If this great ornament of our church did not boast of an exalted lineage, he numbered among his forefathers one at least, the worthy ancestor of such a descendant, Dr. Rowland Taylor, chaplain to Cranmer, and rector of Hadleigh, distinguished among the divines of the Reformation for his abilities, learning, and piety, as well as for the courageous cheerfulness with which he suffered death at the stake in the reign of Queen Mary. Jeremy Taylor was the son of a barber, resident in Trinity parish, Cambridge; and was baptized in Trinity church, August 15, 1613. He was "grounded in grammar and mathematics " by his father, and entered as a sizar at Caius College, August 18, 1626. Of his deportment, his studies, even of the honours and emoluments of his academical life, we have no certain knowledge. It is stated by Dr. Rust, in his Funeral Sermon, that Taylor was elected fellow: but this is at least doubtful, for no record of the fact exists in the registers of the college. He proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1633; and in the same year, though at the early age of twenty, we

find him in orders, and officiating as a divinity lecturer in St. Paul's Cathedral. His talents as a preacher attracted the notice of Archbishop Laud, who sent for him to preach at Lambeth, and approved of his performance, but thought him too young. Taylor begged his Grace's pardon for that fault, and promised that, if he lived, he would mend it. By that prelate's interest he was admitted to the degree of M. A. ad eundem, in University College, Oxford, October 20, 1635, and shortly after nominated to a fellowship at All Souls College. It was probably through the interest of the same powerful patron that he obtained the rectory of Uppingham in Rutlandshire, tenable with his fellowship, March 23, 1638. The fellowship, however, he vacated by his marriage with Phoebe Langsdale, May 27, 1639, who died in little more than three years, leaving two sons.

Taylor attracted notice at Oxford by his talents as a preacher; but he does not seem to have commenced, during this period of ease and tranquillity, any of those great works which have rendered him illustrious as one of the most laborious, eloquent, and persuasive of British divines. The only sermon extant which we can distinctly refer to this period is one preached by command of the Vice-chancellor on the anniversary of the Gunpowder plot, 1638. This piece requires notice, because it is connected with a report, circulated both during Taylor's residence at Oxford and afterwards, that he was secretly inclined to Popery. It is even said that he "wished to be confirmed a member of the church of Rome" (Wood, Athenæ Oxon), but was rejected with scorn in consequence of the things advanced against that church in this sermon. Of this whole statement Bishop Heber, in his 'Life of Taylor,' has expressed his disbelief; and the arguments on which his opinion is founded appear to us satisfactory. Not even during

his peaceable abode at Uppingham do Taylor's great works appear to have been projected, as if his amiable, affectionate, and zealous temper had been fully occupied by domestic cares and pleasures, and by the constant though quiet duties of a parish priest. The year 1642, as it witnessed the overthrow of his domestic happiness by his wife's death, saw also the beginning of those troubles which cast him out of his church preferment, a homeless man. We do not know the date of the sequestration of his living; but as he joined Charles I. at Oxford in the autumn of the year; published in the same year, by the King's command, his treatise Of the sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy, &c.;' was created D. D. by royal mandate; appointed chaplain to the King, in which capacity he frequently preached at Oxford, and attended the royal army in the wars; it is probable that he was among the first of those who paid the penalty of adhering to the losing cause. Little is known of this portion of Taylor's history. It appears that he quitted the army, and retired into Wales, where he married, became again involved in the troubles of war, and was taken prisoner at Cardigan, Feb. 4, 1644. We do not

know the date of his release, or of his marriage to his second wife, Joanna Bridges, a lady possessed of some landed property at Mandinam, near Golden Grove, in the Vale of Towy, in Carmarthenshire, who was commonly said to be a natural daughter of Charles I., born before his marriage. But Heber conjectures that Taylor's marriage was anterior to his imprisonment, and that his wife's estate was amerced in a heavy fine, in consequence of his being found engaged in the royal cause at Cardigan. It is at least certain that until the Restoration he was very poor, and that he supported himself during part of the time by keeping a school.

During this period of public confusion and domestic

trouble, Taylor composed an Apology for authorized and set Forms of Liturgy,' published in 1646, and his great work, a Discourse on the Liberty of prophesying,' published in 1647, "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 all sects alike, regarded as a perilous and portentous novelty." As such, it was received with distrust, if not disapprobation, by all parties; and if it was intended to inculcate upon the Episcopalians the propriety of conceding something to the prejudices of their opponents, as well as to procure an alleviation of the oppression exercised on the Episcopal church, we may see in the conduct of the government after the Restoration, that Taylor preached a doctrine for which neither the one nor the other were then ripe. It is the more to his honour that in this important point of Christian charity he had advanced beyond his own party, as well as those by whom his party was then persecuted. But though his views were extended enough to meet with disapprobation from his contemporaries, he gives a greater latitude to the civil power in repressing error by penal means than the general practice, at least in Protestant countries, would now grant. "The forbearance which he claims, he claims for those Christians only who unite in the confession of the Apostles' Creed," and he advocates the drawing together of all who will subscribe to that ancient and comprehensive form of belief into one church, forgetting differences which do not involve the fundamental points of Christianity. And he inculcates the "danger and impropriety of driving men into schism by multiplying symbols and subscriptions, and contracting the bounds of communion, and the

*Heber's Life of Taylor, p. xxvii.

still greater wickedness of regarding all discrepant opinions as damnable in the life to come, and in the present capital." For a fuller account of this remarkable work, we refer to the Life by Heber, p. 201-218, or, still better, to the original.

It was followed at no long interval by the Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life, described in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ.' This, the first of Taylor's great works which became extensively popular, is almost entirely practical in its tendency, having been composed, as the author tells us, with the intention of drawing men's minds from controverted doctrines, to the vital points on which all men are agreed, but which all men forget so easily. It is not an attempt to connect the relations of the four Evangelists into one complete and chronologically consistent account; but a 66 'series of devout meditations on the different events recorded in the New Testament, as well as on the more remarkable traditions which have usually been circulated respecting the Divine Author of our religion, his earthly parent, and his followers," set off by that majestic style, that store of illustrations derived from the most recondite and miscellaneous learning, and, above all, that fervent and poetical imagination, by which Taylor is distinguished perhaps above all the prose writers in our language. Such qualities, even without a digested plan and connected strain of argument, which, requiring a more continuous and attentive perusal, would not perhaps have made the book more acceptable or useful to the bulk of readers, ensured for it a favourable reception; and the author followed up the impression which he had produced, at no distant period, by two other treatises of a similar practical tendency, which, from their comparative shortness, are better known than any other of Taylor's works, and probably have been as extensively read as any devotional books in the