Jeremy Taylor Week: 'he was a rare humanist'

For this concluding post of Jeremy Taylor Week, we turn to four sermons, delivered in quite different contexts. One of the sermons was preached just prior to the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.  The other three sermons were preached in the years immediately following the Restoration. Two of the sermons marked civic occasions, addressing the polity. Two of the sermons were at funerals, including that preached by George Rust at Taylor's funeral.

We begin in 1638, with Taylor's first published work, his Gunpowder Plot sermon, preached, at Laud's direction, in the St. Mary's, Oxford. His text was Luke 9.54, James and John seeking to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village. For Taylor, the Gunpowder Plot conspirators - and all those who encouraged the "already too much clashing of armour and effusion of blood for a Christian cause" - followed the path of James and John.

When first I considered they were Apostles, I wondered they should be so intemperatly angry; but when I perceived they were so angry, I wondred not that they sinned. Not the priviledge of an Apostolicall spirit, not the nature of Angels, not the condition of immortality can guard from the danger of sinne, but if we be overrul'd by passion, we almost subject our selves to its necessity. It was not therefore without reason altogether, that the Stoicks affirm'd wisemen to be void of passions, for sure I am, the inordination of any passion is the first step to folly. And although of them, as of waters of a muddy residence wee may make good use, and quench our thirst, if wee doe not trouble them, yet upon any ungentle disturbance we drinke down mud in stead of a cleere streame, and the issues of sinne and sorrow, certaine consequents of temerarious or inordinate anger. 

Taylor, of course, invokes the evangelical doctrine - "Christ was the first that taught it to be a sinne to retaliate evill with evill, it was a Doctrine they could not read in the killing letter of the Law" - against the Gunpowder conspirators. What aids us to follow this doctrine, however, is what "the Stoics affirmed", that we should not be determined by "any passion". 

This sermon, in other words, the first of Taylor's works to be published, set forth what would be an enduring theme in his writings: that Christendom, torn apart by bloody confessional strife, should heed the old Roman wisdom, including that of the Stoics, as a means of following "mercifull spirit of our Saviour", thereby securing the peace of the commonwealth. Mindful of the tensions growing in the Kingdom of Scotland - the Bishops' Wars would commence the following year - those listening to and reading Taylor's sermons could not have missed the contemporary relevance of his words.

Twenty-three years pass. It is after the disaster of the 1640s and the grim confusions of the 1650s. An older Taylor - he was now in his 48th year; he been merely 25 in 1638 - took to the pulpit to preach to the the first Parliament of Ireland called after the Restoration. In the preface to the sermon, he reflected on the civil wars and Interregnum:

My eyes are almost grown old with seeing the horrid mischiefs which came from Rebellion and Disobedience.

They are words that many Europeans uttered after the experience of the 17th century wars of religion, including the conflicts brought to the Three Kingdoms by, as Taylor put it, "the tumultuary disputations and arguings of Religion". In this context, and close to the opening of his sermon, Taylor turned to the words of Seneca: 

For Obedience is the most necessary thing in the world, and corruptio optimi est pessima: Disobedience is the greatest evil in the world, and that alone which can destroy it [in a footnote: Nullum malum majus aut infeliciter feracius quam inobedientia. - Seneca.]

Looking back over the past decades, there was a dark but all-too obvious resonance to Seneca's words: rebellion had brought crashing down Church, Crown, Parliament, rights and liberties. Without obedience to " Kings and Parliaments ... the makers and proper expounders of our Laws", there can no be civil peace: "without this you cannot have a Village prosperous, or a Ship arrive in harbour".

Now with the Restoration, a religious settlement was also given to the Three Kingdoms, after the decades of confusion. In this matter, Taylor declared, the wisdom of Cicero was to be heeded:

But that which concerns us most is, that we all keep close to our Religion. Ad magnas reipublicae utilitates retinetur Religio in civitatibus, said Cicero; by Religion and the strict preserving of it, ye shall best preserve the Interests of the Nation.

Here was a Ciceronian vision of the Restoration's ecclesiastical settlement:

for Churches, and Courts of Judicature, and the publick defences of an Imperial City, are res sacrae; they are venerable in Law, and honourable in Religion.

Seneca's civil obedience and Cicero's civic religion - such was Taylor's understanding of the Restoration, the means of securing a flourishing and well-ordered polity, the hope with which he concluded his sermon:

the honour and service of his Majesty, and the peace and prosperity of the Church, the perpetuity of our fundamental Laws, publick Justice, and the honour of all legal Authority, the advancement of Trade and the wealth of the Nation.

We move forward to 1663. One of the great pillars of the Restoration order in the Kingdom of Ireland, John Bramhall, Archbishop of Armagh, has died. Taylor preaches at his funeral. Proclaiming the Christian hope of the resurrection, he illustrates with a story of "old Camillus", the embodiment of "Roman greatness":

Combustusque senextumulo procedit adultus; Consumens dat membra rogus

The ashes of old Camillus shall stand up spritely from his urn; and the funeral fires shall produce a new warmth to the dead bones of all those, who died under the arms of all the enemies of the Roman greatness.

Nor was this the only reference in the sermon to a Roman exemplar in the face of death. 

