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 A Book of Devotioxs for the 24 Hours. 
 
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 SPIRITUAL READINGS FROM 
 JERExMY DREXELIUS. 
 
 '^ran^lated by the .Author of " Charles Lowder." 
 
 Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM H. CLEAVER. 
 
 Crown Svo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS.
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S 
 
 )// 
 
 GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DENNIS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " STUDIES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE," ETC. 
 
 A. D. INNES & CO., 
 
 31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. 
 1893-

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Jerp:mv Taylor belongs to the select band of 
 authors who have a life beyond life. Every critic 
 of our great prose writers mentions his name with 
 honour ; every student of our literature knows that 
 he is the most eloquent and one of the most 
 erudite of English divines. The titles at least 
 of his principal works are familiar to most readers, 
 and no doubt there are still manv devout souls 
 who feed with delight in the green pastures of his 
 " Holy Living " and " Holy Dying." 
 
 Probably this is the utmost popularity that can 
 now be claimed for Taylor. The greatest poets 
 use a universal language upon which time has no 
 power ; the ear is never closed to their music, the 
 heart will always respond to their charm. Poetry 
 of the highest order cannot grow obsolete, and 
 time has had no influence on Homer and Dante, 
 on Shakespeare and on Milton. The prose writer, 
 on the other hand, is at a disadvantage ; and the 
 few that after the lapse of many )cars retain their
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 full vitality, do so for the most part through per- 
 fection of style and by thoughts borne on the 
 wings of imagination — the very qualities that are 
 most akin to poetry. Perfection of style cannot be 
 claimed for Jeremy Taylor, but the magic of style 
 may be, and he has also an inexhaustible wealth 
 of language. Of all our prose writers on serious 
 subjects he has the liveliest fancy and perhaps the 
 sweetest turns of expression. Of this I am sure, 
 that the more we dig in his mine the more gold 
 shall we extract, and the more shall we be con- 
 scious of the depth as well as fertility of his genius. 
 The exuberance of his fancy is never an indica- 
 tion of poverty of thought. The most poetical of 
 divines is assuredly also one of the weightiest. If 
 he rambles to pluck flowers by the way, he has 
 always the cunning art of extracting from them 
 medicine or fragrance. 
 
 Knowing a little of Taylor's great and versatile 
 powers, I feel how inadequate any gleanings from 
 so illustrious an author must be — inadequate, but 
 not, I trust, ill-judged. Whatever makes such a 
 writer better known must be of some service to 
 his memory, and, which he would have desired far 
 more, may prove of benefit to readers unacquainted 
 with the fifteen volumes whence these " Golden 
 Sayings " are extracted. This is the editor's aim, 
 and will be regarded, it may be hoped, as a justi- 
 fication of this selection.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor was born at Cambridge in 1613. 
 The day of his birth is uncertain, but he was 
 baptised on the 15th of August in that year. 
 His father, Nathaniel Taylor, a barber in the 
 town, was, to quote his son's words, " reasonably 
 learned," and boasted his descent from Dr. Rowland 
 Taylor, the well-known martyr, who died at the 
 stake in the third year of Queen Mary, " with a 
 courageous and kindly cheerfulness which has 
 scarcely its parallel even in those days of religious 
 heroism." ^ At the age of thirteen Jeremy entered 
 Caius College as a sizar, a humble position which 
 enabled many a poor student to gain a university 
 education. Twelve months before, John IMilton, 
 then in his seventeenth year, had gone up to 
 
 ' Heber's " Life of Jeremy Taylor," p. 4. 
 2
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Christ's. The greatest poet and the most eloquent 
 divine of that age might therefore have been 
 friends in youth, but neither at that early period, 
 nor in later days, do these two illustrious men 
 appear to have met, and there is not even an allu- 
 sion in the works of one to the writings of the 
 other. Their opinions were, it has been justly said, 
 in direct opposition, and yet in many respects the 
 iconoclast and the Laudian divine were kindred 
 spirits, loving what is beautiful, aiming at what is 
 pure and lofty, ardent upholders of what they 
 deemed the right, and eager in the pursuit of 
 knowledge. 
 
 In 163 1 Taylor took his bachelor's degree, some 
 time later he gained a fellowship and was soon 
 afterwards ordained, having previously received 
 his degree of Master of Arts. Handsome in form 
 and face, eloquent and earnest, the youthful 
 clergyman preached in St. Paul's, and was taken, 
 to quote the high-flown language of his friend Dr. 
 Rust, " for some young angel newly descended 
 from the visions of glory." Laud regarded the 
 sermon as " beyond exception and beyond imita- 
 tion ; yet the wise prelate thought him too 
 young, but the youth humbly begged his Grace to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 pardon that fault, and promised if he lived he 
 would amend it." ^ 
 
 By the Archbishop's advice Taylor removed to 
 Oxford, where, in 1635, he was admitted Master 
 of Arts in University College, and in January, 1636 
 — a month and a year made memorable in English 
 history by Hampden's refusal to pay the tax of 
 ship money — he was appointed Fellow of All 
 Soul's. In 1637 he was presented to the Rectory 
 of Uppingham, and Laud, bent eagerly on his 
 advancement, obtained for him the position of 
 Chaplain to King Charles. Then we are told of 
 his marriage, in 1639, to Phoebe Langsdale, the 
 daughter of a widow lady in the town, and how, 
 on giving birth to her third child in 1642, the 
 mother and infant died, and were buried on the 
 same day. This grievous loss happened when 
 Taylor was in his thirtieth year. 
 
 The seventeenth centurj' was not, like the nine- 
 teenth, an age of biographers, and its most dis- 
 tinguished men lived and died with little notice 
 from the press. Of Taylor's life the bare facts 
 are recorded, but detail, which is the salt of 
 biography, is almost wholly lacking. This is the 
 • Rust's Funeral .Sermon.
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 more to be deplored because Taylor not only- 
 ranks with the most distinguished of English 
 authors, but was also closely associated with the 
 public events of the time. He had the misfortune 
 to live in an age of political upheaval and of eccle- 
 siastical strife — an age in which it seemed as 
 though the old paths would be obliterated and the 
 ancient landmarks swept away. As chaplain to 
 the King, Taylor had now to share his fortunes. 
 It is by no means easy to trace his movements, but 
 we know that he accompanied the Royal army, and 
 in 1643 ^^^s present at the battle of Newbury, in 
 which Falkland lost his life. x'\t the siege of the 
 Castle of Cardigan, in 1644, the Royalists were 
 repulsed, and Ta}'lor was taken prisoner ; but the 
 imprisonment could not have lasted long, since 
 before the end of the year he was at Oxford. The 
 warfare he was called upon to wage was with the 
 pen. In that period of conflict it was impos- 
 sible that a captain so well armed and so strong 
 in what he deemed the righteousness of a great 
 cause should decline to go into the battle. In 
 1643 Taylor had published " Episcopacy Asserted," 
 and now the University Press issued his " Defence 
 of the Liturgy," a work of practical value at a
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 time when the pubh"c services of the Church were 
 not tolerated and the Book of Common Prayer 
 openly burnt. 
 
 The year in which he was deprived of his living 
 by the committee appointed in 1640 for ejecting 
 " scandalous ministers " appears to be uncertain, 
 but if a Royalist newspaper of the day may be 
 trusted/ Taylor's successor, a man of the name ot 
 Isaac Massey, was at once scandalous and profane. 
 " The successor of Taylor," says Willmott, " was 
 probably a brother of the Colonel Massey who 
 occupies so prominent a place in the revolutionary 
 memorials of Whitelock, and whose sacrilegious 
 exploits in Gloucestershire long preserved his 
 memory in that county. He stripped churches 
 with more than ordinary enthusiasm ; selling com- 
 munion-plate and tearing up prayer-books ; while 
 the soldiers wore the surplices over their arms. 
 Of such a person the brawler at Uppingham would 
 be the appropriate deputy." ^ 
 
 When Taylor married a second time we do not 
 know, but the lady's name, Joanna Bridges, has 
 
 ' iMercunus Aitlicus, Maya, 1644. 
 
 * " Bishop Jeremy Taylor, his Predecessors, Contemporaries, and 
 Successors," p. 108.
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 been preserved. She is said to have been a 
 beautiful woman, and " is generally believed," 
 Bishop Heber states, " to be a natural daughter of 
 Charles I. when Prince of Wales, and under the 
 guidance of the dissipated and licentious Bucking- 
 ham." The lady was the owner of Mandinnam, a 
 good estate near Llangadock, in Carmarthenshire. 
 Her husband, however, appears to have derived 
 little benefit from it, for, like John Milton, he was 
 forced to keep a school, at which, according to 
 Anthony Wood, " several youths were most loyally 
 educated and afterwards sent to the Universities." 
 Llanvihangel Aberbythic, the scene of his labours 
 in South Wales, is not far from Grongar Hill, of 
 which Dyer has sung the praises, and it is close to 
 Golden Grove, the seat of Taylor's friends, the 
 Earl and Countess of Carbery, whose names will 
 be honoured as long as the great divine whom 
 they befriended is loved and reverenced. The 
 name of the earl's estate, it will be remembered, 
 is the title given by Taylor to his "Choice Manual" 
 of " what is to be believed, practised, and desired, 
 or prayed for," and it was amidst scenes of pastoral 
 loveliness, and in the enjoyment of a friendship 
 which he has worthily commemorated, that his best
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 and most popular works were written. These were 
 Taylor's happiest days, and the brief respite from 
 care which he enjoyed in this pleasant exile seems 
 to be reflected in the following passage : — 
 
 " I am fallen into the hands of publicans and 
 sequestrators, and they have taken all from me ; 
 what now ? Let me look about me. They 
 have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, 
 a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and 
 some to relieve me, and I can still discourse ; 
 and, unless I list, they have not taken away my 
 merry countenance and my cheerful spirit and a 
 good conscience ; they still have left me the provi- 
 dence of God and all the promises of the gospel, 
 and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my 
 charity to them too ; and still I sleep and digest, 
 I eat and drink, I read and meditate ; I can walk 
 in my neighbours' pleasant fields, and see the 
 variety of natural beauties, and delight in all that 
 in which God delights — that is in virtue and wis- 
 dom, in the whole creation, and in God Himself. 
 And he that has so many causes of joy and so 
 great, is very much in love with sorrow and 
 peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and 
 chooses to sit down upon his little handful of
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 thorns." Taylor adds, with the love of gro- 
 tesque illustration that characterises many of his 
 most serious passages : " Such a person is fit to 
 bear Nero company in his funeral sorrow for the 
 loss of one of Poppea's hairs, or help to mourn for 
 Lesbia's sparrow." ^ 
 
 In 1647 appeared his great work, "The Liberty 
 of Prophesying," a plea for toleration in an age 
 in which that virtue was not understood, or, if 
 accepted by a few far-sighted men as a theory, was 
 rendered impracticable by the condition of the 
 time. Taylor admitted that if an opinion was 
 liable to disturb the public peace it became a ques- 
 tion of policy and not a question of religion. 
 "Only those governments," Dr. Gardiner writes, 
 "which have a sense of their own security will 
 grant liberty of association as well as liberty of 
 opinion, and it was the want of this sense of 
 security which made complete toleration im- 
 possible in the crisis through which the nation was 
 passing." ^ Cromwell has been praised for per- 
 mitting every form of dissent that was not asso- 
 ciated, like the creed of the Levellers, with political 
 
 ' " Holy Living," c. 11. 
 
 = " The History of the Great Civil War," vol. iii. p. 138.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 anarchy, but his position never allowed him to 
 exhibit the slightest tolerance for the Church of 
 England or for that of Rome. While asserting 
 that liberty of conscience was a natural right, he 
 found it a belief too perilous to practise. 
 
 Many judgments have been passed upon the 
 " Liberty of Prophesying," but it is enough to say 
 here that Coleridge read the book with the 
 warmest admiration, and that Hallam, while 
 pointing out its inconsistencies, calls it " the first 
 famous plea in this country for tolerance in religion 
 on a comprehensive basis and on deep-seated 
 foundations," Here, as elsewhere, Taylor's enor- 
 mous learning and discursive fancy are more con- 
 spicuous than his logic or consistency, but he is 
 never inconsistent in his love of what is noble and 
 true, in the largeness of his sympathies, and in the 
 strength of his affections. After alluding to the 
 persecuting spirit of the age, and pointing out that 
 there was no cure for it but piety and charity, he 
 adds : — 
 
 " All these mischiefs proceed not from this, that 
 all men arc not of one mind, for that is neither 
 necessary nor possible, but that every opinion is 
 made an article of faith, every article is the ground
 
 lo INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of a quarrel, every quarrel makes a faction, every 
 faction is zealous, and all zeal pretends for God, 
 and whatsoever is for God cannot be too much. 
 We by this time are come to that pass, we think 
 we love not God except we hate our brother ; and 
 we have not the virtue of religion unless we perse- 
 cute all religions but our own ; for lukcwarmness 
 is so odious to God and man, that we, proceeding 
 furiously upon these mistakes, by supposing we 
 preserve the body, we destroy the soul of religion ; 
 or by being zealous for faith, or, which is all one, 
 for that which we mistake for faith, we are cold in 
 charity, and so lose the reward of both." 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the opinions 
 urged by Jeremy Taylor when the Church he 
 loved so dearly had fallen on evil days, were held 
 by him as strongly when the Restoration had once 
 more made Episcopacy dominant. In a sermon 
 preached before the members of the Irish Parlia- 
 ment in 1 66 1, he says : — 
 
 " Whatever you do, let not the pretence of a 
 different religion make you think it lawful to 
 oppress any man in his just rights ; for not 
 opinions, but laws, and doing as we would be done 
 to, are the measures of justice. And though justice
 
 I NT ROD UC TION. 1 1 
 
 does alike to all men, Jew and Christian, Lutheran 
 and Calvinist, yet to do right to them that are of 
 another opinion is the way to win them. But if 
 }-ou for conscience' sake do them wrong, the}- will 
 hate both you and your religion." ^ 
 
 This was the fruitful season of Taylor's life, and 
 a year after the publication of the " Liberty of 
 Prophesying," he produced " The Great Exem- 
 plar." The work is not in any degree critical, but 
 is intended for the devout reader who desires not 
 to question but to love. Unfortunately there is 
 much in the book which does not tend to devotion 
 in an age like ours, for the author, in order to 
 enforce his arguments, makes use of the most ex- 
 travagant legends as well as of the New Testa- 
 ment, and appears to place legend and history on 
 the same level. But the beauty and wholesome 
 piety of the narrative are beyond all praise. It is 
 
 ' It has been doubted whether Taylor's conduct as a bishop was 
 in accordance with these liberal sentiments, for he is said upon his 
 first visitation to iiave declared thirty-six churches vacant, of which 
 fi>rcible possession was taken by his orders. The fact, if it be one, 
 is not mentioned by Heber, but he observes that in the Bishop's 
 diocese more than in any other part of Ireland, "the clearance of the 
 episcopal clergy had been most eftectual, and their places supplied by 
 the sturdiest champions of the covenant."' To vindicate and uphold 
 Episcopacy amidst opponents such as these could have been no 
 easy task.
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rich in wise suggestions, in tender episodes, in 
 lovely pictures, and in earnest counsels with regard 
 to the duties of daily life. Taylor, although one of 
 the most imaginative prose writers in the language, 
 is the most practical of divines, and delights in 
 dwelling on the homeliest duties. This he does 
 constantly, and with a winning charm, in " The 
 Great Exemplar." There is in this, as in nearly 
 all his writings, what Bishop Heber calls " grave 
 trifling," but the intense seriousness of the writer's 
 purpose is not affected by it. The book became 
 popular at once, and has retained a measure of 
 popularity ever since. He was encouraged by its 
 success to produce " The Rules of Holy Living and 
 of Holy Dying " — two treatises which, although 
 published separately, form one work. It is pro- 
 bably the best known manual of the kind in the 
 language, and beyond comparison the most elo- 
 quent. The splendour of Taylor's rhetoric, the 
 wealth of his imagery, the persuasiveness of his 
 piety, and the frequent lapses of taste which mar 
 his genius, may be said to reach their high-water 
 mark in these " Rules." Truly does Hazlitt say 
 that the " Holy Living and Dying " is a divine 
 pastoral. The living power of the book has been
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 felt by many. It so influenced John Wesley in his 
 college days as to change the current of his life, 
 and it is interesting to remember that it soothed 
 the dying hours of John Keats. Practical counsels 
 for the religious life were rare in days when the 
 press teemed with pamphlets on Election, Repro- 
 bation, and Final Perseverance. Theology in 
 Taylor's judgment, was " rather a divine life than 
 a divine knowledge." " In heaven," he writes, 
 '' we shall first see and then love ; but here on earth 
 we must love, and love will open our eyes as well 
 as our hearts, and we shall then see and perceive 
 and understand." 
 
 It was at Golden Grove, under the protection of 
 Lord Carbery, that Taylor published his Sermons, 
 some of which, like " The Marriage Ring," are 
 still familiar to his readers. When the second 
 Lady Carbery died Taylor celebrated her virtues 
 and piety in an elaborate discourse adorned (or 
 deformed), after the fashion of the age, with Greek 
 and Latin quotations, and containing a few pas- 
 sages in which, as in the following quotation, prose 
 seems to tread upon the verge of poetry : "In all 
 her religion and in all her acts of relation towards 
 God, she had a strange evenness and untroubled
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 passage, sliding towards her ocean of God and of 
 infinity with a certain and silent motion." The 
 lady's successor — for the Earl married a third time 
 — was Alice, the eighth daughter of the first Earl of 
 Bridgewater, who has the rare distinction of having 
 her name linked to that of Jeremy Taylor and of 
 Milton, It was to celebrate her father's entry on 
 his high office of Lord President of Wales that 
 *' Comus " was written, and Alice, then a girl in 
 her teens, was the " Lady " in that incomparably 
 beautiful Masque. To her, years later, as Lady 
 Carbery, Taylor dedicated Part IIL of "The 
 Great Exemplar," the first edition having been 
 dedicated to " the very dear and excellent person " 
 to whom she was the successor. The task was 
 one of delicacy, but he performed it with a skilful 
 hand. 
 
 Again and again the student is baffled who 
 attempts to follow consecutively the course of 
 Taylor's life. Much is left to conjecture, and the 
 events that can be traced with certainty are so 
 isolated as to be often barren of interest. 
 According to John Evelyn's diary, he was preach- 
 ing in London in 1654, and in the following year 
 P2velyn records how he heard him preach again,
 
 INTR OD UCTION. 1 5 
 
 conferred with him about some spiritual matters, 
 and used him thenceforward as his "ghostly father." 
 Then, as we learn from a letter of Evelyn's, Taylor 
 suffered a short imprisonment in Chepstow Castle 
 — the second which he had to undergo — and it 
 seems to have been due to the vigorous defence 
 of the Church of Flngland in his Preface to 
 the Golden Grove.' This was in what Isaac 
 Walton calls " the dangerous year," for it was 
 then that the Episcopal clergy were prohibited 
 from exercising any part of their ministerial 
 functions or from acting as schoolmasters. In 
 the course of this year Taylor published his 
 " Unum Necessarium ; or the Doctrine and Prac- 
 tice of Repentance," a book which created much 
 controversy and provoked many replies. 
 
 A visit to London and to Evelyn's home at 
 Sayes Court took place in 1656, and there he met, 
 as we learn from the Diar}', " that excellent person 
 and great virtuoso," Robert Boyle. Some weeks were 
 spent in London, where Taylor had a strong desire to 
 live, and was only hindered, as he wrote afterwards, 
 
 ' Taylor's third and last imprisonment was in 1658. He was 
 confined in the Tower *' on account of the indiscretion of his book- 
 seller, Koyston, who had prefixed to his 'Collection of offices' a 
 print of Christ in the altitude of prayer."
 
 1 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by the res angiista donii. " I am much persuaded," 
 he writes, " that by my abode in the voisinage of 
 London I may receive advantages of society and 
 books to enable me better to serve God and the 
 interest of souls." At the end of the letter he 
 informs Evelyn of the death of a child in these 
 quaintly pathetic words : " Dear Sir, — I am in 
 some little disorder by reason of the death of a 
 little child of mine, a boy that lately made us very 
 glad ; but now he rejoices in his little orb while we 
 think and sigh and long to be as safe as he is." 
 Not many months later family sorrow reached 
 him again ; he buried " two sweet, hopeful boys," 
 and adds, to the perplexity of his biographers, 
 that he had now but one son left. Lady Wray, 
 Bishop Taylor's granddaughter, distinctly states, 
 however, that two sons lived to manhood, and that 
 their mother died at Uppingham ; but it has been 
 suggested that " it is more reasonable to conclude 
 that the granddaughter may have confused the 
 number of her uncles than that the father could 
 have forgotten one of his sons.^ Bishop Heber 
 suggests a solution of the difficulty. " These are 
 points," he says, " in which she could hardly have 
 
 ' Willmotl's "Jeremy Taylor," p. 163.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 been mistaken, and I know no better or more 
 probable way of reconciling them to this letter 
 than by supposing that the two sons by his first 
 wife were at this time separated from him and with 
 their mother's family, and that the children whose 
 death he laments, as well as the surviving son 
 . . . who appears to have been afterwards buried 
 at Lisburn, in Ireland, were the fruits of his 
 second marriage. It is strange, however, that he 
 speaks of the son who was with him as his only 
 one; and it is strange, whichever hypothesis we 
 adopt, that he does not say anything of his 
 daughters, and that in none of the letters which 
 are preserved, is any direct mention made of either 
 of his wives." ^ 
 
 A grant of a pension from his generous friend 
 Evelyn gave Taylor more freedom than he had 
 hitherto enjoyed. " I know it is more blessed to 
 give than to receive," he writes, " and yet as I 
 noways repine at the Providence that forces me to 
 receive, so neither can I envy that felicity of 
 yours, not only that you can but that you do 
 give." No one understood better the felicities of 
 friendship, and about this time he wrote his essay 
 ' Heber's " Taylor," vol. i. p. 64. 
 
 3
 
 1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 on the subject and dedicated it to " the matchless 
 Orinda " Katharine PhiHps, whose name, unsup- 
 ported by her own poetry, lives in Jeremy Taylor's 
 prose and in the elegaic verses of Cowley. Taylor 
 was at this time preparing for the press his book 
 on Casuistry, and seems to have paid several visits 
 to London in order, no doubt, to consult the 
 authorities needed in so laborious an undertaking. 
 The "Ductor Dubitantium" is styled by Hallam 
 the most extensive and learned work on the 
 subject in the English language, but he observes 
 that it exhibits the author's characteristic defects 
 and that his solution of moral problems is often 
 unsatisfactory. It was Taylor's most arduous 
 achievement, and may be said to stand apart 
 from his other works, not in the matter only, but 
 in the style, which is free for the most part from 
 the luxuriance of imagery in which he so often 
 delights elsewhere. There are passages in the 
 work worthy of the greatest masters of English 
 prose, but the subject has lost its interest, and the 
 " Ductor Dubitantium " ranks with the dead 
 works to be found in every large library which 
 are rarely taken from the shelves to be consulted, 
 and never to be read.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 In London Taylor met Lord Conway, who 
 offered him a lectureship at Lisburn and a home 
 at Portmore, about nine miles distant on the 
 borders of Lough Neagh. Taylor's first im- 
 pression of the proposal was unfavourable. " I 
 like not," he writes to Evelyn, "the condition 
 of being a lecturer under the dispose of another. 
 . . . Sir, the stipend is so inconsiderable it will 
 not pay the charge of removing myself and family. 
 It is wholly arbitrary, for the triers may overthrow 
 it or the vicar may forbid it, or the subscribers 
 may die, or grow weary, or be absent." The 
 invitation was therefore declined ; but, moved pro- 
 bably by fresh arguments in its favour, Taylor 
 afterwards accepted the offer, and apparently in 
 the early summer of 1658 left London for Ireland. 
 Thence, a year later, he writes to Evelyn of the 
 pleasantness of his retreat, and relates how he is 
 engaged in completing his " Rule of Conscience," 
 but he adds : " I fear my peace in Ireland is likely 
 to be short, for a Presbyterian and a madman 
 have informed against me as a dangerous man to 
 their religion, and for using the sign of the cross 
 in baptism. The worst event of the information 
 which I fear is my return into England, which,
 
 20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 although I am not desirous it should be upon 
 these terms, yet if it be without much violence 
 I shall not be much troubled." 
 
 Taylor's fear was well founded. On August ii, 
 1659, a warrant of the Irish Privy Council issued 
 to the Governor of Carrickfergus, required him 
 immediately to "cause the body of Jeremy Taylor 
 to be sent up to Dublin under safe custody." 
 Strange to say the warrant was not enforced until 
 the winter of the following year. " I had been," 
 he writes, " in the worst of our winter weather 
 sent for to Dublin by our late Anabaptist Com- 
 missioners, and found the evil of it so great that 
 in my going I began to be ill ; but in my return 
 had my ill redoubled." There was no imprison- 
 ment this time, and the inconvenience of a long 
 journey and some temporary indisposition were 
 comparatively light trials. Taylor regained his 
 health on the return of spring, and then on 
 visiting London he found his fortunes changed. 
 Cromwell, it will be remembered, had died in 
 September, 1658, and in April, 1660, Taylor 
 added his signature to the declaration which led to 
 the return of Charles II. Five weeks later he was 
 on the throne, and in June the " Ductor Dubitan-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 tium " was published and inscribed to the King. 
 That such a work should be dedicated to such a 
 monarch was the irony of fate. Happily Taylor 
 was not neglected in the distribution of the 
 rewards bestowed upon the Royalists. On the 
 6th of August he was appointed to the bishopric 
 of Down and Connor, and a little later he was 
 elected Vice-Chancellor of Dublin University. 
 " Honours and preferment," Heber writes, " were 
 now flowing fast upon him. In February he was 
 made a member of the Irish Privy Council, and 
 on the 30th of April, in addition to his former 
 diocese, he was entrusted with the administration 
 of the small adjacent one of Dromore on account, 
 in the words of the writ under the privy seal, 
 * of his virtue, wisdom, and industry.' " ^ 
 
 His duties as a bishop were far from light. 
 Taylor loved peace, and his misfortunes, it has 
 been truly said, " had only served to mellow his 
 sweet and harmonious temper " ; but the staunch 
 upholders of the Covenant were rampant in the 
 land and the peace for which he strove seemed 
 impossible. The Covenant bound the men who 
 signed it to extirpate prelacy ; how, then, could 
 
 ' Ileber, vol. i., p. 103.
 
