Taylor Questions

ENGL 520

Dr. Fike

Sermon and Holy Dying

1. What is the main metaphor in the sermon, and how does Taylor develop it? 

2. What other metaphors do you find here?  And what kind of point do they add up to?

3. What evidence of the paranormal do you find here?  What significance can you locate in it?

4. What is Taylor’s position on salvation in this text?  Is it enough to live a good and holy life?

5. What does it take to be saved and to have a holy death?  And what are the implications of your answer?  (Look also in Taylor’s Holy Dying.)

6. According to Holy Dying, how are people tempted?  Complete the chart below.

7. How would you respond to the following statement about #3 on 689?  “When Taylor advises us to “allay the festival follies of a soft life, and profess under the cross of Christ, [so that] we shall more willingly and more safely enter into our grave,” it sounds as if he is counseling people to live miserable lives of sadness, pain, and affliction.” Do fun lives preclude holy deaths?  Is Taylor reading the story of the rich man in Luke 16 correctly? 

8. What connections do you see between Taylor’s Holy Dying and Donne’s Devotions/Meditations?