Born in 1613 in Cambridge, Jeremy Taylor was made Bishop of Down and Connor and later of Dromore. He penned The Rule and Exercises of Holy LivingThe Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, a manual of conduct for the private, public, and spiritual aspects of the religious life. The mood of this text exudes melancholy rather than terror or despondency. These hugely popular books, and Taylor's other major works, were composed at a time when the Anglican Church was at its lowest ebb of persecution.
Jeremy Taylor 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 expression and was often presented as a model of prose writing. He is remembered in the Church of England's calendar of saints with a Lesser Festival on 13 August.
He went on to become chaplain in ordinary to King Charles I as a result of Laud's sponsorship. This made him politically suspect when Laud was tried for treason and executed in 1645 by the Puritan Parliament during the English Civil War. After the Parliamentary victory over the King, he was briefly imprisoned several times.
Eventually, he was allowed to live quietly in Wales, where he became the private chaplain of the Earl of Carbery. At the Restoration, his political star was on the rise, and he was made Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland. He also became vice-chancellor of the University of Dublin.
Taylor's fame has been maintained by the popularity of his sermons and devotional writings rather than by his influence as a theologian or his importance as an ecclesiastic.
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