 22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they tolerate a bishop who had written strongly in 
 its defence ? Taylor's persuasive efforts, however, 
 were not without effect. By degrees he won the 
 laity over to his side, and was also on a friendly 
 footing with some of the ministers. Unaltered 
 probably in opinion, they yielded in some degree 
 to the bishop's gentleness and charity. 
 
 In the iirst year of his episcopate Taylor lost 
 his son Edward, who was buried at Lisburn. 
 Two months later the Irish Parliament was 
 opened, and the bishop preached an eloquent 
 sermon on the occasion before the Tords and 
 Commons in St. Patrick's Cathedral. In 1664 he 
 published his " Dissuasive from Popery," a treatise 
 that abounds with the marks of his characteristic 
 style. It was not received in silence, and Taylor 
 replied to the arguments of his opponents by the 
 publication of a " Second Part." In the same year 
 he wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, begging 
 that if his Grace did not wish him to die pre- 
 maturely he might be removed to an English 
 bishopric, as the country no longer agreed with 
 his health. Since his promotion he had continued 
 to live in the neighbourhood of Portmore, where 
 he had many friends, and now a large income
 
 INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 enabled him to exercise the hospitality and the 
 charity which must have been especially pleasing 
 to a man of his generous nature after so many 
 years of poverty. Bishoprics are not to be had for 
 the asking, and what reply Taylor received from 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury we do not know ; 
 but the application led to no result, and the few 
 remaining years of Taylor's life were spent in 
 Ireland. He died from a fever at Lisburn on the 
 13th of August, 1667— a year distinguished by the 
 publication of " Paradise Lost"— in the fifty-fifth 
 year of his age, leaving a wife and three daughters 
 behind him. Of two sons by his first wife one is 
 said to have died in a duel, while the second, who 
 had been intended for Holy Orders, became a 
 favourite companion of the Duke of Buckingham, 
 and died of decline about a fortnight before the 
 death of his father. It may be added that Dr. 
 Rust, who afterwards succeeded Taylor in the 
 diocese, celebrated his friend's virtues in a style 
 more remarkable for profuse rhetoric than for good 
 taste. The praise which, in a funeral sermon, he 
 heaps upon the bishop is so great that it becomes 
 ridiculous, but there is one brief passage in his 
 eulogy which is likely to be true : " His soul," he
 
 24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 says, " was made up of harmony, and he never 
 spake but he charmed his hearer . . . his very 
 tone and cadences were strangely musical." 
 
 All the works of Jeremy Taylor are either 
 polemical or distinctly religious. He is one of the 
 most devout and one of the most practical of 
 Church of England divines, but in his theological 
 views he is often inconsistent and illogical, and 
 on some points of dogma has been pronounced 
 unsound. None, however, of Bishop Taylor's op- 
 ponents have ever questioned his singleness of 
 purpose, his intense sincerity, and the noble eleva- 
 tion of character that lifted him above the smoke 
 and stir of the controversies amidst which it was 
 his lot to live. Those who knew Taylor 
 
 " felt how awful goodness is, and saw 
 Virtue in her shape how lovely," 
 
 and many a reader of his works has felt and seen 
 it also. " What a man he is ! " writes Edward 
 Fitzgerald ; " he has such a knowledge of the 
 nature of man and such powers of expressing its 
 properties, that I sometimes feel as if he had had 
 some exact counterpart of my own individual 
 character under his eye when he lays open the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 depths of the heart or traces sin to its root. The 
 eye of his portrait expresses this keen intuition, 
 and I think I should less Hke to have stood with 
 a h"e on my tongue before him than before any 
 other I know of." ^ 
 
 And Taylor is one of the glories of English 
 literature. His faults of style are obvious, but 
 they are the faults of a man of genius. His vast 
 erudition, his inexhaustible fancy, his love of 
 quaint illustrations, and an irresistible propensity 
 to wander wherever fancy might lead him, tend 
 sometimes to a prodigality of words. He loses 
 his argument in rhetoric and blends the solemnity 
 of his appeals with grotesque allusions. He sails 
 his ship occasionally without a compass, and his 
 passengers find themselves unexpectedly upon 
 strange waters. The leaden weight of some 
 theological writers, however, would sink any ship, 
 but Taylor's barque is always buoyant and is 
 certain to carry us at last into a happy haven. 
 The defects of a mind like his can therefore 
 readily be pardoned, and they are slight when 
 weighed against the strength of intellect and the 
 exquisite beauty of thought that give vitality to 
 ' E. Fitzgerald's " Letters," vol. i. p. 29.
 
 26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his works. It is as a writer of earnest thoughtful- 
 ness and deep piety that Taylor has gained the 
 sympathy and affection which still secure to him a 
 home in many Christian hearts. He was a con- 
 troversialist by the accident of the time. To his 
 gentle, loving spirit, discord in the region where 
 peace is most needed must have been painful 
 indeed. He did not shun discussion nor bate a 
 jot of confidence in the soundness of his position, 
 but it was in green pastures and by still waters 
 that he loved best to wander. The voice of song 
 was sweeter to him than the conflict of arms, the 
 shepherd's crook than the spear. 
 
 Every attempt to imitate Taylor has resulted in 
 failure, for style, as Wordsworth happily said, is 
 not the dress of thought, but the incarnation of 
 thought. " Taylor's periods," Coleridge writes, 
 " have been frequently attempted by his admirers ; 
 you may, perhaps, just catch the turn of a simile or 
 single image, but to write in the real manner of 
 Jeremy Taylor would require as mighty a mind as 
 his." 
 
 It is one aim of the present selection to show 
 that Taylor is not a slave to what may be called 
 his characteristic style, and that in addition to pages
 
 INTRODUCTION. 27 
 
 distinguished by rhetoric, by teeming fancy and 
 by poetical imagination, his works abound with 
 weighty thoughts expressed in language as simple 
 as it is precise. It would be difficult indeed to 
 select from the writings of any of our old divines 
 more laconic sayings than are to be found in 
 Taylor's works. And it may be doubted whether 
 there is one of them, unless it be Hooker, who 
 gives the reader such an impression of intellectual 
 capacity.
 
 Jeremy Taylor's Golden Saylxgs. 
 
 False Argu.ments. 
 
 He that proves a certain truth from an uncertain 
 argument, is Hke him that wears a wooden leg, 
 when he hath two sound legs already ; sermons: 
 
 " Funeral of the 
 
 It hinders his going, but helps him not : Lord Primate." 
 the truth of God stands not in need of such 
 supporters. 
 
 Cumulative Arguments. 
 
 Probable arguments are like little stars, every- 
 one of which will be useless as to our conduct and 
 enlightening; but when they arc tied "DuctorDubi- 
 
 tantium,'' 
 
 together by order and vicinity, b}- the book i. civ. 
 finger of God and the hand of an angel, they make 
 a constellation, and are not only powerful in their 
 
 influence, but like a bright angel, to guide and to 
 
 29
 
 30 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 enlighten our way. And although the light is not 
 great as the light of the sun or moon, yet mariners 
 sail by their conduct ; and though with trepidation 
 and some danger, yet very regularly they enter 
 into the haven. This heap of probable induce- 
 ments is not of power as a mathematical and 
 physical demonstration, which is in discourse as 
 the sun is in heaven, but it makes a milky and a 
 white path, visible enough to walk securely. 
 
 Natural Appetites. 
 
 All our trouble is from within us ; and if a dish 
 
 of lettuce and a clear fountain can cool all my 
 
 heats, so that I shall have neither thirst 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 'ofF'ea^i?i"^" "O'' pride, lust nor revenge, envy nor 
 ^^"'' ambition, I am lodged in the bosom of 
 felicity ; and, indeed, no men sleep so soundly as 
 they that lay their head upon Nature's lap. For a 
 single dish, and a clear chalice lifted from the 
 springs, can cure my hunger and thirst : but the 
 meat of Ahasuerus's feast cannot satisfy my ambi- 
 tion and my pride. He, therefore, that hath the 
 fewest desires and the most quiet passions, whose 
 wants are soon provided for, and whose possessions
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 31 
 
 cannot be disturbed with violent fears, he that 
 dwells next door to satisfaction, and can carry his 
 needs and lay them down where he please — this 
 man is the happy man ; and this is not to be done 
 in great designs, and swelling fortunes. For as it 
 is in plants which Nature thrusts forth from her 
 navel, she makes regular provisions, and dresses 
 them with strength and ornament, with easiness 
 and full stature ; but if you thrust a jessamine 
 there where she would have had a daisy grow, or 
 bring the tall fir from dwelling in his own country, 
 and transport the orange or the almond-tree near 
 the fringes of the north star, Nature is displeased, 
 and becomes unnatural, and starves her sucklings, 
 and renders you a return less than your charge 
 and expectation. 
 
 Atheism. 
 
 Who in the world is a verier fool, a more 
 ignorant, wretched person, than he that is an atheist ? 
 A man may better believe there is no „ 
 
 •^ Sermons : 
 
 such man as himself, and that he is not ' l^'oTlm,"*^ 
 in being, than that there is no God : 
 for himself can cease to be, and once was not, and 
 shall be changed from what he is, and in very many
 
 32 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 periods of his life knows not that he is ; and so it 
 is every night with him when he sleeps : but none 
 of these can happen to God ; and if he knows it 
 not, he is a fool. Can anything 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 ? To 
 see rare effects, and no cause; an excellent govern- 
 ment and no prince ; a motion without an im- 
 movable ; a circle without a centre ; a time without 
 eternity ; a second without a first ; a thing that 
 begins not from itself, and therefore not to per- 
 ceive there is something from whence it does 
 begin, which must be without beginning ; these 
 things are so against philosophy and natural 
 reason, that he must needs be a beast in his under- 
 standing that does not assent to them ; this is the 
 atheist : " The fool hath said in his heart, There is 
 no God." That is his character : 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.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 33 
 
 The Bible. 
 The Holy Ghost is certainly the best preacher 
 in the world, and the words of Scrip- „„ , ,. . 
 
 '■ Holy Living," 
 
 ture the best sermons. ""' '"• '''"'■ *• 
 
 Read not much at a time ; but meditate as much 
 as your time, and capacity, and disposition will 
 give you leave, ever remembering that , ^ , 
 
 ° 'Golden Grove," 
 
 little reading and much thinking, little ^gendaxxiii. 
 speaking and much hearing, frequent and short 
 prayers, and great devotion, is the best way to be 
 wise, to be holy, to be devout. 
 
 * * 
 
 In all Scripture there is a spiritual sense, a 
 spiritual cabala, which, as it tends directly to holi- 
 ness, so it is best and truest understood 
 
 Sermons 
 
 by the sons of the Spirit, who love "P/eachedtothe 
 
 ^ ' University of 
 
 God, and therefore know Him. °"'^''"-" 
 
 * 
 
 In all the interpretations of Scripture, the literal 
 sense is to be presumed and chosen, unless there 
 be evident cause to the contrary. The 
 
 Sermons • 
 
 reasons arc plain ; because the literal Duo-ofthlT 
 sense is natural, and it is first, and it is ^^^^' 
 
 most agreeable to some things in their whole kind ; 
 
 4
 
 34 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 not indeed to prophecies, nor to the teachings of 
 the learned, nor those cryptic ways of institution 
 by which the ancients did hide a light, and keep it 
 in a dark lantern from the temeration of ruder 
 handlings and popular preachers : but the literal 
 sense is agreeable to laws, to the publication of 
 commands, to the revelation of the Divine will, to 
 the concerns of the vulgar, to the foundations of 
 faith, and to all the notice of things, in which the 
 idiot is as much concerned as the greatest clerks. 
 
 Baptism. 
 
 Baptism is not to be estimated as one act, tran- 
 " The Great sicnt and effcctivc to single purposes; 
 
 Exemplar," ... . . 
 
 part i. sec. ix. but it IS an cutrancc to a conjugation 
 and a state of blessings. 
 
 It is not the good lute, but the skilful hand that 
 
 makes the music ; it is not the body, but the soul 
 
 that is the man ; and yet he is not the 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 man without both. For baptism is but 
 the material part in the sacrament ; it is the Spirit 
 that giveth life, whose work is faith and repentance, 
 begun by Himself without the sacrament, and con-
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SA YLXGS. 35 
 
 signed in the sacrament, and actuated and increased 
 in the co-operation of our whole life. 
 
 In baptism we are admitted to the kingdom of 
 Christ, presented unto Him, consigned with His 
 sacrament, enter into His militia, give 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 up our understandings and our choice 
 to the obedience of Christ, and in all senses, that 
 we can, become His disciples, witnessing a good 
 confession and undertaking a holy life. The next 
 step beyond this is adoption into the covenant, 
 which is an immediate consequent of the first pre- 
 sentation ; this being the first act of man, that the 
 first act of God. And this is called by St. Paul 
 a being " baptised in one spirit into one body " — 
 that is, we are made capable of the communion of 
 saints, the blessings of the faithful, the privileges 
 of the Church. And therefore baptism is a new 
 birth, by which we enter into the new world, 
 the new creation, the blessings and spiritualities of 
 the kingdom. And this is the expression which 
 our Saviour Himself used to Nicodemus : " Unless 
 a man be born of water and the Spirit." For now 
 we begin to be reckoned in a new census or
 
 36 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 account ; God is become our Father, Christ our 
 Elder Brother, the Spirit the earnest of our in- 
 heritance, the Church our Mother ; our food is the 
 body and blood of our Lord, faith is our learning, 
 religion our employment, and our whole life is 
 spiritual, and heaven the object of our hopes, and 
 the mighty prize of our high calling. 
 
 Baptism is the beginning of the new life and an 
 
 admission of us into the evangelical covenant ; 
 
 which on our parts consists in a sincere 
 Ibid. 
 
 and timely endeavour to glorify God 
 
 by faith and obedience ; and on God's part He 
 
 will pardon what is past, assist us for the future, 
 
 and not measure us by grains and scruples, or 
 
 exact our duties by the measure of an angel, but 
 
 by the span of a man's hand. 
 
 Charity. 
 
 If we cannot labour, yet let us love. Nothing 
 ., „ , ^ . „ can hinder us from that but our own 
 
 " Holy Dying, 
 
 c. IV. sec. 2. uncharitableness. 
 Charity itself, which is the vertical top of all
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YJNGS. 37 
 
 religion, is nothing else but a union of joys, con- 
 centred in the heart, and reflected from 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 all the angles of our life and inter- "Eilif'i^ongue!"'^ 
 
 Ti • ... . /— , part li. 
 
 course. It is a rejoicing in God, a 
 gladness in our neighbour's good, a pleasure in 
 doing good, a rejoicing with him ; and without 
 love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that 
 makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to 
 be so noble and divine a thing ; and upon this 
 account it is certain that all that which can inno- 
 cently make a man cheerful, does also make him 
 charitable ; for grief, and age, and sickness, and 
 weariness, these are peevish and troublesome ; but 
 mirth and cheerfulness are content, and civil, and 
 compliant, and communicative, and love to do 
 good, and swell up to felicity only upon the wings 
 of charity. 
 
 * * 
 
 I end with a story which I find in the Jews' 
 books : — When Abraham sat at his tent door, 
 according to his custom, waiting to -Liberty of 
 
 i J • > • , , "Prophesying," 
 
 entertain strangers, he espied an old sec. xxii. 
 man stooping and leaning on his staff, wear}' with 
 age and travel, coming towards him, who was a 
 hundred years of age. lie received him kindly,
 
 38 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 washed his feet, provided supper, and caused him 
 to sit down ; but observing that the old man eat 
 and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his 
 meat, he asked him why he did not worship the 
 God of heaven ? The old man told him that he 
 worshipped fire only, and acknowledged no other 
 God : at which answer Abraham grew so zealously 
 angry that he thrust the old man out of his tent 
 and exposed him to all the evils of the night and 
 an unguarded condition. When the old man was 
 gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him 
 where the stranger was. He replied, " I thrust him 
 away because he did not worship Thee." God 
 answered him, " I have suffered him these hundred 
 years, although he dishonoured Me ; and couldst 
 thou not endure him one night, when he gave thee 
 no trouble ? " Upon this, saith the story, Abraham 
 fetched him back again, and gave him hospitable 
 entertainment and wise instruction : " Go thou and 
 do likewise," and thy charity will be rewarded by 
 the God of Abraham. ^ 
 
 ' The story is to be found in the Bostan of the Persian poet 
 Saadi, but it is quoted in the dedication of a Jewish work, translated 
 by Gentius and published in 165 1. The fact that the epilogue did 
 not appear until the publication of the second edition of " The 
 Liberty of Prophesying " makes it the more probable that Taylor
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS, 39 
 
 Christ our Example. 
 He entered into the world with all the circum- 
 stances of poverty. He had a star to illustrate 
 His birth ; but a stable for His bed- sermons: 
 chamber, and a manger for His cradle. Patience of the 
 
 Saints^" 
 
 The angels sang hymns when He was p"""' '• 
 born ; but He was cold and cried, uneasy and 
 unprovided. He lived long in the trade of a 
 carpenter ; He, by whom God made the world, 
 had, in His first years, the business of a mean and 
 ignoble trade. He did good wherever He went ; 
 and almost wherever He went was abused. He 
 deserved heaven for His obedience, but found a 
 cross in His way thither : and if ever any man had 
 reason to expect fair usages from God, and to be 
 dandled in the lap of ease, softness, and a pros- 
 perous fortune. He it was only that could deserve 
 that, or anything that can be good. But after He 
 had chosen to live a life of virtue, of poverty, and 
 labour, He entered into a state of death, whose 
 shame and trouble were great enough to pay for 
 the sins of the whole world. 
 
 borrowed it from this source. It has been published in several 
 editions of Benjamin Franklin's works as though he were the author, 
 but there is no proof that he claimed it for his own. — Ed.
 
 40 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 Christ a Sufferer. 
 
 All that Christ came for was, or was mingled 
 
 with, sufferings : for all those little joys which God 
 
 sent, either to recreate His person, or 
 Ibid. 
 
 to illustrate His office, were abated or 
 
 attended with afflictions ; God being more careful 
 
 to establish in Him the covenant of sufferings than 
 
 to refresh His sorrows. Presently after the angels 
 
 had finished their hallelujahs, He was forced to fly 
 
 to save His life ; and the air became full of shrieks 
 
 of the desolate mothers of Bethlehem for their 
 
 dying babes. God had no sooner made Him 
 
 illustrious with a voice from heaven, and the 
 
 descent of the Holy Ghost upon Him in the 
 
 waters of baptism, but He was delivered over to 
 
 be tempted and assaulted by the devil in the 
 
 wilderness. His transfiguration was a bright ray 
 
 of glory ; but then also He entered into a cloud, 
 
 and was told a sad story what He was to suffer at 
 
 Jerusalem. And upon Palm Sunday, when He 
 
 rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, and was adorned 
 
 with the acclamations of a King and a God, He 
 
 wet the palms with His tears, sweeter than the 
 
 drops of manna, or the little pearls of heaven that
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. ^\ 
 
 descended upon Mount Ilcrmon ; weeping in the 
 midst of this triumph over obstinate, perishing, 
 and malicious Jerusalem. For this Jesus was like 
 the rainbow which God set in the clouds as a 
 sacrament to confirm a promise and establish a 
 grace ; He was half made of the glories of the 
 light, and half of the moisture of a cloud ; in His 
 best days He was but half triumph and half 
 sorrow: He was sent to tell of His Father's mercies, 
 and that God intended to spare us ; but appeared 
 not but in the company or in the retinue of a 
 shower, and of foul weather. But I need not tell 
 that Jesus, beloved of God, was a suffering person : 
 that which concerns this question most is, that He 
 made for us a covenant of sufferings : His doc- 
 trines were such as expressly and by consequent 
 enjoin and suppose sufferings, and a state of afflic- 
 tion ; His very promises were sufferings ; His 
 beatitudes were sufferings ; His rewards and His 
 arguments to invite men to follow I Tim were only 
 taken from sufferings in this life, and the reward 
 of sufferings hereafter. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 There is no state in the Church so serene, no
 
 42 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 days so prosperous, in which God does not give to 
 His servants the powers and oppor- 
 tunities of suffering for Him ; not only 
 they that die for Christ, but they that Hve 
 according to His laws, shall find some lives to part 
 with, and many ways to suffer for Christ. To 
 kill and crucify the old man and all his lusts, to 
 mortify a beloved sin, to fight against temptations, 
 to do violence to our bodies, to live chastely, to 
 suffer affronts patiently, to forgive injuries and 
 debts, to renounce all prejudice and interest in 
 religion, and to choose our side for truth's sake 
 (not because it is prosperous, but because it pleases 
 God), to be charitable beyond our power, to re- 
 prove our betters with modesty and openness, to 
 displease men rather than God, to be at enmity 
 with the world, that you may preserve friendship 
 with God, to own truth in despite of danger or 
 scorn, to despise shame, to refuse worldly pleasures 
 when they tempt your soul beyond duty or safety, 
 to take pains in the cause of religion, the " labour 
 of love," and the crossing of your anger, peevish- 
 ness, and morosity : these are the daily sufferings 
 of a Christian, and if we perform them well will 
 have the same reward, and an equal smart.
 
 jeremy ta ylor's golden sa yings. 43 
 
 The Cross. 
 The highway of the cross, which the King of 
 sufferings hath trodden before us, is ..j^^, ^^.i^ .- 
 the way to ease, to a kingdom, and to '-'"•^^c. s- 
 fehcity. =;< 
 
 If we sum up the commandments of Christ we 
 shall find humility, mortification, self-denial, re- 
 pentance, renouncing the world, mourn- 
 ing, taking up the cross, dying for pl™oAhe 
 
 . , 1 . Saints," part i. 
 
 Hnn, patience and poverty, to stand m 
 the chiefest rank of Christian precepts, and in the 
 direct order to heaven : "He that will be my disciple 
 must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow 
 Me." We must follow Him that was crowned 
 with thorns and sorrows, Him that was drenched 
 in Cedron, nailed upon the cross, that deserved all 
 good and suffered all evil : that is the sum of 
 Christian religion, as it distinguishes from all re- 
 ligions in the world. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus certainly intends to admit none 
 
 to His resurrection but by the doors of 
 
 ibij. 
 His grave, none to glory but by the 
 
 way of the cross. "If we be planted into the
 
 44 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 likeness of His death, we shall be also of His 
 resurrection ; " else on no terms. Christ took 
 away sin from us, but He left us our share of 
 sufferings ; and the cross, which was first printed 
 upon us in the waters of baptism, must for ever 
 be borne b}- us in penance, in mortification, in 
 self-denial, and in martyrdom and toleration, ac- 
 cording as God shall require of us by the changes 
 of the w'orld and the condition of the Church. 
 
 Children. 
 
 No man can tell, but he that loves his children, 
 
 how many delicious accents make a man's heart 
 
 Sermons: dauce in the pretty conversation of 
 
 " The Marriage 
 
 Ring," part ii. thosc dear pledges; their childishness, 
 their stammering, their little angers, their inno- 
 cence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so 
 many little emanations of joy and comfort to him 
 that delights in their persons and society ; but he 
 that loves not his wife and children, feeds a lioness 
 at home, and broods a nest of sorrows ; and 
 blessing itself cannot make him happy ; so that 
 all the commandments of God enjoining a man to 
 " love his wife " are nothing but so many necessities 
 and capacities of joy.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 45 
 
 Holy Communion. 
 The holy communion, or supper of the Lord, is 
 not easy to be understood ; it is not lightly to be 
 received ; it is not much opened in the "Xhexvorthy 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 writings of the New Testament, but introduction, 
 still left in its mysterious nature ; it is too 
 much untwisted and nicely handled by the writ- 
 ings of the doctors, and by them made more 
 mysterious, and, like a doctrine of philosophy, 
 made intricate by explications, and difficult by the 
 aperture and dissolution of distinctions. So we 
 sometimes espy a bright cloud formed into an 
 irregular figure ; when it is observed by unskilful 
 and fantastic travellers, it looks like a centaur to 
 some, and as a castle to others ; some tell that 
 they saw an army with banners, and it signifies 
 war ; but another, wiser than his fellow, says it 
 looks for all the world like a flock of sheep, and 
 foretells plenty ; and all the while it is nothing but 
 a shining cloud, by its own mobility and the activity 
 of a wind cast into a contingent and inartificial 
 shape. So it is in this great mystery of our 
 religion, m which some espy strange things which 
 God intended not, and others see not what God hath 
 plainly told : some call that part of it a mystery
 
 46 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 which is none, and others think all of it nothing 
 but a mere ceremony and a sign ; some say it 
 signifies, and some say it effects ; some say it is a 
 sacrifice, and others call it a sacrament ; some 
 schools of learning make it the instrument of grace 
 in the hand of God ; others say that it is God 
 Himself in that instrument of grace ; some call it 
 venerable, and others say, as the vain men in the 
 prophet, that " the table of the Lord is con- 
 temptible " ; some come to it with their sins on 
 their head, and others with their sins in their 
 mouth ; some come to be cured, some to be quick- 
 ened; some to be nourished, and others to be made 
 alive ; some, out of fear and reverence, take it but 
 seldom ; others, out of devotion, take it frequently ; 
 some receive it as a means to procure great graces 
 and blessings, others as an eucharist, and an office 
 of thanksgiving for what they have received ; some 
 call it an act of obedience merely, others account 
 it an excellent devotion, and the exercising of the 
 virtue of religion ; some take it to strengthen their 
 faith, others to beget it, and yet many affirm that 
 it does neither, but supposes faith beforehand as a 
 disposition — faith in all its degrees, according to 
 the degree of grace whither the communicant is
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 47 
 
 arrived ; some affirm the elements are to be blessed 
 by prayers of the bishop or other minister ; others 
 say it is only by the mystical words, the words of 
 institution ; and when it is blessed, some believe it 
 to be the natural body of Christ ; others to be 
 nothing of that, but the blessings of Christ, His 
 word and His Spirit, His passion in representment, 
 and His grace in real exhibition ; and all these 
 men have something of reason for what they 
 pretend ; and yet the words of Scripture from 
 whence they pretend are not so many as are the 
 several pretensions. 
 
