RUST, George. Dean of Connor. A Funeral Sermon Preached at the Obsequies of The Right Reverend Father in God, Jeremy [Taylor], Lord Bishop of Down: Who deceased at Lysburne, August 13th 1667.

London: Printed by E. Tyler for Richard Royston Book-seller to the King’s most Excellent Majesty, 1668. Quarto. pp. 41, [1 (advertisement leaf with works by Bishop Taylor)]. Quarter black morocco on black buckram boards, title in gilt on spine. A very good copy.
Wing R 2362. ESTC R17604. Sweeney 4557. This work also appears as the fifth title in: Eniautos / Jeremy Taylor. London, 1668.

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), Bishop of Down and Connor, one of the greatest theologians and writers
of his time, was educated at Cambridge and Oxford. A lifelong supporter of the Stuart family, he
accompanied Charles I on some of his campaigns, and attended at his execution. After undergoing
hardships and imprisonments at the hands of the Parliamentarians, he came to Ireland in 1658. Sir
William Petty secured him a farm on advantageous terms, and introduced him to persons of influence.
Cromwell granted a passport and protection for his family; and he settled near Kilulta, eight miles from
Lisburn. In a half-ruined church there, he occasionally preached to a small congregation of Royalists.
According to local legend, he occasionally retired to Rams Island, in Lough Neagh, for study and
devotion. Poor as he was, this is said to have been the happiest period of his life, as he had abundant
leisure for daily if not hourly devotions and literary composition. On one occasion, in the middle of
winter, he was brought before the Privy Council in Dublin, on a charge of using the sign of the cross in
baptism. He went to England shortly before the Restoration and on his return to Ireland, Taylor was
appointed Bishop of Down and Connor in August, 1660; and afterwards elected Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Dublin. The following year he was made a member of the Privy Council.
The quality of his prose, especially in his sermons, won for him a new following this century, with
Logan Pearsall Smith producing a new edition of the “Golden Grove”. A list of his works occupies
nearly four pages of Allibone. John Foster said of him: “From the little I have read, I am strongly
inclined to think this said Jeremy is the most completely eloquent writer in our language”.
Jeremy Taylor died at Lisburn on August 13th 1667 without ever having fulfilled his ambition to
secure promotion to an English bishopric. This sermon was preached by his successor who in one of
his personal asides observed, “there were very few kinds of learning, but he was a mystes, and a great
master in them: He was a rare humanist, and hugely vers’d in all the polite parts of learning; and had
thoroughly concocted all the ancient moralists, Greek and Roman, poets and orators; and was not
unacquainted with the refined of the later Ages, whether French or Italian. But he had not only the
accomplishments of a gentleman, but so universal were his parts, that they were proportion’d to
everything; and though his spirit and humour were made up of smoothness and gentleness, yet he could
bear with the harshness and roughness of the schools.”
A monument to his memory was erected at Lisburn by Bishop Mant in 1821. [L1 6D]