Editing Jeremy Taylor (section)

== Bishop in Ireland at the Restoration ==
He probably left [[Wales]] in 1657, and his immediate connection with Golden Grove seems to have ceased two years earlier. In 1658, through the kind offices of his friend [[John Evelyn]], Taylor was offered a lectureship in [[Lisburn]], County Antrim, by [[Edward Conway, 2nd Viscount Conway]]. At first, he declined a post in which the duty was to be shared with a [[Presbyterian]] – or, as he expressed it, "where a Presbyterian and myself [shall be] like Castor and Pollux, the one up the other downe" – and to which a meagre salary was attached. He was, however, induced to take it, and found in his patron's property at [[Portmore Lough|Portmore]], on [[Lough Neagh]], a congenial retreat.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=470}}

At the [[Stuart Restoration]], instead of being recalled to England, as he probably expected and certainly desired, he was appointed to the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Down and Connor|see of Down and Connor]],<ref name=ccel/> to which was shortly added the additional responsibility for overviewing the adjacent [[Diocese of Down and Dromore|diocese of Dromore]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=470}} As bishop, he commissioned in 1661 the building of a [[Dromore Cathedral|new cathedral at Dromore]] for the Dromore diocese. He was also made a member of the [[privy council of Ireland]] and, in 1660, [[Vice-Chancellor of the University of Dublin]]. None of these positions was a sinecure.

Of the university he wrote:
{{blockquote|I found all things in a perfect disorder ... a heap of men and boys, but no body of a college, no one member, either fellow or scholar, having any legal title to his place, but thrust in by tyranny or chance.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=470}}}}

Accordingly, he set himself vigorously to the task of framing and enforcing regulations for the admission and conduct of members of the university, and also of establishing lectureships. His episcopal labours were still more arduous. There were, at the date of the Restoration, about seventy Presbyterian ministers in the north of Ireland, and most of these were from the west of Scotland, with a dislike for [[Episcopacy]] which distinguished the [[Covenanter|Covenanting party]]. No wonder that Taylor, writing to [[James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde]] shortly after his consecration, should have said, "I perceive myself thrown into a place of torment". His letters perhaps somewhat exaggerate the danger in which he lived, but there is no doubt that his authority was resisted and his overtures rejected.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=470}}

This was Taylor's golden opportunity to show the wise toleration he had earlier advocated, but the new bishop had nothing to offer the Presbyterian clergy but the alternative of submission to episcopal ordination and jurisdiction or deprivation. Consequently, at his first visitation, he declared thirty-six churches to be vacant; and repossession was secured on his orders. At the same time, many of the gentry were apparently won over by his undoubted sincerity and devotedness as well as by his eloquence. With the Roman Catholic element of the population he was less successful. Not knowing the English language, and firmly attached to their traditional forms of worship, they were nonetheless compelled to attend a service they considered profane, conducted in a language they could not understand.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=470}}

As [[Reginald Heber]] says:

{{blockquote|No part 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. At the instance of the Irish bishops Taylor undertook his last great work, the ''Dissuasive from Popery'' (in two parts, 1664 and 1667), but, as he himself seemed partly conscious, he might have more effectually gained his end by adopting the methods of Ussher and [[William Bedell]], and inducing his clergy to acquire the Irish language.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=470}}}}

During this period, he was married a second time to Joanna Brydges, supposedly a natural daughter of Charles I.{{citation needed|date=June 2023}} From this marriage, two daughters were born: Mary, who went on to marry Archbishop [[Francis Marsh]] and had issue and Joanna, who married [[Edward Harrison (politician)|Edward Harrison]], MP for [[Lisburn (Parliament of Ireland constituency)|Lisburn]], and had issue. From his father-in-law, Marsh inherited a silver watch, said to have been a gift from Charles I; this watch remained in the family of his great-grandson, Francis Marsh, barrister-at-law.<ref>Burke's Peerage, 1857, p.664: [[Sir Henry Marsh]], Baronet</ref>
[[File:DROMORE Cathedral Church of Christ the Redeemer Ext (51103103967).jpg|thumb|Dromore Cathedral showing the chancel built over the crypt where Taylor was buried]]
Taylor died at Lisburn on 13 August 1667. He was buried at Dromore Cathedral where an [[apse|apsidal]] chancel was built in 1870 over the crypt where he was laid to rest.