 My purpose is not to dispute, but to persuade ; 
 not to confute any one, but to instruct those that 
 need ; not to make a noise, but to excite devotion ; 
 not to enter into curious, but material inquiries, 
 and to gather together into a union all those 
 several portions of truth, and differing apprehen- 
 sions of mysteriousness, and various methods and 
 rules of preparation, and seemingly opposed doc- 
 trines, by which even good men stand at a distance 
 and are afraid of each other. 
 
 We must bring faith along with us, and God will
 
 48 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 increase our faith ; we must come with charity, and 
 
 Ibid L ^^^ shall go away with more ; we must 
 
 ^^■^^ '■ come with truly penitential hearts ; and 
 
 to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
 
 more abundantly. 
 
 Happy is that soul which comes to these springs 
 
 of salvation as " the hart to the water-brooks," 
 
 panting and thirsty, longing and pas- 
 
 c. 11. sec. 11. sionate, weary of sin, and hating vanity, 
 
 and reaching out the heart and hands to Christ. 
 
 Here we do not only hear the words of Christ, 
 
 but we obey them ; we believe with the heart, 
 
 and we confess with the mouth, and 
 
 Ibid., ' 
 
 c. 111. sec. V. ^^g ^^j. ^yjj.]^ ^^ hand, and incline the 
 head, and bow the knee, and give our heart in 
 sacrifice ; here we come to Christ, and Christ 
 comes to us ; here we represent the death of Christ 
 as He would have us represent it, and remember 
 Him as He commanded us to remember Him ; 
 here we give Him t'.anks, and here we give Him 
 ourselves ; here we defy all the works of darkness, 
 and hither we come to be invested with a robe of 
 light, by being joined to the " Sun of Righteous-
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 49 
 
 ness," to live in His eyes, and to walk by His 
 brightness, and to be refreshed with His warmth, 
 and directed by His Spirit, and united to His 
 glories. So that if we can receive Christ's body 
 and drink His blood, out of the sacrament, much 
 more can we do it in the sacrament. — For this is the 
 chief of all the Christian mysteries, and the union 
 of all Christian blessings, and the investiture of all 
 Christian rights, and the exhibition of the charter 
 of all Christian promises, and the exercise of all 
 Christian duties. Here is the exercise of our faith, 
 and act of obedience, and the confirmation of our 
 hope, and the increase of our charity. So that 
 although God be gracious in every dispensation, 
 yet He is bountiful in this ; although we serve God 
 in every virtue, yet in the worthy reception of this 
 Divine sacrament there must be a conjugation of 
 virtues, and, therefore, we serve Him more ; He 
 always fills our cup, but here it runs over. 
 
 He hath appointed to His chosen ones "to eat 
 and drink at His table in His kingdom," plainly 
 teaching us that by eating and drink- 
 ing Christ is meant in this world to <=. .. sec. u. 
 live the life of the Spirit, and in the other world 
 
 5
 
 50 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 it is to live the life of glory. Here we feed upon 
 duty, and there we feed upon reward ; our wine 
 is here mingled with water and with myrrh ; there 
 it is mere and unmixed ; but still it is called meat 
 and drink, and still is meant grace and glory, the 
 fruits of the Spirit, and the joy of the Spirit ; that 
 is, by Christ we here live a spiritual life, and 
 hereafter we shall live a life eternal. 
 
 All Christian people must come. They indeed 
 that are in the state of sin must not come so, but 
 ,.„,,.. „ yet they must come; first they must 
 
 Holy Living, ^ •' ' ' 
 
 civ. sec. lo. qj^jj^ ^J^gjj. g^.^^^ q|- j^g^i-},^ j^j-,^ ^J^g„ 
 
 partake of the bread of life. They that are at 
 enmity with their neighbours must come ; that is 
 no excuse for their not coming ; only they must 
 not bring their enmity along with them, but leave 
 it, and then come. They that have variety of 
 secular employment must come ; only they must 
 leave their secular thoughts and affections behind 
 them, and then come and converse with God. If 
 any man be well grown in grace, he must needs 
 come, because he is excellently disposed to so holy 
 a feast ; but he that is but in the infancy of piety
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS, 51 
 
 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 pre- 
 served. They that have leisure must come, because 
 they have no excuse ; they that have no leisure must 
 come hither, that by so excellent an act of religion 
 they may sanctify their business. The penitent 
 sinners must come that they may be justified, and 
 they that are justified that they may be justified 
 still. They that have fears and great reverence to 
 these mysteries, and think no preparation to be 
 sufficient, must receive, that they may learn how to 
 receive the more worthily ; and they that have a 
 less degree of reverence must come often to have 
 it heightened, that, as those creatures that live 
 amongst the snows of the mountains turn white 
 with their food and conversation with such per- 
 petual whitenesses, so our souls may be transformed 
 into the similitude and union with Christ by our 
 perpetual feeding on Him, and conversation, not 
 only in His courts, but in His very heart and most 
 secret affections and incomparable purities.
 
 52 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 Conscience. 
 
 In some cases conscience is like an eloquent and 
 
 a fair-spoken judge, which declaims not against the 
 
 "DuctorDubi- criminal, but condemns him justly; in 
 
 tantium,'' book i. 
 
 c-i- Others the judge is more angry, and 
 
 affrights the prisoner more, but the event is the 
 same. For in those sins where the conscience 
 affrights, and in those in which she affrights not, 
 supposing the sins equal but of differing natures, 
 there is no other difference, but that conscience is 
 a clock, which in one man strikes aloud and gives 
 warning, and in another the hand points silently to 
 the figure, but strikes not ; but by this he may as 
 surely see what the other hears, viz., that his hours 
 pass away, and death hastens, and after death 
 comes judgment. 
 
 Contentment. 
 
 No man is poor that does not think himself so ; 
 but if, in a full fortune, with impatience he desires 
 more, he proclaims his wants and his 
 
 " Holy Living,' ' ^ 
 
 c. II. sec. 6. beggarly condition. 
 Is that beast better that hath two or three
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 53 
 
 mountains to cfraze on than a little bee that feeds 
 
 on dew or manna, and lives upon what 
 
 Ibid. 
 falls every morning from the storehouses 
 
 of heaven, clouds and providence ? Can a man 
 
 quench his thirst better out of a river than a full 
 
 urn, or drink better from the fountain which is 
 
 finely paved with marble than when it swells over 
 
 the green turf ? 
 
 * 
 # * 
 
 Is not all the world God's family? Are not we 
 
 His creatures ? Are we not as clay in the hand of 
 
 the potter? Do we not live upon His 
 
 Ibid, 
 meat, and move by His strength, and 
 
 do our work by His light ? Are we anything but 
 what we are from Him ? And shall there be a 
 mutiny among the flocks and herds because their 
 lord or their shepherd chooses their pastures and 
 suffers them not to wander into deserts and un- 
 known ways? If we choose, we do it so foolishly 
 that we cannot like it long, and most commonly 
 not at all ; but God, who can do what He pleases, 
 is wise to choose safely for us, affectionate to 
 comply with our needs, and powerful to execute 
 all His wise decrees. Here, therefore, is the 
 wisdom of the contented man, to let God choose
 
 54 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 for him ; for when we have given up our wills to 
 Him, and stand in that station of the battle where 
 our great general hath placed us, our spirits must 
 needs rest, while our conditions have, for their 
 security, the power, the wisdom, and the charity of 
 God. 
 
 * * 
 
 Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God send 
 
 them, and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly; 
 
 for this day is only ours : we are dead 
 Ibid. 
 
 to yesterday, and we are not yet born 
 
 to the morrow. He, therefore, that enjoys the 
 
 present, if it be good, enjoys as much as is possible, 
 
 and if only that day's trouble leans upon him, it is 
 
 singular and finite. "Sufficient to the day," said 
 
 Christ, "is the evil thereof"' — sufficient, but not 
 
 intolerable. 
 
 The Lord of men and angels was also the King 
 
 of sufferings : and if thy coarse robe trouble thee, 
 
 remember the swaddling-clothes of 
 Ibid. 
 
 Jesus ; if thy bed be uneasy, yet it 
 
 is not worse than His manger ; and it is no sadness 
 
 to have a thin table if thou callcst to mind that
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. SS 
 
 the King of heaven and earth was fed with a Httlc 
 bi-east-mili<, and yet, besides this, He suffered all 
 the sorrows which we deserved. We therefore have 
 great reason to sit down upon our own hearths, and 
 warm ourselves at our own fires, and feed upon 
 content at home ; for it were a strange pride to 
 expect to be more gently treated by the Divine 
 Providence than the best and wisest men, than 
 apostles and saints, nay, the Son of the eternal 
 God, the heir of both the worlds. 
 
 A Threefold Cord. 
 
 Faith believes the revelations of God ; hope 
 expects His promises ; and charity loves His 
 excellencies and mercies. Faith gives ..„,,.. „ 
 
 ° ' Holy Living, 
 
 US understanding to God ; hope gives '^" "'■ 
 
 u[) all the passions and affections to heaven and 
 heavenly things ; and charity gives the will to the 
 service of God. Faith is opposed to infidelity, 
 hope to despair, charity to enmity and hostility ; 
 and these three sanctify the whole man, and make 
 our duty to God and obedience to His command- 
 ments to be chosen, reasonable, and delightful, and 
 therefore to be entire, persevering, and universal.
 
 56 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 COVETOUSNESS. 
 No wealth can satisfy the covetous 
 
 " Holy Living," 
 
 civ. sec. 8. desire of wealth. 
 
 Despair. 
 
 It is impossible for that man to despair who 
 
 remembers that his helper is omnipotent, and can 
 
 do what He pleases. Let us rest there 
 
 Ibid., ^ 
 
 c. iv. sec. 3. awhile : He can, if He please ; and He 
 is infinitely loving, willing enough ; and He is 
 infinitely wise, choosing better for us than we can 
 do for ourselves. This, in all ages and chances, 
 hath supported the afflicted people of God, and 
 carried them on dry ground through a Red Sea. 
 
 Death. 
 
 Every day's necessity calls for a reparation of 
 that portion which death fed on all night, when we 
 
 "Hoi D in " ^^y ^" ^^^ ^^P ^""^ ^^^P^ ^" ^^^ outer 
 c. i.sec. I. chambers. The very spirits of a man 
 
 prey upon the daily portion of bread and flesh, 
 and every meal is a rescue from one death and 
 lays up for another ; and while we think a thought 
 we die ; and the clock strikes and reckons on our
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS, 57 
 
 portion of eternity ; \vc form our words with the 
 breath of our nostrils, we have the less to live upon 
 for every word we sj^eak. Nature hath given us 
 one harvest every year, but death hath two ; 
 and the spring and the autumn send throngs of 
 men and women to charnel-houses ; and all the 
 summer long men arc recovering from their evils 
 of the spring till the dog-days come, and then the 
 Sirian star makes the summer deadly ; and the 
 fruits of autumn are laid up for all the year's pro- 
 vision, and the man that gathers them eats and 
 surfeits, and dies and needs them not, and himself 
 is laid up for eternit)- ; and he that escapes till 
 winter only stays for another opportunity, which 
 the distempers of that quarter minister to him with 
 great variety. Thus death reigns in all the por- 
 tions of our time. The autumn with its fruits pro- 
 vides disorders for us, and the winter's cold turns 
 them into sharp diseases, and the spring brings 
 flowers to strew our hearse, and the summer gives 
 green turf and brambles to bind upon our graves. 
 Calentures and surfeit, cold and agues, are the four 
 quarters of the year, and all minister to death ; and 
 you can go no whither, but you tread upon a dead 
 man's bones.
 
 58 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 It is a thing that every one suffers, even persons 
 
 of the lowest resolution, of the meanest virtue, of 
 
 ,^., ... no breeding, of no discourse. Take 
 
 Ibid. c. 111. '^' 
 
 ^^'^^ ^' away but the pomps of death, the 
 disguises and solemn bugbears, the tinsel, and the 
 actings by candle-light, and proper and fantastic 
 ceremonies, the minstrels and the noise-makers, 
 the women and the weepers, the swoonings and 
 the shriekings, the nurses and the physicians, the 
 dark room and the ministers, the kindred and the 
 watches ; and then to die is easy, ready, and 
 quitted from its troublesome circumstances. It is 
 the same harmless thing that a poor shepherd 
 suffered yesterday, or a maid-servant to-day ; and 
 at the same time in which you die, in that very 
 night a thousand creatures die with you, some wise 
 men, and many fools ; and the wisdom of the first 
 will not quit him, and the folly of the latter does 
 not make him unable to die. 
 
 To die is necessary and natural, and it may be 
 honourable ; but to die poorly and basely and sin- 
 
 "Hoi Living" ^u^'y» t^^^^ alone is it that can make a 
 .c. II. sec. . ^^^ unfortunate. No man can be a 
 
 slave but he that fears pain or fears to die.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 59 
 
 Death meets us everywhere, and is procured by 
 every instrument and in all chances, and enters in 
 at many doors : by violence and secret ,. u^iy Dying," 
 influence ; by the aspect of a star and 
 the stink of a mist ; by the emissions of a cloud 
 and the meeting of a vapour ; by the fall of a 
 chariot and the stumbling at a stone ; by a full 
 meal or an empty stomach ; by watching at the 
 wine or by watching at prayers ; by the sun or the 
 moon ; by a heat or a cold ; by sleepless nights or 
 sleeping days ; by water frozen into the hardness 
 and sharpness of a dagger, or water thawed into 
 the floods of a river ; by a hair or a raisin ; by 
 violent motion or sitting still ; by severity or disso- 
 lution ; by God's mercy or God's anger ; by every- 
 thing in providence and everything in manners ; 
 by everything in nature and everything in chance. 
 
 It is a mighty change that is made by the death 
 of every person, and it is visible to us who are 
 alive. Reckon but from the spright- 
 
 Ibid. c. i. sec. 2. 
 
 fulness of youth, and the fair cheeks 
 
 and full eyes of childhood, from the vigorousness 
 
 and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty
 
 6o JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 to the hollovvness and dead paleness, to the loath- 
 someness and horror of a three days' burial, and 
 we shall perceive the distance to be very great 
 and very strange. But so have I seen a rose 
 newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at 
 first it was fair as the morning, and full with the 
 dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece ; but when a 
 ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, 
 and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retire- 
 ments, it began to put on darkness, and to decline 
 to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age ; it 
 bowed the head and broke its stalk, and at night, 
 having lost some of its leaves and all its beauty, it 
 fell into the portion of weeds and outworn faces. 
 The same is the portion of every man and every 
 woman. 
 
 I have conversed with some men who rejoiced 
 
 in the death or calamity of others, and accounted 
 
 j^^y it as a judgment upon them for being 
 
 on the other side, and against them in 
 
 c. I. sec. I. 
 
 the contention ; but within the revolution of a few 
 months the same man met with a more uneasy 
 and unhandsome death, which when I saw I wept
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 6i 
 
 and was afraid, for I knew that it must be so with 
 all men ; for we also shall die, and end our 
 quarrels and contentions by passing to a final 
 sentence. 
 
 The Fear of Death. 
 
 The religion of a Christian does more command 
 fortitude than ever did any institution ; for wc are 
 
 Ibid c lii commanded to be willing to die for 
 Christ, to die for the brethren, to die 
 rather than to give offence or scandal : the effect 
 of which is this — that he that is instructed to do the 
 necessary parts of his duty is, by the same instru- 
 ment, fortified against death : as he that does his 
 duty need not fear death, so neither shall he ; the 
 parts of his duty are parts of his security. It is 
 certainly a great baseness and pusillanimity of 
 spirit that makes death terrible, and extremely to 
 be avoided. 
 
 I do not say it is a sin to be afraid of death : we 
 find the boldest spirit, that discourses of it with 
 confidence, and dares undertake a 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 danger as big as death, yet doth 
 
 shrink at the horror of it when it comes dressed in 
 
 its proper circumstances. And Brutus, who was
 
 62 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 as bold a Roman to undertake a noble action as 
 any was since they first reckoned by consuls, yet 
 when Furius came to cut his throat after his defeat 
 by Anthony he ran from it like a girl, and being 
 admonished to die constantly, he swore by his life 
 that he would shortly endure death. But what do 
 I speak of such imperfect persons ? Our blessed 
 Lord was pleased to legitimate fear to us by His 
 agony and prayers in the garden. It is not a sin 
 to be afraid, but it is a great felicity to be without 
 fear ; which felicity our dearest Saviour refused to 
 have, because it was agreeable to His purposes to 
 suffer anything that was contrary to felicity, every- 
 thing but sin. 
 
 Duels. 
 That which men in this question call honour 
 is nothing but a reputation amongst persons vain, 
 "The Great unchHstian in their deportment, empty 
 
 Exemplar," part 
 
 ii. sec. 12. and ignorant souls, who count that the 
 standard of honour which is the instrument of 
 reprobation ; as if to be a gentleman were to be 
 no Christian. They that have built their reputa- 
 tion upon such societies must take new estimates 
 of it, according as the wine, or fancy, or custom,
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYLNGS. 63 
 
 or some great fighting person, shall determine it ; 
 and whatsoever invites a c]uarrel is a rule of 
 honour. Rut then it is a sad consideration to 
 remember that it is accounted honour not to 
 recede from anything we have said or done : it is 
 honour not to take the lie, in the meantime it is 
 not dishonourable to lie indeed, but to be told so; 
 and not to kill him that says it, and venture my 
 life and his too, that is a forfeiture of reputation, 
 A mistress's favour, an idle discourse, a jest, a 
 jealousy, a health, a gaiety, anything must engage 
 two lives in hazard, and two souls in ruin — or else 
 they are dishonoured. As if a life, which is so 
 dear to a man's self, which ought to be dear to 
 others, which all laws and wise princes and states 
 have secured by the circumvallation of laws and 
 penalties, which nothing but Heaven can recom- 
 pense for the loss of, which is the breath of God, 
 which to preserve Christ died, the Son of God 
 died ; as if this were so contemptible a thing that 
 it must be ventured for satisfaction of a vicious 
 person, or a vain custom, or such a folly wiiich a 
 wise and a severe person had rather die than be 
 guilty of Honour is from him that honours : now 
 certainly God and the kincf are the fountains of
 
 64 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YJNGS. 
 
 honour ; right reason and religion, the Scripture 
 and the laws, are the best rules of estimating 
 honour ; and if we offer to account our honours by 
 the senseless and illiterate discourses of vain and 
 vicious persons, our honour can be no greater than 
 the fountain from whence it is derivative ; and at 
 this rate Harpaste, Seneca's wife's fool, might have 
 declared Thersites an honourable person, and 
 every bold gladiator in a Roman theatre, or a 
 fighting rebel among the slaves of Sparta, or a 
 trooper of Spartacus's guard, might have stood 
 upon their honour upon equal and as fair a 
 challenge. 
 
 The Lines of Duty. 
 
 The counsels of God are not like the oracles of 
 Apollo, double in their sense, intricate in their 
 ?' Ductor Dubi- expression, secret in their meaning, 
 
 tantium,'' book i. 
 
 c- '^'- deceitful in their measures, and other- 
 
 wise in the event than they could be in their ex- 
 pectation. But the word of God, in the lines of 
 duty, is open as the face of heaven, bright as the 
 moon, healthful as the sun's influence ; and this is 
 certainly true — that when a thing becomes obscure, 
 though it may oblige us to a prudent search, yet it
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 65 
 
 binds us not under a guilt, but onl)- so far as it is 
 or may be plainly understood. 
 
 Employment. 
 Let your employment be such as may become a 
 reasonable person, and not be a business fit for 
 children or distracted people, but fit for „„ , ,. . „ 
 
 c r J I' Holy Living, 
 
 your age and understanding. For a c. 1. sec. i. 
 man may be very idly busy, and take great pains to 
 so little purpose, that in his labours and expense of 
 time he shall serve no end but of folly and vanity. 
 There are some trades that wholly serve the ends 
 of idle persons and fools, and such as are fit to be 
 seized upon by the severity of laws and banished 
 from under the sun, and there are some people who 
 are bu.sy, but it is, as Domitian was, in catching 
 flies. 
 
 Let your employment be fitted to }'our person 
 and calling. Some there are that employ their 
 time in affairs infinitely below the dignity of their 
 person, and being called by God or by the republic 
 to help to bear great burdens and to judge a people, 
 do enfeeble their understandings and disable their 
 persons by sordid and brutish business. Thus 
 Nero went up and down Greece, and challenged 
 
 6
 
 66 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 the fiddlers at their trade. yEropus, a Macedonian 
 king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, 
 was a mole-catcher ; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed 
 needles. He that is appointed to minister in holy 
 things must not suffer secular affairs and sordid 
 arts to eat up great portions of his employment ; a 
 clergyman must not keep a tavern, nor a judge be 
 an innkeeper. Such employments are the diseases 
 of labour and the rust of time, which it contracts, 
 not by lying still, but by dirty employment. 
 
 Faith. 
 
 If you dare trust to God when the case, to 
 
 human reason, seems impossible, and trust to God 
 
 then also out of choice, not because 
 
 Ibid., 
 
 c. IV. sec. I. yQjj have nothing else to trust to, but 
 because He is the only support of a just confi- 
 dence, then you give a good testimony of your 
 faith. 
 
 A little faith, casting its weak beams on Christ 
 
 and His death, will go far. The quantity of a 
 
 ^ . . ^ grain of mustard-seed hath warmth 
 
 •" Christian Con- » 
 
 soiations, c. 1. ^^^ virtuc in it to spread abundantly. 
 If faith on earth hath shaken off all frailty and
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YJNGS. 67 
 
 comprehended the joys of heaven without casting 
 its eye aside to the love of this world, I do not 
 conceive how the body could subsist any longer 
 here, but that the soul, in that ecstasy, would be 
 
 dissolved and fly away. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 Faith and repentance are the whole duty of a 
 Christian. Faith is a sacrifice of the understand- 
 ing to God ; repentance sacrifices the sermons: 
 
 v 1 Mt It- 1 1 • " Invalidity of a 
 
 whole Will; that gives the knowmg ; late or death-bed 
 
 repentance," 
 
 this gives up all the desiring faculties : ?""■' "• 
 that makes us disciples ; this makes us servants of 
 the holy Jesus. Nothing else was preached by the 
 Apostles, nothing was enjoined as the duty of man, 
 nothing else did build up the body of Christian 
 religion. So that as faith contains all that know- 
 ledge which is necessary to salvation, so repentance 
 comprehends in it all the whole practice and working 
 duty of a returning Christian. 
 
 Whatsoever is good, if it be a grace, it is an act 
 of faith ; if it be a reward, it is the fruit of faith. 
 So that as all the actions of men are "The Great 
 
 , , , . . , Exemplar," 
 
 but the productions of the soul, so are pan ii. sec. 10. 
 all the actions of the new man the effects of faith.
 
 68 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 For faith is the life of Christianity, and a good life 
 
 is the life of faith. 
 
 * 
 ♦ * 
 
 Faith gives a new light to the soul, but it does 
 
 not put our eyes out ; and what God hath given us 
 
 "The Worthy iu OUT nature could never be intended 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 c. Hi. sec. 3. as a snare to religion, or to engage us 
 to believe a lie. Faith sees more in the sacrament 
 than the eye does, and tastes more than the tongue 
 does, but nothing against it ; and as God hath not 
 two wills contradictory to each other, so neither 
 hath He given us two notices and perceptions of 
 objects, whereof the one is affirmative and the 
 other negative of the same thing. 
 
 Whatsoever is against right reason, that no faith 
 can oblige us to believe ; for although reason is 
 not the positive and affirmative measure of our 
 faith, and God can do no more than we can 
 understand, and our faith ought to be larger than 
 our reason, and take something into her heart that 
 reason can never take into her eye — yet in all our 
 creed there can be nothing against reason. If true 
 reason justly contradicts an article, it is not "of the 
 household of faith." In this there is no difficulty, 
 but that in practice we take care that we do not
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YJNGS. 69 
 
 call that reason which is not so ; for although a 
 man's reason is a right judge, yet it ought not to 
 pass sentence in an inquiry of faith until all the 
 information be brought in — all that is within, and 
 all that is without ; all that is above, and all that 
 is below ; all that concerns it in experience, and 
 all that concerns it in act ; whatsoever is of perti- 
 nent observation, and whatsoever is revealed ; for 
 else reason may argue very well, and yet conclude 
 falsely ; it may conclude well in logic, and yet infer 
 a false proposition in theology; but when our judge 
 is fully and truly informed in all that where she is 
 to make her judgment, we may safely follow it 
 whithersoever she invites us. 
 
 The Principle of Faith. 
 Some are so ingeniously miserable that they will 
 never believe a proposition in divinity if anything 
 can be said against it ; they will be 
 credulous enough in all the affairs of c. m. sec.4- 
 their life, but impenetrable by a sermon of the 
 gospel ; they will believe the word of a man and 
 the promise of their neighbour, but a promise of 
 Scripture signifies nothing unless it can be proved 
 like a proposition in the metaphysics. If Sempro-
 
 70 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 nius tells them a story, it is sufficient if he be a 
 just man, and the narrative be probable ; but 
 though religion be taught by many excellent men, 
 who gave their lives for a testimony, this shall not 
 pass for truth till there is no objection left to stand 
 against it. The reason of these things is plain : 
 they do not love the thing ; their interest is against 
 it ; they have no joy in religion ; they are not 
 willing and desirous that the things shall appear 
 true. When love is the principle, the thing is easy 
 to the understanding ; the objections are nothing, 
 the arguments are good, and the preachers are in 
 the right. Faith assents to the revelations of the 
 gospel, not only because they are well proved, but 
 because they are excellent things ; not only because 
 my reason is convinced, but my reason yields upon 
 the fairer terms because my affections are gained. 
 For if faith were an assent to an article but just so 
 far as it is demonstrated, then faith were no virtue, 
 and infidclit}' were no sin, because in this there is 
 no choice and no refusal. But where that which is 
 probable is also naturally indemonstrable, and yet 
 the conclusion is that in which we must rejoice, 
 and that for which we must earnestly contend, and 
 that in the belief of which we serve God, and that
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 71 
 
 for which we must be ready to die — it is certain 
 that the understanding observing the credibiHty, 
 and the will being pleased with the excellency, 
 they produce a zeal of belief because they together 
 make up the demonstration. For a reason can be 
 opposed by a reason, and an argument by an argu- 
 ment ; but if I love my religion, nothing can take 
 me from it, unless it can pretend to be more useful 
 and more amiable, more perfectiv'e and more 
 excellent, than heaven and immortality, and a 
 kingdom and a crown of peace, and all the things 
 and all the glories of the eternal God. 
 
