Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667), born in Cambridge and baptized on 15 August 1613, was the son of Nathaniel Taylor, a respected barber descended from the Protestant martyr Dr Rowland Taylor. Educated at the local grammar school, he entered Caius College as a sizar in 1626, became a fellow in 1633, and soon gained wide notice for his remarkable eloquence and learning. Archbishop Laud became his patron, appointing him one of his chaplains and securing him a fellowship at All Souls, Oxford. Taylor supported the Royalist cause during the Civil Wars, suffered imprisonment, and after the Restoration was consecrated Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland in 1661. His personal life was marked by repeated tragedy: most of his children died young, and he buried his only surviving son from his second marriage shortly before his own death at Lisburn on 13 August 1667, aged fifty-four.Taylor’s fame rests chiefly on his devotional writings and sermons rather than on his work as a theologian or ecclesiastic. Though possessed of immense learning, he was not a systematic or speculative thinker; he viewed theology as “a divine life rather than a divine knowledge,” and his chief interest lay in practical divinity and the guidance of souls.

His two greatest and most enduring works, Holy Living (1650) and Holy Dying (1651), form a complementary manual of Christian piety. Holy Living offers wise and compassionate direction on how to practise virtue, prayer, temperance, and devotion amid the duties and temptations of daily life, while Holy Dying teaches the art of preparing the soul for death, facing sickness and mortality with faith and dignity. Written in a style of extraordinary beauty—majestic, rhythmic, and richly coloured, blending Miltonic grandeur with a wealth of vivid, spontaneous-seeming illustrations drawn from nature, history, and the classics—these books overflow with poetic feeling, tender insight into human frailty, and a noble idealism that urges readers toward genuine holiness. Though he could at times fall into scholastic subtleties, Taylor’s clear practical aim, warm sympathy, and eloquent call to virtuous living have kept Holy Living and Holy Dying among the classics of Anglican devotional literature for over three centuries.