Jeremy Taylor is honoured in the [[Calendar of saints (Church of England)|Church of England]], the [[Calendar of saints (Anglican Church of Canada)|Anglican Church of Canada]], [[Calendar of saints (Scottish Episcopal Church)|Scottish Episcopal Church]], [[Calendar of saints (Anglican Church of Australia)|Anglican Church of Australia]] and in the [[Calendar of saints (Episcopal Church)|Episcopal Church of the United States]] on [[August 13|13 August]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Calendar|url=https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar|access-date=27 March 2021|website=The Church of England|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bEq7DwAAQBAJ |title=Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018 |date=2019-12-17 |publisher=Church Publishing, Inc. |isbn=978-1-64065-235-4 |language=en}}</ref>

<!--This material is sourced from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but represents an individual assessment by the anonymous author and does not seem to be encyclopedic.
== Thought ==
Taylor's fame has been maintained by the popularity of his [[sermon]]s and devotional writings rather than by his influence as a theologian or his importance as an ecclesiastic. His mind was neither scientific nor speculative, and he was attracted rather to questions of casuistry than to the problems of pure theology. His wide reading and capacious memory enabled him to carry in his mind the materials of a sound historical theology, but these materials were unsifted by criticism. His immense learning served him rather as a storehouse of illustrations, or as an armoury out of which he could choose the fittest weapon for discomfiting an opponent, than as a quarry furnishing him with material for building up a completely designed and enduring edifice of systematised truth. Indeed, he had very limited faith in the human mind as an instrument of truth. Theology, he says, is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge.

His great plea for toleration is based on the impossibility of erecting theology into a demonstrable science. It is impossible all should be of one mind. And what is impossible to be done is not necessary it should be done. Differences of opinion there must be; but [[heresy]] is not an error of the understanding but an error of the will. He would submit all minor questions to the reason of the individual member, but he set certain limits to toleration, excluding whatsoever is against the foundation of faith, or contrary to good life and the laws of obedience, or destructive to human society, and the public and just interests of bodies politic. Peace, he thought, might be made if men would not call all opinions by the name of religion, and superstructures by the name of [[fundamental articles (theology)|fundamental articles]]. Of the propositions of sectarian theologians he said that confidence was the first, and the second, and the third part.

Of a genuine poetic temperament, fervid and mobile in feeling, and of a prolific fancy, he had also the sense and wit that come of varied contact with men. All his gifts were made available for influencing other men by his easy command of a style rarely matched in dignity and colour. With all the majesty and stately elaboration and musical rhythm of Milton's finest prose, Taylor's style is relieved and brightened by an astonishing variety of felicitous illustrations, ranging from the most homely and terse to the most dignified and elaborate. His sermons especially abound in quotations and allusions, which have the air of spontaneously suggesting themselves, but which must sometimes have baffled his hearers. This seeming pedantry is, however, atoned for by the clear practical aim of his sermons, the noble ideal he keeps before his hearers, and the skill with which he handles spiritual experience and urges incentives to virtue.

== Literary style and influence ==
Taylor is best known as a prose stylist; his chief fame is the result of his twin devotional manual, ''[[Holy Living and Holy Dying]]''. (''The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living'', 1650 and ''The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying'', 1651). These books were favourites of [[John Wesley]], and admired for their prose style by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], [[William Hazlitt]], and [[Thomas de Quincey]]. They are marked by solemn but vivid rhetoric, elaborate [[periodic sentence]]s, and careful attention to the music and rhythms of words:

<blockquote>As our life is very short, so it is very miserable; and therefore it is well that it is short. God, in pity to mankind, lest his burden should be insupportable and his nature an intolerable load, hath reduced our state of misery to an abbreviature; and the greater our misery is, the less while it is like to last; the sorrows of a man's spirit being like ponderous weights, which by the greatness of their burden make a swifter motion, and descend into the grave to rest and ease our wearied limbs; for then only we shall sleep quietly, when those fetters are knocked off, which not only bound our souls in prison, but also ate the flesh until the very bones opened the secret garments of their cartilages, discovering their nakedness and sorrow.
::—From ''Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying''</blockquote>
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