 Vain Faith. 
 
 The kingdom of God did not, then, consist in 
 vvords,butin power — the power of godliness — though 
 now we are fallen into another method ; Sermons: 
 
 " Kides For- 
 
 we have turned all religion into faith, maia." 
 and our faith is nothing but the productions of 
 interest or disputing ; it is adhering to a party, 
 and a wrangling against all the world beside ; and 
 when it is asked of what religion he is of, we 
 understand the meaning to be what faction does 
 he follow, what are the articles of his sect, not
 
 72 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 what is the manner of his Hfe ; and if men be 
 zealous for their party and that interest, then they 
 are precious men, though otherwise they be covetous 
 as the grave, factious as Dathan, schismatical as 
 Korah, or proud as the fallen angels. 
 
 True Faith. 
 
 True Christian faith must have in it something 
 
 of obscurity, something that must be made up 
 
 "The Worthy by duty and by obedience; but it is 
 
 Communicant, " 
 
 c. iii. sec. 4- nothing but this — we must trust the 
 evidence of God in the obscurity of the thing. 
 God's testimony must be clear to him, and the 
 thing, in all other senses, not clear ; and then to 
 trust the article because God hath said it, it must 
 have in it an excellency which God loves, and that 
 He will reward. In order to this it is highly con- 
 siderable that the greatest argument to prove our 
 religion is the goodness and the holiness of it ; it 
 is that which makes peace and friendships, content 
 and comfort, which unites all relations, and endears 
 the relatives ; it relieves the needy and defends the 
 widow ; it ends strife, and makes love endless. All 
 other arguments can be opposed and tempted by
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 72, 
 
 \vit and malice, but against the goodness of the 
 religion no man can speak ; by which it appears 
 that the greatest argument is that which moves 
 love, intending, by love, to convince the under- 
 standing 
 
 ig- 
 
 Fasting. 
 
 All fasting is to be used with prudence and 
 charity, for there is no end to which fasting serves 
 but may be obtained by other instru- ..„,,.. „ 
 
 •' •' ' Holy Living, ' 
 
 ments ; and therefore it must, at no '^' "'■ ^^'^' ^' 
 hand, be made an instrument of scruple or become 
 an enemy to our health, or be imposed upon 
 persons that are sick or aged or to whom it is, 
 in any sense, uncharitable, such as are wearied 
 travellers, or to whom, in the whole kind of it, it is 
 useless, such as are women with child, poor people, 
 and little children. But in these cases the Church 
 hath made provision and inserted caution into her 
 laws ; and they are to be reduced to practice, 
 according to custom and the sentence of prudent 
 persons, with great latitude, and without niceness 
 and curiosity, having this in our first care, that we 
 secure our \irtuc, and next, that we secure our 
 health, that we may the better exercise the labours
 
 74 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 of virtue, lest out of too much austerity we bring" 
 ourselves to that condition that it be necessary to 
 be indulgent to softness, case, and extreme tender- 
 ness. 
 
 The Fathers. 
 
 He that says that we may dissent from the 
 
 fathers, when we have a reason greater than that 
 
 " Episcopacy authority, does no way oppose him that 
 
 Asserted," 
 
 Dedication, says you ouglit not to dissent from 
 what they say when you have no reason great 
 enough to outweigh it. He that says the words of 
 the fathers are not sufficient to determine a nice 
 question stands not against him who says they 
 are excellent corroboratives in a question already 
 determined and practised accordingly. He that 
 says the sayings of the fathers are no demonstration 
 in a question may say true, and yet he that says 
 it is a degree of probability may say true, too. He 
 that says they are not our masters speaks conso- 
 nantly to the words of Christ, but he that denies 
 them to be good instructors does not speak agree- 
 ably to reason or to the sense of the Church.
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 73 
 
 Spiritual Freedom. 
 
 Some persons there are who dare not sin ; they 
 dare not omit their hours of pra}-er, and they are 
 restless in their siiirits till they have 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 done; but they go to it as to execu- "^oVau^-'''" 
 tion ; they stay from it as long as they ^^^ 
 can, and they drive, like Pharoah's chariots, with 
 the wheels off, sadly and heavily ; and, besides that, 
 such persons have reserved to themselves the best 
 part of their sacrifice, and do not give their will to 
 God; they do not love Him with all their heart, 
 they are also soonest tempted to retire and fall off. 
 Sextius Romanus resigned the honours and offices 
 of the city and betook himself to the severity of a 
 philosophical life ; but when his unusual diet and 
 hard labour began to pinch his flesh and he felt 
 his propositions smart, and that which was fine in 
 discourse at a symposiac or an academical dinner 
 began to sit uneasily upon him in the practice, he 
 so despaired that he had like to have cast himself 
 into the sea to appease the labours of his religion, 
 because he never had gone farther than to think it 
 a fine thing to be a wise man ; he would commend 
 it, but he was loath to pay for it at the price that
 
 76 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 God and the philosopher set upon it. But he that 
 is "grown in grace," and hath made rehgion 
 habitual to his spirit, is not at ease but when he 
 is doing the works of the new man ; he rests in 
 religion, and comforts his sorrows with thinking of 
 his prayers ; and in all crosses of the world he is 
 patient, because his joy is at hand to refresh him 
 when he list, for he cares not so he may serve God ; 
 and if you make him poor here, he is rich there, 
 and he counts that to be his proper service, his 
 work, his recreation, and reward. 
 
 Friendship. 
 Every man rejoices twice when he hath a partner 
 of his joy. A friend shares my sorrow, and makes 
 it but a moiety ; but he swells my joy, 
 
 Sermons : ^ j j j ' 
 
 "oT'thi^Divb" ^"^ makes it double. For so two 
 ercy, part ii. (,j^g^j-^j^gjg (jiyi(je ^hg river, and lessen it 
 
 into rivulets, and make it fordable, and apt to be 
 drunk up at the first revels of the Sirian star ; but 
 two torches do not divide, but increase the flame. 
 And though my tears are the sooner dried up when 
 they run upon my friend's cheeks in the furrows of 
 compassion, yet when my flame hath kindled his 
 lamp, we unite the glories, and make them radiant,
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 77 
 
 like the golden candlesticks that burn before the 
 throne of God, because they shine by numbers, by 
 unions, and confederations of light and joy. 
 
 * * 
 
 Because friendship is that b}- which the world is 
 most blessed and receives most good, it ought to 
 be chosen amongst the worthiest per- 
 
 '^ ^ " The Nature, 
 
 sons, that is, amongst those that can Me^^ureTof 
 do greatest benefit to each other ; and "^" ' '''' 
 though in equal worthiness I may choose b}' my 
 eye, or ear, that is, into the consideration of the 
 essential I may take in also the accidental and 
 extrinsic worthinesses, yet I ought to give every 
 one their just value. When the internal beauties 
 are equal, these shall help to weigh down the scale, 
 and I will love a worthy friend that can delight me 
 as well as profit me rather than him who cannot 
 delight me at all and profit me no more ; but yet 
 I will not weigh the gayest flowers or the wings of 
 butterflies against wheat; but when I am to choose 
 wheat I may take that which looks the brightest. 
 I had rather see thyme and roses, marjoram and 
 July flowers, that are fair, sweet, and medicinal, 
 than the prettiest tulips that are good for nothing ;
 
 78 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 and my sheep and kine are better servants than 
 racehorses and greyhounds, and I shall rather 
 furnish my study with Plutarch and Cicero, with 
 Livy and Polybius, than with Cassandra and 
 Ibrahim Bassa ; and if I do give an hour to these 
 for divertisement or pleasure, yet I will dwell with 
 them that can instruct me and make me wise and 
 eloquent, severe and useful to myself and others. 
 
 * 
 
 A man is the best friend in trouble, but a woman 
 
 •may be equal to him in the days of joy ; a woman 
 
 can as well increase our comforts, but 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 cannot so well lessen our sorrows ; and 
 therefore we do not carry women with us when we 
 go to fight, but in peaceful cities and times, virtuous 
 women are the beauties of society and the pretti- 
 nesses of friendship. And when we consider that 
 few persons in the world have all those excellences 
 by which friendship can be useful and illustrious, 
 we may as well allow women as men to be friends ; 
 since they can have all that which can be necessary 
 and essential to friendships, and these cannot have 
 all by which friendships can be accidentally im- 
 proved. In all, some abatements will be made,
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 79 
 
 and we shall do too much honour to women if wc 
 reject them from friendships because they are not 
 perfect ; for if to friendships we admit imperfect 
 men because no man is perfect, he that rejects 
 women does find fault with them because they are 
 not more perfect than men, which cither does 
 secretly affirm that they ought and can be perfect, 
 or else it openly accuses men of injustice and 
 partiality. 
 
 When you admonish your friend, let it be 
 Avithout bitterness ; when you chide him, let it 
 be without reproach ; when you praise 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 him, let it be with worthy purposes 
 and for just causes, and in friendly measures ; 
 too much of that is flatter}', too little is envy; if 
 you do it justly, you teach him true measures ; 
 but when others praise him, rejoice, though they 
 praise not thee, and remember that if thou 
 esteemest his praise to be thy disparagement thou 
 art envious, but neither just nor kind. 
 
 When all things else are equal, prefer an old 
 friend before a new. If thou meanest to spend 
 thy friend, and make a gain of him till he be 
 weary, thou wilt esteem him as a beast of burden,
 
 8o JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA V/NGS. 
 
 the worse for his age ; but if thou esteemest him 
 by noble measures, he will be better to thee by 
 thy being used to him, by trial and experience, by 
 reciprocation of endearments, and an habitual 
 worthiness. An old friend is like old wine, which, 
 when a man hath drunk, he doth not desire new, 
 because he saith the old is better. But every 
 old friend was new once ; and if he be worthy, 
 keep the new one till he become old. 
 
 The Limitations of Friendship. 
 
 I pray for all mankind, I am grieved at every 
 sad story I hear ; I am troubled when I hear of 
 
 a pretty bride murdered in her bride- 
 
 ibid. ^ ^ 
 
 chamber by an ambitious and enraged 
 rival ; I shed a tear when I am told that a brave 
 king was misunderstood, then slandered, then im- 
 prisoned, and then put to death by evil men ; and 
 I can never read the story of the Parisian massacre, 
 or the Sicilian vespers, but my blood curdles and 
 I am disordered by two or three affections. A 
 good man is a friend to all the world ; and he is 
 not truly charitable that does not wish well, and 
 do good to all mankind in what he can.
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 8i 
 
 The effect of this consideration is, that the 
 universal friendship of which I speak must be 
 h'mited, because we are so. In those things 
 where we stand next to immensity and infinity, 
 as in good wishes and prayers and a readiness 
 to benefit all mankind, in these our friendships 
 must not be limited ; but in other things which 
 pass under our hand and eye, our voices and our 
 material exchanges, our hands can reach no 
 farther but to our arms' end, and our voices can 
 but sound till the next air be quiet, and therefore 
 they can have intercourse but within the sphere 
 of their own activity ; our needs and our con- 
 versations are served by a few, and they cannot 
 reach to all ; where they can they must, but 
 where it is impossible it cannot be necessary. It 
 must therefore follow that our friendships to 
 mankind may admit variety as does our conver- 
 sation ; and as by nature we are made sociable 
 to all, so we are friendly ; but as all cannot 
 actually be of our society, so neither can all be 
 admitted to a special, actual friendship.
 
 82 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 Fear of God. 
 
 Fear is the duty we owe to God, as being the 
 
 God of power and justice, the great Judge of 
 
 Sermons: heaven and earth, the avenger of the 
 
 "Of Godly 
 
 Fear," part iii. cause of widows, the patron of the 
 poor, and the advocate of the oppressed, a mighty 
 God and terrible, and so essential an enemy to 
 sin that He spared not His own Son, but gave 
 Him over to death, and to become a sacrifice, 
 when He took upon Him our nature, and became 
 a person obliged for our guilt. Fear is the great 
 bridle of intemperance, the modesty of the spirit, 
 and the restraint of gaieties and dissolutions ; it 
 is the girdle to the soul, and the handmaid to 
 repentance, the arrest of sin, and the cure or 
 antidote to the spirit of reprobation ; it preserves 
 our apprehensions of the Divine Majesty, and 
 hinders our single actions from combining to 
 sinful habits ; it is the mother of consideration 
 and the nurse of sober counsels ; and it puts the 
 soul to fermentation and activity, making it to 
 pass from trembling to caution, from caution to 
 carefulness, from carefulness to watchfulness, from 
 thence to prudence ; and, by the gates and pro-
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 83 
 
 gresses of repentance, it leads the soul on to 
 love, and to felicity, and to joys in God that shall 
 never cease again. Fear is the guard of a man 
 in the day's prosperity, and it stands upon the 
 watch-towers, and spies the approaching danger, 
 and gives warning to them that laugh loud and 
 feast in the chambers of rejoicing, where a man 
 cannot consider by reason of the noises of wine and 
 jest and music ; and if prudence takes it by the 
 hand and leads it on to duty, it is a state of grace, 
 and a universal instrument to infant religion, 
 and the only security of the less perfect persons ; 
 and in all senses, is that homage we owe to God, 
 who sends often to demand it, even then when 
 He speaks in thunder, or smites by a plague, or 
 awakens us by threatenings, or discomposes our 
 easiness by sad thoughts, and tender eyes, and 
 fearful hearts, and trembling considerations. 
 
 If we fear God as an enemy — an enemy of our 
 
 sins, and of our persons for their sakes — as yet 
 
 this fear is but a servile fear ; it can- 
 ibid, part ii. 
 
 not be a filial fear, since we ourselves 
 
 are not sons ; but if this servile fear makes us to 
 
 desire to be reconciled to God, that He may no
 
 84 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 longer stay at enmity with us, from this fear we 
 shall soon pass to carefulness, from carefulness to 
 love, from love to diligence, from diligence to 
 perfection ; and the enemies shall become ser- 
 vants, and the servants shall become adopted 
 sons, and pass into the society and the participa- 
 tion of the inheritance of Jesus : for this fear is 
 also reverence, and then our God, instead of 
 being " a consuming fire," shall become to us 
 the circle of a glorious crown, and a globe of 
 eternal lisfht. 
 
 'fc>* 
 
 Vain Fear. 
 
 Fear, when it is inordinate, is never a good 
 
 counsellor, nor makes a good friend ; and he that 
 
 jj^jj fears God as his enemy is the most 
 
 ^^""'" completely miserable person in the 
 world. For if he with reason believes God to 
 be his enemy, then the man needs no other 
 argument to prove that he is undone than this, 
 that the fountain of blessing (in this state in 
 which the man is) will never issue anything 
 upon him but cursings. But if he fears this 
 without reason, he makes his fears true by the 
 very suspicion of God, doing Him dishonour, and
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 85 
 
 then doing those fond and trifling acts of jealousy 
 which will make God to be what the man feared 
 he already was. We do not know God if we 
 can think any hard thing concerning Him. If 
 God be merciful, let us only fear to offend Him ; 
 but then let us never be fearful that He will 
 destroy us, when we are careful not to displease 
 Him. There are some persons so miserable and 
 scrupulous, such perpetual tormentors of them- 
 selves with unnecessary fears, that their meat 
 and drink is a snare to their consciences ; if they 
 eat, they fear they are gluttons ; if they fast, 
 they fear they are hypocrites ; and if they would 
 watch, they complain of sleep as of a deadly sin ; 
 and every temptation, though resisted, makes 
 them cry for pardon ; and every return of such 
 an accident makes them think God is angry ; and 
 every anger of God will break them in pieces. 
 
 These persons do not believe noble things 
 concerning God ; they do not think that He is as 
 ready to pardon them as they are to pardon a 
 sinning servant ; they do not believe how much 
 God delights in mercy, nor how w^ise He is to 
 consider and to make abatement for our unavoid- 
 able infirmities ; they make judgment of them-
 
 86 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA VINGS. 
 
 selves by the measures of an angel, and take the 
 account of God by the proportions of a tyrant. 
 The best that can be said concerning such persons 
 is, that they are hugely tempted or hugely 
 ignorant. 
 
 I have often seen young and unskilful persons 
 
 sitting in a little boat, when every little wave 
 
 sporting about the sides of the vessel 
 
 Sermons : *■ '-' 
 
 Patfence of the ^ttd cvcry motlon and dancing of the 
 
 Saints,'' part iii. , 
 
 barge seemed a danger, and made 
 them cling fast upon their fellows ; and yet all 
 the while they were as safe as if they sat under 
 a tree, while a gentle wind shook the leaves into 
 a refreshment and a cooling shade : and the un- 
 skilful, inexperienced Christian shrieks out when- 
 ever his vessel shakes, thinking it always a 
 danger that the watery pavement is not stable 
 and resident like a rock, and yet all his danger 
 is in himself, none at all from without : for he is 
 indeed moving upon the waters, but fastened to a 
 rock ; faith is his foundation, and hope is his 
 anchor, and death is his harbour, and Christ is 
 his pilot, and heaven is his country, and all the 
 evils of poverty or affronts of tribunals and evil
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 87 
 
 judges, of fears and sadder apprehensions, are 
 but like a loud wind blowing from the right point, 
 they make a noise, and drive faster to the 
 harbour ; and if we do not leave the ship and 
 leap into the sea, quit the interests of religion, 
 and run to the securities of the world, cut our 
 cables and dissolve our hopes, grow impatient 
 and hug a wave and die in its embraces, we are 
 as safe at sea, safer in the storm which God sends 
 us, than in a calm when we are befriended with 
 the world. 
 
 Funerals. 
 
 Something is to be given to custom, something 
 to fame, to nature, and to civilities, and to the 
 honour of the deceased friends ; for ., „ , ^ . „ 
 
 ' " Holy Dying, 
 
 that man is esteemed to die miserable '^' "' ^'"^' ^" 
 for whom no friend or relative sheds a tear, or 
 pays a solemn sigh. I desire to die a drj deatJi, 
 but am not very desirous to have 3. dry funeral ; 
 some flowers sprinkled upon my grave would do 
 well and comely, and a soft shower to turn those 
 flowers into a springing memory or a fair re- 
 hearsal, that I may not go forth of my doors as 
 my servants carry the entrails of beasts.
 
 88 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 The Rewards of Godliness. 
 The godly man is timorous, and yet safe ; 
 tossed by the seas, and yet safe at anchor ; im- 
 paired by evil accidents, and righted 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 Patfenceoffhe ^y Divine comforts ; made sad with a 
 aims, par m. |^|^^|^ cloud, and refreshed with a more 
 
 gentle influence ; abused by the world, and yet 
 an heir of heaven ; hated by men, and beloved by 
 God ; he loses one house, and gets a hundred ; he 
 quits a convenient lodging-room, and purchases a 
 glorious country ; is forsaken by his friends, but 
 never by a good conscience ; he fares hardly, and 
 sleeps sweetly ; he flies from his enemies, but 
 hath no distracting fears ; he is full of thought, 
 but of no amazement ; it is his business to be 
 troubled, and his portion to be comforted ; he 
 hath nothing to afflict him, but the loss of that 
 which might be his danger, but can never be his 
 good ; and in the recompense of this he hath God 
 for his father, Christ for his captain, the Holy 
 Ghost for his supporter ; so that he shall have 
 all the good which God can give him, and of all 
 that good he hath the Holy Trinity for an earnest 
 and a gage for his maintenance at the present, 
 and his portion to all eternity.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 89 
 
 Good out of Evil. 
 When the north wind blows hard, and it rains 
 sadly, none but fools sit down in it and cry ; wise 
 people defend themselves against it .. Hoiy Living," 
 
 . , , , 1 ,- c. ii. sec. 6. 
 
 with a warm garment, or a good fire 
 and a dry roof When a storm of a sad mis- 
 chance beats upon our spirits, turn it into some 
 advantage by observing where it can serve 
 another end, either of religion or prudence, or 
 more safety or less envy : it will turn into some- 
 thing that is good if we list to make it so ; at 
 least it may make us weary of the world's vanity, 
 and take off our confidence from uncertain riches, 
 and make our spirits to dwell in those regions 
 where content dwells essentially. If it does any 
 good to our souls, it hath made more than suffi- 
 cient recompense for all the temporal affliction. 
 He that threw a stone at a dog and hit his cruel 
 step-mother, said that although he intended it 
 otherwise yet the stone was not quite lost ; and if 
 we fail in the first design, if we bring it home 
 to another equally to content us, or more to profit 
 us, then we have put our conditions past the 
 power of chance.
 
 90 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 The greatest evils are from within us, and from 
 
 ourselves also we must look for our greatest good : 
 
 for God is the fountain of it, but 
 Ibid. 
 
 reaches it to us by our own hands ; 
 
 and when all things look sadly round about us, 
 
 then only we shall find how excellent a fortune it 
 
 is to have God to our friend, and of all friendships, 
 
 that only is created to support us in our needs. 
 
 *'■'=:< 
 The question is, whether all this may not, or 
 
 be not intended to, bring good to us ? Not 
 
 "The Worthy whcther God smiles or no, but to what 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 c. iii. sec. 4. purpose He smiles ? not whether this 
 be not evil, but whether this evil will not bring 
 good to us ? If we do believe, why are we 
 without comfort and without patience? If we do 
 not believe it, where is our faith ? 
 
 God's Grace. 
 
 Christ freely died for us, God pardons us freely 
 
 in our first access to Him ; we could never deserve 
 
 Sermons : pardon, because when we need pardon 
 
 " Fides For- • 1 1 1 
 
 mata. we arc enemies, and have no good 
 
 thing in us ; and He freely gives us of His Spirit, 
 and freely He enables us to obey Him ; and for
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 91 
 
 our little imperfect services He freely and bounti- 
 fully will give us eternal life ; here is free grace all 
 the way, and he overvalues his pitiful services, who 
 thinks that he deserves heaven by them ; and that 
 if he does his duty tolerably, eternal life is not a 
 free gift to him, but a deserved reward. 
 
 The man that designs his son for noble employ- 
 ments, to honours and to triumphs, to consular 
 dignities and presidencies of councils, .. ^^^ , j^ .^^ .. 
 loves to see him pale with study, or 
 panting with labour, hardened with sufferance, or 
 eminent by dangers. And so God dresses us for 
 heaven. He loves to see us struggling with a 
 disease, and resisting the devil, and contesting 
 against the weaknesses of nature, and against hope 
 to believe in hope ; resigning ourselves to God's 
 will, praying Him to choose for us, and dying in 
 all things but faith and its blessed consequences ; 
 zit ad officmni ciun pericido sijiius prouipti : and the 
 danger and the resistance shall endear the office. 
 For so have I known the boisterous north wind 
 pass through the yielding air, which opened its 
 bosom and appeased its violence by entertaining 
 it with easy compliance in all the regions of its
 
 92 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 reception : but when the same breath of heaven 
 hath been checked with the stiffness of a tower, or 
 the united strength of a wood, it grew mighty and 
 dwelt there, and made the highest branches stoop, 
 and make a smooth path for it on the top of all its 
 glories. So is sickness, and so is the grace of God : 
 when sickness hath made the difficulty, then God's 
 grace hath made a triumph, and by doubling its 
 power hath created new proportions of a reward ; 
 and then shows its biggest glory when it hath the 
 greatest difficulty to master, the greatest weak- 
 nesses to support, the most busy temptations to 
 contest with ; for so God loves that His strength 
 should be seen in our weakness and our danger. 
 
 God's Providence. 
 
 Does not God provide for all the birds, and 
 beasts, and fishes ? Do not the sparrows fly from 
 „ „ , ... „ their bush, and every morning find meat 
 
 ' Holy Living, ' J » 
 
 c.ii.sec.e. ^^hej-e t^gy laid it not.? Do not the 
 young ravens call to God, and He feeds them ? 
 And were it reasonable that the sons of the family 
 should fear the Father would give meat to the 
 chickens and the servants, his sheep and his dogs, 
 but give none to them ? He were a very ill father
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 93 
 
 that should do so ; or he were a very foolish son 
 that should think so of a good father. But, besides 
 the reasonableness of this faith and this hope, we 
 have infinite experience of it. How innocent, how 
 careless, how secure, is infancy ! and yet how 
 certainly provided for! We have lived at God's 
 charges all the days of our life, and have (as the 
 Italian proverb says) set down to meat at the sound 
 of a bell ; and hitherto He hath not failed us : we 
 have no reason to suspect Him for the future. We 
 do not use to serve men so ; and less time of trial 
 creates great confidences in us towards them, who 
 for twenty years together never broke their word 
 with us ; and God hath so ordered it, that a man 
 shall have had the experience of many years' pro- 
 vision before he shall understand how to doubt ; 
 that he may be provided for an answer against the 
 temptation shall come, and the mercies felt in his 
 childhood may make him fearless when he is a 
 man. Add to this, that God hath given us His 
 Holy Spirit ; He hath promised heaven to us ; He 
 hath given us His Son ; and we are taught from 
 Scripture to make this inference from hence, " How 
 should not He with Him give us all things else?"
 
