Skip to main content

Posts

'Preferring plainness and utility to gaiety and ornament': understanding the New Georgian sensibility

On this last day of August, some words for New Georgians from Robert Morris' Rural Architecture (1750). Morris provides a quite wonderful exposition of why the New Georgian finds stolid, rational joy in the plain simplicity of the Georgian parish church. He begins by introducing the roots of such plain simplicity: most who have wrote on this Subject, have raised nothing but Palaces, glaring in Decoration and Dress; while the Cottage, or plain little Villa, are passed by unregarded Gaiety, Magnificence, the  rude Gothic, or the Chinese unmeaning Stile, are the Study of our modern  Architects; while Grecian and Roman Purity and Simplicity are neglected.  These classical roots may alert us to how such church architecture coheres with the theme of the posts of Jeremy Taylor Week , of the Ciceronian and Senecan humanism valued by Taylor and bequeathed to 18th century Anglicanism. Having praised the classical Greek and Roman simplicity, Morris continues: As an Admirer of thos...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

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 s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jeremy Taylor Week: 'none but a wise and good man can truly rejoice'

It is not only in Taylor's books of divinity that classical Roman wisdom had a significant presence and role. This was also the case with his sermons. In other words, Taylor's vision of a Christian humanism integrating the wisdom of Cicero and Seneca was also heard in his pulpit ministry. This in itself is revealing, pointing to how Taylor's use of Cicero and Seneca was no mere literary device in his written works (which would be - as we have seen - a rather unconvincing interpretation), but integral to his theological vision.  If we consider the 25 sermons of the Golden Grove Winter volume (preached from Advent Sunday unto Whitsun, published in 1653), we find Cicero, Seneca, and Quintilian appearing regularly. In many cases, they are invoked as Taylor expounds the nature of the moral life.  Sermons XXII, XXIII, and XXIV are jointly entitled 'The Good and Evil Tongue'. In Sermon XXII , Seneca is quoted on how the foolish tongue is contrary to reason: Every beam of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jeremy Taylor Week: 'the wisdom of the Ancients'

For that was the wisdom of the Ancients. Antiqua Sapientia nihil aliud quam facienda & vitanda praecepit: Et tunc meliores erant viri. Postquam docti prodierunt, boni desunt. Simplex enim illa & aperta virtus in obscuram & solertem scientiam versa est; docemurque disputare, non vivere.  [Ancient wisdom prescribed nothing other than what should be done and what should be avoided; and in those days, men were better. Since the arrival of the learned, good men are lacking. For that simple and open virtue has been transformed into an obscure and subtle kind of knowledge; and we are taught how to argue, not how to live.] In the preface to his  Ductor dubitantium, or, The rule of conscience (1660), Jeremy Taylor invokes "the wisdom of the Ancients" by quoting Seneca. He sets out the aim of this work - how to live in "simple and open virtue", not how to argue. In 1660, of course, the Three Kingdoms were looking back upon decades of argument: divisive, harsh, bl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jeremy Taylor Week: 'Seneca said well'

Unbridled emotion is often treated as a positive quality in nonconformist writings, where 'weeping sessions' figured prominently. But Anglicans of this period stressed head over heart ... Stoic philosophy, with its belief int he importance of exemplary fortitude in the face of difficulties, and in the subordination of emotion to reason, enjoyed a vogue in the early 17th century. Two notable followers, Joseph Hall and Jeremy Taylor, were both sequestered loyalists. Fiona McCall's identification of the place of Stoic influences in conformist episcopalian piety, in her excellent Baal's Priests: The Loyalist Clergy and the English Revolution (2013), introduces us to a significant theme in Taylor's thought. Indeed, McCall particularly highlights Taylor's view of episcopalian suffering during the Interregnum not as a celebration of martyrdom but in Stoic terms of edification: Jeremy Taylor took the stoic view that suffering, rather than being the means to martyrdom, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jeremy Taylor Week: 'our prayers and religious offices are fit for wise men'

With a slightly later Summer break this year, Jeremy Taylor Week on Laudable Practice has missed his commemoration on 13th August (the date of Taylor's death in 1667). We resume, however, with a week of posts considering an aspect of Taylor's thought. This year's Jeremy Taylor Week will consider what seems to be a quite overlooked theme in Taylor's works - the place he gives to the thought of classical Roman philosophers.  The topic suggested itself as I read through Taylor's Golden Grove sermons last year. The sermons regularly invoked the writings and thought of classical Roman philosophers. This led me to explore such references in other Taylor works, were the same pattern is found. In other words, this was a consistent characteristic in Taylor's writings. What hinted at the significance of this characteristic was a comment in Ian Green's Humanism and Protestantism in Early Modern English Education (2009), noting that the "conservative episcopalian...
Post a Comment
Read more

'He was so universally acceptable': Samuel Clarke's sermons and 18th century Anglicanism's unity and accord

The reference to Samuel Clarke in the recent post regarding the Anglicanism of George Washington has led me to consider Clarke's place in 18th century Anglicanism. On a previous occasion , when reflecting on Clarke's Advent and Christmas sermons, I noted his sermons were popularly received across the 18th century Church of England. This provides a significant example of the 'unity and accord' of 18th century Anglicanism, identified by William Gibson as defining characteristics.  In his ' Some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Samuel Clarke ' - the preface to the 1738 edition of Clarke's sermons - Bishop Benjamin Hoadly indicates something of why the sermons would have such appeal across the Church of England: His Preaching was what One would naturally expect from a Person of so Critical a Genius, and so sedate a Judgment. The Design and Tendency of it was not to move the Passions: nor had he any Talent this way. He wisely never attempted i...
Post a Comment
Read more