Jeremy Taylor, one of the most influential of the “Caroline Divines,” was educated at Cambridge and, through the influence of William Laud, became a Fellow of All Souls at Oxford. He was still quite young when he became chaplain to Charles I and later, during the Civil War, a chaplain in the Royalist army.

The successes of Cromwell’s forces brought about Taylor’s imprisonment and, after Cromwell’s victory, Taylor spent several years in forced retirement as chaplain to the family of Lord Carberry in Wales. It was during this time that his most influential works were written, especially Holy Living and Holy Dying (1651). The opening of Holy Living reveals the impact that the Civil War, fought in part over religious concerns, had on him: “I have lived to see religion painted upon banners, and thrust out of churches; and the temple turned into a tabernacle, and that tabernacle made ambulatory, and covered with skins of beasts and torn curtains; and God to be worshipped, not as he is “the Father of our Lord Jesus,” (an afflicted Prince, the King of sufferings,) nor as the “God of Peace,” (which two appellatives God newly took upon him in the New Testament, and glories in forever,) but he is owned now rather as “the Lord of Hosts,” which title he was preached by the Prince of Peace. But when religion puts on armor, and God is not acknowledged by his New Testament titles, religion may have in it the power of the sword, but not the power of godliness; and we may complain of this to God, and amongst them that are afflicted, but we have no remedy but what we must expect from the fellowship of Christ's sufferings and the returns of the God of peace. In the meantime, and now that religion pretends to stranger actions upon the new principles; and men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth; and some will think they are religious enough, if their worshippings have in them the great earnestness and passion, with much zeal and desire; that we refuse no labor; that we bestow upon it much time; that we use the best guides, and arrive at the end of glory by all the ways of grace, of prudence, and religion.”

Among Taylor’s other works, Liberty of Prophesying proved to be a seminal work in encouraging the development of religious toleration in the seventeenth century. The principles set forth in that book rank with those of Milton’s Areopagitica in its plea for freedom of thought.

In later life, Taylor and his family moved to the northeastern part of Ireland where, after the restoration of the monarchy, he became Bishop of Down and Connor. To this was later added the small adjacent diocese of Dromore. As bishop, he labored tirelessly to rebuild churches, restore the use of the Prayer Book, and overcome continuing Puritan opposition. As Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin, he took a leading part in reviving the intellectual life of the Church of Ireland. He died in 1667, having remained to the end a man of prayer and a pastor. ”