 94 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Some men are highly tempted, and are brought 
 to a strait, that, without a miracle, they cannot be 
 relieved ; what shall they do? It may 
 be their pride or vanity hath brought 
 the necessity upon them, and it is not a need of 
 God's making ; and if it be not they must cure it 
 themselves by lessening their desires and mode- 
 rating their appetites. And yet, if it be innocent, 
 though unnecessary, God does usually relieve such 
 necessities ; and He does not only upon our 
 prayers grant us more than He promised of 
 temporal things, but also He gives many times 
 more than we ask. This is no object for our 
 faith, but ground enough for a temporal and 
 prudent hope ; and, if we fail in the particular, 
 God will turn it to a bigger mercy, if we submit 
 to His dispensation, and adore Him in the denial. 
 But if it be a matter of necessity, let not any man, 
 by way of impatience, cry out that God will not 
 work a miracle ; for God, by miracle, did give 
 meat and drink to His people in the wilderness, 
 of which He had made no particular promise in 
 any covenant ; and if all natural means fail, it is 
 certain that God will rather work a miracle than 
 break His word : He can do that ; He cannot do
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 95 
 
 this. Only wc must remember that our portion 
 of temporal things is but food and raiment. God 
 hath not promised us coaches and horses, rich 
 houses and jewels, Tyrian silks and Persian 
 carpets ; neither hath He promised to minister to 
 our needs in such circumstances as we shall 
 appoint, but such as Himself shall choose. God 
 will either enable thee to pay thy debt (if thou 
 beggest it of Him), or else He will pay it for thee ; 
 that is, take thy desire as a discharge of thy duty, 
 and pay it to thy creditor in blessings, or in some 
 secret of His providence. It may be He hath 
 laid up the corn that shall feed thee in the granary 
 of thy brother, or will clothe thee with his wool. 
 He enabled St. Peter to pay his gabel by the 
 ministry of a fish ; and Elias to be waited on by 
 a crow, who was both his minister and his steward 
 for provisions ; and His holy Son rode in triumph 
 upon an ass that grazed in another man's pastures. 
 And if God gives to Him the dominion, and 
 reserves the use to thee, thou hast the better half 
 of the two ; but the charitable man serves God 
 and serves thy need ; and both join to provide for 
 thee, and God blesses both. But if He takes 
 away the fle.sh-pots from thee He can also alter
 
 96 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 the appetite, and He hath given thee power and 
 commandment to restrain it ; and if He lessens 
 the revenue, He will also shrink the necessity ; or 
 if He gives but a very little. He will make it go a 
 great way ; or if He sends thee but a coarse diet. 
 He will bless it and make it healthful, and can 
 cure all the anguish of thy poverty by giving thee 
 patience and the grace of contentedness. For the 
 grace of God secures you of provisions, and yet 
 the grace of God feeds and supports the spirit in 
 the want of provisions ; and if a thin table be apt 
 to enfeeble the spirits of one used to feed better, 
 yet the cheerfulness of a spirit that is blessed will 
 make a thin table become a delicacy, if the man 
 was as well taught as he was fed, and learned his 
 duty when he received the blessing. Poverty, 
 therefore, is in some senses eligible, and to be pre- 
 ferred before riches ; but in all senses it is very 
 tolerable. 
 
 The Knowledge of God. 
 Better is it not to know at all, than not to 
 pursue the good we know. They that know not 
 "The Doctrine God are infinitely far from Him ; but 
 
 and Practice 
 
 of Repentance. ' thcy who know Him, and yet do not 
 obey Him, arc sometimes the nearer for their
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 97 
 
 knowledge, sometimes the further off, but as yet 
 they arc not arrived whither it is intended they 
 should go. 
 
 The Religion oe the Heart. 
 Many times God is present in the still voice and 
 private retirements of a quiet religion and the 
 constant spiritualities of an ordinary "The Great 
 
 !•/■ 1 111 Exemplar," 
 
 Hie, when the loud and impetuous pani. sec. i. 
 winds, and the shining fires of more laborious and 
 expensive actions, arc profitable to others only ; 
 like a tree of balsam, distilling precious liquor for 
 others, not for its own use. 
 
 Hope. 
 Hope and fasting are said to be tlie two wings 
 of prayer. Fasting is but as the wing of a bird ; 
 but hope is like the wintj of an ancrel 
 
 '^ ^ •■ Holy r.iving," 
 
 soaring up to heaven, and bears our «=. ir. sec.a. 
 
 prayers to the throne of grace. Without hope it 
 
 is impossible to pray ; but hope makes our prayers 
 
 reasonable, passionate, and religious ; for it relics 
 
 upon God's promise, or experience, or providence, 
 
 and story. Prayer is always in proportion to our 
 
 hope, zealous and affectionate. 
 
 + 
 
 8
 
 98 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 The rich mines and golden trade of both the 
 Indies are on the other side the Hne : so the rich 
 "Christian Con- trade of hopc is in the other world. 
 
 solations," 
 
 c- '1- Change your poor freight, which is 
 
 your lading in this vessel of clay, and barter it for 
 an immortal possession. 
 
 Heresy. 
 "Liberty of Hcrcsy is not an error of the under- 
 
 Prophesying,' 
 
 sec. II. standing, but an error of the will. 
 
 Whatever an ill man believes, if he therefore 
 
 believe it because it serves his own ends, be his 
 
 belief true or false, the man hath an 
 Ibid. 
 
 heretical mind, for to serve his own 
 
 ends his mind is prepared to believe a lie. But a 
 good man, that believes what, according to his 
 light, and upon the use of his moral industry, he 
 thinks true, whether he hits upon the right or no, 
 because he hath a mind desirous of truth and pre- 
 pared to believe every truth, is therefore acceptable 
 to God, because nothing hindered him from it but 
 Avhat he could not help, his misery and his weak- 
 ness, which being imperfections merely natural, 
 which God never punishes, he stands fair for a 
 blessing of his morality, which God always accepts.
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 99 
 
 Humility. 
 
 It had been impossible that Christianity should 
 have prevailed over the wisdom and power of the 
 Greeks and Romans, if it had not been 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 humble to superiors, patient of injuries, "p^aence •'■'" 
 charitable to the needv, a fjreat exactor ''''" "' 
 of obedience to kings, even to heathens, that they 
 might be won and convinced ; and to persecutors, 
 that they might be sweetened in their anger or 
 upbraided for their cruel injustice. For so doth the 
 humble vine creep at the foot of an oak, and leans 
 upon its lowest base, and begs shade and protec- 
 tion, and leave to grow under its branches, and to 
 give and take mutual refreshment, and pay a 
 friendly influence for a mighty patronage ; and 
 they grow and dwell together, and are the most 
 remarkable of friends and married pairs of all the 
 leafy nation. 
 
 Whatsoever evil thou sayest of thyself, be con- 
 tent that others should think to be true : and if 
 thou callest th\-self fool, be not antjrv . 
 
 >-5 y •' Holy Living," 
 
 if another say so of thee. Vox if thou ^- >■• '^e*-- 4- 
 thinkest so truly, all men in the world desire other
 
 loo JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 men to be of their opinion ; and he is an hypocrite 
 that accuses himself before others, with an intent 
 not to be believed. But he that calls himself 
 intemperate, foolish, lustful, and is angry when his 
 neighbours call him so, is both a false and a proud 
 person. 
 
 Love to be concealed, and little esteemed ; be 
 content to want praise, never being troubled when 
 thou art slighted or undervalued ; for thou canst 
 not undervalue thyself, and if thou thinkest so 
 meanly as there is reason, no contempt will seem 
 unreasonable, and therefore it will be very tolerable. 
 
 Never be ashamed of thy birth, or thy parents^ 
 or thy trade, or thy present employment, for the 
 meanness or poverty of any of them ; and when 
 there is an occasion to speak of them, such an 
 occasion as would invite you to speak of anything 
 that pleases you, omit it not, but speak as readily 
 and indifferently of thy meanness as of thy great- 
 ness. Primislaus, the first king of Bohemia, kept 
 his country shoes always by him, to remember 
 from whence he was raised ; and Agathocles, by 
 the furniture of his table, confessed tliat from a 
 potter he was raised to be the king of Sicily.
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. loi 
 
 Make no reflex acts upon thy own humility, nor 
 upon any other grace with which God hath en- 
 riched thy soul. For since God oftcn- 
 times hides from His saints and 
 servants the sight of those excellent things by 
 which they shine to others (though the dark side 
 of the lantern be towards themselves), that he may 
 secure the grace of humility ; it is good that thou 
 do so thyself: and if thou beholdcst a grace of 
 God in thee, remember to give Him thanks for it, 
 that thou mayest not boast in that which is none 
 of thy own ; and consider how thou hast sullied it, 
 by handling it with dirty fingers, with thy own 
 imperfections, and with mixture of unhandsome 
 circumstances. Spiritual pride is very dangerous 
 not only by reason it spoils so many graces, by 
 which we drew nigh unto the kingdom of God, but 
 also because it so frequently creeps upon the spirit 
 of holy persons. For it is no wonder for a beggar 
 to call himself poor, or a drunkard to confess that 
 he is no sober person ; but for a holy person to be 
 humble, for one whom all men esteem a saint to 
 fear lest himself become a devil, and to observe his 
 own danger, and to discern his own infirmities, and 
 make discovery of his bad adherences, is as hard
 
 I02 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 as for a prince to submit himself to be guided by 
 tutors, and make himself subject to discipline, like 
 the meanest of his servants. 
 
 Never change thy employment for the sudden 
 
 coming of another to thee ; but if modesty 
 
 permits, or discretion, appear to him 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 that visits thee the same that thou 
 wert to God and thyself in thy privacy. But if 
 thou wert walking or sleeping, or in any other 
 innocent employment or retirement, snatch not up 
 a book to seem studious, nor fall on thy knees 
 to seem devout, nor alter an)-thing to make him 
 believe thee better employed than thou wert. 
 
 Hypocrisy. 
 
 There is a universal crust of hypocrisy, that covers 
 
 the face of the greatest part of mankind. Their 
 
 religion consists in forms and outsides, 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 "sim^i'ckiv" ^""^ serves reputation or a design, but 
 
 ''''" '■ does not serve God. Their promises are 
 
 but fair language, and the civilities of the piazzas or 
 
 exchanges, and disband and untie like the air that 
 
 beat upon their teeth, when they spake the delicious
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 103 
 
 and hopeful words. Their oaths are snares to 
 catch men, and make them confident ; their con- 
 tracts are arts and stratagems to deceive, measured 
 by profit and possibiHty ; and everything is lawful 
 that is gainful. And their friendships are trades 
 of getting ; and their kindness of watching a 
 dying friend is but the office of a vulture, the 
 gaping for a legacy, the spoil of the carcass. And 
 their sicknesses are many times policies of state ; 
 sometimes a design to show the riches of our bed- 
 chamber. And their funeral tears are but the 
 paranymphs and pious solicitors of a second bride. 
 And everything that is ugly must be hid, and 
 everything that is handsome must be seen ; and 
 that will make a fair cover for a huge deformity. 
 And therefore it is, as they think, necessary that 
 men should always have some pretences and forms^ 
 some faces of religion or sweetness of language, 
 confident affirmatives or bold oaths, protracted 
 treaties or multitude of words, affected silence or 
 grave deportment, a good name or a good cause, 
 a fair relation or a worth}' calling, great power or 
 a pleasant wit ; anything that can be fair or that 
 can be useful, an}'thing that can do good or be 
 thought good, we use it to abuse our brother, or
 
 104 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 promote our interests. Leporina resolved to die, 
 being troubled for her husband's danger ; and he 
 resolved to die with her that had so great a kind- 
 ness for him, as not to outlive the best of her 
 husband's fortune. It was agreed ; and she tem- 
 pered the poison, and drank the face of the un- 
 wholesome goblet ; but the v/eight\^ poison sunk 
 to the bottom, and the easy man drank it all off, 
 and died, and the woman carried him forth to 
 funeral ; and after a little illness, which she soon 
 recovered, she entered upon the inheritance, and a 
 second marriage. 
 
 INCONSIDERATION. 
 
 There is wrought upon the spirits of many men 
 
 great impressions by education, by a modest and 
 
 temperate nature, by human laws, and 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 " ness^fThe^"' ^^"^"^ customs and severities of sober 
 ear , par u. pgj.gQj-,g^ ^^^ ^j^g fcars of rcHgion, and 
 
 the awfulness of a reverend man, and the several 
 arguments and endearments of virtue : and it is 
 not in the nature of some men to do an act in 
 despite of reason, and religion, and arguments, and 
 reverence, and modesty, and fear; but men are 
 forced from their sin by the violence of the grace
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 105 
 
 of God, when they hear it speak. But so a Roman 
 gentleman kept off a whole band of soldiers, who 
 were sent to murder him, and his eloquence was 
 stronger than their anger and design : but, sud- 
 denly, a rude trooper rushed upon him, who 
 neither had nor would hear him speak ; and he 
 thrust his spear into that throat whose music had 
 charmed all his fellows into peace and gentleness. 
 So do we. The grace of God is armour and 
 defence enough against the most violent incursion 
 of the spirits and the works of darkness ; but then 
 we must hear its excellent charms, and consider 
 its reasons, and remember its precepts, and dwell 
 with its discourses. 
 
 Purity of Intention. 
 
 Holy intention is to the actions of a man that 
 which the soul is to the body, or form to its 
 matter, or the root to the tree, or the ..„,,.. „ 
 
 ' ' Holy Living, 
 
 sun to the world, or the fountain to a *^' '" ^'"^' ^' 
 river, or the base to a pillar ; for, without these, 
 the body is a dead trunk, the matter is sluggish, 
 the tree is a block, the world is darkness, the river 
 is quickly dry, the pillar rushes into flatness, and a 
 ruin ; and tlic action is sinful, or unprofitable and
 
 io6 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 vain. The poor farmer that gave a dish of cold 
 water to Artaxerxes, was rewarded with a golden 
 goblet ; and he that gives the same to a disciple in 
 the name of a disciple, shall have a crown ; but if 
 he gives water in despite, when the disciple needs 
 wine or a cordial, his reward shall be to want that 
 water to cool his tongue. 
 
 The Name of Jesus. 
 In old times, God was known by names of 
 power, of nature, of majesty. But His name of 
 "The Divine mcrcy was reserved till now, when God 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 parti, sec. 5. ,\{(^ purpose to pour out the whole 
 treasure of His mercy by the mediation and 
 ministry of His holy Son. And because God gave 
 to the holy Babe the name in which the treasures 
 of mercy were deposited, and exalted " this name 
 above all names," we are taught that the purpose 
 of His counsel was to exalt and magnify His 
 mercy above all His other works ; He being 
 delighted with this excellent demonstration of it, 
 in the mission and manifestation and crucifixion 
 of His Son ; He hath changed the ineffable name 
 into a name utterable by man, and desirable by all 
 the world. This is the name which we should
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 107 
 
 engrave in our hearts, and write upon our fore- 
 heads, and pronounce with our most harmonious 
 accents, and rest our faith upon, and place our 
 hopes in, and love with the overOowings of charity 
 and joy and adoration. 
 
 The Rewards ok Labour. 
 
 Is it not labour that makes the garlic and the 
 pulse, the sycamore and the cresses, the cheese of 
 the goats and the butter of the sheep, to 
 
 '-' Sermons : 
 
 be savoury and pleasant as the flesh of 'S.'^'M.rciV' 
 the roebuck, or the milk of the kine, the 
 marrow of oxen, or the thighs of birds ? If it were 
 not for labour, men neither could eat so much, nor 
 relish so pleasantly, nor sleep so soundly, nor be so 
 healthful nor so useful, so strong nor so patient, so 
 noble nor so untempted. And as God hath made 
 us beholden to labour for the purchase of man)- 
 good things, so the thing itself owes to labour 
 many degrees of its worth and value. And, 
 therefore, I need not reckon that, besides these 
 advantages, the mercies of God have found out 
 proper and natural remedies for labour ; nights to 
 cure the sweat of the da)-, sleep to ease our watch- 
 fulness, rest to alleviate our burdens, and days of
 
 io8 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 religion to procure our rest : and things are so 
 ordered that labour is become a duty and an act 
 of many virtues, and is not so apt to turn into a 
 sin as its contrary ; and is therefore necessary, not 
 only because we need it for making provisions for 
 our life, but even to ease the labour of our rest ; 
 there being no greater tediousncss of spirit in the 
 world than want of employment, and an inactive 
 life : and the lazy man is not only unprofitable 
 but also accursed, and he groans under the load of 
 his time, which yet passes over the active man 
 light as a dream, or the feathers of a bird ; while 
 the unemployed is a disease, and like a long sleep- 
 less night to himself, and a load unto his country. 
 And therefore, although in this particular, God 
 hath been so merciful in this infliction, that from 
 the sharpness of the curse a very great part of 
 mankind are freed, and there are myriads of 
 people, good and bad, who do not " eat their bread 
 in the sweat of their brows;" yet this is but an 
 overrunning and an excess of the Divine mercy ; 
 God did more for us than we did absolutely need : 
 for He hath disposed of the circumstances of this 
 curse, that man's affections arc so reconciled to it 
 that they desire it and are delighted in it ; and so
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 109 
 
 the anijci- of God is ended in lovincr-kindness, and 
 the drop of water is lost in the full chaHce of the 
 wine, and the curse is gone out into a multiphed 
 blessing. 
 
 Laodicean. 
 
 Saint Bernard complains of some that say, 
 " Sufficit nobis, nolumus esse meliores quam patres 
 nostri." (It is enough for us to be as 
 
 ^ "^ Sermons : 
 
 our forefathers), who were honest and 'n^fsand'zea""' 
 
 part ii. 
 
 useful in their generations, but be not 
 over-righteous. These men are such as think they 
 have knowledge enough to need no teacher, devo- 
 tion enough to need no new fires, perfection enough 
 to need no new progress, justice enough to need 
 no repentance ; and then, because the spirit of a 
 man, and all the things of this world, arc in per- 
 petual variety and change, these men decline, when 
 they have gone their period ; they stand still, and 
 then revert ; like a stone returning from the bosom 
 of a cloud, where it rested as long as the thought 
 of a child, and fell to its natural bed of earth, and 
 dwelt below for ever.
 
 no JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Human Life. 
 A man is first a man when he comes to a certain 
 steady use of reason, according to his proportion ; 
 ., „ , T^ • .. and when that is, all the world of men 
 
 Holy Dying,' ' 
 
 c. 1. sec. 3. cannot tell precisely. Some are called 
 at age at fourteen — some at one-and-twenty — some 
 never ; but all men late enough, for the life of a 
 man comes upon him slowly and insensibly. But 
 as when the sun approaches towards the gates of 
 the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, 
 and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives 
 light to a cock, and calls up the lark to matins, 
 and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and 
 peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his 
 golden horns, like those which decked the brows 
 of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil, 
 because himself had seen the face of God ; and 
 still while a man tells the story, the sun gets up 
 higher, till he shows a fair face and a full light, and 
 then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, 
 and sometimes weeping great and little showers, 
 and sets quickly : so is a man's reason and his 
 life.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 1 1 1 
 
 The Length of Life. 
 
 If we would have our life lengthened, let us 
 
 beefin betimes to live in the accounts of reason 
 
 and sober counsels, of relicrion and the 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Spirit, and then we shall have no 
 reason to complain that our abode on earth is 
 so short ; many men find it long enough, and, 
 indeed, it is so to all senses. But when we spend 
 in waste what God hath given us in plenty, when 
 we sacrifice our youth to foil}-, our manhood to 
 lust and rage, our old age to covetousness and 
 irreligion, not beginning to live till we are to die, 
 designing that time to virtue which indeed is 
 infirm to everything and profitable to nothing ; 
 then we make our lives short, and lust runs away 
 with all the vigorous and healthful part of it, and 
 pride and animosity steal the manly portion, and 
 craftiness and interest possess old age ; I'c/iit ex 
 plena ct abiindanti perdiiinis, we sj^end as if we had 
 too much time, and knew not what to do with it : 
 we fear everything, like weak and silly mortals ; 
 and desire strangely and greedil}', as if we were 
 immortal ; we complain our life is short, and yet 
 we throw away much of it, and are weary of many
 
 112 JEREMY TA VLOK'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 of its parts ; we complain that the day is long, and 
 the night is long, and we want company, and seek 
 out arts to drive the time away, and then weep 
 because it is gone too soon. But so the treasure 
 of the capitol is but a small estate, when Cssar 
 comes to finger it, and to pay with it all his 
 legions ; and the revenue of all Egypt and the 
 eastern provinces was but a little sum, when they 
 were to support the luxury of Mark Antony, and 
 feed the riot of Cleopatra ; but a thousand crowns 
 is a vast proportion to be spent in the cottage of 
 a frugal person, or to feed an eremite. Just so is 
 our life : it is too short to serve the ambition of 
 a haughty prince, or an usurping rebel : too little 
 time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride 
 of a vainglorious fool, to trample upon all the 
 enemies of our just or unjust interest: but for the 
 obtaining virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and 
 modesty, for the actions of religion, God gave us 
 time sufficient, if we make the "outgoings of the 
 morning and evening" — that is, our infancy and 
 old age — to be taken into the computations of a 
 man.
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 113 
 
 TiiK Uncertainty of Life. 
 Every man is born in vanity and sin. He 
 comes into the world like morning mushrooms, 
 soon thrusting up their heads into the j, .^ 
 
 air, and conversing with their kindred 
 of the same production, and as soon they turn into 
 dust and forgetful ness ; some of them without any 
 other interest in the affairs of the world, but that 
 they made their parents a little glad and very 
 sorrowful. Others ride longer in the storm ; it 
 may be until seven years of vanity be expired, 
 and then peradventurc the sun shines hot upon 
 their heads, and they fall into the shades below, 
 into the cover of death and darkness of the grave 
 to hide them. But if the bubble stands the shock 
 of a bigger drop, and outlives the chances of a 
 child, of a careless nurse, of drowning in a pail 
 of water, of being overlaid by a sleepy servant, or 
 such little accidents, then the young man dances 
 like a bubble, empty and gay, and shines like 
 a dove's neck, or the image of a rainbow, which 
 hath no substance, and whose very imagery and 
 colours are fantastical ; and so he dances out the 
 gaiety of his youth, and is all the while in a storm, 
 and endures only because he is not knocked on 
 
 9
 
 1 14 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 the head by a drop of bigger rain, or crushed by 
 the pressure of a load of indigested meat, or 
 quenched by the disorder of an ill-placed humour ; 
 and to preserve a man alive in the midst of so 
 many chances and hostilities, is as great a miracle 
 as to create him, to preserve him from rushing into 
 nothing, and at first to draw him up from nothing, 
 were equally the issues of an Almighty power. 
 
 Death in Life. 
 
 Let us cast our eyes upon our life past ; let us 
 consider what is become of our infancy, childhood, 
 "Contemplations and youth ; they are now dead in us ; 
 
 of the State of 
 
 Man," book i.e. I. in the samc manner shall those ages of 
 our life, which are to come, die also. Neither do 
 we only die in the principal times of life, but every 
 hour, every moment, includes a kind of death in 
 the succession and change of things. What con- 
 tent is there in life, which dies not by some 
 succeeding sorrow ? What affliction of pain, which 
 is not followed by some equal, or greater grief than 
 itself! WHiy are we grieved for what is absent, 
 since it offends us being present ? What we desire 
 with im]3atience, being possessed, brings care and 
 solicitude, grief and affliction.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 115 
 
 The short time which any pleasure stays with us, 
 it is not to be enjoyed wholly, and all at once, but 
 tasted by parts ; so as, when the second part 
 comes, we feel not the pleasure of the first, 
 lessening itself every moment, and we ourselves 
 still dying with it, there being no instant of life 
 wherein death gains not ground of us ; the motion 
 of the heavens is but the swift turn of the spindle, 
 which rolls up the thread of our lives ; and a most 
 fleet horse, upon which death runs post after us. 
 There is no moment of life wherein death hath not 
 equal jurisdiction ; and there is no point of life 
 which we divide not with death ; so as, if well con- 
 sidered, we live but only one point, and have not 
 life but for the present instant. Our years past 
 are now vanished, and we enjoy no more of them 
 than if we were already dead ; the years to come we 
 live not, and possess no more of them than if we 
 were not yet born ; \'esterday is gone, to-morrow 
 we know not w hat shall be ; of to-day man)- hours 
 are past, and we h'\c them not ; others are to come, 
 and whether we shall live them or no is uncertain ; 
 so that, all counts cast up, we live but this present 
 moment ; and in this also we are d\-in<7 ; so that 
 we cannot say that life is anything but the half
 
 ii6 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 of an instant, an indivisible point divided betwixt 
 it and death. 
 
 Guerricus, a most famous divine, hearing the 
 fifth chapter of Genesis read, wherein arc re- 
 counted the sons and descendants of 
 Ibid. 
 
 Adam, in these terms : " The whole 
 life of Adam was nine hundred and thirty years, 
 and he died ; the life of his son, Seth, was nine 
 hundred and twelve years, and he died," and so 
 of the rest, began to think wath himself, that if 
 such and so great men, after so long time, ended in 
 death, it was not safe to lose more time in this 
 world, but so to secure his life that, losing it here, 
 he might find it hereafter. What can the delights 
 of man be since his life is but a dream, a shadow, 
 and as the twinkling of an eye? If the most long 
 life be short, what can be the pleasures of that 
 moment by which is lost eternal happiness ? Oh,, 
 how vain arc men, who, seeing life so short, 
 endeavour t(j live long, and not to live well \ 
 Since it is a thing most certain that every man 
 may live well, but no man, what age soever he 
 attains unto, can live long ; every day we die, and 
 every da}' we lose some j)art of life ; and in our
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA VINGS. 1 1 7 
 
 growth, our life decreases and grows less ; and this 
 very day wherein we live, we divide with death. 
 Our life, in the Book of Wisdom, is compared unto 
 the passing of a shadow, which as it may be said 
 to be a kind of night, so life may be called a kind 
 of death ; for, as the shadow hath some part of 
 light, some of darkness, so our life hath some part 
 of death, and some of life, until it comes to end in 
 a {)ure death ; and since it is to end in a not being, 
 it is very little to be regarded, especially compared 
 with eternity, which hath a being constant and for 
 ever. The shadow, wheresoever it passes, leaves 
 no track behind it ; and of the greatest personages 
 in the world when they are once dead, then there 
 remains no more than if they had never lived. 
 How many preceding emperors in the Assyrian 
 monarchy were lords of the world as well as 
 Alexander ? And now we remain not only 
 ignorant of their monuments, but know not so 
 much as their names ; and of the same great 
 Alexander, what have we at this day except the 
 vain noise of his fame.'' There is nothing constant 
 in this life ; the moon hath every month her 
 changes, but the life of man hath them every 
 day, every hour ; now he is sick, now in health,
 
 ii8 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 now sorrowful, now mcrr}-, now fearful. With 
 what imaginations is he afflicted ! With how 
 many labours and toils does he daily wrestle ! 
 With what thoughts and apprehensions doth he 
 torment himself ! What dangers of soul and body 
 doth he run into ! Wliat vanity is he forced to 
 behold ! What injuries to suffer ! What necessi- 
 ties and afflictions ! Nay, such is our whole life, 
 that it seems unto me little less evil than that of 
 hell, but only for the hope we have of heaven ; our 
 infancy is full of ignorance and fears, our youth 
 of sin, our age of sorrow, and our whole life of 
 dangers. There is none content with his condi- 
 tion, but he who will die whilst he lives ; insomuch 
 as life cannot be good unless it most resemble 
 death. Since, therefore, the whole time of this life 
 is so short, and we know not how long it will last, 
 let us resolve not to lose the opportunity of gain- 
 ing eternity. 
 
