Jeremy Taylor
Jeremy Taylor (1613 – August 13 1667) was a clergyman in the Church of England who achieved fame as an author during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. He is sometimes known as the "Shakespeare of Divines" for his poetic style of writing.
Quotes
[edit]- My trust is in God.
- 13 August 1667: Last words, also quoted in Famous Sayings and their Authors, p. 44
Holy Living (1650)
[edit]- ...if love hath filled all the corners of our soul, it alone is able to do all the work of God.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 1, introduction.
- He that is choice of his time will be choice of his company, and choice of his actions.
- Holy Living (1650), chapter. 1, section 1
- This grace (purity of intention) is so excellent that it sanctifies the most common actions of our life and yet is so necessary that without it, the very best actions of our devotion are imperfect and vicious.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 1, section 2
- God is in the bowels of thy brother; refresh them, when he needs it, and then you give your alms in the presence of God, and to God; and He feels the relief which thou providest for thy brother.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 1, section 3
- O let Thy mercy descend upon the whole church; preserve her in truth and peace, in unity and safety, in all storms, and against all temptations and enemies; that she, offering to Thy glory the never-ceasing sacrifice of prayer and thanksgiving, may advance the honour of her Lord, and be filled with His Spirit, and partake of His glory. Amen.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 1, Prayers and Devotions
- Faith, hope, and charity are the best weapons in the world to fight against intemperance.
- Holy Living (1650) ch. 2, section 2.
- Some married persons, even in their marriage, do better please God than some virgins in their state of virginity: they, by giving great example of conjugal affection, by preserving their faith unbroken, by educating children in the fear of God, by patience, and contentedness, and holy thoughts, and the exercise of virtues proper to that state, do not only please God, but do in a higher degree than those virgins whose piety is not answerable to their great opportunities and advantages.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 2, section 3
- ...since God has appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world and that is a contented spirit.
- "Holy Living" (1650) ch. 2, section 6. "Of Contentedness in all Estates".
- My children are not so much mine as they are God’s.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 2, section 6.
- ...for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens...
- "Holy Living" (1650) ch. 2, section 6. "Of Contentedness in all Estates".
- God gave necessities to man, that all men might need; and several abilities to several persons, that each man might help to supply the public needs, and, by joining to fill up all wants, they may be knit together by justice, as the parts of the world are by nature.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 3, introduction.
- Let no man appropriate to his own use what God, by a special mercy, or the republic, hath made common; for that is both against justice and charity too; and by miraculous accidents, God hath declared his displeasure against such enclosure.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 3, section 3.
- Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God; for it will also give ourselves and carry with it all that is ours.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 3.
- Remember that zeal, being an excrescence of divine love, must in no sense contradict any action of love. Love to God includes love to our neighbour; and therefore no pretence of zeal for God’s glory must make us uncharitable to our brother; for that is just so pleasing to God as hatred is an act of love.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 3.
- The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher in the world, and the words of Scripture the best sermons.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 4.
- Upon the wings of fasting and alms holy prayer infallibly mounts up to heaven.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 5.
- Whatever we beg of God, let us also work for it, if the thing be matter of duty, or a consequent to industry; for God loves to bless labour and to reward it, but not to support idleness. And therefore our blessed Saviour in his sermons joins watchfulness with prayer, for God’s graces are but assistances, not new creations of the whole habit, in every instant or period of our life. Read Scriptures, and then pray to God for understanding. Pray against temptation; but you must also resist the devil, and then he will flee from you. Ask of God competency of living; but you must also work with your hands the things that are honest, that ye may have to supply in time of need. We can but do our endeavor, and pray for blessing, and then leave the success with God; and beyond this we cannot deliberate, we cannot take care — but, so far, we must.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 7.
- Love is as communicative as fire, as busy and as active...
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 8.
- If any man be well grown in grace, he must needs come [to receive the Eucharist], because he is excellently disposed to so holy a feast: but he that is but in the infancy of piety had need to come, that so he may grow in grace. The strong must come lest they become weak; and the weak that they may become strong. The sick must come to be cured; the healthful to be preserved.
