sections are taken up with discussing the foreign or obsolete language of the Romish prayers, the idolatrous nature of many of them, the strange impiety of their system of exorcism ; (where he goes over much of the same ground with Reginald Scott, in his *' Discovery of Witchcraft ;") their confidence in observances merely super- stitious and unauthorized ; their reliance on the " opus operatum" of the sacraments, so as to make them not the " instrument," but " the suppletory of virtue;" their direct idolatry in honouring the cross and certain images, even with " latria," or the highest degree of worship which can be paid to the Deity. And he winds up all by observing, that " although we do not doubt, but that the goodness of God does so prevail over all the follies and malice of man- kind, that there are in the Roman communion many very good Christians, yet they are not such as they are Papists, but by something that is higher and before that, something that is of an abstract or more sublime consideration. And, though the good people amongst them are what they are by the grace and goodness of God, yet by all or any of these opinions they are not so ; but the very best suffer diminution and alloy by these things ; and very many are wholly sub- verted and destroyed P. In the last chapter he returns again to the casuistry of 1' Vol. X. p. 246. 248 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. the church of Rome, and the immoral tendency of many of her doctrines, more particularly those which teach that the pope may, under certain circumstances, and to obtain a greater good, dispense with even lawful oaths, and the most solemn and innocent engagements. He urges also the exemption pleaded by their clergy from the temporal power 5 and the extravagant notions of the right of popes to excom- municate, depose, and even condemn to death, heretical princes. In these observations, however, I am not aware that there is any thing worth particular notice. Enough may have been already said to prove the work of which I am speaking to be, for its length, one of the fullest and ablest expositions of the errors of popery, and to place Jeremy Taylor on as high an elevation among controversial as among devo- tional and practical writers. The second part of the ** Dissuasive from Popery'' was written in vindication of the former from the attacks of two priests. White and Serjeant, the latter of whom, more parti- cularly, he severely chastises in the Introduction, for the slighting manner in which he had spoken of Scripture, and the absurd and illogical character of many of his objections. In the same place, he discusses, at considerable length and with much acuteness, the nature and real value of tradition, and he exposes the Romish notion of the infallibility of the fathers, laying down some admirable rules for the manner in which their authority may be used in the interpretation of Scripture, and in ascertaining the sense of the church at the times in which they respectively flourished. He concludes, that Mr. Serjeant and his party were, in truth, the men that went on no adequate grounds : that '' in the Church of Rome there is no * sure footing,' no certain acknowledged rule of faith ; but, while they call for an assent above the nature and necessity of the thing, they have no warrant beyond the greatest uncertainty." The work itself is divided into two books, each containing several sections. In the first he treats of the meaning of the term " church," under which he includes not the clergy only, nor a small part of them, but the great body of be^ lievers. He shows, that even those assemblies, which, under the name of " general councils," have passed for repre- sentatives of the church, were, in ancient times, composed LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 249 not of bishops only, but other eminent clergymen, and, not in- frequently, of laymen ; and he examines, in a very free tone, and one which, in many instances, reminds us of the bt;ttcr parts of Jortin, — the slight claims which most of those councils have had to pass for oecumenical ; the variable and capricious distinctions which the Church of Rome has made in the different degrees of authority which she ascribes to different councils, and the vague, and, in some cases, impos- sible tests which she proposes of their validity. He then proceeds to the decisions of the popes, proving from the innumerable contradictions of those briefs themselves, from the impossibility, which their own canonists mutually allow, of knowing which is the true pope, when there are different pretenders to the see ; or whether he that is acknowledged pope may not have vitiated his election by simony, heresy ; or, as in the case of Constantine the Second, defect of holy orders, how hard it may be for a Roman Catholic, even on the received principles of his faith, to determine whether he is in the church or no, or what head he ought to follow. And, after examining and exposing, in a striking peroration, the fifteen marks of the true church proposed by Bellar- mine, he concludes with exhorting them to demonstrate their church, if they can, *' in the prescript of the law, of the pro- phets, of the Psalms, of the evangelists, and all the canonical authorities of the holy books '^." Having thus shown the utter insufficiency of the guides rehed on by the Romish church, he now proceeds to show, in his second chapter, the sufficiency of the sacred volume as a guide to salvation. To prove that the Scriptures are the only rule of faith acknowledged by antiquity, he pleads the testimonies of almost all the most considerable ecclesiastical writers, and the very name of canon or " rule," which the universal church has given to the Bible. '* The word itself," he ob- serves, " ends this inquiry ; for it cannot be a canon, if any thing be put to it or taken from it, said St. Basil, St. Chry^ sostom, and Varinus." The pretence of tlie difficulty of the Scriptures, wliich the Romanists have always urged, and which some Pro- -J Vol. X. p. 38;i. 250 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. testants, to answer a temporary purpose, have, sometimes, too largely asserted, — he answers by the declarations of Cyril, Chrysostom, Clemens Alexandrinus, Athanasius, and Augustine; confining the ^tycvo^jm to such points alone as are not necessary to salvation ; stating the rule of anti- quity that Scripture is to be expounded by Scripture ; and that, though God has given other helps in the appointment and preservation of an order of men as guides of souls, yet these last are bound to draw all their doctrines from this single and sacred fountain. A very interesting and amusing chapter on " Traditions" follows, in which he proves that no necessary article of faith depends on tradition alone ; except it be that which is, in the first instance, necessary to the reception of the Scriptures themselves, the tradition that they are the word of God, and a sufficient guide to heaven. Of the particulars which Cardinal Perron, and others, have pretended to rest on tradition only, he shows that (1.) The Trinity may be proved from Scripture, and was so proved at the Nicene council. That (2.) for the baptism of infants there is, at least, a strong presumption from the words and analogy of Scripture ; and that, after all, as he seems to account it, it is hardly an essential of salvation. The validity of the baptism of heretics, which is instanced (3.), could never, he says, have been doubted, if men had duly weighed the commission which Christ gave to all ministers of his religion. (4.) The procession of the Holy Ghost both from the Father and the Son, he treats with little ceremony, as an obscure and doubtful question, which cannot be esteemed a necessary article of faith, without damning all the eastern churches ; — but which may, nevertheless, be probably shown from the sacred writings. (5.) The observation of the Lord's day he denies to be an article of faith, or essentially neces- sary doctrine; regarding it as a matter of discipline and external rite, and so far from being a successor or substitute for the Jewish sabbath, (which was done away with entirely in the abolition of the Mosaic law,) that both days were, at first, kept by the Christians with equal reverence; yet "both with liberty, but with intuition to the avoiding offences, and the interests of religion." ^ — He observes, however, it may be abundantly proved from Scripture, that there should be some time sanctified and set apart for the service of God ; and " that LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 251 the circumstances of religion are in the power of tlic pre- sidents of religion ; and then it will follow from Scripture, that the apostles, or their successors, or whoever did appoint the Sunday festival, had not only great reason but full authority^" lie then proceeds to give many instances of alleged tra- ditions of contradictory import, — of inherent absurdity, and of dates notoriously modern. He lays down, as a proper cri- terion in all such controversies, the well-known canon of Vincentius Lirinensis; and, by the application of this rule, arrives at the consequence, that " all the doctrines of faith and good life are contained in the plain places of Scripture ; and besides it th^re are, and there can be, no articles of faith." The same topic he discusses in the two following chapters, to nearly the same effect, and employing nearly the same arguments as he had done in his '' Liberty of Prophesying;" establishing the Apostles' Creed as the only necessary rule of belief, and exposing, with considerable energy, the mon- strous power assumed by the court of Rome, of introducing into the confessions of the church new articles of faith, and altering and suppressing the Catholic doctrine. That they claim and exert such a power he proves by the writings of their own doctors; — by the alterations which they have notoriously introduced in the practice and professions of the ancient church; — by the frauds and pretended miracles to which they have recurred in order to establish sucli novelties ; frauds which have been, in many instances, ac- knowledged, with shame, by their own ablest partizans ; and miracles which, by the common testimony of Scripture and the ancient fathers, however pretended, ought to be of no force to establish a doctrine against Scripture and the consent of antiquity. In the sixth section he proceeds still further to make good his charge by a curious history of expurgatory indices ; and, in the seventh, he charges them, that, "having done these things to propagate their new doc- trines, and to suppress those which are more ancient and catholic ; they are so implacably angry at all that dissent from them, that they not only kill them, where they have power, but damn them all, so far as their sentence can prevail." Page 437. 252 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. This is a very impressive and interesting chapter. He shows the unchristian spirit of such a procedure by the fact that God has reserved all judgment to himself; that his mercy absolves many persons who, in his just judgment, were condemned ; and that it becomes a Christian to act, therefore, on the principle generally adopted by Protestants, and to judge no man's person, far less any states of men. " Besides these things," he proceeds, " there is a strange spring and secret principle in every man's understanding, that it is oftentimes turned about by such impulses of which no man can give any account. We all remember a most wonderful instance of it, in the disputation between the two Reynolds, John and William ; the former of which being a Papist, and the latter a Protestant, met and disputed with a purpose to confute and to convert each other, and so they did : for those arguments which were used prevailed fully against their adversary, and yet did not prevail with them- selves. The Papist turned Protestant, and the Protestant became a Papist, and so remained to their dying day." " But, further yet, he [the consistent Protestant] considers the natural and regular infirmities of mankind; and God considers them much more. He knows that in man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance and his weakness ; his prejudices, and the infallible certainty of being deceived in many things ; he sees that wicked men oftentimes know much more than very good men; and that the understanding is not of itself considerable in morality, and effects nothing in rewards and punishments : it is the will only that rules man, and can obey God. He sees, and deplores it, that many men study hard and understand little ; that they dis- pute earnestly, and understand not one another at all ; that affections creep in so certainly and mingle with their arguing, that the argument is lost, and nothing remains but the con- flict of two adversaries' affections ; that a man is so willing, so easy, so ready to believe what makes for his opinion ; so hard to understand an argument against himself; that it is plain it is the principle within, not the argument without, that determines him. He observes also, that all the world, (a few individuals excepted,) are unalterably determined to the religion of their country, of their family, of their society ; that there is never any considerable change made, but what LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 253 is made by war and empire, by fear and hope. He remem- bers, that it is a rare thing to see a Jesuit of the Dominican opinion, or a Dominican (until of late,) of the Jesuit ; but every order gives laws to the understanding of their novices, and they never change. He considers there is such ambi- guity in words, by which all lawgivers express their meaning ; that there is such abstruseness in mysteries of religion, that some things are so much too high for us, that we cannot understand them rightly; and yet they are so sacred and concernitig, that men will think they are bound to look into them as far as they can ; that it is no wonder if they quickly go too far, where no understanding, if it were fitted for it, could go far enough ; but in these things it will be hard not to be deceived ; since our words cannot rightly express those things ; that there is such variety of human understandings, that men's faces differ not so much as their souls; and that, if there were not so much difficulty in things, yet they could not but be variously apprehended by several men : and then, considering that, in twenty opinions, it may be, not one of them is true;" — " and every man is too apt to overvalue his own opinion, — and as he loves those that think as he does, so he is ready to hate them that do not ; and then, secretly, from wishing evil to him, he is apt to believe that evil will come, and that it is just it should : and, by this time, the opinion is troublesome, and puts other men on their guard against it, and then, while passion reigns, and reason is modest and patient, and talks not loud like a storm, victory is more regarded than truth, and men call God into the party; and his judgments are used for arguments, and the threatenings of Scripture are snatched up in haste, and men throw ' arrows, fire-brands, and death,' and by this time all the world is in an uproar. All this, and a thousand things more, the English Protestants considering, deny not their communion to any Christian who desires it, and believes the Apostles' Creed, and is of the religion of the four first general councils ; they hope well of all that live well ; they receive into their bosom all true believers of what church soever; and for them that err, they instruct them, and then leave them to their own liberty to stand or fall before their own master '." ' pp. 508, 510. 254 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. Such were the latest opinions (for this, as I have already elsewhere observed, was the latest work,) of the author of the " Liberty of Prophesying;" and so far, I repeat, was he, when himself in possession of power and dignity, from re- nouncing or obscuring his own previous sentiments. Of the remaining sections of the work, a less exact account may be sufficient. In the ninth section he goes on to urge, that the Church of Rome " teaches as doctrines the commandments of men ;" and in the tenth and eleventh, with which the first book con- cludes, he discusses the topic of auricular confession, at greater length, but to nearly the same purport with the language which he had held in his sermon on the Gunpowder Treason. — The second book, which is divided into seven sections, is occupied in making good, and extending the arguments employed in the first part of the "Dissuasive," — on the subjects of Indul- gences; Purgatory; Transubstantiation ; the Half Commu- nion ; Service in an unknown Tongue ; the Worship of Images ; and Picturing God the Father and the Holy Tri- nity. — These subjects he may be almost said to have exhausted. It is certain, at least, that he has accumulated on each a vast body of various and recondite information, applied to the point in question with great acuteness and good sense, and conveyed in very easy and spirited language. On the whole, though it is no more than natural and reasonable, that essays which apply to the daily actions, and the necessary belief of all Christians, should be preferred, in the daily studies of the greater number, to those which have reference to subordinate distinctions, and lead us through the thorny mazes of controversy ; yet, as specimens of talent and acquirement, the two " Dissuasives" are, I conceive, not inferior to any of his most popular productions ; and it is even possible that they will be read by many with less weariness, and a more sustained, though a different kind of pleasure, than the unmingled and almost interminable wilderness of sweets, which characterizes his earlier and less argumentative writings. Nor are they only those immediately interested in the dis- putes between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics, who may find themselves amused and instructed by the manner in which Taylor discusses them, and derive abundant informa- LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 255 tion, and rational entertainment, from tlie two parts of the Dis- suasive. Whoever takes a pleasure in the history of Chris- tianity, and of the human mind ; in tracing the progress from small beginnings, of the most extensive and portentous changes; in e'stimating the amount of those corruptions which, in the lapse of ages, and from various causes, have been introduced into doctrines and practices the most simple and sacred; and in observing, nevertheless, even amid the greatest spread of those corruptions, how strangely the providence of God has raised up eminent persons to bear witness against them; — will find the time very profitably and agreeably employed, which he bestows on Taylor's controversial writings. There is a trifling error in the beginning of his introduction to the second part, which would, in another person, have been hardly w^orth notice ; but which I should not have expected to meet with in one, who, like Taylor, had paid a more than common attention to the w^orks of the Rabbins. "" When our blessed Saviour," he tells us, " was casting out the evil spirit from the poor demoniac in the Gospel, he asked his name, and he answered, * My name is Legion, for w^e are many.' — Legion is a Roman word, and signifies an army, as Roman signifies Catholic*," 8cc. It is singular that he had overlooked the fact, that " legion" among the Jews, was the name usually given to the individual who commanded a large body of soldiers, and answered, in fact, to " general," or *' colonel." It was therefore properly assumed by the single spirit who spoke in the name of the rest, and exercised authority over them; whereas, had it been used as a noun of multitude, it would have been, not *' my name," but " ours." — The observation is of some use, in clearing up an expression of Scripture; but Taylor's witti- cism will, in consequence, fall to the ground". In his Great Exemplar, while commenting on the second commandment, he had said, " God forbade to tlie Jews the very having and making images and representments, not only of the true God, or of false and imaginary deities, but * Vol. X. p. 2G5. " See Buxtorf. Lex. Tulmiul., p. 1123, ad voc. p-j"?, and Sr'clilcusner, ad voc. \iycuv. V. 256 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of visible creatures "." In the second part of the Dissuasive, he says> on the contrary, — " Neither the second command- ment, nor the ancient fathers in their commentaries on them, did absolutely prohibit all making of images ; but all that were made for religious worship, and in order to adoration, according as it is expressed in him, who, among the Jews, collected the negative precepts which Arias Montanus trans- lated into Latin ; the second of which is, * signum cultus causa ne facito;' the third, * simulachrum divinum nullo pacto conflato ;' the fourth, ' signa religiosa nulla ex materia facito^.'" Of the two opinions, it is hardly necessary to observe, that the latter is shown, by the brazen serpent of Moses, and by the cherubim, oxen, and lions of Solomon, to be the ancient and true explication of the second commandment. The letters to persons seduced or tempted to the Church of Rome, are not ill adapted to their object, but offer nothing which calls for particular observation here. One which accompanies them, and stands second in the series, to a lady converted from the Church of Rome to that of England, is, however, highly characteristic of its author, as endeavouring to recall the attention of his pupil from polemics, to practical religion and morality, and evincing that he had been chiefly anxious to make her a Protestant, in order that she might be more pure, more holy, more eminently Christian, in pro- portion as her mode of faith was rational and apostolical. The *' Discourse of Confirmation,'' is preceded by a dedication to the duke of Ormond, in which the author, after some lamentations over the dilapidated and divided state of the Irish church, advances, with apparent approbation, a whimsical fancy of " some wise and good men," that, " when baptized Christians are confirmed and solemnly blessed by the bishop, then it is, that a special angel-guardian is appointed to keep their souls from the assaults of the spirits of darkness." — This solemn trifling (for, in our profound ignorance of the world of spirits, it is nothing more,) is not calculated to give a very advantageous im- pression of the work which it introduces; and, in fact, I cannot consider it as a favourable specimen of his genius. ^ Vol. ill. p. 14. y Vol. xi. p. 153. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOli, D.D. 257 In the introduction, however, is a passage of no common eloquence, — where, while describing the assistance of the Holy Ghost, as supplied to Christians, he compares the new to the old creation, and describes the Spirit as a second time *' moving upon the face of the waters." — " By him we live, in him we walk, by his aids we pray, by his emotions we desire : we breathe, and sigh, and groan, by him : he helps in all our infirmities, and he gives us all our strengths : he reveals mysteries to us, and teaches us all our duties : he stirs us up to holy desires, and he actuates those desires : he maketh us to will and to do of his good pleasure''." The work itself consists of seven sections, in which he undertakes to prove, the divine institution of the rite of confirmation; — its perpetuity; — its practice by the primitive churches ; — its exclusive administration by bishops ; — its essential parts, which he defines to be prayer and imposition of hands ; — its blessed efi'ects, and the preparation necessary for it. To show that confirmation is a divinely instituted rite, and to be proved from Scripture, he alleges, first, the descent of the Holy Ghost on our Lord, not during, but after his baptism ; and secondly, the words of Christ to Nicodemus, declaring the necessity of baptism, " by water and the Spirit." Neither of these can, as I conceive, be esteemed conclu- sive. The former is no more an example for Christians, than any other of the long train of wonders and displays of supernatural power, which accompanied and established his divine mission, can be said to be examples to us. — If it proved any thing with respect to the manner of initiating new members into his mystical body, it would rather prove that the grace of the Holy Ghost was, without any further outward ceremony, to be a necessary consequence of bap- tism ; and this, in fact, is all which those expressions of the fathers can be fairly said to imply, which Taylor quotes as agreeing in his application of the miracle. The second is, at first sight, more plausible, since our Saviour is, throughout his discourse with Nicodemus, im- pressing on the mind of the Jewish elder, the necessity of ' Vol. xi. p. 229. S 258 LIFE OF JEREIMY TAYLOU, D.D. an entrance into his religion, by the public and usual rites of initiation. But the fact that confirmation was really one of those rites, will yet remain to be proved ; and, as regenera- tion by the Holy Ghost is on all hands allowed to be the consequences of baptism, by itself, and even where no confirmation is superadded, — the expression is more naturally understood, and has been, in fact, so understood by the greater part of orthodox commentators, as merely declaratory of the spiritual benefits which were to follow the external rite of water. There is, indeed, a dangerous consequence attendant on both Taylor's arguments, that, by limiting the gift of the Holy Ghost to confirmation, he makes baptism, taken by itself, of none effect, or, at most, of no further eflfect, than as a decent and necessary introduction to that which would be, on this hypothesis, the main and distinctive consignation of a Christian. To this objection Taylor him- self was not insensible ; and he endeavours to escape from it, by a still more dangerous admission, that confirmation is, really, as generally necessary as baptism or the Lord's Supper, which is, in fact, to contradict the express doctrine of our church, and formally to elevate it to the rank of a sacrament''. How little he is borne out in such doctrines by the figurative expressions of the fathers, ivhen speaking of baptismal regeneration, will appear from a reference even to those passages on which he relies. And how unnecessary such a novel hypothesis is to the obligation and importance of the ceremony in question, may appear from the far better arguments which he afterwards produces in its favour ; from the known practice of the apostles, in the case of the Sama- ritan converts ; and from the fact, that imposition of hands is classed by St. Paul among the fundamental doctrines of Christianity ^. That confirmation was not a temporary rite, or to lose its inward and ordinary blessing when the visible and miraculous gifts were withdrawn, which, in the first ages of the church, attended it, he proves from the analogy of other external rites, which had equally, in the first ages, extraordinary effects and miraculous consignations, but which, as in tlie ^ Vol. xi. pp. 244, 245. ^ Hebrews, vi. 1, 2. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 259 case of preaching, prayer, &c., are allowed by all parties to be still necessary, though such obvious and wonderful fruits are no longer to be anticipated from them. The ordinary and internal graces of the Spirit are promised, as he observes, to all ages of the church ; and though our consignation is by a secret power, and the work is within, — " it does not therefore follow, that the external rite is not also intended," wherever that consignation is spoken of in Scripture. " For the rite is so wholly for the mystery, and the outward for the inward, and yet, by the outward, God so usually and regularly gives the inward, that as no man is to rely upon the external ministry, as if the ' opus cperatum' would do the whole duty ; so no maa is to neglect the external, because the internal is the more principal. The mistake in this particular hath caused great contempt of the sacraments and rituals of the church, and is the ground of the Socinian errors in these questions *"." That it was the uniform custom of the primitive church, and every where (except, perhaps, in Egypt, where he does not satisfactorily get rid of a strong testimony of St. Ambrose,) confined to the ministration of the bishop alone ; that the essential parts of the rite are prayer, and imposition of hands, — and that the use of oil, though very ancient, is of ecclesiastical institution only, he proves with sufficient clearness in the three following sections. In the sixth, he ably, though in a simple and unambitious style, states the spiritual benefits of which confirmation is the outward and appointed means, — and, in the last, discusses the proper age and preparation for the ceremony. In speaking of the proper age of candidates, he holds an opinion at variance with the usual practice of the Church of Enoland, which is seldom to admit them to the solemn rite till they are fourteen or fifteen years of age. He, on the contrary, recommends receiving them much earlier, — " the sooner the better, I mean, after that reason begins to dawn ; " provided only that " the children be catechized, and well instructed in the fundamentals of religion." He proceeds, with an earnest recommendation of the '^ Page 254. 260 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. ancient custom of catechizing, in which he observes, by the way, that what is called exorcism, in the ancient church, was not, as is vulgarly supposed, an attempt to eject the devil out of innocent children, but that the exorcist was only another word for catechist ; — and he then winds up his argument with a short and energetic peroration, on the blessings derived from, and the obligations attached to, an attendance on the rite which he has thus vindicated. On the whole, the learning and piety of this little tract are not unworthy of Taylor, and he deserves, at least, the praise of having made out his point satisfactorily. But, except this learning and this piety, there is, perhaps, scarcely any thing else in the Essay on Confirmation, which would mark it as his writing. He has not, indeed, slept over his task ; but it cannot be said that he has drawn his bow to the full extent of his usual force and vigour. And we shall be, perhaps, the more struck with this inferiority, if we compare it with the little Essay on Friendship, which follows next in the present series, and which may be considered, without impropriety, as the earliest of his casuistic writings. Of the lady to whom it is addressed I have already spoken ; and she, certainly, deserves some credit for having suggested such a theme to Taylor, inasmuch as it was calculated, more than most others, to elicit the fires of his peculiar eloquence. It was a topic, also, on which his good sense and practical wisdom (of which qualities few men of equal genius have had a larger share,) were likely to furnish very valuable rules, for the maintenance of affection in its just temper; for the increase and preservation of our interest in the breast of the beloved individual; and for the subjection and devotion of even our best and strongest feelings, to that common Father, from whom all pure affection flows. — Accordingly, he has produced a splendid and powerful essay, which, though the fair and enthusiastic Orinda should seem to have preferred the forgotten one of Mr. Francis Finch, will not appear, to the generality of readers, to derogate from the high character of his greater and more laboured performances. He begins, however, with a paradox, of which I am not sure that it does not rest on a quibble. He tells his cor- respondent, that friendshijj, in the sense under which we LIFE OF JEllKMY' TAYLOR, D.D. 2G1 commonly use the term, — "is not so much as named in the New Testament ;" and he accounts for this, by saying, that *' the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of mind, of which brave men and women are capable/' are, under the Christian term of Charity, potentially due from us to all mankind, and directly, therefore, opposed to that affection, which is " like the sun peepiiy>: through a chink," or " his beams drawn into the centre of a burnins; o;lass." That charity, in this sense, is not friendship, is most true, since it is the general principle of affection, of which friendship is an application to particular instances, in com- pliance with that imperfection of our nature, and those circumstances of society, which limit our active affections, and our confidential intercourse (like our alms, and our personal intercessions,) to those with whom we are brought in contact, and ¥/ho only are, therefore, susceptible of our service or our tenderness. But this limitation, and particular application of the common principle, he himself allows to be natural and necessary ; and he admits, that the good and glorious Person, who, in his human nature, has given us the most perfect example of the best application and employment of all our natural affections, has left us instances, in his own conduct, of that condensed and distinctive love, which he felt for one of the apostles, in a greater degree, than for the remain- ing eleven, and for the family of Lazarus, more than for the great mass of those w^ho believed on him. This, which the Christian Scriptures call cluiritj/, as being a particular application of the general grace, he admits, in philosophy, is called '* friends/iip.'' But if the thing be named, though under a different term, in the New Testament, his assertion, that it does not occur, must resolve itself into a quibble only. And, in fact, though we have translated dyarau, and dya'rr], perhaps, too indiscriminately, by the common and genuine term of " love," and tlie almost technical term of " charity," — it would be easy to show, not only that the corresponding word in Hebrew is applied to the " friendship" of David and Jonathan, but that dyarau 262 LIFE OF JERKMY TAYLOR, D.D. is used in the New Testament, as strictly synonymous with the proper Greek term of friendship, ^/Xsw, and that it is apphed, both there, and in the classical writers, to express not only " love" in its exalted sense, but a much slighter degree of*' liking," or " approbation'*." His doctrine, however, that friendship is the application to a particular person, of the love which, but for the weakness of our nature, we should feel for all, is strictly philosophical, as well as Christian ; and there are few passages in his works more characteristic, more appropriate, or more beautiful, than the following illustration of the general principle. *' Thus, the sun is the eye of the world, and he is indifferent [impartial] to the negro, or the cold Russian ; to them that dwell under the line, [qu. Pole?] and them that stand near the tropics ; the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills. But the flexures of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the north and south respectively, change the emanations of his beams ; not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not equally received below ; but by periods and changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what they can. And some have only a dark day and a long night from him ; snows and white cattle ; a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of catarrhs and consumptions ; apoplexies and dead palsies. But some have splendid fires, and aromatic spices, rich wines, and well digested fruits, great wit, and great courage ; because they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the courtiers of the sun, and wait upon him in his chambers of the east. Just so it is in friendships : some are worthy, and some are necessary ; some dwell hard by, and are fitted for converse ; nature joins some to us, and religion combines us with others ; society and accidents, parity of fortune, and equal dispositions, do actuate our friendships ; which, of themselves, and in their prime disposition, are prepared for all mankind, according as any one can receive them®." Having thus defined and explained the nature of friend- ship, — he goes on to observe, that ** there may be a special friendship contracted for any special excellency whatsoever ; '* 1 Sam. XX. 17. Schleiisner, ad voc. AyaTecu. ' Vol. xi. p. 304. 203 because friendships are nothing but love and society mixed together, that is, a conversing witli them whom we love ; now, for whatsoever we can love any one, for that we can be his friend ; and, since every excellency is a degree of ama- bility, every such worthiness is a just and proper motive of friendship or loving conversation." But all excellencies can only so far become the objects of friendship as they are or may be advantageous to our- selves. Even virtue itself, in the abstract, or as displayed towards God and mankind in general, though it be the best motive for esteem and honour, is not enough, he observes, '* to make a man my privado, my special and particular friend ;" but, if he be a good man — ;/^>j(rros avri^ — a k'uid and useful and amiable person, he is then such an one, as *' some will even dare to die for." '' If you suspect that this discourse can suppose friend- ship to be mercenary, and to be defective in the greatest worthiness of it, which is to love our friend for our friend's sake, I shall easily be able to defend myself; because I speak of the election and reasons of choosing friends. After he is chosen, do as nobly as you talk, and love as purely as you dream ; and let your conversation be as metaphysical as your discourse, and proceed in this method till you be con- futed by experience ; yet, till then, the case is otherwise when we speak of choosing one to be my friend. He is not my friend till I have chosen him or loved him ; and, if any man inquires whom he shall choose, or whom he should love, I suppose it ought not to be answered, that we should love him who hath least amability ; that we should choose liim who hath least reason to be chosen. But, if it be answered, he is to be chosen to be my friend who is most worthy in him- self, not he that can do most good to me, I say there is a distinction, but no difference ; for he is most worthy in himself who can do most good ; and, if he can love me too, that is, if he will do me all the good he can, or that I need, then he is my friend, and he deserves it." — " True and brave friendships are between worthy persons ; and there is in mankind no deo-ree of worthiness that is not also a dejxree of usefulness, and by every thing by which a man is excel- lent I may be profited : and because those are the bravest frieiids which can best serve the ends of friendshi])s, either 264 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. we must suppose that friendships are not the greatest com- forts in the world ; or else we must say, he chooses his friend best, that chooses such a one by whom he can receive the greatest comforts and assistances ^" Still this obligation to choose our friends for their aptness to give us the greatest help, comfort, or pleasure, docs not lay on us the necessity of choosing always the best. You must not, he observes, choose a friend who is deficient in the essentials of friendship, who is not " honest and secret, just and true to a tittle ; but if he be wise at all, and useful in any degree, and as good as you can have him, you need not be ashamed to own your friendships, though some- times you may be ashamed of the imperfections of your friend." Even " fancy and little partialities ; a conformity of hu- mours and proportionable loves, and the beauty of the face, and a witty answer,'' he admits of as circumstances which may, in the first instance, produce a liking ; though he urges, with reason, that this Platonic and fanciful regard will never be maintained at the rate of a real friendship, " unless it be fed by pure materials, by worthinesses which are the food of friendship." — *' I will," he concludes, '* when I choose my friend, choose him that is the bravest, the worthiest, and most excellent person; and then your first question is soon answered. To love such a person, and to contract such friendships, is just so authorized by the principles of Christianity, as it is warranted to love wisdom and virtue, goodness and beneficence, and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of brave men." Under the next head, that of the limits of friendshij), he assigns no boundary to the affection and service which friend may show to friend, but the borders of vice and virtue, — a man may die for his friend, if that friend be a worthy and useful person ; he may sacrifice his property for his friend, if he does not transgress against the duty which he owes to his natural relations ; but he must not, like Pollux, kill the person who speaks slightingly of his friend, nor must he transo^ress the laws of God or man to serve him. In the same section are some very sensible observations * Pages 310—312. