Love and human relationships: Readings from Jeremy Taylor

Abstract

This article, which focuses upon the Anglican Caroline Divines of the seventeenth century, and in particular the writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613–67), should not be misunderstood as anachronistic. It is not concerned with seventeenth-century English views on homosexuality. Rather it seeks to express the ethos of reason and broad humanistic toleration that characterizes their theological and religious perspectives and suggests that such an understanding of Christianity could well direct our current attitudes in the Church and, even more radically, suggest a profound Christian basis for a theology of sexuality which the churches have, too often, ignored or worse.