Editing Holy Living and Holy Dying

{{Short description|Collective title of two books by Jeremy Taylor}}
{{more citations needed|date=August 2014}} {{Italic title}}
'''''Holy Living and Holy Dying''''' is the collective title of two books of [[Christianity|Christian]] devotion by [[Jeremy Taylor]]. They were originally published as ''The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living'' in 1650 and ''The Rules and Exercises of Holy Dying'' in 1651. ''Holy Living'' is designed to instruct the reader in living a [[Virtue|virtuous]] life, increasing personal [[piety]], and avoiding temptations. ''Holy Dying'' is meant to instruct the reader in the "means and instruments" of preparing for a blessed death. ''Holy Dying'' was the "artistic climax" of a consolatory death literature tradition that had begun with ''[[Ars moriendi]]'' in the 15th century.

== Description ==
''Holy Living and Holy Dying'' is the collective title of two books of [[Christianity|Christian]] devotion by [[Jeremy Taylor]], originally published as ''The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living'' in 1650 and ''The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying'' in 1651. The two books represent one of the high points of [[English language|English]] prose during the period of the early [[House of Stuart|Stuarts]]. According to historian [[Nancy Lee Beaty]], ''Holy Dying'' was the "artistic climax" of a consolatory death literature tradition that had begun with ''[[Ars moriendi]]'' in the 15th century.<ref>{{Citation|author=Nancy Lee Beaty|author-link=Nancy Lee Beaty|year=1970|title=The Craft of Dying: A Study in the Literary Tradition of the Ars Moriendi in England}}</ref> Other works in this tradition include ''[[The Waye of Dying Well]]'' and ''[[The Sick Mannes Salve]]''.

''Holy Living'' is designed to instruct the reader in living a [[Virtue|virtuous]] life, increasing personal [[piety]], and avoiding temptations. ''Holy Dying'' is meant to instruct the reader in the "means and instruments" of preparing for a blessed death. Each book contains discussions of [[theology]], [[morality|moral]] instruction, often prefaced as "The Consideration reduc'd to practise," and model [[prayer]]s requesting divine assistance in achieving them.

== Morality ==
''Holy Living'' is largely concerned with questions of practical [[morality]], of a type that has hardly changed from the 17th century to today. The companion volume, ''Holy Dying'', was occasioned by the death of the wife of Taylor's patron and employer, the [[Earl of Carbery]]. That book is half Christian instruction and half memorial [[sermon]], with Taylor displaying his gift for poetic prose. Coupled with the 17th century cult of [[melancholia]], the result is prose that is simultaneously stately and rapturous, "[[John Keats|half in love with easeful death]]", and reads like [[prose poetry]]:

:But so have I seen a Rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the Morning, and full with the dew of [[Heaven]], as a Lambs fleece; but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on a darknesse, and to decline its softnesse, and the symptomes of a sickly age; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and at night having lost some of its leaves, and all of its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces. (See also [[period (rhetoric)]]).

== Legacy ==
Taylor's work was much admired by [[John Wesley]], the founder of [[Methodism]], for its devotional quality; and by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], [[Thomas De Quincey]], and [[Edmund Gosse]] for its literary qualities. [[John Osborne]] said that the book demonstrates how the English language can be used "beautifully and simply".<ref name="bbc">{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009mkxr|title=BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, John Osborne|website=bbc.co.uk | date=1982-03-05|accessdate=2021-01-15}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.ccel.org/t/taylor/ ''Holy Living and Holy Dying''] on ccel.org
* {{librivox book | title=The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying| author=Taylor}}
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[[Category:1650 books]]
[[Category:1651 books]]
[[Category:Books about Christianity]]
[[Category:Christianity and death]]
[[Category:17th-century Christian texts]]
[[Category:Christian devotional literature]]
[[Category:Books about spirituality]]
[[Category:Christian festivals and holy days]]
[[Category:Liturgical calendar]]