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 265 as to the difference between friendship and filial or frater- nal love; on the circumstances which may render a friend more intimate than either a parent or a brother ; thougli no friend, he forcibly urges, can prudently or lawfully take pre- cedence of a wife or a husband. " The reason is, because marriage is the queen of friend- ships, in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship; and it being made sacred by vows and love, by bodies and souls, by interest and custom, by religion and by laws, by common counsels and common fortunes ; it is the principal in the kind of friendship, and the measure of all the rest. And there is no abatement to this consideration, but that there may be some allay in this as in other lesser friendships, by the incapacity of the persons. If I have not chosen my friend wisely or fortunately, he cannot be the correlative in the best union ; but then the friend lives as the soul does after death : it is in the state of separation, in which the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be re-united, but the body is an useless trunk, and can do no ministeries to the soul, v/hich therefore prays to have the body reformed and restored, and made a brave and fit companion : so must these best friends, when one is useless or unapt to the braveries of the princely friendship ; they must love ever, and pray ever, and long till the other be perfected and made fit : in this case there wants only the body, but the soul is still a relative, and must be so for ever." In the next inquiry, — " How friendships are to be con- ducted?" — he has given some very wise and useful, though moderate and indulgent advice, for the case of an intimacy between persons of different sexes ; where " not only the interest of their religion, and the care of their honour, but the worthiness of their friendship, require that their intercourse be prudent and free from suspicion or reproach." Yet even here he does not enjoin an implicit deference to " the noises of people :" and he subjoins a spirited and affectionate eulogium of the female character, and its fitness for all the noblest duties of friendship. He concludes his essay with some short rules of duty and prudence to be observed by one friend towards another, of which the practical wisdom is not inferior to the sim- 266 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, t).D. plicity ; but for which it is necessary to refer my readers to the work itself, if they read the whole of which they will find the short labour well repaid^. That which follows next is of far greater bulk and labour. The necessity of such works as the *' Ductor Dubi- tantium" had, very plainly, its origin in those times, and amono' those sects of Christians with whom auricular confes- sion and priestly absolution were regarded as the duty of every penitent ; the preliminary of all celestial mercy. — When a body of many thousands persons, of various ages and all degrees of acquirement or capacity, were liable to become the depositaries of the most important or the most trifling secrets, and called on to pronounce authoritatively on the spiritual condition of all ranks and under all possible cir- cumstances, it was absolutely necessary that the more skil- ful of these confidential monitors should lay down rules for the less learned ; and that all precedents should be col- lected and preserved, which might lighten the labour, or guide the judgment, or diminish the responsibility, of the busy, the uninformed, the timid, or the diffident ministers of religion. And this necessity became the greater, in proportion as the abuses of the Romish superstition were multiplied. While the rules of faith were drawn from the apostles' creed, and the rules of conduct from the ten commandments ; while the terms of church communion were easy and perspi- cuous, and the church had laid no further burthen on her members than those few and simple customs and cere- monies which derived their sanction from the apostles and from Christ ; there was the less occasion to wander from so wide a road, and, from one so plain, whoever wandered was more easily detected and censured. But, when the commandments or inventions of men were taught under the same sanction with the doctrines of inspiration ; when prohibitions of things lawful or indifferent were multiplied without warrant or necessity ; and states of life and society, in themselves, unnatural were grafted on a creed which was at first the perfection of natural religion ; the feelings of men revolted against rules thus arbitrarily B Note (ZZ). LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOU, D.D. 267 imposed ; while their consciences were not sufficiently en- lightened to make them satisfied that their revolt was inno- cent. The multitude of cases was thus greatly increased, which sought, at the hands of the confessor, for ghostly counsel and comfort ; and so inevitably does the commission of one supposed fault lead to others, that the habitual trans- pression of the commandment of the church seldom failed to carry men further into a neglect of the divine command- ments also ; till offences against general morality became more numerous, in proportion as the breach of ecclesiastical laws became more inevitable. It had been thus, in more ancient times, with the Jewish doctors, whose " hedge" of traditions and ceremonies ^ had only served to enroach on and block up the path of duty, and whose volumes of casuistry are sufficiently bulky, though they had not, among their institutions, so fruitful a mother of quibbles as the practice of confession. Among Christians of the Romish church, it may be easily understood how the indulgence of some spiritual guides ; — the ostentatious ingenuity of others ; — the desire, in a third party of conciliating wealthy and powerful sin- ners ; — and, in a fourth, the refinements of an impure curiosity, excited and employed by a great majority of the cases which came before them, — would produce a plentiful harvest of distinctions, provisions, abatements, and aggra- vations, sufficient, when duly stated, to distort, to almost any extent, the features of almost any action or course of actions. What mischief had, in this respect, been done by the Jesuit confessors and casuists, may be seen in several parts of Taylor's Dissuasive from Popery, and still more in the spirited invective of Pascal. But the matter grew still worse, when cases of conscience were brought into courts of law ; when the institutions of penance and ecclesiastical censure, as managed in the Church of Rome, and as com- muted for by pecuniary fines, became the subjects of legal argument, and of that perverse ingenuity which a counsel is generally expected to exert on behalf of his client. In civil courts, indeed, that ingenuity can produce but little harm; since it is avowedly exercised on the laws of ^ " Ponere sepem legi." 268 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. man alone, and since the eternal sanctions of morality remain entire and unbroken, whatever temporal consequences are incurred or averted by the parties. But the misfortune was, that the spiritual tribunal professed to exert an influence beyond the present world ; and when an equal danger of purgatory was incurred by a breach of a canon as of a commandment, and when the consequences of both the one and the other might be got rid of by a flaw in the indict- ment ; it is less strange that offences were multiplied, than it is that they were so far repressed by the general good feelings of mankind, and that efficacy which yet remained in the obscured and neglected Gospels. But as offences mul- tiplied, distinctions multiplied also ; and we cannot wonder, therefore, that the very title of the canon law was ** Con- cordantia Discordantiarum ;" that " the easy commandment was wrapped up in uneasy learning ; and, by the new methods, a simple and uncrafty man could hardly be wise unto salvation." "There is a wood before your doors, and a labyrinth within the wood, and locks and bars to every door in that labyrinth; and, after all, we are like to meet with unskilful guides; and yet, of all things in the world, in these things an error is the most intolerable \" But, while such had been the original occasion, and sucli the gradual but appalling progress of casuistry in the Church of Rome ; it was not very apparent why the reformed churches, who had shaken off" the accumulated load of ages, were again, without the same occasion, to begin to rebuild the fabric. Why, when their rule was brought back to its primitive simplicity, and the Scriptures which contained that rule were made accessible to all ; when they had restricted the lash of ecclesiastical censure to a very few, and those very palpable and notorious cases of public scandal ; and when, by leaving confession optional, they had cut off" the necessity which made every parish minister a casuist, — why were they to darken what was so plain by needless explanation, or encourage a nearer approach to forbidden things by an attempt to define the precise limits of the prohibition ? That first thoughts are generally best, in cases of duty, has been observed by Taylor as well as by Paley. I have ' ^'^ol. xi. pp. 353, 354. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 209 myself had sufficient experience of wliat are generally called scruples, to be convinced that the greater proportion of those which are submitted to a spiritual guide, are nothing more than artifices by which men seek to justify themselves in what they know to be wrong : and I am convinced that the most efficacious manner of easing a doubtful conscience is, for the most part, to recall the professed penitent from distinctions to generals ; from the peculiarities of his private concerns to the simple words of the commandment. If we are too curious, we only muddy the stream : but the clearest truth is, in morals, always on the surface. Still there were yet remaining, in the two first centuries after the Reformation, circumstances (besides the precedent of the Roman church, and the secret regret of the influence formerly enjoyed by their order, whicli, however unsuspected by themselves, was likely to actuate the more learned of the Protestant clergy,) which might well impress on the mind of Taylor and of many of his contemporaries, the opinion that a work of casuistiy was a desideratum in the Church of England, and its want a defect which might be with reason objected to that church by its adversaries. There were, probably, more genuine and conscientious scruples at that time busy in the public mind than are likely to occur at present. The religious ferment, and the spirit of inquiry which it excited, which accompanied the reformation of religion, had been kept up by the Puritans, and after them by the Independents, with unfailing force and activity : and though the Reformation in England had been conducted on wiser and more moderate principles, and had, in fact, overlooked all trifles in order to make the better clearance of essential abuses; yet had the minds of men been drawn, by the weakness of some, and the mischievous arts of others, to trifles and external circumstances, in a degree of which our present religious divisions afford us no conception. There are few even of the dissenting divines who now preach against, there are fewer still who really care for, the peculiarities of the established church in its habits and ceremonies. Its Hturgy is praised almost by all. Yet not avowed dissenters only, but no small party of those who had been episcopally ordained, and appointed so offices within the limits of the establishment, were, in the days of Charles 270 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. the First, conscientiously miserable at the thought of standing in a surplice, or saying any prayer but of their own com- posing. Many thousand good and pious men, and probably a still greater number of women, were distressed between the fear of schism, and the crime of attending in a place of worship where even the minutest particular was not war- ranted by some explicit text of Scripture. The wickedness of mince-pies and plum-porridge, and the question how far these abominations might be winked at, when believers were unequally yoked with a prelatist, agitated many well-meaning minds ; while there were others, of a contrary faction, who looked with horror on the marriage of second cousins, and were seriously troubled if, during the forty days, any flesh-meat were seen in their houses. The law of Moses ; the question how far it was repealed or how far it still subsisted in the particulars of blood, perhaps of pork, and certainly of a sabbatical rest on the Lord's day, was also a frequent cause of secret distress or domestic litigation ; while, on the other hand, individuals were not wanting who, despising all ordinances, exclaimed against their kindred and neighbours as legalists and foolish Galatians. It is possible that, in the present age of sects, some of these wild tenets may still be active and mischievous ; but the greater part of our divisions arise from other causes, and, above all, the habits of the time lead men rather to decide their scruples for themselves and in their own way, than to recur to their spiritual pastors. But to how great an extent such feelings then prevailed, may be learned from the fact that, dviring the time that the celebrated Dr. Owen was dean of Christchurch, a regular office for the satisfaction of doubtful consciences was held in Oxford. How long it continued, or what were the numbers that resorted to it, I am not informed. It possibly was of the shorter duration from the ludicrous name of " scruple-shop," which was given it by the younger students. Nor was it a slight aggravation of the mischief that the emissaries of the Church of Rome were, in the mean time, always active ; ready to remind every uneasy conscience of the rest and relief to be found within the pale of their com- munion ; vaunting the acuteness and learning of their LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 271 doctors, and the comfort of their absolution ; and obtaining the more abundant draughts of fishes the more the waters were troubled. Under such circumstances, it was an expedient which would naturally occur to the clergy of the episcopal church, to meet both Puritans and Papists at their own weapons, and to supply, from a rational and legitimate source, that satisfaction to restless spirits which the others professed to furnish by a false stimulus, or a still more deceitful opiate. Accordingly, the work now executed by Taylor had been projected by many eminent persons before him. Besides some writers of the same sort by different Lutheran divines, (who, as still retaining, before the administration of the sacrament, a shadow of the old confessional, have more reason than those of the English church for affixing a value to such assistances,) the excellent Bishop Hall had made a beginning which he did not live to complete ; and Sanderson, whose lectures " de conscientia," had shown very consider- able talent in the eristical part of morality, was urged by Charles the First, in his last attendance on him, to employ the remainder of his life in writing cases of conscience ^. It was not, however, to the detail of individual scruples that Taylor gave up his learning and genius. This, indeed, had been the usual practice of previous writers on the same subject. The Romish casuists, at least, (for the Lutherans I only know through the notices of them in Michaelis and in Taylor himself,) have contented themselves, for the most part, with filling their enormous volumes with cases, some- times classed, indeed, under general heads, but not often submitted to any general or steady principles ; a wilderness of precedents, of which (as they were rather selected for curiosity than for their frequent occurrence,) hardly a twen- tieth part could be expected to be really useful. Taylor, on the other hand, has introduced his cases as illustrations and examples only, and by far the greater part of his work is devoted to the exposition of general principles, in which, with far more learning, and, perhaps, (the time at which he wrote considered,) with equal originality, but with a clearness of arrangement and expression altogether much '' Walton's Life of Saudeisoii. Wordsworth, Ecdes. Biog. vol. v. p. 487- 272 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR. D.D. inferior, he lias preceded in the same track the labours of Tucker and of Paley. To give a regular analysis of so extensive a work, would be either to repeat the table of contents, or materially to exceed the bounds of a critical essay. I shall, therefore, content myself with offering to the reader a very slight outline of the plan, selecting only those parts for further comment, which, for their acuteness, their curiosity, their eloquence, or sometimes even their erroneous nature, appear to me to call for such a distinction. After a preface, in which the importance and necessity of the attempt is throughout assumed, and which is chiefly directed against the sophistry and interminable length of his Romish predecessors, he has divided his work into four books, each containing several long chapters. In the first, he defines the nature of conscience, its uses, and their impediments, pointing out the different charac- teristics of a " right or sure conscience," — a conscience con- fident in error, — a " probable or thinking," — a *' doubtful," and a " scrupulous conscience/' Of all these, his definitions, though a little overlaid with words and misplaced eloquence, are distinct and forcible, and his illustrations often very fine and appropriate. Such a one occurs where he has been observing that, " we cannot take any direct account of the greatness or horror of a sin by the affrightment of conscience." " For," he proceeds, "' it is with the affrightments of con- science as it is in temporal judgments ; sometimes they come not at all, and^ when they do, they come irregularly, and, when they do not, the man does not escape."" — " But as he who is not smitten of God, yet knows he is always liable to God's anger, and, if he repents not, it will certainly fall upon him hereafter ; so it is in conscience. He that fears not, hath never the less cause to fear, but oftentimes a greater, and therefore is to suspect and alter his condition, as being of a deep and secret danger; and he that docs fear, must alter his condition, as being highly troublesome. But, in both cases, conscience does the work of a monitor and a judge. In some cases, conscience is like an eloquent and fair-spoken judge, which declaims not against the criminal, but condemns him justly; in others, the judge LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 273 is more angry, and artVights the prisoner more ; but the event is still the same. For, in those sins where the conscience affrights, and in those in which she afii'ights not, (supposing the sins equal, but of differing natures,) there is no other difference, but that conscience is a clock, which in one man strikes aloud and gives warning ; and in another, the liand points silently to the figures, but strikes not ; but by this he may as surely see what the other hears, that his hours pass away, and death hastens, and after death comes judg- ment^ !" The rules which he gives to distinguish a true peace of con- science, w hich he defines to be *' a rest after a severe inquiry," are full of holy and practical wisdom ; as when he remarks that '' peace of mind is not to be used as a sign that God hath pardoned our sins, but is only of use in questions of particular fact. — What evils have I done ? — what good have I left un- done ?" This is a veiy useful caution to two different classes of men, — those who afflict themselves wdthout knowing why, and those who are satisfied when they ought to be afflicted. The rule of a right conscience, he expresses to be " the speculative determination of the understanding," and subjoins as the single necessary caution, '* that we be as sure of our speculation as of any other rule which we usually follow, and that we do not take vain philosophy for true speculations." And, while establishino- this assertion, he maintains at some length, and with much acuteness, the use of reason in matters of religion, answering the different objections which are ordinarily made against it, and proving that, though reason may not be able to render an account of mysteries which are but imperfectly revealed to us, yet, the authen- ticity of the revelation is, in the first instance, cognizable by reason; while, though things may be true which our reason cannot comprehend, yet what our reason rejects we cannot receive as revealed by God ; so that " though right reason is not the positive and affirmative measure of any article, yet it is the negative measure of every one." Obe- dience of the understanding to God he acknowledges to be our undoubted duty ; " but that," he observes, " is only when God speaks. But because we heard him not, and are ' Vol. xi. i»j). 