- Holy Living (1650), ch. 4, section 10.
- O holy and ever-blessed Spirit, Who didst overshadow the holy Virgin, the mother of our Lord, and caused her to conceive by a miraculous and mysterious manner, be pleased to overshadow my soul, and enlighten my spirit, that I may conceive the holy Jesus in my heart, and may bear Him in my mind, and may grow up to the fulness of the stature of Christ, to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Amen.
- Holy Living (1650), Prayers for All Sorts of Men and All Necessities, Special Devotions to be used upon the Lords Day, and the great Festivals of Christians.
Holy Dying (1651)
[edit]- All that a sick and dying man can do, is but to exercise those virtues which he before acquired, and to perfect that repentance, which was begun more early.
- Holy Dying (1651), Dedication.
- By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great sin, and prevent its arrival to become habitual. For to examine we suppose to be a relative duty, and instrumental to something else. We examine ourselves, that we may find out our failings and cure them; and therefore if we use our remedy when the wound is fresh and bleeding, we shall find the cure more certain and less painful.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 2, section 2.
- Charity is the great channel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankind. For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother. This is the rule of our hopes, and the measure of our desire in this world; and in the day of death and judgment the great sentence upon mankind shall to transacted according to our alms, which is the other part of charity. Certain it is, that God cannot, will not, never did, reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers; for God himself is love, and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 2, section 3.
- And what can be greater than that from the goodness and love of God we receive Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and adoption, and the inheritance of sons, and to be coheirs with Jesus, and to have pardon of our sins, and a Divine nature, and restraining grace and the grace of sanctification, and rest and peace within us, and a certain expectation of glory?
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 4, section 6.
- O most gracious and eternal God and loving Father, Who hast poured out Thy bowels upon us, and sent the Son of Thy love unto us to die for love, and to make us dwell in love, and the eternal comprehensions of Thy Divine mercies, O be pleased to inflame my heart with a holy charity towards Thee and all the world.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 4, section 10.
- But exhortations must prevail with their own proper weight, not by the passion of the speaker.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 5, section 2.
- The sacraments and ceremonies of the gospel operate not without the concurrent actions and moral influences of the suscipient.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 5, section 4.
- Virtue and vice are oftentimes so near neighbours that we pass into each other’s borders without observation, and think we do justice when we are cruel; or call ourselves liberal when we are loose and foolish in expenses; and are amorous when we commend our own civilities and good nature.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 5, section 6.
- It remains, that we who are alive should so live, and by the actions of religion attend the coming of the day of the Lord, that we neither be surprised nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our sins uncancelled, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased; but that, when we descend to our graves, we may rest in the bosom of the Lord, till the mansions be prepared where we shall sing and feast eternally. Amen. Te Deum laudamus.
- Holy Dying (1651), chapter 5, section 8.
Other Works
[edit]- God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and thankful persons.
- Sermon XXV, Part IV: "The Duties of the Tongue"
- Can any thing in this world be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth can come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster?
- Sermon XX, Part II
- The thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, and yet talks against him that did; saying that which is made, is, and that which made it, is not. But this folly is infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or the primitive nothing.
- "Apples of Sodom," part II, sermon XX of Twenty-Five Sermons for the Winter Half-Year, Preached at Golden Grove (1653)
- The first things that hinders the prayer of a good man from obtaining its effects is a violent anger, and a violent storm in the spirit him who prayers.
- Works of Jeremy Taylor, Anthology of English Prose (Dent 1948)
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
[edit]- Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
- In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversation and in the circumstances of secular employment.
- P. 117.
- Faith converses with the angels, and antedates the hymns of glory.
- P. 218.
- God is everywhere present by His power. He rolls the orbs of heaven with His hand; He fixes the earth with His foot; He guides all creatures with His eye, and refreshes them with His influence; He makes the powers of hell to shake with His terrors, and binds the devils with His word.
- P. 274.
- Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ.
- P. 397.
Attributed
[edit]- Bishop Jeremy Taylor is clear, that men will find it impossible to do anything greatly good, unless they cut off all superfluous company and visits.
- George Horne, Olla Podrida, No. 9.