 Love. 
 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 
 
 Holy Living, *=" ' ° 
 
 c. IV. sec. 3. ourselves, and carry with it all that is 
 ours. The apostle calls it the band of perfection ;
 
 JEREM Y TA\ LOR'S GOLDEN SA V/AUS. 1 1 9 
 
 it is the old, and it is the new, and it is the great 
 commandment, and it is all the commandments ; 
 
 for it is the fulfilling of the law. 
 
 * 
 
 The sum is this: no Christian does his dut)- to 
 God but he that serves Him with all his heart : 
 and although it becomes us to fulfil 
 
 ■^ Sermons : 
 
 all righteousness, even the external nel!'1->Sig'eiicai 
 
 , 11-1, • described." 
 
 also, yet that which makes us gracious 
 in His eyes is not the external, it is the love of 
 the heart and the real change of the mind and 
 obedience of the spirit ; tliat is the first great 
 measure of the righteousness evangelical. 
 
 Love is the soul of Christianity, and 
 
 Sermons : 
 " Faith and 
 
 rr • ■ , 1 1 r 1 Patience of the 
 
 SUnermg is the soul Ot love. Saints," part ii. 
 
 Marriage. 
 Marriage is the nursery of heaven ; the virgin 
 sends prayers to God, but she carries but one soul 
 to Him ; but the state of marriage fills Sermons: 
 
 " The Marriage 
 
 up the numbers of the elect, and hath King, pan 1. 
 in it the labour of love and the delicacies of friend- 
 ship, the blessing of society, and the union of
 
 120 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLD EX SA YINGS. 
 
 hands and hearts ; it hath in it less of beauty, but 
 more of safet}-, than the single life ; it hath more 
 care, but less danger ; it is more merry, and more 
 sad ; is fuller of sorrows, and fuller of joys ; it lies 
 under more burdens, but it is supported by all the 
 strengths of love and charit}', and those burdens 
 are delightful. 
 
 Let the husband and wife infinitely avoid a 
 
 curious distinction of mine and thine, for this hath 
 
 caused all the laws, and all the suits, 
 Ibid. 
 
 and all the wars in the world ; let them, 
 who have but one person, have also but one in- 
 terest. 
 
 It is an ill band of affections to tic two hearts 
 
 together by a little thread of red and white. And 
 
 they can love no longer but until the 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 next ague comes ; and they are fond of 
 each other but at the chance of fanc}', or the small- 
 pox, or child-bearing, or care, or time, or anything 
 that can destroy a pretty flower. 
 
 Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all
 
 JEREM \ ■ TA YL ORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 1 2 1 
 
 offences (jf each other in the beginning of their 
 conversation ; every little thing can 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 blast an infant blossom, and the breath 
 of the south can shake the little rings of the vine 
 when first they begin to curl like the locks of a 
 new-weaned boy ; but when by age and consolida- 
 tion they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and 
 have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the 
 kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they 
 can endure the storms of the north and the loud 
 noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken ; so 
 are the early unions of an unfixed marriage ; 
 watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisi- 
 tive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every 
 unkind word. 
 
 Marriage is the queen of friendships, in which 
 there is a communication of all that can be com- 
 municated by friendship, and it being "The Measures 
 
 and Offices of 
 
 made sacred by vows and love, by Friendship." 
 bodies and souls, by interest and custom, by 
 religion and by laws, by common counsels and 
 common fortunes ; it is the principal in the kind of 
 friendship, and the measure of all the rest.
 
 122 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Meditation. 
 "TheCireat McditatioH is an act of the iindcr- 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 part i. ^ec. 5. standing put to the right use. 
 
 A garden that is watered with short and sudden 
 
 showers is more uncertain in its fruits and beauties 
 
 than if a rivulet waters it with a per- 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 petual distilling and constant humec- 
 tation. And just such are the short emissions and 
 unpremeditated resolutions of piety, begotten by a 
 dash of holy rain from heaven, whereby God some- 
 times uses to call the careless but to taste what 
 excellencies of piety they neglect ; but if they be 
 not produced by the reason of religion and the 
 philosophy of meditation they have but the life of 
 a fly or a tall gourd, they come into the world only 
 to say they had a being ; you could scarce know 
 their length but by measuring the ground they 
 cover in their fall. 
 
 Meditations in order to a good life, let them be 
 as exalted as the capacity of the person and sub- 
 ject will endure up to the height of 
 li.id. 
 
 contemplation, but if contemplation 
 
 comes to be a distinct thing, and something
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA VJNGS. 1 23 
 
 besides or beyond a distinct degree of virtuous 
 meditation, it is lost to all sense and religion and 
 prudence. Let no man be hasty to eat of the 
 fruits of paradise before his time. 
 
 If, in the definition of meditation, I should call 
 it an unaccustomed and unpractised dut\-, I should 
 speak a truth, though somewhat in 
 artificially : for not only the interior 
 beauties and brighter excellencies are as unfelt 
 as ideas and abstractions are, but also the practice 
 and common knowledge of the duty itself arc 
 strangers to us, like the retirements of the deep 
 or the undiscovered treasures of the Indian 
 hills. And this is a very great cause of the 
 dryness and expiration of men's devotion, because 
 our souls are so little refreshed with the waters 
 and holy dews of meditation. We go to our 
 prayers by chance or order or by determination of 
 accidental occurrences, and we recite them as we 
 read a book, and sometimes we are sensible of the 
 dut)-, and a flash of lightning makes the room 
 bright, and our praj-ers end, and the lightning is 
 gone, and we as dark as ever. W'c draw our water
 
 124 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 from standing pools which never are filled but with 
 sudden showers, and therefore we are dry so often ; 
 whereas if we should draw water from the foun- 
 tains of our Saviour, and derive them through the 
 channel of diligent and prudent meditations, our 
 devotion would be a continual current, and safe 
 against the barrenness of frequent droughts. 
 
 Meditation is the duty of all, and therefore God 
 
 hath fitted such matter for it which is proportioned 
 
 to every understanding; and the greatest 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 mysteries of Christianity are plainest, 
 and yet most fruitful of meditation, and most use- 
 ful to the production of piety. High speculations 
 are as barren as the tops of cedars ; but the funda- 
 mentals of Christianity are fruitful as the valleys or 
 the creeping vine. 
 
 Christ's Martyrs. 
 He that overcomes his fear of death does well, 
 but if he hath not also overcome his lust or his 
 anger his baptism of blood will not 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 "I'it'ienw'o'ft'he'^ ^^'^sh him clcau. Many things may 
 
 Saints,' part iii. . -ii* ^ j- • i 
 
 make a man wilhng to die m a good 
 cause ; — public reputation, hope of reward, gallantry
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYIXCS. 125 
 
 of spirit, a confident resolution, and a masculine 
 courage ; or a man maj- be vexed into a stubborn 
 and unrelenting suffering ; but nothing can make 
 a man live well but the grace and the love of God. 
 But those persons are infinitely condemned by 
 their last act who profess their religion to be 
 worth dying for, and yet are so unworthy as not to 
 live according to its institution. It were a rare 
 felicity if every good cause could be managed b}- 
 good men only, but we have found that evil men 
 have spoiled a good cause, but never that a good 
 cause made those evil men good and holy. If the 
 governor of Samaria had crucified Simon Magus 
 for receiving Christian baptism he had no more 
 died a martyr than he lived a saint. For dying is 
 not enough, and dying in a good cause is not 
 enough ; but then only we receive the crown of 
 martyrdom when our death is the seal of our lifc» 
 and our life is a continual testimony of our dut}', 
 and both give tcstimou}- to the excellences of the 
 religion, and glorif)- the grace of God. If a man 
 be gold the fire purges him, but it burns him if he 
 be, like stubble, cheap, light, and useless ; for mar- 
 tyrdom is the consummation of love.
 
 126 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 There are many who would die for Christ if 
 
 they were put to it and yet will not quit a lust for 
 
 "The(;reat Him; thosc arc hardly to be esteemed 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 part ii. sec. 12. Christ's martyrs ; unless they be " dead 
 unto sin " their dying for an article, or a good 
 action, will not pass the great scrutiny. And it 
 may be boldness of spirit, or sullenness, or an 
 honourable gallantry of mind, or something that is 
 excellent in civil and political estimate, moves the 
 person, and endears the suffering ; but that love 
 only "which keeps the commandments" will teach 
 us to die for love, and from love to pass to 
 blessedness through the red sea of blood. 
 
 Nursing Children. 
 
 That religion which commands us to visit and 
 
 to tend sick strangers, and wash the feet of the 
 
 "TheCreat poor, and drcss their ulcers, and sends 
 
 ICxemplar, " 
 
 parti, sec. 3. US upou charitablc embassies into un- 
 clean prisons, and bids us lay down our lives for 
 one another, is not pleased with a niceness and 
 sensual curiosity which denies suck to our own 
 children. What is more humane and affectionate 
 than Christianity 1 and what is less natural and
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 127 
 
 charitable than to deny the expresses of a mother's 
 affection ? which certainly to good women is the 
 greatest trouble in the world, and the greatest 
 violence to their desires, if they should not express 
 and minister. And it would be considered whether 
 those mothers who have neglected their first duties 
 of piety and charit)" can expect so prompt and 
 easy rctui'ns of duty and piety from their children, 
 whose best foundation is love, and that love 
 strongest which is most natural, and that most 
 natural which is conveyed by the first ministries 
 and impresses of nourishment and education. 
 And if love descends more strongly than it 
 ascends, and commonly falls from the parents 
 upon the children in cataracts and returns back 
 again up to the parents but in gentle dews ; if the 
 child's affection keeps the same proportions to- 
 wards such unkind mothers, it will be as little as 
 atoms in the sun, and never express itself but when 
 the mother needs it not ; that is, in the sunshine 
 of a clear fortune. This, then, is amongst those 
 instincts which arc natural, heightened first by 
 reason, and then exalted by grace into the obliga- 
 tion of a law ; and, being amongst the sanctions of 
 nature, its prevarication i< a crime very near those
 
 I2S JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 sins, which divines, in detestation of their malig- 
 nity, call sins against nature, and is never to be 
 excused but in cases of necessity. 
 
 Obedience. 
 
 Remember that the assurance of blessing and 
 
 health and salvation is not made by doing what 
 
 ,, ., . we list, or being where we desire, but 
 
 Ibid, part i. ' ° ' 
 
 ^^'^' ^' by doing God's will and being in the 
 place of His appointment. We may be safe in 
 Egypt if we be there in obedience to God, and we 
 may perish amiong the babes of Bethlehem if we 
 be there by our own election. 
 
 Restraint of Opinion. 
 
 Force in matters of opinion can do no good, but 
 
 is very apt to do hurt, for no man can change his 
 
 "Liberty of opinioii whcn he will, or be satisfied in 
 
 Prophesying," 
 
 =>fc. 13- his reason that his opinion is false, 
 because discountenanced. If a man could change 
 his opinion when he lists he might cure many 
 inconveniences of his life ; all his fears and his 
 sorrows would soon disband if he would but alter 
 his opinion, whereby he is persuaded that such an 
 accident that afflicts him is an evil, and such an
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA VINGS. 129 
 
 object formidable ; let him but believe himself 
 impregnable, or that he receives a benefit when he 
 is plundered, disgraced, imprisoned, condemned, 
 and afflicted, neither his steps need to be disturbed 
 nor his quietness discomposed. But if a man can- 
 not change his opinion when he lists, nor ever does 
 heartily or resolutely but when he cannot do 
 otherwise, then to use force may make him a 
 hypocrite, but never to be a right believer ; and so, 
 instead of erecting a troj^hy to God and true 
 religion, we build a monument for the devil. 
 
 The Peace of God. 
 
 That is not peace from above, to have all things 
 according to our human and natural wishes ; but 
 to be in favour with God, that is "The Great 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 peace; always remembering that to pan i. sec. 4. 
 be chastised by Him is not a certain testimony 
 of His mere wrath, but to all His servants a 
 character of love and of paternal provision, since 
 " He chastises every son whom He receives." 
 Whosoever seeks to avoid all this world's adver- 
 sity can never find peace ; but he only who hath 
 resolved all his affections, and placed them in the 
 heart of God ; he who denies his own will, and 
 
 10
 
 I30 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 hath killed self-love, and all those enemies within, 
 that make afflictions to become miseries indeed, 
 and full of bitterness ; he only enjoys this peace : 
 and in proportion to every man's mortification 
 and self-denial, so are the degrees of his peace. 
 
 Here we labour, but receive no benefit ; we sow 
 
 4 
 
 many times, and reap not ; or reap, and do not 
 gather in; or gather in, and do not 
 
 Ibid, part u. ° > t> ' 
 
 ^^^' '^' possess ; or possess, but do not enjoy ; 
 or if we enjoy, we are still unsatisfied, it is with 
 anguish of spirit, and circumstances of vexation. 
 A great heap of riches makes neither our clothes 
 warm, nor our meat more nutritive, nor our 
 beverage more pleasant ; and it feeds the eye, but 
 never fills it, but, like drink to an hydropic person, 
 increases the thirst and promotes the torment. 
 But the grace of God, though but like a grain of 
 mustard-seed, fills the furrows of the heart ; and 
 as the capacity increases, itself grows up in equal 
 degrees, and never suffers any emptiness or dis- 
 satisfaction, but carries content and fulness all the 
 way ; and the degrees of augmentation are not 
 steps and near approaches to satisfaction, but 
 increasings of the capacity ; the soul is satisfied
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YIXGS. 131 
 
 all the way, and receives more, not because it 
 wanted any, but that it can now hold more, is 
 more receptive of felicities. And in every minute 
 of sanctification there is so excellent a condition 
 of joy and high satisfaction, that the very calami- 
 ties, the afflictions, and persecutions of the world, 
 are turned into felicities by the activity of the 
 prevailing ingredient ; like a drop of water falling 
 into a tun of wine, it is ascribed into a new family, 
 losing its own nature by a conversion into the 
 more noble. For now that all passionate desires 
 are dead, and there is nothing remanent that is 
 vexatious, the peace, the serenity, the quiet sleeps, 
 the evenness of spirit, and contempt of things 
 below, remove the soul from all neighbourhood 
 of displeasure, and place it at the foot of the 
 throne, whither when it is ascended, it is possessed 
 of felicities eternal. 
 
 CnRisTi.\N Philosophy. 
 
 Aristotle and Porphyry, and the other Greek 
 philosophers, studied the heavens, to search out 
 their natural causes and production jj^jj 
 of bodies; the wiser Chaldees and p^"'- ^-^c. 3. 
 
 Assyrians studied the same things, that they
 
 132 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 might learn their influences upon us, and make 
 predictions of contingencies ; the more moral 
 Egyptian described his theorems in hieroglyphics 
 and fantastic representmcnts, to teach principles 
 of policy, economy, and other prudences of 
 morality and secular negotiation : but the same 
 philosophy, when it is made Christian, considers 
 as they did, but to greater purposes, even that 
 from the book of the creatures we may glorify the 
 Creator, and hence derive arguments of worship 
 and religion : this is Christian philosophy. 
 
 Tractical Piety, 
 If men would a little turn the tables, and be as 
 zealous for a good life, and all the strictest 
 precepts of Christianity (which is a 
 
 "Liberty of 1 ^^ ■' ^ 
 
 ^Th'e''Epil"tfe rcligiou the most holy, the most 
 e icatory. j-easonablc, and the most consummate 
 that ever was taught to man), as they are for such 
 propositions in which neither the life nor the 
 ornament of Christianity is concerned, we should 
 find that, as a consequent of this piety, men would 
 be as careful as they could to find out all truths, 
 and the sense of all revelations which may con- 
 cern their duty ; and where men were miserable
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YJNGS. 133 
 
 and could not, yet others that Hved good lives 
 too, would also be so charitable as not to add 
 affliction to this misery : and both of them are 
 parts of good life. To be compassionate, and to 
 help to bear one another's burdens, not to destroy 
 the weak, but to entertain him meekly, that is a 
 precept of charity ; and to endeavour to find out 
 the whole will of God, that also is a part of the 
 obedience, the choice and the excellency of faith : 
 and he lives not a good life that does not do 
 both these. 
 
 Ancestral Piety. 
 As the root of a tree receives nourishment not 
 only sufficient to preserve its own life, but to 
 transmit a plastic juice to the trunk 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 of the tree, and from thence to the cJrsesCurofff' 
 utmost branch and smallest germ that ''''" "' 
 knots in the most distant part, so shall the great 
 and exemplar piety of the father of a family not 
 only preserve to the interest of his own soul the 
 life of grace and hopes of glory, but shall be a 
 quickening spirit, active and communicative of a 
 blessing, not only to the trunk of the tree, to the 
 body and rightly-descending line, but even to
 
 134 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 the collateral branches, to the most distant rela- 
 tives, and all that shall claim a kindred, shall have 
 a title to a blessing. 
 
 Holy Places. 
 
 God is, by grace and benediction, specially- 
 present in holy places, and in the solemn assem- 
 
 "Hoi Livin " '^^i'^s o^ His servants. If holy people 
 c- 1- sec. 3. jTTjggj- jj^ grots and dens of the earth 
 
 when persecution or a public necessity disturbs 
 the public order, circumstance, and convenience, 
 God fails not to come thither to them : but God 
 is also, by the same or a greater reason, present 
 there, where they meet ordinarily, by order, and 
 public authority ; there God is present ordinarily, 
 that is, at every such meeting. God will go out 
 of His way to meet His saints, when themselves 
 are forced out of their way of order by a sad 
 necessity ; but else, God's usual way is to be 
 present in those places where His servants are 
 appointed ordinarily to meet. But His presence 
 there signifies nothing but a readiness to hear 
 their prayers, to bless their persons, to accept 
 their offices, and to like even the circumstance 
 of orderly and public meeting. For thither the
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA VINGS. 135 
 
 prayers of consecration, the public authority- 
 separating it, and God's love of order, and the 
 reasonable customs of religion, have, in ordinary, 
 and in a certain degree, fixed this manner of His 
 presence ; and He loves to have it so. 
 
 I consider that those riches and beauties in 
 churches and religious solemnities, which add 
 nothing to God, add much devotion to "The Great 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 us and much honour and efficacy to pan ii. sec. n. 
 devotion. For since impression is made upon 
 the soul by the intervening of corporal things, 
 our religion and devotion of the soul receives the 
 addition of many degrees by such instruments. 
 Insomuch that we see persons of the greatest 
 fancy, and such who are most pleased with out- 
 ward fairnesses, are most religious. Great under- 
 standings make religion lasting and reasonable ; 
 but great fancies make it more scrupulous, strict, 
 operative, and effectual. And therefore it is 
 strange that we shall bestow such great expenses 
 to make our own houses convenient and delectable, 
 that we may entertain ourselves with complacency 
 and appetite, and yet think that religion is not
 
 136 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 worth the ornament, nor our fancies fit to be 
 carried into the choice and prosecution of religious 
 actions, with sweetness, entertainments, and fair 
 propositions. If we say that God is not the better 
 for a rich house or a costly service, we may also 
 remember that neither are we the better for rich 
 clothes ; and the sheep will keep us as modest, as 
 warm, and as clean as the silk-worm ; and a gold 
 chain or a carkenet of pearl does no more con- 
 tribute to our happiness than it does to the 
 service of religion. For if we reply that they 
 help to the esteem and reputation of our persons, 
 and the distinction of them from the vulgar, from 
 the servants of the lot of Issachar, and add 
 reverence and veneration to us, how great a 
 shame is it if we study by great expenses to get 
 reputation and accidental advantages to ourselves, 
 and not by the same means to purchase reverence 
 and esteem to religion ; since we see that religion, 
 amongst persons of ordinary understandings, re- 
 ceives as much external and accidental advantages 
 by the accession of exterior ornaments and accom- 
 modation, as we ourselves can by rich clothes and 
 garments of wealth, ceremony, and distinction. 
 And as in princes' courts the reverence to princes
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 137 
 
 is quickened and increased by an outward state 
 and glory, so also it is in the service of God. 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 Here thou art but a stranger travelling to thy 
 country, where the glories of a kingdom are pre- 
 pared for thee; it is therefore a huge ,,^^^ ^.^.^ „ 
 folly to be much afHictcd because thou '"' "' ''^'^ ^' 
 hast a less convenient inn to lodge in by the way. 
 
 * 
 
 The things of this world are not only a shadow, 
 but are very deceitful ; they promise us goods, and 
 give us evils ; promise us ease, and "Contemplations 
 
 of the State of 
 
 give us cares ; promise security, and Man, "book i.e. 2. 
 give us danger ; promise us great contents, and 
 give us great vexations ; there is no felicity upon 
 earth, no happiness which mounts so high, which 
 is not depressed by some low calamity: it is not 
 needful to attend the end of life to see the im- 
 posture of it, it is enough to see the alterations 
 whilst it lasts ; be assured that vain is all the 
 greatness of the earth if that of heaven be not 
 gained by it. Since, then, all kingdoms, empires, 
 honours, and greatness whatsoever are but a
 
 I3S JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 shadow, and will presently vanish, and we are here 
 in this world but as in an inn, from whence we 
 are suddenly to depart, let us take care for our 
 journey and furnish ourselves with provision and 
 a viaticum for eternity ; let us clothe ourselves 
 with such garments as we may carry along with 
 us. This may be our comfort, that our wealth, 
 whether we will or no, may be taken from us, but 
 eternal happiness, unless by our fault, cannot ; we 
 may be deprived of honours against our wills, but 
 not of our virtues, except we consent ; temporal 
 goods may perish, be stolen, and lost many ways, 
 but spiritual goods can only be forsaken, and are 
 then only lost when we leave them by our sins ; 
 the roses of glory in heaven do never fade, nor 
 doth custom dull the lively taste of those celestial 
 delights ; let us therefore convey our riches here 
 through the hands of the poor in bills of exchange 
 into the eternity of glory, where such money is 
 current, for our good works will follow us. I will 
 therefore preserve myself in humility, I will not 
 confide in prosperity, nor presume upon my virtues, 
 though never so great, since every man is subject 
 to fall into those misfortunes he little thinks of I 
 will not trust in life, because it may fail, whilst the
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 139 
 
 goods of it remain ; and will as little trust in them, 
 because they may likewise fail, whilst it continues. 
 
 Riches were invented for the case and com- 
 modity of life ; but as man hath made them, they 
 serve for the greatest trouble and 
 
 Ibid., c. III. 
 
 vexation : he who hath wealth hath 
 most want, because he not only needs for himself, 
 but for all which he possesseth : so that he which 
 hath a great house hath the same necessities that 
 his house hath, which are many ; for a great house 
 requires much furniture and a large family ; and 
 so charges the master with multitudes of servants, 
 great quantities of plate, hangings, and other orna- 
 ments superfluous to use and human commodity ; 
 insomuch as none are more poor than the rich, 
 because they want, not only for themselves, but for 
 all that is theirs. At least, riches want not this in- 
 commodity, that although they were invented for 
 human use and ease, yet he that hath them in the 
 greatest abundance hath the greatest cares, troubles, 
 dangers, and ever the greatest losses. Let us, 
 therefore, while we have time, make over our 
 riches; let us send them before us into another
 
 I40 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 world ; heaven stands open to receive them, we 
 need not doubt of safe carriage ; the carriers are 
 very faithful and trusty — they are the poor and 
 needy of this world ; we make over unto them 
 here, by way of exchange, a few things of little 
 value ; being to receive in heaven for them, an 
 exceeding eternal weight of glory. 
 
 The Rewards of Poverty. 
 
 Poverty is the sister of a good mind ; it ministers 
 
 aid to wisdom, industry to our spirit, severity to 
 
 "The Great our thoughts, sobcmess to our counsels. 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 part ii. sec. 12. modcsty to our desires ; it restrains 
 extravagancy and dissolution of appetites ; the 
 next thing above our present condition, which is 
 commonly the object of our wishes, being temperate 
 and little, proportionable enough to nature, not 
 wandering beyond the limits of necessity or a 
 moderate conveniency, or, at farthest, but to a free 
 refreshment and recreation. And the cares of 
 poverty are single and mean, rather a fit employ- 
 ment to correct our levities than a business to 
 impede our better thoughts ; since a little thing 
 supplies the needs of nature, and the earth and the
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA VINGS. 141 
 
 fountain with little trouble minister food to us, and 
 God's common providence and daily dispensation 
 eases the cares and makes them portable. But the 
 cares and businesses of rich men are violences to 
 our whole man ; they are loads of memory, busi- 
 ness for the understanding, work for two or three 
 arts and sciences, employment for many servants 
 to assist in, increase the appetite, and heighten the 
 thirst ; and, by making their dropsy bigger and 
 their capacities large, they destroy all those oppor- 
 tunities and possibilities of charity in which only 
 riches can be useful. But it is not a mere poverty 
 of possession which entitles us to the blessing, but 
 a poverty of spirit, that is, a contentedness in every 
 state, an aptness to renounce all when we are 
 obliged in dut}-, a refusing to continue a possession 
 when we for it must quit a virtue or a noble action ; 
 a divorce of our affections from those gilded vani- 
 ties ; a generous contempt of the world, and at no 
 hand heaping riches, either with injustice or with 
 avarice, either with wrong or impotency of action 
 or affection.
 
 142 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Prayer. 
 