403, 404. T 274 LIFE 01' JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. only told that God did speak, — our reason must examine whether it be fit to believe them that tell us so." In the course of this inquiry many interesting corollaries Gccxu', as to the question of two wills in God : — the con- formity of reason and faith: — and the vanity of judicial astrology, which last he condemns not on the score of its supposed impiety and contradiction to Scripture, but as the instrument of imposture and delusion ; and, therefore, against religion, not as an unlawful exercise of reason, but as mere folly and knavery, and on account of the " dangerous and horrid consequents which they feel, than run a whoring after such idols of imagination." His examination of mixed motives, and the censure which he passes on good actions when done from secular or incom- petent arguments, are useful and well-founded ; though, under this last head, and while discussing the incidental question, " whether it be lawful and ingenuous to go about to persuade a man to the belief of a true proposition, by arguments with which we ourselves are not persuaded V he has made some admissions which a severe lover of truth will hardly allow to pass without reprobation. An " ai'gmnentum ad hominem" is, indeed, perfectly allowable, which proceeds on the supposition, not upon the concession and granting of an error. But this, which is no more than taking a man on his own grounds, has no natural tendency to make him believe that I agree with him in that particular. The argument is good, because the premises are conventionally so ; and the effect is not so much to convince a man of the truth of our inference, as to unsettle his prejudices against that inference, and, by proving his own principles to be inconsistent, to make him the more ready to submit himself to ours. But the case is very different, when I use arguments which I know or believe to be bad, because " there may be something in my opponent that can make the argument to become perfect and effectual.'' This is like feeding a hungry man with chaff, because there may be some peculiarity in his digestion, which can extract its nutritive qualities. If other competent judges have laid stress on such an argument, we may, indeed, advance it as theirs, and in deference to their authority. But, even here, it can hardly LIFE OF JKRK.MV TAVI.OF?, D.I). 275 be allowed us to advance it without premising the caution that it is not our own opinion which we express, and tliat we therefore can lav no stress on it. And, as arofuments thus brought forward are likely to be of little service to our cause, it is, apparently, both wiser and better to confine ourselves to such arguments only as are really satisfactory to our understaning "\ This, however, will, of course, not conclude against our stating as possible, or probable, such consequences as, though they do not certainly follow from the premises, may yet, without contradiction, do so. But the premises are, by their very nature and employment,, presumed to be truths ; nor can we honestly use any thing as a premise, which we do not either believe to be true, or, at least, state hypothe- tically. He speaks more justly, wdien he will not allow of any dis- tinction between a man's public conscience as a magistrate, and his private conscience as an individual" ; and where he observes that " conscience hath power in obligations and rules, but not so much nor so often in permissions °." Thus, a per- son may in no case do that which conscience forbids, but may not always go so far as she allows. Under the head of " a probable or thinking conscience,*' he teaches, with great justice, that " a conscience that is, at first and in its own nature, probable, may be made certain by accumulation of many probabilities operating the same persuasion p." And of this kind of " moral demonstration," he gives an instance in a magnificent sketch of the diflferent probabilities on which a faith in Christianity is founded. Few of his most splendid passages in the most popular of his writings exceed some parts of this argument : as, when he speaks of the doctrine of Christ, ** hunting the demons from their tripods, — their *' navels'^'' their dens, their hollow pipes, their temples, and their altars;" as " flourishing, like the palm, by pressure ; growing glorious by opposition ; thriving by persecution, and demonstrated by objections ■" ;" or where, contrasting it with the local rites and restricted ■« Vol. xi. pp. 483, 485, 488. " p. 409. ° P. 522. P Vol. xii. p. .33. ^ Delplli, called yr,; o/^fa/.'?;. ' P. 5f). 276 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. worship of the Jews, he says of the Christian religion, that it is " as eternal as the soul of a man, and can no more cease than our spirits can die, and can worship upon moun- tains and in caves, in fields and churches, in peace and war, in solitude and society, in persecution and in sunshine, by day and by night, and be solemnized by clergy and laity in the essential parts of it, and is the perfection of the soul, and the highest reason of man, and the glorification of God^" There are many other valuable principles laid down in this part of his work, of which a few are all that I can instance. Such are his positions, that " Reason weighs more than authority ;" that " a multitude of authorities, when they are deducible from one or a few, add nothing to the strength of that on which they themselves rest : that authority alone is no sufficient proof after a new doubt has been started ; and, that an apparent interest in the person who maintains a pro- position is no more reason for disbelieving than for believing it^" Some of his illustrations of a doubtful conscience, are not over delicate, or even decent, and some of his positions danger- ous. Of the first description, is a very injudicious quotation from Toletus ; and of the second, his admission that private evil may be done by public men and for the public necessity ; which, though with many limitations, and in very few in- stances, as in that of war, the employment of spies, &c. it may possibly be true, yet is hardly to be allowed in any in- stance without peril. It is, however, a very just and rea- sonable observation, which he makes in the same chapter, that " positive and temporary" ought to give way to higher duties. Such, also, is his distinction between a doubting and a scrupulous conscience, that ** against the first a man may not work, but against the second he may." All his advice, indeed, to scrupulous persons, is excellent"." His second book begins with an examination of the law of nature, which he defines to be " the universal law of mankind, concerning common necessities, to which we are inclined by nature, incited by consent, prompted by rea- ^ Vol. xii. p. 64. * Pp. Ul, 99, 108. " Pp. 183, et seq. I LIFE or JEHEMV TAYLOR, D.D. 277 son, but [which] is bound upon us only by the command of God." Its two sanctions he defines to be fear and love : the first, of a bad conscience, a bad name, or the other penal conse- quences which Providence and society inflict on guilt ; the next is not so much born with us, as implanted in us by education, and by the hopes of future reward which God has, in revelation, held out to us. To the law of nature thus defined, he assigns an autho- rity superior to all positive institutions, though its laws, (as he observes,) may be capable of interpretation, and may be allayed by equity, piety, and necessity. In speaking of contracts, he allows that an unlawful or impossible contract cannot hold ; but he materially limits the permission given by the lawyers to annul contracts made under false impressions''. When a contract is made against the positive institutions of man, in points where the law of God is silent ; though the parties may have sinned in entering into it, yet *' the after actions, being no sins, cannot be invalidated ;" and even " if the contract be made against a divine law," if it can be fulfilled on our part without sin, and " the contract be extrinsical to the nature of the sin incurred," the contract is binding, though its occasion is to be repented of ^. In this last case, he agrees with Paley, (Moral Philoso- phy, b. xi. c. 5,) and has, to all appearance, taken a clearer view of the moral obligation of contracts than Sanderson did on a similar question. It is probable that Sanderson judged differently, from the same sense of the inexpediency of such contracts becoming general, which has induced Paley, in- consistently enough, to reject his own principle, (where it ought, a fortiori, to hold good, and does hold good, accord- ing to Taylor,) in the case of a promise made to a robber^. To the law of nature in general, the Christian law succeeds, which he describes as, *' The law of Nature, or of all mankind, as it is commanded, digested, and perfected by our Supreme Lawgiver Jesus Christ''." This, as the great rule of conscience, he distinguishes ' Vol. xii. pp. 250, 257. * P. 260. ' Vol. xivv p. 39G. " Vol. xiii. p. 2fi(). 278 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. from the Mosaic law, which has entirely ceased to bind, any further than as it contains some particulars which belong to the moral law, or law of nature. From the list of those par- ticulars he does not exclude the prohibition of eating blood, which he interprets, with good reason, not to mean the use of black puddings, but the hateful practice, common in the East and amongst barbarous nations, of devouring the mem- bers of a living creature''. But the judicial law he excludes in all its branches, more particularly in that which was then the subject of frequent discussion, the intermarriage of persons within the degrees of consanguinity. On this head, he exposes the unwarranted additions to the Mosaic prohi- bition which had been made, in the case of cousins, brothers' widows, &c., by the Roman canonists ; and on the whole, appears to take nearly the same view of the question as has been since taken by Michaelis : though he does not state, so plainly as Michaelis has done, the reasons which have, in all ages and countries, made some prohibitions necessary ; and the local and temporal inconveniences which have obliged human lawgivers to extend, in some instances, those prohibitions still further*". The Decalogue he refuses to consider as a perfect digest of the law of nature ; inasmuch as our duty extends to many particulars which are not expressed on those tables. " It was intended," he conceives, '" as a digest of all those moral laws in which God would expect and exact the obe- dience of the Jewish nation, leaving the perfection and consummation of all unto the time of the Gospel''." Here, I conceive, he goes too far ; inasmuch as, though he insists on the violence which is necessary to reduce all the different parts of a Christian's duty to these ten principal heads, it is certain that this has been, and is done with suffi- cient exactness for any practical purpose, and that he him- self, in his exposition of the ten commandments, has ably and eloquently accomplished it. Nor is it true, as his hypothesis seems to suppose, that no other and more express ^ Vol. xiii. p. 200, et seq. '^ IMichaclis, Law of Moses, c. vii. Vol. iii. p. 39, et .seq. Smith's Translation. Note (AAA.) •^ Vol. xiii. p. 355. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 279 moral laws were given to the Jews than these command- ments. To give ahns to the poor ; to help their enemy whose beast had fallen under his load ; to pray for the peace of the land whither they were led captive;- to eat no living animal, which, as he himself allows, is part of the moral law : — all these laws are not only implied in the Decalogue, but explicitly laid down in different parts of the Mosaic volume ; and it would be very difficult to instance any particular of natural law, strictly so called, to which the Jews were not obliged as well as ourselves, though the stream of the com- mandments had been disturbed and defiled by their rabbins, and though the Son of God, in his sermon on the mount, and by the still stronger lesson of his example, has vindi- cated them from corruption, and held them up a second time, and more clearly and gloriously than before, to our obedience and imitation. Taylor is correct, however, in his inferences : " That we acknowledoe Christ to be our Lord and Master, our Law- giver and Teacher ; that we understand the ten command- ments according to his commentary." — ** That we expect no justification by our conformity to the decalogue." — ** That we endeavour to go on to perfection, not according to the pattern which Moses, but which Christ showed on the mount:" and " that we do not think it sufficient to live according to nature, but that we live according to grace, that is, the measures of reformed nature^." And he himself has, in fact, abandoned whatever was dangerous in his position simply taken, when he admits that all the precepts of mo- rality " were potentially in the great commandment ;" and that '^ there are the same general lines of religion, and of justice in tlie Old Testament and the New, though the special and particular precepts are severally instanced by Christ and Moses." He argues also more justly, when he says " that every thing in the Decalogue is not obligatory on Christians," though he is unfortunate in the first instance which he produces, '' that the having or making of images, though it be for- bidden to the Jews in the second commandment, yet it is not unlawful to Christians ^ Of this I have said enough D = Vol. xiii. p. Wbb. * P. :iG9. 280 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.U. already ; and will here only observe, that it is strange that any man should hold such an interpretation of the com- mandment in question, who, at the same time, in order to prove it not obligatory on Christians, has instanced the golden lions of Solomon. Solomon, surely, was a Jew : he was also a very conspicuous person, and one whose faults are related in Scripture with due severity. If, then, he used such ornaments unblamed, it is plain, from this instance, as well as from Caesar's image on the Jewish coin", that the second commandment was interpreted by them, as by the generality of Protestants, to forbid idolatry only. His observations on idolatry, however and on the griev- ous presumption of picturing God, are excellent and, I think, unanswerable. His opinion of the Sabbath and the Lord's day I have already had occasion to mention. In the third chapter of the second book, which treats of the " interpretation and obligation of the laws of Christ," though there is much which is curious and valuable, there are few things which call for particular notice. Much of it, indeed, is more historical and controversial than casuistical, and refers to the great disputes which have always agitated the Christian commonwealth since the period of the reformation. On these Taylor thought with all Protestants ; and an abundant store of weapons may be drawn from his armoury, for the future battles of the church. The maxims which strike me as most generally applicable, and, at the same time, most characteristic of their author, are, 1 . that " all acts of virtue are to be pre- ferred before the instruments of it, and that which exercises it before that which signifies it^." 2. The difference be- tween positive and negative laws, that, namely, when any thing is commanded, the means of doing it are left to our choice ; but, when any thing is forbidden, " all those things also, by which we come to that sin, are understood to be forbidden by the same law '.'' " Every temptation," he observes, " is then certainly e " The opinion, that the Jews admitted in no case the introduction of images, is ungrounded." Michaelis, Introd. to N. Test. Marsh, vol. i. p. 57. ^ P. 408. * Vol. xiii. p. 0. i LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 281 to be reckoned as a sin, when it is procured by our own act, whether the temptation ministers to the sin directly or accidentally;" — '' and although the usual effect does not follow the instrument. For there is sometimes a fantastic pleasure in the remembrance of sin, in the approaches of it, of our addresses to it ; and there are some men who dare not act the foul crime, who yet love to look on its fair face ; and they drive out sin as Abraham did Ishmael, with an unwilling willingness, (God knows:") — " and they look after it, and are pleased with the stories of it, and love to see the place of its acting." — " Now, they that go but thus far, and love to tempt themselves by walking on the side of the river," — '' they have given demonstration of their love of sin when they make so much of its proxy." " But there are others, who have great experience of the vanity of all sin, and the emptiness and dissatisfaction that is in its fruition ; and know [that] as soon as ever they have enjoyed it, it is gone, and that there is more pleasure in the expectation than in the possession ; and therefore they had rather go towards it than arrive thither, and love the tempt- ation better than the sin. These men sin with an excellent philosophy and wittiness of sinning; they love to woo always, and not to enjoy, ever to be hungry and sitting down to dinner, but are afraid to have their desires filled. But, if we consider what the secret of it is, and that there is in these men an immense love to sin, and a perfect adhesion to the pleasure of it, and that they refuse to enter lest they should quickly pass through : and they are unwilling to taste it, lest they should eat no more ; and would not enjoy, because they will not be weary of it ; and will deny any thing to themselves, even that which they most love, lest, for a while, they should loathe their beloved sin, — we shall see reason enough to affirm these men to be the great- est breakers of the laws of Jesus Christ : though they only tempt themselves, and handle the instruments of sin ; and, although these instruments serve nothing but the tempta- tion, and the temptation does not serve the sin, whither in its own nature it is designed •"." At page 128 of this volume, he betrays what I should '' Vol. xiii. pp. 0, f). 282 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. hardly have expected from him, an ignorance of a legend very generally known, and which is the oldest and most curious of all religious novels, — I mean, the "Acts of Paul and Thecla ; " which he supposes, without any sufficient reason, to have been originally circulated as the work of St. Paul himself, and which he calls (I know not why,) " the vision of Paul and Thecla/' The work, in fact, could never have been pretended to be St. Paul's writing, without ascrib- ing to the apostle an incredible degree of vanity, both per- sonal and theological. Jerome, indeed, does not say that the Asiatic presbyter, who was its author, wished to father it on the saint as his own composition, but that he was de- graded by St. John for having, though with a good intent, circulated an untrue history concerning an apostle. Nor has the history, as it has descended to our time, (whatever might have been the case with Jerome's copy,) any mention " baptizati Leonis ^" Here again he resumes, and resumes with admirable power, and without intermixture of doubtful or extraneous matter, his favourite topic of secure and immediate repent- ance. He quotes St. Eucherius, saying, " Propound to yourself the example of the thief on the cross, — do as he did." — ** Yes," proceeds Taylor, " w^e are too ready to do so, that is, to defer our repentance to the last, being encou- raged by his example and success ! — No ! w^e do not as he did ! — He did not defer his repentance and his faith unto the last ; but, in the very first hour in which he knew Christ, in that veiy instant he did believe, and was really converted. He confessed Christ gloriously, and repented of his sins without hypocrisy; and, if we do so too, this question is at an end, and our repentance shall never be reproved "^." He concludes this second book with a splendid perora- tion on the measures and motives of a Christian's duty, ex- horting him to do all his works *' in faith and in love, in faith to make them accepted, though they be imperfect ; in love, to make them as perfect as they can be." — " He that loves, will think every thing too little ; and he that thinks so, will endeavour to do more, and to do it better." — ** In the measures of the practice of this rule there is no difficulty. See Grabe, Spicilegium Patrum, vol. i. p. 81, et seq. '" P. 194. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 283 but what is made by the careless Hves of Christians, and their lazy and unholy principles. At the rate as Christians usually do live, it is hard to know how, and in what in- stances, and in what degrees, our obedience ought to be more humble and more diligent than that of Moses's dis- ciples. But they that love, will do the thing, and so under- stand the rule, ' Obedite et intelligetis : ' Obey, and ye shall understand "." In the first chapter of the third book, wliich treats of Human Laws and their obligation, — a case occurs, in illus- tration of Rule IV. that " a law founded on a false presump- tion does not bind the conscience," in which the Romish canonists seem to have given a more just decision than Taylor. Biretti, a Venetian gentleman, pretends a desire to marry Julia Medici, the daughter of a neighbour, with a purpose to seduce and desert her. A contract is made ; but, before its execution, he gains his end, and leaving her, mar- ries another. The canonists declare the former contract, followed by congress, to be a marriage, and that he is bound to return to Julia. No, says Taylor, *' if he did not lie with her 'afFectu maritaU,'" — ** he was extremely impious and un- just; but he made no marriage ; for ivithout mutual consent, marriages are not made." Surely mutual consent is expressed by a public contract, as plainly as by any indication of a man's will that can be conceived. And, if Biretti were a hypocrite, it can be no reason why he should be free from the obligation implied by his own deliberate action ! I cannot account for the obliquity of this verdict, but I could not pass it over lest my silence should seem like appro- bation. The second chapter examines the power of princes to enact penal and tributary laws, and the obligation wliich rests on their subjects to obey such laws, in which he dis- cusses the lawfulness or obligation of resisting a legal sen- tence ; of prison-breaking ; of self-chastisement ; and of suicide. The first he admits of when the sentence is palpa- bly unjust, and pronounced by an usurped authority. The second, in all cases where life or limbs are to be preserved ; tlie third he confines to certain ecclesiastical cases ; and the " P. 22y. 284 fourth he condemns in all, even when perpetrated by a virgin to save herself from pollution. Yet of such instances of self-murder he speaks with a sort of respectful pity, observing that he only knows that the fact is unlawful. " But how they shall fare in the other world, who, upon such great accounts, are tempted, is one of God's secrets which the great day will manifest °." In the same chapter is an injudicious. attempt to justify the supposed fraud of the children of Israel, in borrowing- jewels of the Egyptians, without any intention of restoring them. He justifies the action by saying, that God com- manded the Israelites so to spoil their enemies. But this is only removing the imputation from the Israelites to the Almighty ; and though the Almighty may dispose of the property of his creatures as he pleases, it is not to be sup- posed that he would command any set of men to obtain their neighbour's goods by fraud. The true answer seems to be that which is given by Michaelis; that though God knew that the Israelites would not return; and though he had communicated a share of his own prescience to Moses, yet the Israelites in general, as they had only asked for a short holiday from their toil, so they never expected or intended more, till the Egyptians, by thrusting them out of the land first, and afterwards by pursuing them with hostile intentions, had deprived themselves of all claim to whatever property they had previously intrusted to them p. He has mis-stated the story in ancient Spanish history, of the princes of Lara or Carion, and the daughters of the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar'^. The princes fought, not one with ano- ther, but both of them against two of the kindred of the Cid, and were beaten, as they well deserved. This is, how- ever, a trifle, and the wonder is, rather, that in so multifarious reading, and amid references to all writers and languages, his facts are so generally accurate. In discussing Laws of Tribute, though, when just, he allows them to be binding on the conscience of the subject, and to oblige him not only to a passive but an active obe- • P. 346. !• Michaelis, Law of Moses, translated by Smith, art. dxxix. vol. iii. p. 44, et seq. 'i P. 3f)8. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 285 dience, he stoutly inveighs against the oppression frequently practised by sovereigns and senates. But, when he arrives at the question of obedience to kings, princes, and supreme civil powers, his doctrines are, as might be expected from a suffering loyalist of Charles the First's day, sufficiently devoted and unqualified. He assigns a greater degree of sacredness to kingly than any other government; he mis- represents the monarchy of Israel, which was, in fact, the most limited, except the Lacedaemonian, of any on record in ancient history ; and he not only believes the legend of the martyred Thebaean legion, but insists, with much apparent exultation, on such an illustrious example of non-resistance. His arguments are, however, more to the purpose, when, following on the same side with Hooker, he justifies the power of the civil sovereign over persons and in causes ecclesiastical. They are directed both against the Roman Catholics and the Presbyterians ; and, as well as the following chapter on church censures and canons, breathe throughout a moderate and Christian spirit, and are well calculated to place in their true light those ecclesiastical powers, whose thunders sound so formidably in the Church of Rome, and against which, even in Protestant churches, many of the laity are strongly prejudiced, from a misconception of their limits, of their fitness, and their necessity. And I cannot help again observing, that here also he speaks as strongly as ever against the interference of the civil sword in matters of religion. " This power," — he is speaking of the commission given by Christ to his apostles and their successors, — " this power and these commissions were wholly ministerial, without domi- nation, without proper jurisdiction, that is, without coaction ; it being wholly agahist the desig?i of the religion that it should be forced, and it being far removed from persons so disposed, so employed, so instructed, to do it." ** And, therefore, one of the requisites of a bishop is — ' he must be no striker :' — he had no arms put into his hand for that purpose ; the ecclesiastical state being furnished with authority, but no power, * auctoritate suadendi magis quam jubendi potestate.' — That which the ecclesiastics can do [in the case of church censures,] is a suspension of their own act, not any power over the actions of other men : and, therefore, is but an use 286 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. of their own liberty, not an exercise of jurisdiction. He does the same thing in sacraments as he does in preaching ; in both he declares the guilty person to be out of the way to heaven, to be obnoxious to the divine anger, to be a debtor of repentance : and in refusing to baptize an evil catechumen, or to communicate an ill-living Christian, he does but say the same thing. He speaks in one by signs, and in the other, he signifies by words." " This is * judicium,' not * jurisdictio,' a judging a man worthy or unworthy; w^hich does not suppose a superiority of jurisdiction, but equals do it to their equals ; though, in this, the clergy hath a supe- riority and a commission from God to do it'.'' Even of this moderate and natural right he condemns the public exercise, in the case of sovereign princes, who, as it is obviously unfit to subject them to open reproof or penance ; so, when private reproof and private warnings and entreaties have failed, they may, as he conceives, be admitted, if they command it, to the communion ^ This is, indeed, a difficult question, and one which is not likely to be a practical one. A wicked prince is not very often a hypocrite, and unless he be a hypocrite, it is not probable that he will force himself on rites for which he does not care. There is more courage and dignity in the conduct of St. Ambrose towards Theodosius ; there is less danger to the public peace, and an almost equal certainty of obtaining the desired end, in the course recommended by Taylor. The latter, however, makes another admission, which, if his life had been prolonged a few more years, might have involved him in a very serious difficulty of conscience, and would have divided him, if he had acted on it, from all the best and wisest of his ow^n order and religion. "' The un- lawful proclamations and edicts of a true prince may be published by the clergy in their several charges * !" I wish I had not found this in Taylor ; and I thank heaven that this principle was not adopted by the English clergy in 1687. Yet for Taylor many allowances may be made, and many excuses offered for this and the other ultra-monarchical features of his creed. Accustomed as he was to see and feel all the tyranny which then plagued the land, from those ' P. 562. =* p. 598. * Ibid. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 287 who, under the colour of freedom, had disturbed and en- slaved their country, it was hardly to be expected that his attention could be equally alive to the possibility of the same evils occurring under a legitimate sovereign. And, above all, let it be remembered, that his inclination for absolute monarchy, if it were unwise, was, at least, not interested or servile; that if he carried too high the power of a lawful king, it was when that lawful king was in exile. The " Ductor Dubitantium," though published at the moment of the Restoration, was written and printed while no such event could be looked for, and when all that could be gained by an unlimited loyalty, was the suspicion or persecution of the ruling powers ; imprisonment, fine, and aggravated indigence. In examining the different institutions which are usually deduced from apostolical authority, he lays down as a general rule, though one, he admits, which can be very seldom applicable to practice, and which, without some cogent reason, it would be the height of presumption to put in force, that institutions merely of apostolical tradition, and relating to things in themselves indifferent, may be, by the authority of the church, in after times, dispensed with. This liberty, however, he will not concede in the instances of the Lord's day, of the manner of administering the sacraments, or of episcopacy. The first he excepts not only on account of the fitness of the day itself, but because no other day can be preferred without a causeless neglect of apostohc autho- rity ; the others because they relate to the ministries of grace, which can only, under ordinary circumstances, be obtained or hoped for, when sought after in the appointed manner. To the forty days' Lent, he refuses the character of an apostolical institution. He shows, in fact, with great learn- ing, and very convincingly, that the primitive Lent was not of forty daya, but of forty hours, being confined to the Friday and Saturday immediately preceding Easter". To the weekly fasts of Wednesday and Friday he assigns, however, a much greater antiquity, both being named by Clemens Alexan- drinus, and Tertullian ; though neither can, on competent grounds, be ascribed to any commandment of the apostles. " Vol. xiv. p. 40. 288 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D. D. From some expressions in Rule xv. p. 28, it is evident that he regretted, as Wesley afterwards did, the discon- tinuance of the ancient practice of baptizing by immersion, and even of dipping three times in honour of the Trinity. Like Wesley, he condemns the practice of sprinkling altoge- ther, as contrary both to the analogy of the ceremony, the apostolic tradition, and the canons of the English and Irish church. How, in our climate, and with the contrary preju- dices of the people, he would have settled his dispute with mothers and nurses, it is not very difficult to conjecture. The number of those neophytes who would be certified " well able to endure immersion," would, probably, be very limited. Fond as he appears, from many passages in his writings, of chanting and psalmody, it may be suspected that he had no ear for music. It is singular to compare the reluctant permission which he gives to the use of organs in church, with the glow of feeling which their majestic tones excited in the breast of Milton "". The Romish prohibition of marriage, and the sacred authority assigned by their canonists to the decrees of general councils, he exposes with nearly the same arguments, and an equal show of learning, as we have already seen him producing on the same topics in his two " Dissuasives from Popery." He closes the fourth chapter with a discussion of the case of subscription to ecclesiastical articles and forms of confession ; which, he insists with becoming strictness, can only be done, in the instance of the English church, by those who sign in the sense of the imposers of the law, and who sincerely approve of that to which they thus express their consent. On the inexpediency of such subscriptions, *' to any articles which are not evidenthj true and necessary to be professed," he expresses the same opinions which he had previously urged in his *' Liberty of Prophesying." ^ — Opinions they are so amiable in themselves, and proceeding frOm a spirit so enlarged and so thoroughly Christian, that our respect for the man is increased by them, even when we are not convinced by his arguments. Yet, it may be * Page 115. Compare '' II Penseroso/' LIFK. OF JEllKMV TAVJ^OH, D.D. 289 thought, as I have aheady endeavoured to show, that a sub- scription, which would admit the Papist, the Protestant, the Arian, and the Anabaptist within the walls of the same esta- blishment, would, in fact, be equivalent to no subscription at all; and that, though meninay, beyond a doubt, be saved by the profession of the apostles' creed alone, yet of those who are to teach others, some further examination may well be accounted necessary. After all, Taylor's strongest argu- ments, both here and in the *' Liberty of Prophesying," apply less to such confessions in themselves than to the abuses to which they are liable; and, while the supporters of every confession will plead *' that it contains, in their opinion, no uncertain or unnecessary articles," no Christian, that is worthy of the name, will deny what Taylor, in the next place, contends for, " that great regard be had, and great ease be done to wise and peaceable dissenters^." His observations on parental authority, and on the " Interpretation, Diminution and Abrogation of Human Laws," conclude this part of his subject. The former, is, perhaps, overlaid with too much unne- cessary learning, and with obsolete precedents of the power exercised by fathers in the ruder ages of society; and, in the instance of marriage, he gives to parents a control too absolute over their children. The latter contains some maxims of great truth and practical utility, as where he tells us, " There are some tacit exceptions in all laws that would not be tyrannical." Again, " When the reason of a law, commanding an action otherwise indifferent, does cease universally, the very nega- tive ceasing, passes into the contrary of itself." — "The subject may still do it without sin, but the prince cannot, without sin, command it to be done, when it is to no purpose." This rule, which Taylor applies to the trifling and absurd trials of obedience, which some of the modern Romish saints imposed on the monks in their convents, will apply equally to all cases of obsolete and vexatious regulation, such as, for the very love of authority, are sometimes too dear to men in power. There is one passage, however, in this chapter, which -^ Vol. xiv. page l(i.'5. U 290 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.I>. must not be allowed to escape without strong and unqua- lified reprobation. I mean the manner in which he coolly instances, and, in some degree, even justifies, that horrible law of the Roman republic, which decreed that, if any single slave had killed his lord, all the slaves in the house should die for if". Had Taylor considered twice, he could not have thus expressed himself. But of such hideous cruelty and injustice, our detestation ought to be instinctive and immediate. The fourth and last book, which discusses " the nature and causes of all human actions, good and evil," is, perhaps, the ablest part of the work, as it is certainly the most gene- rally and practically useful. It is divided into two chapters of very unequal length, of which the first treats of efficient, the other of final causes. The former is an illustration and expansion of the prin- ciple, that the will of man is the seat of good and evil ; and that actions are either good or evil according to the in- tention of the agent. He proves, however, not only that an act of the will alone is imputed, both by God and man, to good or evil; but that a virtual and interpretative consent of the will may make us sharers in the action of another ; while the involuntary consequences of a voluntary action are imputed to us as parts of that action, and as if themselves directly chosen. All these propositions, however, he guards with many distinctions ; and introduces many interesting discussions on the legality of different actions or habits connected with, or illustrative of his principles. Thus, in his discussion of the rule, that " the virtual and interpretative consent of the will is imputed to good or evil,'' besides some curious cases of " ratihabitation and confirmation," he enters into two different inquiries, as to the lawfulness of indulging a guest with an excess of wine, ourselves remaining sober ; and whether it be lawful to play at cards or dice ? The first, as may be believed, he answers with an indig- nant negative. The second he treats more tenderly, though '- Page 2aC. LIFE OF JERKMY TAYLOR, D.D. 291 he, nevertheless, incHnes to the opinion tliat all playing for money is dangerous, if not unlawful. As diminutions of voluntary actions, he reckons ignorance and fear, of which the first, when total and inevitable, he accounts a perfect annihilation of moral good or evil, the second only in those cases where the understanding is over- powered by the intensity of the danger. Under the first head, he inquires w^hat those things are of which a man may be innocently ignorant ? what degree of dihgence is required to exempt us from the charge of wilful or presumptuous ignorance ? what is a probable ignorance ? &c. He refuses the name of innocent ignorance to those professed Christians, who know not that which the universal church accounts necessary for salvation, though, of disputed points, he allows a man to doubt or to be ignorant with impunity. And he incidentally discusses the responsibility of children, at what time and according to what measures good or evil can be first imputed to them. Here, also, there are some expressions and illustrations which a reader of delicacy will wish away ; but the whole work, it may be considered, is scarcely such as females, or very young persons, w^ould study ; and it is, after all, perhaps, a curse inseparable from works of casuistry, that questions of a certain kind are always more or less involved in them. On the final causes of human actions, (his chapter con- cerning which is, in fact, an amplification of the principle that " Christianity is a religion of motives,") his rules are only three: — 1. That, to constitute a good action, the means and end must be symbolical. 2. That for actions in them- selves lawful, secondary motives are allowable. 3. That we are bound to regard the end and object of God's command- ments, as well as the action commanded in order to the end. All these he inculcates with his usual force and elo- quence, but they ofl'er nothing which calls for any peculiar comment. He concludes with observing, that, " if our actions be designed well, they are likely to end well ; for, in the service of God, a golden head shall never have the feet of clay. Nomini tuo da gloriam* !" ^ Pago 414. 