Jeremy Taylor week: Unum Necessarium (I) "Repentance is not like the Summer fruits"

This coming Saturday, 13th August, is the commemoration of Jeremy Taylor.  Today, then, begins Jeremy Taylor Week on laudable Practice.  This year's Jeremy Taylor week will consider what is perhaps the most controversial of Taylor's works, Unum Necessarium, or The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance (1655)*. It was this work which led to Presbyterians - particularly when he was appointed to the episcopate - levelling the charge of Socinianism for a supposed denial of the doctrine of Original Sin.

I confess that for many years I avoided this work, not knowing how to interpret it. These blog posts are an attempt to articulate something of an interpretation which, I hope, does justice to Taylor's understanding of the doctrine, not least in the context of his wider commitment to theological orthodoxy: as he urged in his Rules and Advices to the clergy of his diocese, "Every Minister ought to be careful that he never expound Scriptures in publick contrary to the known sense of the Catholick Church, and particularly of the Churches of England and Ireland".

In the Preface to the work, addressed to "the most Reverend and Religious Clergy of the Church of England, my brethren", Taylor is very much aware that what he says regarding Original Sin will be controversial:

I know but one Objection which I am likely to meet withal (excepting those of my infirmity and disability, which I cannot answer but by protesting the piety of my purposes) but this only; that in the Chapter of Original Sin, I speak otherwise than is spoken commonly in the Church of England.

He accepts that "I use differing manner of expressions" to Article IX, while yet insisting, "I shall not be thought to receed from the spirit and sense of the Article".

As will be seen in a subsequent post, Taylor does indeed set forth an understanding of Original Sin that revises - indeed, breaks from - certain Augustinian formulations.  Why? What is Taylor's purpose in critiquing and rejecting key aspects of the Augustinian formulation of Original Sin?  

In the Epistle Dedicatory - to the Earl of Carbery - Taylor introduces the focus of his work: the call to repentance.  Indeed, his description of repentance brings to mind Luther's famous affirmation in the Ninety-Five Theses, "he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance":

The duty of Repentance is of so great and universal concernment, a Catholicon [i.e. remedy] to the evils of the Soul of every man, that if there be any particular in which it is worthy the labours of the whole Ecclesiastical Calling, to be instant in season and out of season, it is in this duty ... For Repentance is not like the Summer fruits, fit to be taken a little, and in their own time; it is like bread, the provisions and support of our life, the entertainment of every day.

Moving to the Preface addressed to the clergy of the Church of England, Taylor then begins to explore how too radical a doctrine of Original Sin undermines the call to repentance.  He describes the pastoral consequences of too radical a notion of Original Sin, how it becomes an excuse for avoiding the daily duty of repentance:

For I consider that the Commandments are impossible, and what is not possible to be done we are not to take care of: and he that fails in one instance cannot be sav'd without a pardon, not by his obedience; and he that fails in all may be sav'd by pardon and grace. For the case is so, that we are sinners naturally, made so before we were born; and nature can never be changed until she be destroyed: and since all our irregularities spring from that root, it is certain they ought not to be imputed to us ... For besides that I am told that a man hath no liberty, but a liberty to sin, and this definite liberty is in plain English a very necessity ...  and that it is so,I am taught in almost all the discourses I have read or heard upon the seventh Chapter to the Romans: and therefore if I may have leave to do consonantly to what I am taught to believe, I must confess myself to be under the dominion of sin, and therefore must obey; and that I am bidden to obey unwillingly, and am told that the striving against sin is indeed ordinarily ineffective, and yet is a sign of regeneration; I can soon do that; I can strive againſt it, and pray against it, but I cannot hope to prevail in either, because I am told before-hand, that even the regenerate are under the power of sin.

Perhaps the key phrase in this account of the view of Original Sin being critiqued by Taylor is "we are sinners naturally". This is Taylor's central fear, that too radical a notion of Original Sin makes sin essential and fundamental to human nature, thus obscuring the dominical and apostolical call to holy living.

In other words, Taylor's critique of a radical Augustinianism does not emerge from an Enlightenment humanism.  It is not because of a fear that the dignity of humanity will be offended by an antiquated theological notion.  No, Taylor's concern is that a radically Augustinian view of Original Sin is an obstacle to the duty of repentance.  Something of this is suggested when he invokes the leading Jansenist Arnauld against the Jesuits and frequent reception of the Sacrament:

Mounsieur Arnauld of the Sorbon hath appeared publickly in reproof of a frequent and easie Communion , without the just and long preparations of Repentance, and its proper exercises and Ministery. Petavius the Jesuit hath oppos'd him ... Mounsieur Arnauld hath the clearest advantage in the pretensions of Antiquity and the Arguments of Truth.

Here, then, Taylor is siding with the Augustinian Jansenists in favour of a serious and weighty duty of repentance. This emphasises how Taylor certainly has no interest whatsoever in minimising the reality of sin in the life of the Christian.  His concern is, rather, to ensure that the Christian hears and authentically responds to the call to repentance.

He is also aware of the discipline of the Roman and Presbyterian traditions, particularly regarding communicants, urging that the Church of England should exercise the ministries available to it to do in a like manner:

it were very well we would do that for Conscience, for Charity, and for Piety, which others do for Interest, or Zeal; and that we would be careful to use all those Ministeries, and be earnest for all those Doctrines, which visibly in the causes of things are apt to produce holiness and severe living.

He therefore calls the clergy of the Church of England to encourage "the yoke of holy discipline" - including "private Confession", for "It was neither fit that all should be tied to it, nor yet that all should throw it off" - in order to ensure faithful and worthy reception of the holy Sacrament:

I desire that the effect should be, that all the pious and religious Curates of Souls in the Church of England would endeavour to produce so much fear and reverence, caution and wariness in all their penitents, that they should be willing to undergo more severe methods in their restitution than now they do: that men should not dare to approach to the holy Sacrament, as soon as ever their foul hands are wet with a drop of holy rain; but that they should expect the periods of life, and when they have given to their Curate fair testimony of a hearty Repentance, and know it to be so within themselves, they may with comfort to all parties, communicate with holiness and joy. 

As Thomas Palmer notes in his excellent study of the theological trend of "moral rigorism" exemplified by Unum Necessarium, the allegation of Socianism entirely misses the focus of Taylor's work, the need for the practice of repentance:

it is hard to see how Socinus should be considered the principal source for Taylor’s thought in this area. The one thing Taylor did not intend by his arguments was an apology for nature. On the contrary, they underwrote a doctrine of repentance premised on a highly pronounced view of human infirmity.

We can see, therefore, Taylor's central concern, grounded in his experience of the cure of souls: too radical an understanding of Original Sin obscures, undermines, and profoundly weakens the call to be "in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend[ing] to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways".

*Note: when quoting from Unum Necessarium I am including the various shorter responses and explanations following the work and included with it: the exchanges with the Bishop of Rochester and the letter to the Countess of Devonshire.