 Short passes, quick ejections, concise forms and 
 
 remembrances, holy breathings, prayers like little 
 
 "Christian posics, may be sent forth without 
 
 Consolations," • j /^ j 
 
 civ. number on every occasion, and uod 
 
 will note them in His book. But all that have a 
 care to walk with God fill their vessels more 
 largely as soon as they rise, before they begin the 
 work of the day, and before they lie down again 
 at nieht : which is to observe what the Lord 
 appointed in the Levitical ministry, a morning 
 and an evening lamb to be laid upon the altar. 
 So with them that are not stark irreligious, prayer 
 is the key to open the day, and the bolt to shut in 
 the night. But as the skies drop the early dew 
 and the evening dew upon the grass, yet it would 
 not spring and grow green by that constant and 
 double falling of the dew unless some great 
 showers, at certain seasons, did supply the rest ; 
 so the customary devotion of prayer, twice a day, 
 is the falling of the early and the latter dew ; but 
 if you will increase and flourish in the works of 
 grace, empty the great clouds sometimes, and let 
 them fall into a full shower of prayer : choose out
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 143 
 
 the seasons in your own discretion, when prayer 
 shall overflow, like Jordan in the time of harvest. 
 
 Converse with God by frequent prayer. In 
 particular, desire that your desires may be right, 
 and love to have your alTcctions regular „„ , ,. . „ 
 
 ^ fc> " Holy Living, ■ 
 
 and holy. To which purpose, make =. iv. sec. 3. 
 very frequent addresses to God by ejaculations 
 and communions, and an assiduous daily devo- 
 tion ; discover to Him all your wants ; complain 
 to Him of all j-our affronts ; do as Hezekiah did, 
 lay your misfortunes and your ill news before Him, 
 spread them before the Lord ; call to Him for 
 health, run to Him for counsel, beg of Him for 
 pardon ; and it is as natural to love Him to whom 
 we make such addresses, and of whom we have 
 such dependencies, as it is for children to love 
 their parents. 
 
 Desire what you pray for ; for certain it is you 
 will pray passionately if you desire "The Worthy 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 fervently. Prayers are but the body c. ii. sec. 4. 
 ■of the bird ; desires are its angel's wings. 
 
 * :!;
 
 144 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YIAGS. 
 
 The rule is easy : whatsoever you need, ask it 
 
 of God so long as you want it, even till you have 
 
 it. For God, therefore, many times 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 o/prayers'" ^cfers to grant, that thou mayest 
 ^^""' persevere to ask ; and because every 
 holy prayer is a glorification of God by the con- 
 fessing many of His attributes, a lasting and a 
 persevering prayer is a little image of the halle- 
 lujahs and services of eternity ; it is a continuation 
 to do that, according to our measures, which we 
 shall be doing to eternal ages : therefore, think 
 not that five or six hearty prayers can secure to 
 thee a great blessing, and a supply of a mighty 
 necessity. He that prays so, and then leaves off, 
 hath said some prayers, and done the ordinary 
 offices of his religion, but hath not secured the 
 blessing, nor used means reasonably proportion- 
 able to a mighty interest. 
 
 There is no greater argument In the world of 
 
 our spiritual weakness, and the falseness of our 
 
 Sermons: hcarts iu mattcrs of religion, than the 
 
 " The Deceit- 111 1 • 1 1 
 
 fulness of the backwarducss which most men have 
 
 Heart, " 
 
 parti. always, and all men have sometimes, 
 to say their prayers ; so weary of their length, so
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA VINGS. 145 
 
 glad when they are done, so witty to excuse and 
 frustrate an opportunity : and yet there is no 
 manner of trouble in the duty, no weariness of 
 bones, no violent labours ; nothing but begging a 
 blessing, and receiving it ; nothing but doing our- 
 selves the greatest honour of speaking to the 
 greatest person, and greatest King of the world : 
 and, that we should be unwilling to do this, so 
 unable to continue in it, so backward to return to 
 it, so without gust and relish in the doing it, can 
 have no visible reason in the nature of the thing, 
 but something within us, a strange sickness in the 
 heart, a spiritual nauseating or loathing of manna, 
 something that hath no name ; but we are sure it 
 comes from a weak, a faint, and false heart. 
 
 The words of prayer are no part of the Spirit of 
 prayer ; words may be the body of it, but the 
 Spirit of praver always consists in holi- 
 
 ' ^ - ■' Sermons : 
 
 ness, that is, in holy desires and holy " ^of oniil^'"' 
 actions. Words are not properly ^'^" "' 
 capable of being holy ; all words are in themselves 
 servants of things ; and the holiness of a prayer is 
 not at all concerned in the manner of its expres- 
 
 II
 
 146 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 si'on, but in the spirit of it ; that is, in the violence 
 of its desires, and the innocence of its ends and 
 the continuance of its employment. 
 
 If you will know how it is with you in the 
 
 matter of your prayers, examine whether or no the 
 
 "The Worthy form of your prayer be the rule of 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 c. ii. sec. 4. your life. Every petition to God is a 
 precept to man ; and when, in your litanies, you 
 pray to be delivered from malice and hypocrisy, 
 from pride and envy, from fornication and every 
 deadly sin, all that is but a line of dut}', and tells 
 us that we must never consent to an act of pride, 
 or a thought of envy, to a temptation of unclean- 
 ness, or the besmearings and evil paintings of 
 hypocrisy. But we, when we pray against a sin, 
 think we have done enough ; and if we ask for a 
 grace, suppose there is no more required. Now 
 prayer is an instrument of help, a procuring auxili- 
 aries of God, that we may do our duty ; and why 
 should we ask for help, if wc be not ourselves 
 bound to do the thing ? 
 
 Whatever we beg of God, let us also work for
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 147 
 
 it, if the thing be matter of duty or a consequent 
 to industry. For God loves to bless . . , 
 
 ^ ' Holy Living, 
 
 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 uhole 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 }'our hands the things that are honest, that 
 ye may have to supply in time of need. We can 
 but do our endeavour, and pray for a blessing, 
 and then leave the success with God ; and beyond 
 this we cannot deliberate, we cannot take care — 
 but so far we must. 
 
 We usually judge of the well or ill of our devo- 
 tions and services, by what we feel ; and we think 
 God rewards everything in the present, "The Great 
 
 Kxemplar/ 
 
 and by proportion to our own expecta- pani. sec. 7. 
 tions ; and if we feel a present rejoicing of spirit
 
 148 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 all is well with us ; the smoke of the sacrifice 
 ascended right in a holy cloud : but if we feel 
 nothing of comfort, then we count it a prodigy and 
 ominous, and we suspect ourselves; and most 
 commonly we have reason. Such irradiations of 
 cheerfulness are always welcome ; but it is not always 
 anger that takes them away : the cloud removed 
 from before the camp of Israel, and stood before 
 the host of Pharaoh ; but this was a design of ruin 
 to the Egyptians and of security to Israel : and, if 
 those bright angels that go with us to direct our 
 journeys, remove out of our sight, and stand behind 
 us, it is not always an argument that the anger of 
 the Lord is gone out against us ; but such decays 
 of sense and clouds of spirit are excellent con- 
 servators of humility and restrain those intem- 
 perances and vainer thoughts which we are 
 prompted to in the gaiety of our spirits. 
 
 God's blessings, though they come infallibly, yet 
 
 not always speedily, saving only that it is a blessing 
 
 jj^.j to be delayed, that we may increase our 
 
 part 11. sec. 12. (jcsirc, and renew our prayers, and do 
 
 acts of confidence and patience, and ascertain and
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 149 
 
 increase the blessing when it comes. For we do not 
 more desire to be blessed than God does to hear us 
 importunate for blessing, and He weighs every sigh, 
 and bottles up every tear, and records every prayer, 
 and looks through the cloud with delight to see us 
 upon our knees, and, when He sees His time, His 
 light breaks through it and shines upon us. Only 
 we must not make our accounts for God according 
 to the course of the sun, but the measures of eter- 
 nity. He measures us by our needs, and we must 
 not measure Him by our impatience. " God is not 
 slack, as some men count slackness," saith the 
 apostle ; and we find it so when we have waited 
 long. All the elapsed time is no part of the 
 tediousness ; the trouble of it is past with itself 
 and for the future we know not how little it may 
 be ; for aught wc know, we are already entered 
 into the cloud that brings the blessing. However, 
 pray till it comes, for we shall never miss to receive 
 our desire if it be holy, or innocent, and safe ; or 
 else we are sure of a great reward of our prayers.
 
 ISO JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Desire is the life of prayer, and if you indeed 
 
 desire what you pray for, you will also labour for 
 
 what you desire : and if you find it 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 neTs^Elail'gericai othcrwise with yourselves, your coming 
 to church is but like the Pharisees going 
 up to the temple to pray. If your heart be not 
 present, neither will God, and then there is a sound 
 of men and women between a pair of dead walls 
 from whence, because neither God nor your souls 
 are present, you must needs go home without a 
 blessing. 
 
 Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from 
 
 prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention 
 
 which presents our prayers in a right 
 
 Sermons: 
 
 "rf'prfy^er"!" ^^"^ ^^ God. For SO havc I seen a lark 
 ^^^ "* rising from his bed of grass, and soaring 
 upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to 
 heaven, and climb above the clouds ; but the poor 
 bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an 
 eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and 
 inconstant, descending more at every breath of the 
 tempest than it could recover by the libration and 
 frequent weighing of his wings till the little creature
 
 JEREM I ' TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 1 5 1 
 
 was forced to sit down and pant and stay till the 
 storm was over ; and then it made a prosperous 
 flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned 
 music and motion from an angel as he passed 
 sometimes through the air about his ministries 
 here below. So is the prayer of a good man ; when 
 his affairs have required business, and his business 
 was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to 
 pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of 
 charity, his duty met with infirmities of a man, 
 and anger was its instrument, and the instrument 
 became stronger than the prime agent, and raised 
 a tempest and overruled the man ; and then his 
 prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, 
 and his words went up towards a cloud, and his 
 thoughts pulled them back again and made them 
 without intention ; and the good man sighs for his 
 infirmity, but must be content to lose the prayer, 
 and he must recover it when his anger is removed 
 and his spirit is becalmed, and then it ascends to 
 heaven upon the wings of the hoi}- dove, and 
 dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee, 
 laden with a blessing and the dew of heaven.
 
 152 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Vain Prayers. 
 
 There are many things in our prayer which we 
 
 ask for and do not know what to do with if we 
 
 "The Worthy had them, and we do not feel any want 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 c. ii. sec. 4. of them, and we care not whether we 
 have them or no. We ask for the Spirit of God, 
 for wisdom, and for a right judgment in all things, 
 and yet there are not many in our Christian assem- 
 blies who use to trouble themselves at all with 
 judging concerning the mysteries of godliness. 
 Men pray for humility, and yet at the same time 
 think that all that which is indeed humility is a 
 pitiful poorness of spirit, pusillanimity, and want 
 of good breeding. We pray for a contrition and a 
 broken heart, and yet, if we chance to be melan- 
 choly, we long to be comforted, and think that the 
 lectures of the cross bring death, and, therefore, are 
 not the way of eternal life. We pray sometimes 
 that God may be first and last in all our thoughts, 
 and yet we conceive it no great matter whether 
 He be or no ; but we are sure that He is not, but 
 the things of the world do take up the place of 
 God, and yet we hope to be saved for all that, and, 
 consequently, are very indifferent concerning the
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 153 
 
 return of that prayer. We frequently call upon 
 God for His grace that wc may never fall into sin ; 
 now in this, besides that wc have no hopes to be 
 heard, and think it impossible to arrive to a state 
 of life in which we shall not commit sins, yet if we 
 do sin we know there is a remedy so ready that we 
 believe we are not much the worse if we do. Here are 
 prayers enough ; but where are the desires all this 
 while ? We pray against covetousness, and pride, 
 and gluttony ; but nothing that we do but is either 
 covetousness or pride ; so that our prayers are ter- 
 minated upon a word, not upon a thing. We do 
 covetous actions, and speak proud words, and have 
 high thoughts, and do not passionately desire to 
 have affections contrary to them, but only to such 
 notions of the sin as we have entertained, which 
 are such as will do no real prejudice or mortifica- 
 tion to the sin ; and whatever our prayers are, yet 
 it is certain our desires are so little, and so content 
 with anything of this nature, that for very many 
 spiritual petitions we are indifferent whether they 
 be granted or not.
 
 154 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 Recreation. 
 
 Let not your recreations be lavish spenders of 
 your time, but choose such which are healthful, 
 ,, „ , ^ . . „ short, transient, recreative, and apt to 
 
 Holy Living, ' ' '■ 
 
 c. i.sec. I. refresh you; but at no hand dwell 
 upon them or make them your great employment, 
 for he that spends his time in sports and calls it 
 recreation is like him whose garment is all made 
 of fringes and his meat nothing but sauces ; they 
 are healthless, chargeable, and useless. And there- 
 fore avoid such games which require much time 
 or long attendance, or which are apt to steal thy 
 affections from more severe employments. For to 
 whatsoever thou hast given thy affections, thou 
 wilt not grudge to give thy time. Natural neces- 
 sity and the example of St. John, who recreated 
 himself with sporting with a tame partridge, teach 
 us that it is lawful to relax and unbend our bow, 
 but not to suffer it to be unready or unstrung.
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA VINGS. 155 
 
 Religion. 
 
 A man talks of religon but as of a dream, and 
 from thence he awakens into the businesses of the 
 world, and acts them deliberately, with 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 perfect action and full resolution, and " ^ness^fthf "'' 
 
 . . , . , 1 ,• • Heart," part ii. 
 
 contrives, and considers, and lives in 
 them ; but when he falls asleep again, or is taken 
 from the scene of his own employment and choice, 
 then he dreams again, and religion makes such 
 impressions as is the conversation of a dreamer, 
 and he acts accordingly. 
 
 We dress ourselves upon a day of religion, and 
 then we cannot endure to think on sin ; and if we 
 do, we sigh, and when we sigh wc pray, "iheWorthy 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 and suppose that if we might die upon c. ii. .sec. 3. 
 that day it would be a good day's work, for we 
 could not die in a better time. But let us not 
 deceive ourselves. That is our picture that is like 
 us ever}' da)' in the week ; and if you are as just in 
 your buying and selling as you are when }OU arc 
 saying your prayers ; if you arc as chaste in your 
 conversation as you are in your religious retirement ; 
 if your temperance be the same every day as it is
 
 156 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 in your thoughts upon a fasting-day ; if you wear 
 the same habits of virtue every day in the week as 
 you put on upon a communion-day — you have 
 more reason to think yourselves prepared than by 
 all the extempore piety and solemn religion that 
 rises at the sound of a bell and keeps her time by 
 the calendar of the Church more than by the laws 
 of God. 
 
 We make religion to be the work of a few hours 
 in the whole year ; we are without fancy or affec- 
 tion to the severities of holy living ; we 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 " ^ness"^nh'f"'' reduce religion to the believing of a 
 ear , par ii. ^^^ articlcs, and doing nothing that is 
 
 considerable ; we pray seldom, and then but very 
 coldly and indifferently ; we communicate not so 
 often as the sun salutes both the tropics ; we 
 profess Christ, but dare not die for Him ; we are 
 factious for a religion, and will not live according 
 to its precepts ; we call ourselves Christians, and 
 love to be ignorant of many of the laws of Christ, 
 lest our knowledge should force us into shame, or 
 into the troubles of a holy life.
 
 JEREMY TA VLO/i'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 157 
 
 He that does his recreation or his merchandise 
 cheerfull)', promptly, readily, and busily, and the 
 works of religion slowly, flatly, and ,,^^^ ^.^.^ . 
 without appetite, and the spirit moves '^' '' ^^'^' '' 
 like Pharaoh's chariots when the wheels were off, 
 it is a sign that his heart is not right with God, but 
 it cleaves too much to the world. 
 
 Religion is no religion, and virtue is no act of 
 choice, and reward comes by chance and without 
 condition if we only arc religious when ,.„,„. .. 
 
 JO Holy Dying, 
 
 we cannot choose ; if wc part with our ^- '^■- ^^l. =• 
 money when we cannot keep it, with our lust when 
 we cannot act it, with our desires when they have 
 left us. 
 
 Let us take care that our religion be like our 
 life, not done like pictures, taken when we are 
 dressed curiously, but looking as the "puctorOubi- 
 
 tantium," book i. 
 
 actions of our life are dressed — that is, c. vi. 
 so as things can be constantly done, that is, that it 
 be dressed with the usual circumstances, imitating 
 the examples and following the usages of the best 
 and the most prudent persons of our communion,
 
 158 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 striving in nothing to be singular, not doing 
 violence to anything of nature, unless it be an 
 instrument or a temptation to a vice. For some 
 men mortify their natures rather than their vicious 
 inclinations or their evil habits, and so make religion 
 to be a burden, a snare, and an enemy. 
 
 It is not enough for a man to be a good citizen 
 
 unless he be also a good man ; but some men build 
 
 their houses with half a dozen cross- 
 
 Semions : 
 
 "The Righteous, sticks, and turf is the foundation, and 
 
 ness tvangeli- ' ' 
 
 ca , part. in. g^-,.^^y jg |-|^g covcrittg, and they think 
 they dwell securely ; their religion is made up of 
 two or three virtues, and they think to commute 
 with God, some good for some bad, as if one deadly 
 wound were not enough to destroy the most 
 healthful constitution in the world. 
 
 What the Christian Religion Does. 
 
 It is a doctrine perfective of human nature, 
 that teaches us to love God and to love one 
 " Ductor Dubi- another, to hurt no man, and to do 
 
 tantium, " book i. 
 
 c. iii. good to every man ; it propines to us 
 the noblest, the highest, and the bravest pleasures
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 159 
 
 of the world ; the joys of charity, the rest of 
 innocence, the peace of quiet spirits, the wealth 
 of beneficence, and forbids us only to be beasts 
 and to be devils ; it allows all that God and 
 nature intended, and only restrains the ex- 
 crescences of nature, and forbids us to take 
 pleasure in that which is the only entertainment 
 of devils, in murders and revenges, malice and 
 spiteful words and actions. It permits corporal 
 pleasures where they can best minister to health 
 and societies, to conversation of families and 
 honour of communities ; it teaches men to keep 
 their words that themselves may be secured in all 
 their just interests, and to do good to others that 
 good ma\' be done to them ; it forbids biting one 
 another, that we may not be devoured by one 
 another ; and commands obedience to superiors, 
 that we may not be ruined in confusions ; it com- 
 bines governments, and confirms all good laws, 
 and makes peace, and opposes and prevents wars, 
 where they are not just, and where they are not 
 necessary. It is a religion that is life and spirit, 
 not consisting in ceremonies and external amuse- 
 ments, but in the services of the heart, and the 
 real fruit of lips and hands, that is, of good words
 
 i6o JEREMY TA VLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 and good deeds ; it bids us to do that to God 
 which is agreeable to His excellencies — that is, 
 worship Him with the best thing we have, and 
 make all things else minister to it ; it bids us to 
 do that to our neighbour, by which he may be 
 better : it is the perfection of the natural law, 
 and agreeable to our natural necessities, and 
 promotes our natural ends and designs : it does 
 not destroy reason, but instructs it in very many 
 things, and complies with it in all ; it hath in it 
 both heat and light, and is not more effectual than 
 it is beauteous ; it promises everything that we can 
 desire, and yet promises nothing but what it does 
 effect ; it proclaims war against all vices, and 
 generally docs command every virtue ; it teaches 
 us with ease to mortify those affections, which 
 reason durst scarce reprove, because she hath not 
 strength enough to conquer ; and it does create 
 in us those virtues which reason of herself never 
 knew, and, after they are known, could never 
 approve sufficiently. It is a doctrine in which 
 nothing is superfluous or burdensome, nor yet is 
 there anything wanting which can procure happi- 
 ness to mankind or by which God can be glorified: 
 and if wisdom, and mercy, and justice, and sim-
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. i6i 
 
 plicity, and holiness, and purity, and meekness, 
 and contentedness, and charity be images of God 
 and rays of divinity, then that doctrine in which 
 all these shine so gloriously, and in which nothing 
 else is ingredient, must needs be from God ; and 
 that all this is true in the doctrine of Jesus, needs 
 no other probation but the reading the words. 
 
 Repentance. 
 That resolution only is the beginning of a holy 
 repentance which goes forth into act, and whose 
 acts enlarge into habits, and whose sermons: 
 
 1 1 • 1 . - , - . , " Invalidity of a 
 
 habits are productive of the fruits of Late or Deathbed 
 
 Repentance," 
 
 a holy life. p^""''- 
 
 Repentance kills the lust of the eyes and mor- 
 tifies the pride of life ; it crucifies the desires of the 
 flesh, and brings the understanding to 
 
 ^ ^ "The Doctrine 
 
 the obedience of Jesus ; the fear of it "'"^^^^^^^'^^^r 
 bids war against the sin, and the sorrow 
 breaks the heart of it ; the hope that is mingled 
 with contrition enkindles our desires to return, and 
 the love that is in it procures our pardon, and the 
 confidence of that pardon does increase our love, 
 and that love is obedience, and that obedience is 
 
 12
 
 1 62 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 sanctification, and that sanctification supposes the 
 man to be justified before ; and he that is justified 
 must be justified still ; and thus repentance is a 
 holy life. But the little drops of a beginning 
 sorrow and the pert resolution to live better never 
 passing into act and habit, the quick and rash 
 vows of the newly-returning man, and the con- 
 fusion of face espied in the convicted sinner — if 
 they proceed no further, are but like the sudden 
 fires of the night, which glare for awhile within a 
 little continent of air big enough to make a fire- 
 ball, or the revolution of a minute's walk. These, 
 when they are alone and do not actually and with 
 effect minister to the wise counsels and firm pro- 
 gressions of a holy life, are as far from procuring 
 pardon as they are from a life of piety and holi- 
 nes.s. 
 
 If we refuse to repent now, we do not so much 
 
 refuse to do our own duty as to accept of a reward. 
 
 It is the greatest and the dearest bless- 
 
 Sermons: 
 
 "The Mercy of \^„ j-^^t cvcr God gavc to mcu that 
 
 the Divine Judg- o " 
 
 nients" part i. ^j^^^ ^^^ rcpcnt ; and therefore to 
 deny it or to delay it is to refuse health brought 
 us by the skill and industry of the physician ; it is
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 163 
 
 to refuse liberty indulged to us by our gracious 
 Lord. And certainly we had reason to take it 
 very ill if, at a great expense, we should purchase a 
 pardon for a servant, and he, out of a peevish pride 
 or negligence, shall refuse it ; the scorn pays itself, 
 the folly is its own scourge, and sits down in an 
 inglorious ruin. 
 
 Reason and Faith. 
 He that speaks against his own reason, speaks 
 against his own conscience ; and, therefore, it is 
 certain no man serves God with a "TheWonhy 
 
 Communicant," 
 
 "■ood conscience that serves Him c. iii. sec.5. 
 against his reason. For though, in many cases, 
 reason must submit to faith, that is, natural reason 
 must submit to supernatural, and the imperfect 
 informations of art to the revelations of God, yet 
 in no case can true reason and a right faith oppose 
 each other. 
 
 Scrupulous Persons. 
 They repent when they have not sinned, and 
 accuse themselves without form or matter ; their 
 virtues make them tremble, and in "DuctorDubi- 
 
 ... , r • 1 .1 antium," 
 
 their mnocence they are afraid ; they booki. c. vi. 
 at no hand would sin, and know not on which
 
 1 64 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 hand to avoid it : and if they venture in, as the 
 flying Persians over the river Strymon, the ice will 
 not bear them, or they cannot stand for slipping, 
 and think every step a danger, and every progres- 
 sion a crime, and believe themselves drowned 
 when they are yet ashore. Scruple is a little 
 stone in the foot^ — if you set it upon the ground 
 it hurts you ; if you hold it up, you cannot go 
 forward ; it is a trouble where the trouble is over, 
 a doubt when doubts are resolved ; it is a little 
 party behind a hedge, when the main army is 
 broken and the field cleared : and when the con- 
 science is instructed in its way, and girt for action, 
 a light trifling reason, or an absurd fear, hinders it 
 from beginning the journey, or proceeding in the 
 way, or resting at the journey's end. 
 
 Let the scrupulous man interest himself in as 
 
 few questions of intricate dispute and minute 
 
 disquisition as he can ; they that 
 Ibid. 
 
 answer fewest, do commonly trouble 
 
 themselves with most. Curious questions may 
 
 puzzle every man, but they can profit no man — 
 
 they are a certain disturbance, they are rebels
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 165 
 
 in the kingdom of the inner man ; they 
 are just the same things in speculation which 
 scruples are in practice, and therefore because 
 notice properly tends and directs to action, the 
 increase of them will multiply these. Avoid them 
 therefore ; for not these, but things practical, are 
 the hinges of immortality ; but the other break the 
 peace of the superior faculties, they trouble the 
 understanding and afflict the conscience and profit, 
 or instruct no man. He that would cure his 
 scrupulousness, must take care that his religion 
 be as near as he can to the measures and usages 
 of common life. 
 
 The scrupulous man is timorous, and sad, and 
 uneasy, and he knows not why. As the melan- 
 choly man muses long, and to no pur- 
 pose, he thinks much, but thinks of 
 nothing ; so the scrupulous man fears exceedingly, 
 but he knows not what nor why. It is a religious 
 melancholy ; and when it appears to be a disease 
 and a temptation, there need no more argument 
 against its entertainment. We must rudely throw 
 it away.
 
 1 66 jeremy taylor's golden sa yings. 
 
 Sects. 
 
 It is a great fault that men will call the several 
 
 sects of Christians by the names of several reli- 
 
 " Liberty of gions. Thc religioH of Jesus Christ is 
 
 Prophesying," 
 
 sec. xvi. the form ot sound doctrine and whole- 
 some words, which is set down in Scripture in- 
 definitely, actually conveyed to us by plain places, 
 and separated as for the question of necessary or 
 not necessary by the symbol of the apostles. 
 Those impertinences which the wantonness and 
 vanity of men hath commenced, which their in- 
 terests have promoted, which serve not truth so 
 much as their own ends, are far from being dis- 
 tinct religions : for matters of opinion are no parts 
 of the worship of God, nor in order to it, but as 
 they promote obedience to His commandments ; 
 and when they contribute towards it, are in that 
 proportion as they contribute parts and actions, 
 and minute particulars of that religion to whose 
 end they do or pretend to serve. And such are all 
 the sects and all the pretences of Christians, but 
 pieces and minutes of Christianity, if they do serve 
 the great end ; as every man for his own sect and- 
 interest believes for his share it does.
 