292 LIFE OF .IKREMY TAYLOR, D.D. Many, perhaps the greater part, of his positions are illustrated by examples or by apologues; the former chiefly extracted from the volumes of the Roman casuists, the latter, sometimes, as he tells us in his preface, containing real facts, and cases of conscience which had fallen under his own knowledge, conveyed under fictitious names and circumstances. Among the first of these, is the famous story which Walpolc has worked up into his tragedy of the " Mysterious Mother;" the scene of which has been often laid in England, and the time a little anterior to the Kevolution, but which Taylor relates as a Venetian anecdote, to be found in the writings of Comitolus''. He uses it to illustrate the position that, '' if an error be invincible, and the consequent of the persuasion be consistent with the state of grace, the error must rather be suffered than a grievous scandal, or an intolerable, or very great inconvenience." And he approves of the conduct of those learned and charitable casuists, who, in that case, determined to conceal from the young married couple, the dreadful and complicated incest of which, by that union, they were innocently guilty. It is not, however, from casuists or divines that he quotes alone. Historians, fathers, rabbies, poets, essayists, and jesters, are all ransacked for examples or illustrations, and he has given us one tale, not over decent, from, as he whimsically calls him, " My Lord Montaigne," as well as the celebrated story from the Facetiae of Poggio, of the Italian robber, who, though his conscience was at rest as to the murders he had committed, was inconsolable for having accidentally broken his fast in Lenf". On the whole, the " Ductor Dubitantium" is the work of a mind acute, vigorous, and imbued with an extent and variety of information which would have overburdened a meaner intellect, and by which Taylor himself is, perhaps, some- times encumbered rather than adorned. A mind it is essentially poetical rather than critical, ardent in conception more than lucid in arrangement. Yet his conceptions in themselves are almost always clear, though he overlays them not unfrequently with a profusion of words and metaphors, '^ Vol. xii. p. 30. ' Vol. x>i. p. 21 ; xiii. p. 218. LIFE OF JKKEMY TAYi:01i, l>.n. 29''i and tliougli he is apt to derive his first principles I'roiu springs of action in themselves circumstantial and secon- dary. But, though it offers, in some respects, a less profound and original view of human motives than is to be met with in later writers ; though its length renders it less readable, and the author's anxiety to say every thing on both sides of every question may leave a careless reader sometimes in suspense as to his final determination ; it is still a work which few can read without profit, and none, I think, without entertainment. It resembles, in some degree, those ancient inlaid cabinets, (such as Evelyn, Boyle, or Wilkins might have bequeathed to their descendants,) whose multifarious contents perplex our choice, and offer to the admiration or curiosity of a more accurate age, a vast wilderness of trifles and varieties, with no arranpement at all, or an arranoement on obsolete principles ; but whose ebony drawers and per- fumed recesses contain specimens of eveiy thing that is precious or uncommon, and many things for which a modern museum mig-ht be searched in vain. On the two works which conclude the fourteenth volume of this collection, I know not that many observations are necessary. " The Divine Institution and Necessity of the Office Ministerial," enforces the same doctrines, and by nearly the same arguments, as have been already considered in speaking of his '* Episcopacy Asserted." The application, however, of those principles is, in this place, more general, and levelled rather at those fanatics, who, without any ordi- nation, intrude on the ministerial office, than against those who reject the apostolic form of ecclesiastical government in favour of an aristocracy of presbyters. As such, it is, perhaps, better adapted to the evils of the present time than the work which I have formerly examined. On the diificult question of lay-ba])tism, which naturally arises from his present subject, he expresses himself with a becoming doubt and moderation. The tendency of his mind is very plainly to the high-church doctrine, not only that the practice is illegal and presumptuous, but that the rite thus administered is invalid, and ought to be repeated. He admits, however, that the general practice of all Christian churches has been different, and he joins with Augustine 294 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. in expressing his own hesitation, " Nescio an pic repe- tendum'^." Those who wish to see the difficulty discussed at greater length, or to learn what has been the practical decision of the Church of England on this interesting inquiry, will find much curious learning and much sound sense in Bingham's *' Scholastic History of Lay Baptism," (published in the second volume of his Ecclesiastical Antiquities,) and in the excellent " Elucidation of the Common Prayer,'' by the late learned and amiable Mr. Shepherd*". In his ** Essay on Confirmation," it is remarkable that Taylor himself has varied from his severer opinion, and assents, apparently, to the usual and ancient principle of ** Fieri non debuit, factum valet ^." His " Rules and Advices to the Clergy" are, in a great degree, extracted from his two Sermons already noticed on ** The Minister's Duty in Life and Doctrine^." They are methodized, however, and, in some instances, enlarged and rendered more practical. They can hardly be read too often, or, with the necessary allowance for some difference of cir- cumstances between Ireland and England, and between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century, be too carefully or too closely followed. The ** Golden Grove" begins with a short and simple catechism for young persons, but neither so short, so simple, nor so complete, as that which our liturgy supplies. It has the merit, however, of furnishing a more detailed explanation of some important circumstances in our religion, than a more general and complete system of instruction could contain with the necessary regard to brevity ; and may, therefore, be with advantage used in schools and families, conjointly with that of good dean Nowell. The exposition of the creed, which follows, deserves no higher praise than that of enumerating, under the different heads of the old and compendious confession, the various items which make up the sum of each. Sometimes he mistakes, like Doddridge, amplification for explanation ; and I do not know that a devout Christian gains much either of ^ Pp.444 — 452. ^ Elucidation of the Common Prayer, vol. ii. p. 415. f Vol. xiv. p. 208. s Vol. vi. p. 483. LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, J).D. 295 knowledge or edification by having the single word *' buried," decomposed into a statement wliich tells us how Christ, *' that he miglit suffer every thing of human nature, was, by the care of his friends and disciples, by the leave of Pilate, taken from the cross and embalmed, (as the manner of the Jews was to bury,) and wrapt in linen, and buried in a new grave hewn out of a rock/' &c. His com- mentaries, however, on the " Holy Ghost/' — " the Holy Catholic Church," and ** the Communion of Saints," as they are more necessary and useful, so they are executed with his usual force and doctrinal precision. His ''Agenda," too, (though, in some particulars, they are too ascetic, and calculated, it may be thought, to make men formalists rather than sincerely and actively holy,) are, generally speaking, excellent ; and his " Postulanda" better still. The " Litanies for all things and persons," only rank inferior to that in our church service ; and the other prayers, though some of them too wordy, are such as can hardly be uttered or even read without exciting a spirit of devotion. At the end of the " Golden Grove" are some hymns for different festivals, which, had they no other merit, would be interesting as the only remaining specimens of that which a mind so intrinsically poetical as Taylor's was, could effect when he attempted to arrange his conceptions in a metrical form. They are, however, in themselves, and on their own account, veiy interesting compositions. Their metre, indeed, which is that species of spurious Pindaric which was fashion- able with his contemporaries, is an obstacle, and must always have been one to their introduction into public or private psalmody ; and the mixture of that alloy of conceits and quibbles which was an equally frequent and still greater defilement of some of the finest poetry of the seventeenth century, will materially diminish their effect as devotional or descriptive odes. Yet witli all these faults, they are powerful, affecting, and often harmonious : there are many passages of which Cowley need not have been ashamed ; and some which remind us, not disadvantageously, of the corresponding productions of Milton. Such is the whole of the second " Hymn for Advent." Such, too, is the passage in his " Meditation on Heaven/' where he describes — 296 I.IKE OF JEREMY TAYLOU, D.D. " That bright eternity, Where the great King's transparent throne Is of an entire jasper stone : There the eye O' tlie chrysolite, And a sky Of diamonds, rubies, chrysoprase, And, above all, Thy holy face, IMake an eternal clarity. When Thou thy jewels dost l)ind up, that day Remember us, we pray. That, where the beryl lies. And the crystal, 'bove the skies, There Thou mayst appoint us place, Within the brightness of Thy face ; And our soul In the scroll Of life and blissfulness enroll That we may praise thee to eternity !" A more regular metre, and words more applicable to public devotion, may be found in the " Prayer for Charity." '■'' Full of mercy, full of love. Look upon us from above ! Thou who taught'st the blind man's night To entertain a double light, Thine, and the day's (and that thine too ;) The lame away his crutches threw ; The parched crust of leprosy Returned vuito its infancy ; The dumb amazed was to hear His own unchain'd tongue strike his ear : Thy powerful mercy did ee'n chase The devil from his usurped place, Where thou thyself shouldst dwell, not he. Oh, let thy love a pattern be ; Let thy mercy teach one brother To forgive and love another ; That copying thy mercy here, Thy goodness may hereafter rear Our souls unto thy glory, when Our dust shall cease to be with men ^.'"' His work on the Psalter has no resemblance to those of Hammond, Horsley, or even Home. It merely consists of one or more prayers to each psalm, more or less appropriate to their respective subjects, and followed by a collection of devotions for various occasions. All these last are not '' Pp. 64 and fll. LIFE OK JEREMY TAVLOH, 0.1). 297 original; all, however, are devout and practical, and, in the alternations of a regular and systematic piety, may be useful. His recommendation, in the preface, of the Psalter as a guide to, and foundation for, as well as an mi failing accom- paniment of, our daily prayers, is at once characteristic and sensible, and deserves the serious attention of those who have hitherto paid a less habitual deference to the most devotional and one of the most instructive parts of the sacred volume. The *' Collection of Offices," was intended as a substitute for the Common Prayer, when the use of this last was pro- scribed. As a substitute, it is, certainly, well adapted to its end, and this being the case, it is no disparagement to say, that it falls extremely short of its original. There are, how- ever, some beautiful prayers in the occasional offices, for widows, — the persecuted, — the prisoners, — the sick and the lunatic, which are admirably qualified to give comfort and relief to the broken heart, and may afford very valuable assistance to the clergy in the most popular and one of the most important of their ministries. The penitential litany, at the end of the work, is a striking summary of human crimes and follies'. The last in date, and one of the best and most useful of his devotional works, is his '' Worthy Communicant," which is, indeed, as its subject required, not only devotional but practical, and embraces in itself many of the same powerful and persuasive arguments against the self-flattery of the unrepenting sinner, and the needless terrors of the scrupulous conscience, which are detailed at greater length, and with a larger display of authorities, in the controversial and casuis- tical works which occupy the preceding volumes. This, indeed, with the " Holy Living and Dying," may be said to offer a complete summary of the duties and specimen of the devotions of a Christian ; in which, while no necessary question of practice or piety is passed over, no doubtful or merely controversial question is admitted. In the lessons which flow from this chair, in the incense which flames on this altar, the sound of worldly polemics is hushed, the light of worldly fires becomes dim. We see a saint in his closet, * Pj) .-{jn, ;{3-2. :ux :;.'><», *^r. 298 LIFE OF JEREMV TAYLOR, D.D. a Christian bishop in his ministry, and we rise from the inter- course impressed and softened with a sense how much our own practice yet needs amendment, and how mighty has been that faith of which these are the fruits, that hope of which these are the pledges and prelibations. Of the broader and more general lines of Taylor's literary character, a very few observations may be sufficient. The greatness of his attainments, and the powers of his mind, are evident in all his writings, and to the least attentive of his readers. It is hard to point out a branch of learning or of scientific pursuit to which he does not occasionally allude ; or any other of eminence, either ancient or modern, with whom he does not evince himself acquainted. And it is certain, that as very few other writers have had equal riches to display, so he is apt to display his stores with a lavish exuberance, which the severer taste of Hooker or of Barrow would have condemned as ostentatious, or rejected as cum- bersome. Yet he is far from a mere reporter of other men's arguments, — a textuary of fathers and schoolmen, — who resigns his reason into the hands of his predecessors, and who employs no other instrument for convincing his readers than a lengthened string of authorities. His familiarity with the stores of ancient and modern literature is em- ployed to illustrate more frequently than to establish his positions ; and may be traced, not so much in direct citation, (though of this, too, there is, perhaps, more than suffi- cient,) as in the abundance of his allusions, the character of his imagery, and the frequent occurrence of terms of foreign derivation, or employed in a foreign and unusual meaning. It is thus that he more than once refers to obscure stories in ancient writers, as if they were, of necessity, as familiar to all his readers as himself; that he talks of " poor Attilius Aviola," or " the Lybian lion," that *' brake loose into his wilderness, and killed two Roman boys ;" as if the accidents of which he is speaking had occurred in London a few weeks before. It is thus that, in warning an English (or a Welsh) auditory, against the brief term of mortal luxury, he enume- rates a long list of ancient dainties, and talks of '* the con- dited bellies of the scarus," and " drinking of healths by the numeral letters of Philenium's name." It is thus that one of LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOK, D.D. 299 his strangest and harshest siniihes, where he compares an ill-sorted marriage to going to-bed witli a dragon," is the suggestion of a mind familiar with those Lamicv. with female faces and extremities like a serpent, of whose enticements stran2:e stories are told in the old daemonolosfies. And thus that he speaks of the " justice'' instead of the '* juice" of fishes ; of on " excellent " pain ; of the gospel being preached, not to ** the common people," but to " idiots ;" and of " serpents" (meaning " creeping things/') devouring our bodies in the grave. It is this which gives to many of his most striking passages the air of translations, and which, in fact, may well lead us to believe that some of them are indeed the selected members of different and disjointed classics. On the other hand, few circumstances can be named which so greatly contribute to the richness of his matter, the vivacity of his style, and the harmony of his language, than those copious drafts on all which is wise, or beautiful, or extraordinary, in ancient wTiters or in foreign tongues ; and the very singularity and hazard of his phrases have not unfre- quently a peculiar charm, which the observers of a tamer and more ordinary diction can never hope to inspire. One of these archaisms, and a very graceful one, is the introduction of the comparative degree, simply and without its contrasted quantity, of which he has made a very frequent use, but which he has never employed without producing an effect of striking beauty. Thus, he tells us of " a more healthy sorrow ;" of *' the air's looser p;arment, or the wilder frinoes of the fire ;" which, though in a style purely English, they would be probably replaced by positive or superlative epithets, could hardly sutler this change without a considerable detraction from the spirit and raciness of the sentence. The same observation may apply to the use of *' prevaricate," in an active sense ; to " the temeration of ruder handlings ;" and to many similar expressions, which, if unusual, are at least expressive and sonorous, and which could hardly be replaced by the corre- sponding vernacular phrases without a loss of brevity or beauty. Of such expressions as these, it is only necessary to observe, that their use, to be effectual or allowable. 300 LIFE OF JEUEMV TAVLOH, D.D. should be more discreet, perhaps, and infrequent, than is the case in the works of Taylor. I have already noticed the familiarity which he himself displays, and which he apparently expected to find, in an almost equal degree, in his readers or hearers, with the facts of history, the opinions of philosophy, the productions of distant climates, and the customs of distant nations. Nor, in the allusions or examples which he extracts from such sources, is he always attentive to the weight of authority, or the probability of the fact alleged. The age, mdeed, in which he lived, was, in many respects, a credulous one. The discoveries which had been made by the enterprise of travellers, and the unskilful, and as yet immature efforts of the new philosophy, had extended the knowledge of man- kind just far enough to make them know that much yet remained uncertain, and that many things were true which their fathers had held for impossible. Such absence of scepticism is, of all states of the human mind, most favour- able to the increase of knowledge ; but for the preservation of truths already acquired, and the needful separation of truth from falsehood, it is necessary to receive the testimony of men, however positive, with more of doubt than Boyle, Wilkins, or even Bacon, appear to have been accustomed to exercise. But Taylor was any thing rather than a critical inquirer into facts (however strange) of history or philosophy. If such alleged facts suited his purpose, he received them with- out examination, and retailed them without scruple ; and we therefore read, in his works, of such doubtful or incredible examples as that of a single city containing fifteen millions of inhabitants ; of the Neapolitan manna, which failed as soon as it was subjected to a tax ; and of the monument " nine furlongs high," which was erected by Ninus, the Assyrian. Nor, in his illustrations, even where they refer to matters of daily observation, or of undoubted truth, is he always attentive to accuracy. " When men sell a mule," he tells us, '' they speak of the horse that begat him, not of the ass that bore him." It is singular, that he should forget that, of mules, the ass is always the father. What follows LIFE OK JEREMY I' AY LOU, D.I). 