'The Marriage Ring,' a Sermon preached in the Chapel of Golden Grove by the Reverend JEREMY TAYLOR , D.D., future Bishop of Down and Connor
TWENTY years have elapsed since John Donne delivered his own funeral sermon. And in the firmament of English Eloquence his fervid brilliance has given place to a serener star.
The gulf of opinion fixed between Donne and Jeremy Taylor is best realized in their respective conceptions of death. Death for Donne had the positive terror of the mediaeval danse macabre, while for Taylor it was a negation, a gradual slowing down of life's momentum. But if Taylor was less mediteval than Donne, he was also more modern than his contemporaries. While Milton was defending Sectarianism and Rutherford writing against ' pretended liberty of conscience,' he was witnessing to the ' iniquity of persecuting differing opinions.'
The sermon on the Marriage Ring is one of that great Year of Sermons, which is Jeremy Taylor 's highest claim to eloquence. It was preached during the ten years of retirement at his patron Lord Carbery's seat of Golden Grove. In the comparative calm of that retreat
Jeremy Taylor produced his happiest and greatest work. And there, shielded from the blasts and counterblasts of passionate Sectarianism which followed the downfall of Archbishop Laud and the execution of Charles I, the flame of his sweet reasonableness burnt steadily and brightly.
(For 5.45-9.10 Programmes see opposite page)