 JEREM \ ' TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 167 
 
 The Self-Righteous. 
 These men are such as think they have know- 
 ledge enough to need no teacher, devotion enough 
 to need no new fires, perfection enough 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 to need no new progress, justice enough '1°I and ze^,"^" 
 to need no repentance ; and then be- ^^^^ "" 
 cause the spirit of a man and all the things of this 
 world are in perpetual variety and change, these 
 men decline, when they have gone their period ; 
 they stand still, and then revert ; like a stone 
 returning from the bosom of a cloud, where it 
 rested as long as the thought of a child, and fell 
 to its natural bed of earth, and dwelt below for 
 ever. 
 
 Sense. 
 It cannot be the duty of faith to believe any- 
 thing against our sense ; what we see and taste to 
 be bread, what we see, and taste, and "The Wo. thy 
 
 ,, , . c • ^ Communicant," 
 
 smell to be wme, no faith can engage c. iii. sec. 3. 
 us to believe the contrary. For, by our senses, 
 Christianity itself, and some of the greatest articles 
 of our belief, were known by them who, from that 
 evidence, conveyed them to us by their testimony ; 
 and if the perception of sense were not finally to 
 be relied upon, miracles could never be a demon-
 
 i68 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 stration, nor any strange event prove an unknown 
 proposition ; for the miracle can never prove the 
 article unless our eyes or hands approve the 
 miracle ; and the divinity of Christ's person, and 
 His mission, and His power, could never have 
 been proved by the resurrection, but that the 
 resurrection was certain and evident to the eyes 
 and hands of so many witnesses. Thus Christ to 
 His apostles proved Himself to be no spirit, by 
 exposing His flesh and bones to be felt : and He 
 wrought faith in St. Thomas by His fingers' 
 ends ; the wounds that he saw and felt w^ere the 
 demonstrations of his faith, and in the primitive 
 Church the Valentinians and Marcionites, who 
 said Christ's body was fantastical, were confuted 
 by no other argument but of sense. For sense is 
 the evidence of the simple, and the confirmation of 
 the wise ; it can confute all pretences, and reprove 
 all deceitful subtleties ; it turns opinion into know- 
 ledge, and doubts into certainty ; it is the first 
 endearment of love, and the supply of all under- 
 standing. From what we see without, we know 
 what to believe within ; and no demonstration in 
 the world can be greater than the evidence of 
 sense.
 
 JEREMY TA VLORS GOLDEN SA V/NGS. 169 
 
 Sin. 
 A prosperous iniquity is the most 
 
 * ^ ^ •' Sermons : 
 
 unprosperous condition in the whole the^n-vtnrjudg*^ 
 
 , , ments," part ii. 
 
 world. 
 
 Let no man despair of God's mercies to forgive 
 him, unless he be sure that his sins be ..„ , ... ., 
 
 ' " Holy Living, 
 
 greater than God's mercies. 
 
 c. IV. sec. 2. 
 
 God having appointed for every duty proper 
 seasons and solemnities, hath declared that /le 
 does his best who heartily endeavours "Unum 
 
 Necessarium." 
 
 to do the duty in its proper season : <= '■ se<=- 4- 
 but it were well we would remember that he that did 
 a good act to-day can do the same to-morrow in 
 the same circumstances ; and he that yesterday 
 fought a noble battle and resisted valiantly, can, 
 upon the same terms, contend as manfully every 
 day, if he will consider and watch. And though 
 it will never be that men will akuays do well as at 
 some times, yet when at any time they commit a 
 sin it is not because they could not, but because 
 they would not, help it. 
 
 * *
 
 I/O JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 A sinful habit is a state of ungraciousness with 
 
 God, and sin is possessed of our love and choice. 
 
 Therefore in vain it is to think a habit 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 c.v.sec.3. innocent because it is a natural pro- 
 duct of many single actions. Every proper action 
 of the will is a natural production of the will ; but 
 it is nevertheless voluntary. When the under- 
 standing hath practically determined the will, it is 
 natural for the will to choose ; but yet such a 
 choice is imputable to the will, and if it be not 
 good, is reckoned as a sin. So it is in vicious 
 habits : they are natural effects of many single 
 actions ; but then it is also to be remembered that 
 their seat is the will, and whatsoever is naturally 
 there is voluntary still. A habit of sinning cannot 
 remain at all but by consent and by delight, by 
 love and adhesion. The habit is radicated no 
 where but in the will, except it be by subordina- 
 tion, and in the way of ministries. It follows, 
 therefore, that every vicious habit is the prolonga- 
 tion of a sin, a continuing to love that which to 
 love but once is death. For every one that hath a 
 vicious habit chooses his sin cheerfully, acts it 
 frequently, is ready to do it in every opportunity, 
 and at the call of every temptation ; and according
 
 JEREM V TA YL OR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 1 7 1 
 
 as these things are in every one, so is the degree 
 of his habit. Now since every one of these which 
 are the constituent parts of a habit impHes a 
 readiness and apt choice of the will to sin, it 
 follows evidently that the capacity of a vicious 
 habit by which it relates to God, consisting of so 
 much evil, and all of it voluntary upon the stock 
 of its own nature and constitution, is highly and 
 chiefly and distinctly sinful. Although the natural 
 facility is naturally and unavoidably consequent to 
 frequent sinful actions, yet it is also voluntary ; for 
 the habit is not contracted, nor can it remain but 
 by our being willing to sin and delighting in the 
 ways of error. 
 
 The dailiness of sin must be bewailed with the 
 dailiness of sorrow. And then " when thou licst 
 down, thou shalt not be afraid ; }ea, "Christian 
 
 Consolations, " 
 
 thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall •=• "• 
 
 be sweet." Now tell me if this balm be not 
 enough to heal the bleedings and bruisings of 
 despair? Talents of sins, and sins in small money, 
 you may hide them all in the wounds of Christ.
 
 172 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 The Service of God. 
 
 Ecstasies and raptures and conversing with 
 blessed spirits are certainly actions and passions, 
 "DuctorDubi- respectively of greater eminency than 
 
 tantium," 
 
 book iii. c. 3. dressing the sores of poor boys in hos- 
 pitals ; and yet he that does this serves Christ and 
 does good, while he that follows after the others 
 may fall into the delusions of the devil. That 
 which is best in itself is not best for me : it is best 
 for the best state, but not for the state of men, who 
 dwell in imperfection. Strong meat is better than 
 milk, but this is best for babes ; and therefore he 
 would but ill consult the good of his child who, 
 because it is a princely boy, would feed him with 
 beef and venison, wild boar, and the juice of great 
 fishes. Certainly a jewel is better than a piece of 
 frieze ; and gold is a more noble and perfect sub- 
 stance than barley : and yet frieze and barley do, 
 in their season, more good than gold and jewels, 
 and are therefore much more eligible. For every- 
 thing is to be accounted of in its own place and 
 scene of eminency : the eye loves one best, and the 
 tongue and palate, the throat and stomach, love the
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 173 
 
 Other. But the understanding, which considers 
 both, gives the value according to the degree of 
 usefulness, and to the end of its ministry. Now 
 though our understanding can consider things in 
 their own perfections, and proportion honour and 
 value to them, yet that which is better than 
 honour, love and desire, union and fruition, are 
 due to those things most, which, it may be, we 
 honour least. And therefore there are some parts 
 of the service of God which are like meat and 
 clothes, and some which are like gold and jewels ; 
 we value and admire these, but wc are to choose 
 the other : that is, we prefer one in discourse, and 
 the other in use ; we give better words to one and 
 better usages to the other. And therefore those 
 parts of the Divine service which are most neces- 
 sary, and do most good to mankind, are to be 
 chosen before those that look more splendidly 
 and in themselves import more perfection. The 
 foundation of a house is better than the roof, 
 though the roof be gilded ; and that part of the 
 service of God which serves the needs of mankind 
 most is to be chosen before those which adorn 
 him better, so that actions of high and precise 
 religion may be the excellences and perfections of
 
 174 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 a human soul ; but the offices of civil governors, 
 their keeping men in peace and justice, their 
 affrighting them from vile impieties, may do much 
 more good to mankind and more glory to God in 
 the whole event of things. 
 
 The Star in the East. 
 
 " When they saw the star, they rejoiced with 
 exceeding great joy." Such a joy as is usual to 
 ■ "The Great wcaricd travcllcrs when they are 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 part i. sec. 4- entering into their inn ; such a joy 
 as when our hopes and greatest longings are laying 
 hold upon the proper objects of their desires, a joy 
 of certainty immediately before the possession : for 
 that is the greatest joy which possesses before it is 
 satisfied, and rejoices with a joy not abated by the 
 surfeits of possession, but heightened with all the 
 apprehensions and fancies of hope and the neigh- 
 bourhood of fruition — a joy of nature, of wonder, 
 and of religion.
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR\S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 175 
 
 A Remedy for Sadness. 
 
 " Sing praises unto God ; for it is pleasant." 
 " Sing prai.ses unto our God ; for it is pleasant, and 
 prai.se is comely." "Sing aloud unto "Christi.-m 
 
 Consolations," 
 
 God our strength ; make a joyful noise c. w. 
 
 unto the God of Jacob." Every furrow in the book 
 of the Psalms is sown with such seeds. I know 
 nothing more certain, more constant, to expel the 
 sadness of the world, than to sound out the praises 
 of the Lord as with a trumpet : and when the 
 heart is cast down, it will make it rebound from 
 earth to heaven. 
 
 Temperance. 
 
 Sobriety is the bridle of the passions of desire, 
 and temperance is the bit and curb of that bridle ; 
 a restraint put into a man's mouth, a .<Hoivin 
 moderate u.se of meat and drink, so as 
 may best consi.st with our health, and mav not 
 hinder but help the works of the soul, by its neces- 
 sary .supporting us, and ministering cheerfulness 
 and refreshment. 
 
 Temperance con.sists in the actions of the soul 
 principally, for it is a grace that chooses natural 
 
 .ivine. 
 c. ii. sec. 2.
 
 176 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 means in order to proper and natural and holy 
 ends ; it is exercised about eating and drinking 
 because they are necessary, but therefore it per- 
 mits the use of them only as they minister to 
 lawful ends ; it does not eat and drink for pleasure, 
 but for need and for refreshment, which is a part 
 or a degree of need. I deny not but eating and 
 drinking may be, and in healthful bodies ahvays is, 
 with pleasure, because there is in nature no greater 
 pleasure than that all the appetites which God 
 hath made should be satisfied ; and a man may 
 choose a morsel that is pleasant, the less pleasant 
 being rejected as being less useful, less apt to 
 nourish, or more agreeing with an infirm stomach, 
 or when the day is festival by order, or by private 
 joy. In all these cases it is permitted to receive a 
 more free delight, and to design it too, as the less 
 principal ; that is, that the chief reason why we 
 choose the more delicious, be the serving that end 
 for which such refreshments and choices are per- 
 mitted. But when delight is the only end, and 
 rests itself and dwells there long, then eating and 
 drinking is not a serving of God, but an inordinate 
 action, because it is not in the way to that end 
 whither God directed it.
 
 JEREMY TA YLORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 177 
 
 Temptation. 
 
 Anything can be done by him that earnestly 
 desires what he ouf^ht; secure but your „ Sermons: 
 
 ■' Of Lukewarm- 
 
 affections and passions and then no """^ parti!*'' 
 
 temptation will be too strong. 
 
 Every temptation puts on its strength as the 
 man is. Sometimes a full meal will not prejudice 
 our health, and at another time half so 
 
 " The Doctrine 
 
 much would be a surfeit; and some and Practice of 
 
 ' ^.^.v. Repentance, 
 
 men take cold with leaving off a half- 
 shirt who at another time might leave off half 
 their clothes. The indisposition is within, and if 
 men did not love to be tempted it would not pre- 
 vail at all. 
 
 It is every man's case ; trouble is as certainly 
 the lot of our nature and inheritance, and we are 
 so sure to be tempted, that in the "The Great 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 deepest peace and silence of spirit p»" '• ="<^c. 9- 
 oftentimes is our greatest danger ; not to be 
 tempted is sometimes our most subtle temptation. 
 
 13
 
 178 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 We read a story of a virtuous lady that desired 
 
 of St. Athanasius to procure for her, out of the 
 
 number of the widows fed from the 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 ecclesiastical corban, an old woman, 
 morose, peevish, and impatient, that she might, by 
 the society of so ungentle a person, have often 
 occasion to exercise her patience, her forgiveness, 
 and charity. I know not how well the counsel 
 succeeded with her ; I am sure it was not very safe, 
 and to invite the trouble to triumph over it is to 
 wage a war of an uncertain issue, for no end but 
 to get the pleasures of the victory, which often- 
 times do not pay for the trouble, never for the 
 danger. An Egyptian, who acknowledged fire for 
 his god, one day, doing his devotions, kissed his 
 god, after the manner of worshippers, and burnt 
 his lips. It was not in the power of that false and 
 imaginary deity to cure the real hurt he had done 
 to his devoutest worshipper. Just such a fool is 
 he that kisses a danger, though with a design of 
 virtue, and hugs an opportunity of sin for an 
 advantage of piety ; he burns himself in the 
 neighbourhood of the flame, and twenty to one but 
 he may perish in its embraces. And he that looks 
 out a danger that he may overcome it, does as did
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 179 
 
 the Persian, who, worshipping the sun, looked 
 upon him when he prayed him to cure his sore 
 eyes. The sun may as well cure a weak eye, or a 
 great burden knit a broken arm, as a danger can 
 do him advantage that seeks such a combat which 
 may ruin him, and after which he rarely may have 
 this reward, that it may be said of him, he had the 
 good fortune not to perish in his folly. It is 
 easier to prevent a mischief than to cure it ; and 
 besides the pain of the wound, it is infinitely more 
 full of difficulty to cure a broken leg which a little 
 care and observation would have preserved whole. 
 To recover from a sin is none of the easiest labours 
 that concern the sons of men, and therefore it 
 concerns them rather not to enter into such a nar- 
 row strait, from which they can never draw back 
 their head without leaving their hair and skin and 
 their ears behind. 
 
 ::= * 
 
 A man is sometimes so impressed with the false 
 fires and glarings of temptation that he cannot see 
 the secret turpitude and deformity ; but " Ducwr 
 
 Dubitantium," 
 
 when the cloud and veil is off, then \>oQ\^i- 
 comes the tormentor from within — then the
 
 i8o JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 calamity swells, and conscience increases the 
 trouble, when God sends war or sickness or death. 
 It was Saul's case when he lost that fatal battle in 
 which the ark was taken. He thought he saw the 
 priests of the Lord accusing him before God. And 
 this hath been the old opinion of the world, that 
 in the days of their calamity wicked persons are 
 accused by those whom they have injured : then 
 every bush is a wild beast, and every shadow is a 
 ghost, and every glow-worm is a dead man's 
 candle, and every lantern is a spirit. 
 
 1: 
 
 Epictetus tells us of a gentleman returning from 
 
 banishment, who, in his journey towards home, 
 
 called at his house, told a sad story of an 
 
 Sermons: 
 
 "^ness^oTthe"' imprudcut life, the greatest part of which 
 par I. ^gjj^g j_|Q^^ spent, he was resolved for 
 
 the future to live philosophically, and entertain no 
 business, to be candidate for no employment, not 
 to go to the court, not to salute Caesar with 
 ambitious attendances, but to study, and worship 
 the gods, and die willingly, when nature or 
 necessity called him. It may be this man be-
 
 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. i8i 
 
 lieved himself, but Epictetus did not. And he 
 had reason ; for cnr^vTiiaav uvtm Trapa Kalaapo'i 
 TTiva/ct'Ss?, " letters from Cresar met him " at the 
 doors and invited him to court, and he forgot all 
 his promises, which were warm upon his lips, and 
 grew pompous, secular, and ambitious, and gave 
 the gods thanks for his preferment. Thus many 
 men leave the world when their fortune hath left 
 them, and they are severe and philosophical, and 
 retired for ever, if for ever it be impossible to 
 return ; but let a prosperous sunshine warm and 
 refresh their sadnesses, and make it but possible to 
 break their purposes, and there needs no more 
 temptation ; their own false heart is enough ; they 
 are like " Ephraim in the day of battle, starting 
 aside like a broken bow." 
 
 The Living Temple. 
 
 God is especially present in the hearts of His 
 people by His Holy Spirit, and indeed the hearts 
 of holy men are temples in the truth of .< j^^, j^.^.^ „ 
 things, and in type and shadow they "' '' '""'' ^' 
 are heaven itself. For God reigns in the hearts of
 
 1 82 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 His servants, there is His kingdom. The power 
 of grace hath subdued all His enemies ; there is 
 His power. They serve Him night and day, and 
 give Him thanks and praise ; that is His glory. 
 This is the religion and worship of God in the 
 temple. The temple itself is the heart of man ; 
 Christ is the high-priest who from thence sends up 
 the incense of prayers, and joins them to His own 
 intercession, and presents all together to His 
 Father ; and the Holy Ghost, by His dwelling 
 there, hath also consecrated it into a temple ; and 
 God dwells in our hearts by faith, and Christ by 
 His Spirit, and the Spirit by His purities, so that 
 we are also cabinets of the mysterious Trinity ; 
 and what is this short of heaven itself, but as 
 infancy is short of manhood, and letters of words? 
 The same state of life it is, but not the same age. 
 It is heaven in a looking-glass, dark, but yet true, 
 representing the beauties of the soul, and the 
 graces of God, and the images of His eternal 
 glory, by the reality of a special presence.
 
 JEREMY TA VLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 183 
 
 Truth. 
 
 In the inquiries after truth every man should 
 have a traveller's indifferency, wholly careless 
 whether this or that be the right way " Ductor 
 
 Dubitantium," 
 
 so he may find it. For we are not to booki. c. i. 
 choose the way because it looks fair, but because it 
 leads surely. 
 
 Virtue. 
 
 To love virtue for itself is nothing else but to 
 love it directly and plainly ; he that loves it only 
 for the reward, and is not by the j,^y bookii 
 reward brought to love the thing, 
 loves not this at all, but loves something else ; but 
 he that loves it at all sees good in it because he 
 finds good b}' it, and therefore loves itself now, 
 whatever was the first incentive : and the wooden 
 arch may be taken away when that of marble is 
 concentred. 
 
 God intends every accident should minister to
 
 1 84 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 virtue, and every virtue is the mother and the nurse 
 of joy, and both of them daughters of 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 D^in^J^Mercy/'^ ^^^ Dlvine gooduess ; and, therefore, if 
 ^^" '■ our sorrows do not pass into comforts 
 it is beside God's intention ; it is because we will 
 not comply with the act of that mercy which 
 would save us by all means and all varieties, by 
 health and by sickness, by the life and by the 
 death of our dearest friends, by what we choose 
 and by what we fear ; that as God's providence 
 rules over all chances of things and all designs of 
 men, so His mercy may rule over all His provi- 
 dence. 
 
 Virtuous Women. 
 
 Virtuous women, like tortoises, carry their house 
 
 on their heads, and their chapel in their heart, and 
 
 "The Great their danger in their eye, and their 
 
 Exemplar," 
 
 parti. sec. 2. souls iu their hands, and God in all 
 their actions.
 
 JEREM V TA YL ORS GOLDEN SA YINGS. 1 8 5 
 
 Love of the World. 
 
 How poor and narrow a heart must that Chris- 
 tian have who confines his love to things present, 
 sv/eatincr and toiling for a small part of "Contemplations 
 
 ° * ^ of the State of 
 
 the goods of this world, which itself is Man,-c. iii. 
 so little ! Why doth he content himself with some 
 patch of the earth when he may be lord of the 
 whole heavens ? 
 
 He that is no fool, but can consider wisely, if he 
 be in love with this world, we need not despair but 
 that a witty man might reconcile him «HoiyDyin-" 
 with tortures, and make him think <=• '• ^'''=- s- 
 charitably of the rack, and be brought to dwell 
 with vipers and dragons, and entertain his guests 
 with the shrieks of mandrakes, cats, and screech- 
 owls, with the filing of iron, and the harshness of 
 rending of silk, or to admire the harmony that is 
 made by a herd of evening wolves when they miss 
 their draught of blood in their midnight revels. 
 The groans of a man in a fit of the stone are worse 
 than all these, and the distractions of a troubled 
 conscience are worse than those groans, and yet a 
 careless, merry sinner is worse than all that. But 
 if we could from one of the battlements of heaven
 
 1 86 JEREMY TA YLOR'S GOLDEN SA YINGS. 
 
 espy how many men and women at this time He 
 fainting and dying for want of bread, how many 
 young men are hewn down by the sword of war, 
 how many poor orphans are now weeping over the 
 graves of their father, by whose Hfe they were 
 enabled to eat ; if we could but hear how many 
 manners and passengers are at this present in a 
 storm, and shriek out because their keel dashes 
 against a rock, or bulges under them ; how many 
 people there are that weep with want and are mad 
 with oppression, or are desperate by too quick a 
 sense of a constant infelicity ; in all reason we 
 shall be glad to be out of the noise and participa- 
 tion of so many evils. This is a place of sorrows 
 and tears, of great evils and a constant calamity ; 
 let us remove from hence, at least in affections and 
 preparation of mind. 
 
 Watchfulness. 
 
 He that would be free from the slavery of sin, 
 
 and the necessity of sinning, must always watch. 
 
 Ay, that is the point ; but who can 
 
 Sermons : 
 
 Conqu^st'over" watch always ? Why, every good man 
 
 the Kodyof Sin." ,11 1 > 1 j_ 
 
 can watch always ; and, that we may 
 not be deceived in this, let us know that the
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR'S GOLDEN SA YL\GS. 187 
 
 running away from a temptation is a part of our 
 watchfulness, and every good employment is 
 another great part of it, and a laying-in provisions 
 of reason and religion beforehand, is yet a third 
 part of this watchfulness ; and the conversation of 
 a Christian is a perpetual watchfulness, not a con- 
 tinual thinking of that one, or those many things, 
 which may endanger us, but it is a continual doing 
 something, directly or indirectly, against sin. He 
 either prays to God for His Spirit, or relies upon 
 the promises, or receives the sacrament, or goes to 
 his bishop for counsel and a blessing, or to his 
 priest for religious offices, or places himself at the 
 feet of good men to hear their wise sayings, or 
 calls for the Church's prayers, or does the duty of 
 his calling, or actually resists temptation, or fre- 
 quently renews his holy purposes, or fortifies him- 
 self by vows, or searches into his danger bv a dail}- 
 examination ; so that, in the whole, he is for ever 
 upon his guards. This duty and caution of a Chris- 
 tian is like watching lest a man cut his finger. 
 Wise men do not often cut their fingers, )-et every 
 day thc}' use a knife ; and a man's eye is a tcndcr 
 thing, and everything can do it wrong, and ever\-- 
 thing can put it out, yet, because we love our eyes
 
 1 88 JEREMY TAYLORS GOLDEN SAYINGS. 
 
 so well, in the midst of so many dangers, by God's 
 providence, and a prudent natural care, by winking 
 when anything comes against them, and by turning 
 aside when a blow is offered, they are preserved so 
 certainly that not a man in ten thousand does, by 
 a stroke, lose one of his eyes in all his lifetime. If 
 we would transplant our natural care to our 
 spiritual caution, we might, by God's grace, be 
 kept from losing our souls as we are from losing 
 our eyes ; and because a perpetual watchfulness is 
 our great defence, and the perpetual presence of 
 God's grace is our great security, and that this 
 grace never leaves us unless we leave it, and the 
 precept of daily watchfulness is a thing not only so 
 reasonable, but so many easy ways to be per- 
 formed — we see upon what terms we may be quit 
 of our sins, and more than conquerors over all the 
 enemies and impediments of salvation.
 
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 averaging 300 to 400 pages, crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. 
 
 THE "YONGE" LIBRARY. 
 
 A new, cheaper, and uniform issue of Popular Stories by Charlotte 
 M. YoNGE, and other writers, attractively bound in cloth, 200 to 300 
 pages, royal i6mo, price is. 6d. each Volume. 
 
 List of Volumes in the above Series post free on application. 
 
 London: .\. D. INNE.S & Co., 31 & 32, Bedforu Street, Strand.
 
 Price 40s. the Set of 9 Volumes. 
 
 THE READER'S SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 A New and Cheaper Issue of this Popular Edition is now ready. 
 
 Nine Vols, crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top, with Portrait. 
 
 Single Volumes may be had, price 5s. 
 
 Vols. I. -III. contain the Comedies. 
 
 Vols. IV.-V. contain the Histories. 
 
 Vols. VI.-VIII. contain the Tragedies. 
 
 Vol. IX. Sonnets, Poems, and Collected Lyrics. 
 
 SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS UPON THE FIRST ISSUE. 
 
 " Besides being convenient, it is remarkably liandsonie. For what 
 may be called library use, it is the best Shakespeare we know." — 
 Guardian. 
 
 " The attempt is very successful. The volumes are of a convenient 
 size, and exceptionally well got up." — Saturday Review. 
 
 "If anyone wishes to read, either for himself or aloud, a play of 
 Shakespeare with pure uninterrupted enjoyment of Shakespeare's 
 genius, he will find this edition the very thing for him. This handsome 
 and unique edition is drawing towards completion, and those who want 
 a co]5y of Shakespeare for fireside reading will find it everything they 
 could desire. Its convenient size for holding in the hand, its tasteful 
 get-up, its large, clear type, its quasi-antique look and uncut edges, the 
 absence of everything to distract attention from the text, and the general 
 excellence of the text itself, make it at once pleasing to the eye and 
 easy and convenient for continuous reading." — Scotsman. 
 
 " It promises to be a thoroughly good library edition, and it is cer- 
 tainly cheap." — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 " It is thoroughly well got up, and may be cordially recommended as 
 a not too expensive library edition." — Literary Churchman. 
 
 "We feel sure that when this edition is known it will have a wide 
 circulation, and to persons who are intending to get a handsome and 
 serviceable copy of the poet's works, hut are puzzled in which edition 
 to invest, we unhesitatingly recommend ' The Reader's Shakespeare.' " 
 — Sheffield Daily Telegraph. 
 
 " It is a real treasure." — Church Times. 
 
 " The volumes are of handy size, paper good. The type clear and 
 pleasant to read." — Evening Standard. 
 
 London: .\. D. IXNES & Co., 31 & 32, Bedford Street, Strand.
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, 
 CHILWORTH AND LONDON.
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 PRINTED IN U S A.
 
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