301 is still more extraordinary, inasmucli as it shows a forget- fulness of the circumstances of two of the most ilhistrious events in the Old Testament. " We should fight," says he, '* as Gideon did, with three hundred hardy brave fellows that would stand against all violence, rather than to make a noise with ram's horns and broken pitchers, like the men at the siege of Jericho." Had he thought twice, he must have recollected that ** making a noise" was at least one principal part of the service required from Gideon's troops, and that the " broken pitchers" were their property alone, and a circumstance of w^hich the narrative of the sie2:e of CI Jericho affords not the least mention. An occasional occurrence of such errors is indeed un- avoidable ; and, irrelevant as some of his illustrations are, and uncertain as may be the truth of others, there is none, per- haps, of his readers who would wish those illustrations fewer, to which his w^orks owe so much of their force, their impressiveness, and their entertainment. As a reasoner, I do not think him matchless. He is, indeed, always acute, and, in practical questions, almost always sensible. His knowledge was so vast, that on every point of discussion he set out with great advantage, as being familiar with all the necessary preliminaries of the question, and with every ground or argument which had been elicited on either side by former controversies. But his ow^n understanding was rather inventive than critical. He never failed to find a plausible argument for any opinion which he himself enter- tained ; he was as ready with plausible objections to every argument which might be advanced by his adversaries ; and he was completely master of the whole detail of con- troversial attack and defence, and of every weapon of elo- quence, irony, or sarcasm, which was most proper to per- suade or to silence. But his own views were sometimes indistinct, and often hasty. His opinions, therefore, though always honest and ardent, he had sometimes occasion, in the course of his life, to change ; and instances have been already pointed out, not only where his reasoning is inconclusive, but where positions, ardently maintained in some of his writings, are doubted or denied in others. But, it shoidd be remembered how much he wrote during a life in itself not lono-. and, in its rircumslanccs, bv no means 302 LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. favourable to accurate research or calm reasoning. Nor can it be a subject of surprise, that a poor and oppressed man should be sometimes hurried too far in opposition to his persecutors, or that one who had so little leisure for the correction of his works should occasionally be found to contradict and repeat himself. I have already had occasion to point out the versatility of his talents, which, though uniformly exerted on subjects appropriate to his profession, are distinguished, where such weapons are needed, by irony and caustic humour, as well as by those milder and sublimer beauties of style and sentiment which are his more familiar and distinguishing character- istics. Yet to such weapons he has never recourse either w^antonly or rashly. Nor do I recollect any instance in which he has employed them in the cause of private or personal, or even polemical hostility, or any occasion where their fullest severity was not justified and called for by crimes, by cruelty, by interested superstition, or base and sordid hypocrisy. His satire was always kept in check by the depth and fervour of his religious feelings, his charity, and his humility. It is on devotional and moral subjects, however, that the peculiar character of his mind is most, and most successfully, developed. To this service he devotes his most glowing lan- guage ; to this his aptest illustrations : his thoughts, and his words, at once burst into a flame, when touched by the coals of this altar; and whether he describes the duties, or dangers, or hopes of man, or the mercy, power, and justice of the Most High ; whether he exhorts or instructs his brethren, or offers up his supplications in their behalf to the common Father of all, — -his conceptions and his ex- pressions belong to the loftiest and most sacred description of poetry, of which they only want, what they cannot be said to need, the name and the metrical arrangement. It is this distinctive excellence, still more than the other qualifications of learning and logical acuteness, which has placed him, even in that age of gigantic talent, on an emi- nence superior to any of his immediate contemporaries ; which has exempted him from the comparative neglect into which the dry and repulsive learning of Andrews and San- derson has fallen; — which has Icit behind the acuteness LIFE OF JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. 303 of Hales, and the imaginative and copious eloquence of Bishop Hall, at a distance hardly less than the cold ele- gance of Clark, and the dull good sense of Tillotson ; and has seated him, by the almost unanimous estimate of poste- rity, on the same lofty elevation with Hooker and with Barrow. Of such a triumvirate, who shall settle the precedence? Yet it may, perhaps, be not far from the truth to observe, that Hooker claims the foremost rank in sustained and clas- sic dignity of style, in political and pragmatical wisdom ; that to Barrow the praise must be assigned of the closest and clearest views, and of a taste the most controlled and chastened ; but that in imagination, in interest, in that which more properly and exclusively deserves the name of genius, Taylor is to be placed before either. The first awes most, the second convinces most, the third persuades and dehghts most : and, (according to the decision of one whose own rank among the ornaments of English literature yet remains to be determined by posterity,) Hooker is the object of our reverence, Barrow of our admiration, and Jeremy Taylor of our love *". * 'ilx'/ioav JU.SV ffiZ'jj Cc(,vfjt.uZ.cJti Bccppovsv, xat (piXZ TcciXu^ov. — I^ote to Parvus Spital Sermon. — This characteristic and powerful isentcnce has heea ah'eady noticed by Archdeacon Bouney. NOTES. NOTE (A). Mr. Bonney supposes him to have been their second son ; but I am indebted to the kindness of my friend and connexion, Mr. Julius Hare, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for the following list, extracted from the parish register, which makes it apparent that he had two elder brothers, and one eld^ sister. There are other persons of the same name mentioned in the register, but none whom we have any reason to suppose connected with the bishop's family. Nor is it quite certain that the surname of Nathaniel Taylor's wife is correctly spelled, the writing in the register being very indistinct. As their first son was named Edmond, it is probable that the Edmond Taylor entered as churchwarden, was Nathaniel's father or near relation. '' 1589. Edmond Taylor, churchwarden. 1605. Nathaniel Taylor and Mary Dean, married the 13th of October. 1606. Edmond Taylor, churchwarden. Edmond, son of Nathaniel and Mary Taylor, bapt. August 3. 1607. Edmond Taylor, buried 22d September. 1609. Mary Taylor, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 11th June. 1611. Nathaniel Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 8 December. 1613. Jeremy Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 15 August. 1616. Thomas Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 21 July. 1919. John Taylor, son of Nathaniel and Mary, bapt. 13 April. 1621. Churchwardens, Tobias Smith and Nr.thaniel Taylor," 30G NOTES. There are two old houses in Cambridge, which tradition points out as claimants for the honour of having been the place of Taylor's birth. The preference seems to rest with that which is now the Bull Inn, opposite Trinity Church. The rival tenement, known by the sign of the Wrestlers, in the Petty Cury, is, as I am assured, beyond the limits of the parish where Jeremy Taylor and his brothers were baptized, where his parents were married, and where his father, as above stated, served the office of churchwarden. NOTE (B). The arms are '' Ermine, on a chief indented sable, three escallops, or; the crest a lion rampant, issuant, ermine, having between his paws a ducal coronet, or." I find in Gwyllim's Heraldry, p. 244, (a book so full of odd information and entertainment of a peculiar kind, as almost to justify the predilection of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldiston,) that *' this coat was confirmed to Roger Taylor, son of Thomas Taylor, son of Roger Taylor, of London, Esquire, by Sir William Segar, Garter, December 4, 1674, in the 12th year of King James the First." But my inquiries at the heralds' office have not succeeded in tracing any connection between this family, and that either of the bishop, or Doctor Rowland Taylor. NOTE (C). The account of Rowland Taylor's character and suffer- ings may be found in the Book of Martyrs, p. 155, ed. 1752, and in Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. ii. p. 483. The spot where he suffered on Aldham Common was distinguished, in after times, by a rude stone with a ruder inscription : — "■ Doctor Taylor, for defending what was good, In this place shed his blood." This was enclosed with iron rails by David Wilkins, D.D., rector ofHadleigh in 1721 — (See Niciioll's Illustrations of Literary History, vol. iii. p. 436.) In 1819, a neat obelisk was erected above it by subscription, with the following NOTES. 307 spirited lines from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Hay Drum- mond. "• Tills is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." *' Mark this rude stone, where Taylor dauntless stooJ, "^lliere zeal inftiriate drank the martyr's blood ! Hadleip:li ! that day liow many a tearful eye Saw thy loved Pastor drag:i>'d a victim Ity ! Still scattering gifts and blessings as he past. To the blind pair his farewell alms were cast. His clinging Hock ev'n here around him i)ray'd, * As thou hast aided us, be God thine aid !' Nor taunts, nor bribe of mitred rank, nor stake, Nor blows, nor flames, his heart of firmness shake ; Serene, his folded hands, his upward eyes. Like holy Stephen's, seek the opening skies : — There, fix'd in rapture, his prophetic sight Views truth dawn clear on England's bigot night. Triimiphant Saint ! he boAv'd to kiss the rod ; Then soar'd on senpli wing to meet his God !" NOTE (D). In the note of Jeremy Taylor's admission at Cains College, (see Bonney, p. 3, 4, note,) his tutor, Bachcroft, represents him as fifteen years of age, and as having been, for ten years, under the tuition of Mr. Lovering. But, in 1626, the year of his entrance, he cannot have been more than thirteen, and he is represented as no more by his friend and encomiast Bishop Rust. It is probable, therefore, that his parents, in order to facilitate his becoming a member of the university, represented him as older than he really was, and as having attended school longer than he could have done with any advantage. Hence, however, a degree of uncer- tainty has attached itself to his age ; and Sir James Ware, in the Catalogue of Irish Bishops, has supposed him, at the time of his death, to have been two years older than he really can have been. NOTE (E). In the '* Pietas Puerilis " of Erasmus, the young scholar is made to say, " Adornata parentibus mensa, recito conse- crationem, deinde, prandentibu,s ministro, donee jubeor et ipse prandium sumere." 308 NOTES. NOTE (F). The archbishop's letter of recommendation is as follows: It has been already published by my friend Mr. BHss, in his excellent edition of the Athenae Oxonienses, art. Taylor, p. 782, vol. iii., from Tanner's MSS. in the Bodleian. A copy, also, corresponding exactly with this, is in the archives of All Souls. *' To the Warden and Fellows of All-Souls Coll., Oxford. Sain tern in Christ o. " These are on the behalf of an honest man and a good scholar : Mr. O shorn, being to give over his fellowship, was with me at Lambeth, and, I thank him, freely proffered me the nomination of a scholar to succeed in his place. Now, having seriously deliberated with myself touching this business, and being willing to recommend such an one to you as you might thank me for, I am resolved to pitch upon Mr. Jeremiah Taylour, of whose abilitys and sufficiencys every ways I have received very good assurance. And I do hereby heartily pray you to give him all further- ance by yourself and the fellows at the next election, not doubting but that he will approve himself a worthy and learned member of your society. And, though he has had his breeding, for the most part, in the other university, yet I hope that shall be no prejudice to him, in regard that he is in- corporated into Oxford, (ut sit eodem ordine, gradu. See.,) and admitted into University College. Neither can I learn that there is any thing in your local statutes against it. I doubt not but you will use him with so fair respects, as befits a man of his rank and learning, for which I shall not fail to give you thanks. So I leave him to your kindness, and rest ** Your loving friend, *' William Cant.'' " Lambeth House, October 23, 1635." My authority for the account I have given of the pro- ceedings of the College, in consequence of this letter, is a certificate signed " William Page," contained in a note to a MS. copy of the statutes of All Souls, with many marginal observations, which formerly belonged to warden XOTES. 309 Gardiner, and is now kept in the warden's lodoincrs as an heir-loom. Page gives the account nearly as I have stated it, and vouches from his own knowledge, (he having been a fellow of the college at the time,) that the fellows were ** almost unanimous in their election of Taylor T The William Page, whose narrative this is, was a person of some reputation among his contemporaries. He became a fellow of All Souls, 1619, and was afterwards, through the patronage of Laud, rector of Reading school, and of East Locking near Wantage. He wrote, among other things, a Treatise on Bowing at the Name of Jesus, which arch- bishop Abbot commanded him to suppress ; but which Laud, on succeeding to the primacy, encouraged him to publish. — Wood, Athena:, vol. ii. p. 332. ed. p. 1721. The nomination of Taylor to the fellowship, on its de- volving, as I have stated, to the visitor, has been also pub- lished both by Mr. Bliss and Mr. Bonney. *' Nominatio Jer. Taylor ad locum Socii in Coll. Omn. Anim. Oxon. '* Gulielmus Providentia Divina Cant. Archiep'us, totius Angliae Primas & Metropol. neciion Universitatis Oxon. Cancellar. CoUegiique Animarum Omnium fidelium defunc- torum de Oxon. Visitator, Patronus et Ordinarius. Dilec- tis nobis in Christo, Custodi, Vice-custodi, omnibusque et singulis dicti Collegii Sociis et scholaribus, salutem et gratiam. Cum locus Socii Artista Collegii vestri dudum vacaverit, et vacuus est in pra2senti, cumque potestas sup- plendi deficientem numerum Sociorum vestrorum nobis per statuta vestri Collegii sit reservata, ratione negligenticB vestrae, eo quod dictus locus Socii vacantis, infra dies in statutis Collegii vestri limitatos, per vos non fuerit perim- pletus. Nos numerum Sociorum vestrorum, secundum po- testatem a Fundatore vestro nobis commissam implerc volentes, Jeremiam Taylor ad dictum locum vacantem de- signamus vobis, mandantes ut prsefatum Jeremiam Taylor ad dictum locum vacantem secundum formam statutorum Collegii vestri recipiatis et admittatis. In cujus rei testi- monium, sigillum nostrum Archiep'ale precsentibus apponi fecimus. Dat.' in manerio nostro de Lambehith, vicesimo primo die mensis Novcnibris, anno D'ni 1035, et nostroc trans, anno tcrtio." 310 NOTES. In consequence of this mandate, Taylor was admitted, as appears by the college book, where he is described as " Jeremias Taylor, Dioc. Elie. Artium Mag. 1636. Jan. 14." It is remarkable, that both he and two others who were admitted at the same time, are described as admitted, " in veros et perpetuos Socios." But, to become an actual fellow, in the first instance, without a previous year of pro- bation, is a privilege peculiar to founder's kin. How Taylor came by it I am ignorant. If I could trace his descent to any of the families connected with the stock of Chichele, it v/ould sufficiently confirm my hypothesis of his gentility. But on this point I am without information. NOTE (G). "■ Then followed the charge of Sancta Clara's book, alias Mounsieur S*. Giles : so they expressed it, and I must follow the way they lead me. First then, they charge that I had often conference with him while he ivas writing his book entitled ' Deus, Natura, Gratia.' No ; he never came to me till he was ready to print that book. Then some friends of his brought him to me. His suit then was, that he might print that book here. Upon speech with him, I found the scope of his book to be such, as that the Church of England would have little cause to thank him for it: and so absolutely denied it. Nor did he ever come more at me after this, but twice or thrice at most, when he made great friends to me, that he might print another book to prove that bishops are by divine right. My answer then was, that I did not like the way which the Church of Rome went in the case of episcopacy. And, howsoever, that I would never give way that any such book should be printed here from the pen of a Romanist, and that the bishops of England were able to defend their ow^n cause and calling, without calling in aid from Rome ; and would in due time. Maintenance he never had any from me, nor did I then know him to be a priest. Nor was there any proof so much asofiered in contrary to any of this." — Laud's Troubles and Trials p. 385. For the manner of Davenport's introduction to Laud XOTKS. 311 by Liiidsell, see Canterbury's Doom, p. 427 ; quoted in the Athenee Oxonienses, vol. iii. col. 1223. NOTE (H). ** Quotidianis eorum quos Regiee commendarent liters ad gradiim quemcunque promotionibus lassata demum Uni- versitas, frequentem vicesimo primo Feb. Senatum coegit, in quo Vicecancellarii 8c Praefectorum libellus siipplex, Regi contra gradus temere et quasi fortuito conferendos porrigendus, recitatur. Hi vero damna nobis necessario facienda Carolo ob oculos ponebant, Actibus utique et Exercitiis quibusque Scholasticis in desuetudinem abeun- tibus, vel etiam omnino deletis, serarium academicum ex- inanitum fore, restinctis quoque magnorum ingenioruni stu- diis summa Universitatem infamia laboraturam edocentes. Accepto autem supplici illo Togatorum libello, tunc qui- dem ostendit Rex quam vere et animitus bonarum litera- runi curam ageret. Quam vis enin^ et opibus et authori- tate baud adeo abundanti percomn'jodum videretur fidem suorum et officia honoribus togatis remunerare, statu it tamen et edixit nequis Gradum Academicum in questum ambiens literas suas commendatrices deinceps expectaret; quod, si cuiquam concederentur, ad locum inter Academi- cos quern expeteret habilem sese et idoneum secundum Statuta probaret, cautionem de prsestandis exercitiis in- terponeret, et feuda consueta persolveret ; alitor nullam literarum suarum habendam esse rationem." — Wood, Hist, et Aiit. Ox. ann. 1642. 1. i. p. 359. NOTE (I). " I had no books," says Taylor, " of my own here, nor any in the voisinage ; and but that I remembered the result of some of those excellent discourses I had heard your Lord- ship make, ichen I was so happij as, in private, to gather up what your temperance and modesty forbids to be public, 1 had come ' in .proelia inermis,' and like enough, might have fared accordingly." — Epislle Dedicatory to the Liberty of Prophesying, vol. vii. p. cccxcvii. For the encouragement and assistance afforded by Hatton to Dug- 312 NOTES. dale, see Wood. Athen, ii. Fasti, p. 92 ; and Dugdale's Dedication to the Antiquities of Warwickshire. Hatton's loyalty and attachment to the Church of England have been never impeached. — Of the first, the Letter from King Charles, published by Mr. Bonney, is an evidence ; as is also the sequestration of his estate by the Parliament in 1649. — Whitelock. p. 125. The latter was shown by the pains which he took in frustrating the attempt of Queen Henrietta Maria to bring over the Duke of Gloucester to popery. — See Clarendon, Hist. Reb. iii. 426 ; and Carte, Life of Ormond, ii. pp. 164, 167-8. It is something remarkable, that none of Taylor's biographers have noticed a passage in his dedication of the Great Exemplar, in which he appears to claim kindred with Hatton. He there " entreats his lord- ship to account him in the number of his relatives'' This is a very unusual expression, if he meant by it no more than " friends " or *' dependants ; " and the word ** relative" is elsewhere employed by Taylor in its usual and modern acceptation. The family of Taylor himself is involved in so much obscurity, that it is hopeless to inquire whether or at what period his ancestors had become connected with those of his patron. But the connexion (though it would, in this case, hardly amount to relationship,) may have been through one of his wives ; though on this point also I am without information. NOTE (J). The first edition of this work is in 12mo, entitled, " The Psalter of David, with Titles and Collects accord- ing to the matter of each Psalm. By the Right Honourable Christopher Hatton. Oxon. 1644." The same work occurs in Royston's Catalogue at the end of " The Great Exemplar, Lond. 1653." And the " Fifth edition, with additionals," is mentioned in the catalogue of the same bookseller, appended to the ^v/mQo}u)v ii^izo-0ESETAI. ' Oiban, ddsX(po/f on 6 Kuvda^og crs^/ ra dzada^ra Cp^oXa^s/, d/iada^ro; dv. 