Holy Living (Christian Classic)

Rating:
Summary: Not what Jeremy Taylor wrote
Review: It would have been nice to have an inexpensive paperback edition of -Holy Living-, suitable for the uses of both those who read it as a devotional manual and as a masterpiece of English literature.

Unfortunately, this is not it. The text has been "modernised" and "updated" so that large passages of it are no longer recognisable as being in Jeremy Taylor's inimitable literary style. Devotional readers who cannot handle Taylor in the original may find it useful. Admirers of Taylor's poetic diction would be better served by the selections in the -Classics of Western Spirituality- edition. Still, I cannot help but imagine that even those who look at this book as nothing more than a tract would be more improved by it if they also took the time to learn to read it in complete sentences. If you can read the Authorised Version of the Bible, you can read Jeremy Taylor straight.

Given the editing done here, it is perhaps fortunate that the companion volume (-Holy Dying-) is not also presented in this manner.