Seneca tells that Bassus Aufidius was wont to say, Sperare se nullum dolorem esse in illo extremo anhelitu; si tamen esset, habere aliquantum in ipsa brevitate solatii; "He hoped that the pains of the last dissolution were little or none; or if they were, it was full of comfort that they could be but short ". It happened so to this excellent man: his passive fortitude had been abundantly tried before, and, therefore, there was the less need of it now; his active graces had been abundantly demonstrated by the great and good thing.

Bramhall was like the noble Romans of old, in his fortitude in the face of death; in his hope that his dead bones would be stirred with divine fire. But it was not only in death that Bramhall was like those noble Romans:

It will be hard to find his equal in all things. Fortasse tan quam phœnix anno quingentesimo nascitur (that I may use the words of Seneca): nec estmirum ex intervallomagna generari: mediocria et in turbam nascentia sæpefortuna producit; eximia vero ipsa raritate commendat. 

Taylor concluded the sermon with words from Pliny the Elder:

Equidem beatos puto quibus Deorum munere datum est, aut facere scribenda, aut scribere legenda; "he wrote many things fit to be read, and did very many things worthy to be written".

Bramhall, "primate of this national Church", who had "served God and the king", was as a noble Roman, enduring loss and exile, remaining "a loyal subject to the king", who "well asserted the economy of the Divine Providence", "this great man" who offered an example "to wisely imitate".

Now it is August 1667. Taylor himself has died. His friend and Cambridge Platonist George Rust preaches at his funeral. As he expounds the Christian hope, Rust implies that it embraces "Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato". This becomes more explicit as he continues:

And I may say to every good man, that he shall go to the Company of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Moses, David, and Samuel; all the Prophets and Apostles, and all the holy men of God that have been in all the ages of the World. All those brave and excellent persons that have been scattered at the greatest distance of time and place, and in their several generations have been the salt of the earth to preserve mankind from utter degeneracy and corruption; These shall be all gathered together, and meet in one Constellation in that Firmament of Glory.

It is fitting, then, that to express this hope, Rust turns to Cicero:

O Praeclarum diem, cum ad illud divinorum animorum concilium, coetumque proficiscar, atque ex hac turba ac colluvione discedam! O that blessed day, when we shall make our escape from this medly and confused riot, and shall arrive to that great Council and general rendezvous of divine and godlike Spirits!

As with Taylor's sermon at the funeral of Bramhall, the Christian hope can find expression through the words of noble Romans. Rust places Taylor amongst the number of "those brave and excellent persons", describing him as "one of the eklektikoi", a stance identified with Cicero and Seneca:

But that which made his Wit and Judgment so considerable, was the largeness and freedom of his Spirit, for truth is plain and easie to a mind dis-intangled from Superstition and Prejudice; He was one of the eklektikoi a sort of brave Philosophers that Laertius speaks of, that did not addict themselves to any particular Sect, but ingenuously sought for Truth among all the wrangling Schools; and they found her miserably torn and rent to pieces, and parcell'd into Raggs, by the several contending Parties, and so disfigur'd and mishapen, that it was hard to know her; but they made a shift to gather up her scatter'd Limbs, which as soon as they came together by a strange sympathy and connaturalness, presently united into a lovely and beautiful body. This was the Spirit of this Great Man; he weighed Mens Reasons, and not their Names.

Rust, no doubt, was thinking of much more recent times as he referred to "all the wrangling schools", leaving truth "miserably torn and rent to pieces". As with the eklektikoi of old, there had arisen a new set of "brave Philosophers", whose eirenicism had pointed to "plain and easy" truth, in place of the enthusiasm of the sects. Amongst them, of course, was Taylor:

He was a rare Humanist, and hugely vers'd in all the polite parts of Learning; and had throughly concocted all the ancient Moralists, Greek and Roman, Poets and Orators ...

Steeped in ancient wisdom, Taylor the humanist was an exemplar of how this wisdom spoke to the distracted times. In such times, Rust declared, Taylor recalled Christendom to a noble way:

But Religion is not a matter of Theory and Orthodox Notions, and it is not enough to believe aright, but we must practise accordingly; and to master our passions, and to make a right use of that antexousion [free will] and power that God has given us over our own actions, is a greater glory than all other Accomplishments that can adorn the mind of Man ...

We might note that phrase "to master our passions", almost certainly a case of Rust gesturing towards the Stoics. Just as Taylor had pointed to Bramhall as like the noble Romans of old, so too did Rust with Taylor. Living in an age when, as in other parts of Europe, "a barbarous and unnatural War ... brought all things into disorder and confusion", this "rare Humanist" had sought to heal the times, bringing the wisdom and reason of Cicero and Seneca in place of enthusiasm, superstition, and prejudice. 

As this post brings this year's Jeremy Taylor Week to a close, we have, I hope, seen something of the significance of the Ciceronian and Senecan humanism in Taylor's theological and cultural vision. This leads us to place Taylor amongst those eirenic humanist divines who he admired: Erasmus, Cassander, Grotius, Episcopius. It might also be tentatively suggested that his embrace of Ciceronian and Senecan humanism was amongst the most influential aspects of Taylor's thought bequeathed to the Anglicanism of the long 18th century, profoundly shaping the Anglican understanding of civil peace, ecclesiastical order, and the need to challenge enthusiasms. And as for us in 2026, we might see something of the relevance of Taylor the "rare Humanist" for our own distracted and dislocated times.