'OvTug xa/ 6 Xriffrrjg crorg sff^oXaffsv sv raig 7.r,zr6iccig. ' Ors drj sv roj (frav^M Tjv oj^u^oXoyj^ffsv dvrog, XaOojg rr^oz/'Tro)/, xai 'xXYjoovrat he avrov TO '7:^o(pr}rsu0zv. De eo nimirum locutus est Propheta, Et scarabeus e ligno vocem dahit. Nostis, fratres, scarabeum ipsum immundum circa immunda negotiosum esse : ita quoque et hie latro negotiosus fuit in latrocinando ; in cruce tamen confitetur, et in eo expletur quod prophetatum fuit." Athanas. cont. Onines Hc^reses. Op. tom, i. p. 1078. Ed. Colon. Bernard's exhortation against covetousness, is as fol- lows : " Utinam in duodecim (sc. clericis) unus hodie Petrus ; unus qui reliquerit omnia, unus qui loculis careat, inveniatur. Unus, inquit [Christus], ex vobis diabolus est. — A duobus itaque bolls diabolus dicitur, et Judas non loculum sed loculos habet." — Gaufridi Declamatioues ex S. Bernardi Sermonibus Collected. Bernard. Op. tom. ii. p. 304. Ed. Mabillone. NOTE (VV). These lines are adapted by Taylor to his purpose from two passages in Prudentius. In the first, the poet is speak- ing of the fall and redemption of the world : in the second, of the plagues of Egypt. " Stragem sed istam non tulit Christus, cadentum gentium Impune, ne forsan sui Patris periret fabrica." — Cat hem. Hymn. xi. 40. " Quae tandem poterit lingua retexere Laudes, Christe, tuas, qui domitam Pharon^ Plagis multimodis cedere prcBsuli Cogis Justitice^ vindice dexter a.'''' — lb. Hymn. v. 83. NOTE (WW). It is not often that Taylor borrows from contemporary writers ; yet, from the singularity and aptness of the allusion. xoTEs. 3G5 which was not likely to occur to two unconnected persons, I cannot help thinkinc;, that he has drawn the following passage of his second Sermon on the ministerial duties from the Golden Remains of John Hales, as well as the work of Julius Agricola. Hales died in great poverty before the Restoration. In his Remains, published first in 1659, the same simile occurs, (p. 35,) in almost the same words, and the goblin labourers of whom he speaks, are represented at work in the vignette to the copper-plate frontispiece. " I remember that Agricola, in his book * De Ani- malibus Subterraneis,' tells of a certain kind of spirits that use to converse in mines, and trouble the poor labourers ; they dig metals, they cleanse, they cast, they melt, they separate, they join the ore ; but when they are gone, the men find just nothing done, not one step of their work set forward. So it is in the books and expositions of many men ; they study, they argue, they expound, they confute, they reprove, they open secrets, and make new discoveries ; and when you turn the bottom upwards, up starts nothing ; no man is the wiser, no man is instructed, no truth dis- covered, no proposition cleared, nothing is altered, but that much labour and much time is lost ; and this is manifest in nothing more than in books of controversy, and in mystical expositions of Scripture, ' Quaerunt quod nusquam est, inveniunt tamen.'" — Vol. vi. p. 516. NOTE (XX). The dedication is to the chief mao-istates and senate of Hamburgh, in which, after complimenting them on their comparatively indulgent treatment of the Jews, the translator proceeds as follows — " lUustre tradit nobilissimus autor Sadus venerandae antiquitatis exemplum, Abrahamum patriarcham, hospita- litatis gloria, celebratum, vix sibi felix faustumque credidisse hospitium, nisi externum aliquem, tanquam aliquod presi- dium domi, excepisset hospitem, quem omni officiorum genere coleret. Aliquando, cum hospitem domi non haberet, foris eum quaesiturus campestria petiit. Forte virum quemdam, senectutc gravem, itinere fessum, sub arbore recumbentem conspicit. 366 NOTES. " Quern comiter exceptum, domum hospitem deducit, et omni officio colit. Ci^m coenam appositam Abrahamus et familia ejus a precibus auspicarentur, senexmanum ad cibum protendit, nuUo religionis aut pietatis auspicio usus. Quo viso, Abrahamus eum ita afFatur : ' Mi senex, vix decet canitiem tuani sine praevia Numinis veneratione cibum sumere.' Ad quae senex : * Ego ignicola sum, istiusmodi morum ignarus ; nostri enim majores nullam talem me docuere pietatem/ Ad quam vocem horrescens Abra- hamus rem sibi cum ignicola profano et a sui Numinis cultu alieno esse, eum ^ vestigio et a coena remotum, et sui consortii pestem et religionis hostem, domo ejicit. Sed, ecce, Sum- mus Deus Abrahamum statim monet : ' Quid agis, Abra- hame ? Itane viro fecisse te docuit ? Ego isti seni, quan- tumvis in me usque ingrato, et vitam et victum centum amplius annos dedi; tu homini nee unam coenam dare, unumque eum momentum ferre potes V Qua Divina voce monitus, Abrahamus senem ex itinere revocatum domum reducit, et tantis officiis, pietate, et ratione colit, ut suo exemplo ad veri Numinis cultum eum perduxerit/' — G. Gentius Historia Judaica, Res JudcEorum ab eversa Mde Hierosoli/mitana ad hac fere Tempora usque completce. Am- stelodam. anno 1651. " The above work is a translation of the " Shebet Jehuda," or " Rod of Judah," of R. Solomon Ben Virga, for an account of whom see " Bartolocii Bibliotheca Rabbinica," p. 4. p. 575. The Sadus, from whom Gentius professes to have taken the story of Abraham, i once supposed to be Saadias Gaon, whose agnomen of " Gaon," the " Illustrious," agrees with the title which Gentius assigns to him. The kindness of Lord Teignmouth has, however, pointed out to me the exact narrative, not in a Jewish, but a Persian writer, the celebrated poet Saadi, who gives it as related to him, he does not say by whom, in the second book of his Bostan." With the works of Saadi, Gentius was well acquainted, having himself published an edition of his Giilistan. Lord T. informs me that Saadi relates of himself, in this last work, that, having been taken prisoner by the Franks, he was compelled to work with some Jews, on the fortifications of Tripoli. And he suggests, therefore, that xoTKs. 3G7 he may have possibly heard the story from them, so that it may, after all, have been orioinally derived from a Jewish source. A learned Jew also, Mr. J. D'AUemand, professes to have a strong impression on his mind that the tradition is to be met with, in all its circumstances, in one of the comment- aries on Gen. xviii. 1, and on the words Sns*n nnD 3'^» Nini- No such commentary, however, has been discovered ; and my friend, the reverend Mr. KnatchbuU, Fellow of All Souls', whose extensive acquaintance with every branch of Oriental learning makes his opinion of the highest value, agrees with Mr. Oxlee in giving the credit of the story to Saadi. It is remarkable, too, that the " parable" does not occur in the first edition of the " Liberty of Prophesying," published in 1647, and, therefore, before the work of Gentius appeared ; but that it is added in the second edition, which came out six years after the " Historica Judaica." It is, therefore, most probable that Taylor found the story in Gentius ; and that, by the common fate of those who quote at second hand, he ascribed to a Jew what his author had taken from a Persian. The following is a translation of the passage in Saadi, which appeared in the Asiatic Miscellancy, Calcutta, 1789; corrected, however, in one of its expressions, by the same distinguished person, whose obliging assistance I have already acknowledged. The reader will, probably, be of opinion that, with whomsoever the praise of originality rests, the story has gained considerably in spirit and terse- ness, in its progress through Gentius, Taylor, and Franklin. *' I have heard that once, during a whole week, no tra- veller came to the hospitable dwelling of the friend of God, whose amiable nature led him to observe it as a rule, not to eat in the morning unless some needy person arrived from a journey. He went out, and turned his eyes towards every place. He viewed the valley on all sides, and, behold, in the desert, a solitary man resembling the willow, whose head and beard were whitened with the snow of age. To encourage him, he called him Friend, and, agreeably to the manners of the munificent, gave him an invitation, saying, * Oh apple of mine eye, perform an act of courtesy by becoming my guest !' He assented, arose, and stepped lor- 368 NOTES. ward readily, for he knew the kind disposition of his host, (on whom be peace !) The asociates of Abraham's hos- pitable dwelling seated the old man with respect. The table was ordered to be spread, and the company placed them- selves around. When the assembly began to utter * In the name of God !' (or to say grace) and not a word was heard to proceed from the old man, Abraham addressed him in such words as these, — ' Oh elder, stricken in years ! thou appearest not to me in faith and zeal like other aged ones, for is it not an obligatoiy law to invoke, at the time of eating your daily meal, that divine Providence from whence it is derived?' He replied, — ' I practise no right which I have not heard from my priest, who worshippeth fire.' The good- omened prophet discovered this vitiated old man to be a Gueber, and, finding him an alien to the faith, drove him away in miserable plight, the polluted being rejected by those that are pure. A voice from the glorious and omni- potent God was heard, with this severe reprehension, — * Oh friend ! I have supported him through a life of an hundred years, and thou hast conceived an abhorrence of him all at once ! If a man pay adoration to fire, shouldst thou withhold the hand of liberality ?' " (NOTE YY). These schoolmen are quoted by Aquinas, who, however, dissents from them. " Quidam dicunt quod primus homo non fuit creatus in gratia, sed tamen postmodum gratia fuit sibi collata antequam peccasset. Plurimae autem sanctorum auctoritates attestantur hominem in statu innocentiee gra- tiam habuisse. Sed quod fuerit conditus in gratia, ut alii dicunt, videtur requirere ipsa rectitudo prima status, in qua Deus hominem fecit : secundum illud Ecclesiast. 7. Deus fecit hominem rectum." — S. Thom. Aquinat. Sum)na, Pars 1. Qugest. 95. Art. i. p, 180. (NOTE ZZ). If Mrs. Phillips thought fit to publish his papers, Taylor desires, in a postcript, " that they may be consigned into xoTis. :3()9 the hands of my wortliy IVieml, Dr. Wedderhn) nc : lor I do not only expose all my sicknesses to his cure, but I submit my weaknesses to his censure ; being as confident to find ot him charity for what is pardonable as remedy for what is curable." *' And, as all that know him reckon him among the best physicians, so I know him worthy to be reckoned among the best friends." — Vol. xi. p. 335. The person thus highly extolled by Taylor, is spoken of by Anthony Wood, as one of the physicians in ordinary to Charles the First, and a person of vast experience. He was originally a professor of philosophy at St. Andrew's ; ** but that being too narrow a place for so great a person, he left it, travelled into various countries, and became so celebrated for his great skill in physic, that he was the chief man of this country for many years for that faculty. Afterwards he received the honour of knighthood, and was highly valued when he was in Holland with the prince, in 1646-7. At length, though his infirmities and great age forced him to retire from public practice and business, yet his fame contracts all the Scotch nation to him, and his noble hos- pitality and kindness to all that were learned and virtuous made his conversation no less loved than his advice was desired." NOTE (AAA). In stating the cases of intermarriage of kindred, Taylor appears to have been chiefly guided, and sometimes misled, by Grotius. He is wrong in supposing that very few learned men took the affirmative side as to the expediency and necessity of a divorce between Henry the Eighth and Queen Katharine. Burnet, on the contrary, observes, what is apparent from all contemporary history, that whatsoever King Henry's secret motives were, in the suit of his divorce, he had the constant tradition of the church on his side, and that, in all the ages and parts of it, which was carefully searched into and fully proved; so that no author, older than Cardinal Cajetan, could be found to be set against such a current of tradition. B B The Corrector of the Press requests the Reader to extend some kind' indulp-ence to those errors which remain either in Text or D Notes. Whatever inaccuracies may be detected, — many, very many, have been expunged. The labour, incident to this task, is greater than will, at first, be imagined. The necessary books of reference cannot ahvays be procured ; nor can the press be detained, while search is made after the retreat of some one quotation. Former editions of Taylor swarm with mistakes ; the punctuation and general state of the text are very defective : verse is printed without any regard to metre, and prose often assumes the appear- ance of verse. These difficulties have been augmented by the desultory manner in which Bishop Taylor adduces his extracts ; sometimes he quotes from memory ; sometimes contents himself with adding the bare 7iame of the author, — as Plutarch, Seneca, &c. ; sometimes omits the very name ; and often assigns the senti- ment to a wrong author. — That some effort has been made to remedy these defects, will appear from the numerous references, which, in the following volumes, the Corrector of the Press has made to the volume and page of modern editions of the classics. — The candid reader is requested to bear in mind, that these correc- tions were made at such intervals, as could be spared from very laborious professional pursuits. Bishop Taylor's very lax mode of referring to classical authors is specified, more than once, in the latter volumes of this edition. To the instances there adduced, and to others which the classical reader will discover, may be added the two following : 1 . Arrian, ridiculing those who affect the stiff' appearance and gait of philo- sophers, contemptuously asks, " Why do you strut about, as if you had swallowed a spit?'' T/ ohv vifMv o/Si^ia-Koy KuruTrtcov TTi^iTTxruc ; which Bishop Taylor (vol. v. p. 518) renders, " We walk by the obelisk, and meditate in piazzas." — 2. " Some nations used to eat the bodies of their friends (vol. iv. p. 567) : " Bishop Taylor thus assigns to the relations the office, which Cicero (to whom he alludes) describes as performed by dogs. (Tusc. Q. i. 45.) J. R. PITMAN. 1 N D E X. Ahraham and the idolati'ous traveller, origin of the storv of, 209, 210, 245, 2(J8. Advent (Second) of Christ, sublime description of, by Bishop Taylor, 155,150. Strong resemblance between it and a passage in 'Mr. Southey's ' Curse of Kehama,' 155 — 3G1. All Souls'' College (Oxford), Jeremy Taylor recommended to the fello^vs of, for a vacant fellowship, by Arch- bishop Laud, 12, 14, 308. Who finally nominates him a fellow, by virtue of his visitorial powers, 13, 14. Copy of the nomination, 309. Allegorizing of the Fathers, remarks on, 100, 101. Singular specimens of, 304. Ancestors of Bishop Taylor, notices of, 4, 306. ' Apology for Authorized and Set Forms of Liturgy.,'' published by Bishop Taylor, 30. Aquinas (Thomas), Specimen of the scholastic subtleties of, 334 — 336, 368. Armorial Bearings of Bishop Taylor, 5, 0, 300. '■ Art'ijic'ial Handsomeness.,'' the Treatise on, usually ascribed to Jeremy Tay- lor, proved not to be written by him, 00 — 02. Was probably writ- ten by IMrs. Catherine Philips, 62. Extracts from this treatise, 320 — 331. Bridges (Mrs. Joanna), a natural daughter of Prince (afterwards King) Charles I., married to Jeremy Tay- lor, 34. Carbery (Sir Richard Vaughan, Earl of), notice of, 35, and of his family, 30, 318, ])atroni'/es Jeremy Tavlor, 35. Carbery (Fi-ances, first Countess of), notice of, 35. Carbery (Alice, second Countess of), notice of, 35. Charles I. (King) joined by Jeremy Taylor, 19. Commands him to write his ' Episcopacy Asserted,' ibid. Issues a mandate for conferring the degree of D.D. on him, ibid. Re- monstrance of the heads of houses against the ninnerous degrees order- ed by the king to be conferred, 19, 311. A natural daughter of the king (when Prince of M'ales) mar- ried by Jeremy Taylor, 34. Taylor's last interview with the king, 25. Description of the watch given to him by the king, 358. ' Chr'istian Consolations.,^ analysis of, with remark?;, 150 — 159. Clergy., notice of Bishop Taylor's Rules and Advices to, 294. Conjirmation., analysis of Bishop Tay- lor's discourse on, with extracts and remarks, 250—200. Conscience^ remarks on, 275, 270. ' Contemplations on the State of Man.,'' remarks on the style aiul comjiosi- tion of, with extracts, 152 — 150. On the appetite for the marveUous displayed in this treatise, 300. Contracts., observations on the fulfil- ment of, 277. Co?i?^ay (Edward, Earl of,) patronizes and provides foi Jeremy Tavlor, 80, 83, 330—338. Cromwell (Oliver), duplicity of his conduct towards the orthodox epis- copal clergy, 325. AVhy he oppres- sed them, 79, 80. D Z)air«/>o>-,'.( John, alias Francis a Sancta Clara), biographical notice of, 14 — 16. Remarks on Jeremy Taylor's friendship for him, 15. Archbishop Laud's account of his interview with him, 31(h ' D'lssuasivc from Popery.,'' published by Bishop Taylor, 118. Origin of, 372 INDEX. and motives to his undertaking this work, 118 — 12;^. Analysis of it, with extracts and remarks, 243 — 256. Domestic Happiness^ beautiful reflec- tions of Jeremy Taylor on, C4, C5. Drummond (Rev. Dr. Hay), verses of, on Dr. Rowland Taylor, 307. ' Ductor Dubitanthim^'' published by Jeremy Taylor, 9C. Its compara- tive iinpopuiarity accounted for, 96. Motives which probably induced him to undertake this treatise, 269 — 271. Outline of its plan and con- tents, with extracts and remarks, 272 — 292. Observations on its style, 292, 293. ' Episcopacy Asserted^'' this tract writ- ten by Jeremy Taylor at the request of King Charles I., 19. Analysis of it, with extracts and remarks, 181 — 189. Epitaph of Bishop Nicholson, 314. Of Griffin Lloyd, ibid. Of Mr. Justice Powell, 315. Evelyn (John, Esq.) patronizes Jeremy Taylor, 37, 39, 319, 322. Letters of, to Taylor, 318—322,324. Let- ters to Evelyn by Bishop Taylor, 44, 47, 51, 53, 55, 56, 62, 66,' 67, 68, 77, 81, 84, 87, 92, 94, 109. Pro- cures his liberation from the Tower, 77, 333. Remarks on the termi- nation of their correspondence, 110. Felicity of the Saints, Bishop Taylor's sentiments on, 69 — 71- Remarks thereon, 73. Fincli (Francis, Esq.), biographical notice of, 232. Finch (Ladv Anne), biographical no- tice of, 156, 372, 373. Francis a Sanctd Clara. See Daven- port (John). Friendship^ analysis of Bishop Taylor's treatise on, with extracts and re- marks, 261 — 265. G GhostSy account of supposed appear- ances of. 111, 112, 343, 352. * Golden Grove,'' analysis of, with re- marks, 294—296. * Great Exemplar.' See ' Life of Christ.' Gunpowder Treason, remarks on Bishop Taylor's sennon on, 162 — 169. II Harrison (Edward, son-in-law of Bishop Taylor), 125, 355. Notices of his children, Michael Harrison, 355. Jeremiah Taylor Harrison, 366. Francis Harrison, ibid. Marsh Harrison, ibid. Mary Harrison, and her descendants, 356, 357. Hatton (Christopher, Esq.), patronizes Jeremy Taylor, 21. Remarks on his character, 21, 312. ' Holy Living,'' analysis of Bishop Taylor's treatise on, 142 — 146. Re- marks on some of the prayers con- tained in it, 146, 147- Five rules for reading this treatise to advan- tage, 140, 141. ' Holy Dying,'' extracts from Bishop Taylor's dedication of, 147 — 149. Observations on its style, 151, 152. Hunter (David), account of the sup- posed appearance of a ghost to. 111, 344 — 348. Hymns of Bishop Taylor, specimens of, with remarks, 296. Immortality of the Soul, why not in- sisted upon by St. Paul, in his dis- course to the Athenians, 71' Intermarriages of kindred, mistake of Bishop Taylor concerning, corrected, 369, 370. Ireland, miserable state of, in 1664, 118—121. Jeanes, (Henry), biographical notice of, 74. Account of his controversy with Jeremy Taylor, on the subject of Original Sin, 74, 75- Jones ("V\''illiam Todd, Esq.), biogra- phical notice of, 2, 357- TS^otice of his collections for a Life of Bishop Taylor, 3. Langsdale{V\\aihe), married to Jeremy Taylor, 19. Her children, ibid. Langsdale (Dr.), Letter of Bishop Taylor to, 22. 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