931 



TAYLOH, JEREMY. 



TAYLOR, JEREMY. 



lence. 'Hymns for Infant Minds/ and 'Original Poems,' written by 

 them jointly, met indeed with an amount of success rarely accorded 

 to such works : of the Hymns a thirty-fifth edition was published in 

 1844, and several editions of both the works have been published 

 since. Jane Jaylor wrote besides the above, 'Display, a tale;' 

 ' Essays in Rhyme ; ' and ' Contributions of QQ,' books which have 

 maintained their favour with the public to the present time. Jano 

 Taylor (born in 1783) died in April 1824. Ann (who married the 

 late Rev. Joseph Gilbert, of Nottingham, author of a ' Treatise on the 

 Atonement,' and some other theological works) is still living. 



ISAAC TAYLOR, son of the above named Isaac Taylor of Ongar, was 

 born at Lavenham in August 1787. His education was directed by 

 his father, specially with a view to art as a profession, but his own 

 inclination led him to the severer walks of literature. He did not 

 receive a collegiate education, but he was well instructed in the 

 learned languages ; and one of his earliest publications was a trans- 

 lation of Herodotus. His course of life has been that of a studious 

 literary man, and as resident in the country (Stanford Rivers, Essex), 

 and as the father of a family trained chiefly at home it has not 

 been an eventful course. His works have however made his name 

 known among persons of reflective and studious habits, and won him 

 warm friends and admirers. The books by which he is best known as 

 a writer are the following ; they have appeared at intervals in the course 

 of nearly forty years :' Elements of Thought,' 8vo, 1824^; 'History 

 of the Transmission of Ancient Books to Modern Time?,' 8vo, 1827, 

 ' The Process of Historical Proof,' 8vo, 1828 two works which were 

 directed to the strengthening of the historical evidences of Chris- 

 tianity. ' The Natural History of Enthusiasm ;' the ' Natural History 

 of Fanaticism,' and ' Spiritual Despotism;' a kind of trilogy in which 

 certain phases of the interior development of Christianity were in- 

 vestigated with great acuteness of analysis and the results set forth 

 with striking originality of manner these, and especially the ' Natural 

 History of Enthusiasm ' (which was published in the first instance 

 anonymously), have been perhaps the most popular of all Mr. Taylor's 

 writings. They were followed by another remarkable work, ' The 

 Physical Theory of Another Life,' the last of these directly psycho- 

 logical productions, and one at least as powerful as either of the 

 others. To this succeeded some works of a less speculative and^more 

 didactic order ' Home Education,' ' Saturday Evening ' a series of 

 essays, and four lectures, entitled ' Spiritual Christianity,' books, 

 which oil account of their grave beauty and thoughtful, yet cheerful 

 religious tone, found a welcome reception in quiet family circles. 

 When the doctrines commonly known as Puseyite were being most 

 energetically propounded in the ' Oxford Tracts,' Mr. Taylor, whose 

 private reading for a long course of years had rendered him familiar 

 with the Greek and Latin fathers, felt that, as " our modern church 

 histojies scarcely lift a corner of the veil that hides us from the 

 recesses of the ancient church" the tractarians were in danger of 

 misleading the unlearned by their zealous appeals to the practices 

 and the authority of the early church, and that it was a seasonable 

 duty therefore to "thoroughly inform the Christian community at 

 large concerning the spiritual and the moral condition of the church 

 during that morning hour of its existence." The work in which he 

 sought to accomplish this task, ' Ancient Christianity,' appeared in 

 parts, the first in April 1839, the 8th and last in December 1843, 

 forming 2 vols. 8vo. It excited as might have been expected much angry 

 criticism, but its position was never shaken, and its learning and 

 argumentative power are now generally acknowledged even by the 

 author's opponents. Mr. Taylor has since written historical surveys of 

 two of the most remarkable movements in the Romish and Protestant 

 churches, in the form of biographies of their originators ' Loyola and 

 Jesuitism,' and ' Wesley and Methodism;' and an examination of the 

 principles involved in recent developments of intellectual scepticism, 

 ' The Restoration of Belief,' published like some of his earlier works, 

 at first anonymously, but avowed in a subsequent edition. Besides 

 these his more elaborate works, Mr. Taylor has written many essays 

 in reviews, &c. 



TAYLOR, JEREMY, was born at Cambridge in 1613, where he was 

 baptised on the loth of August in that year. His ancestors had been 

 wealthy and respectable, one of whom, Dr. Rowland Taylor, is men- 

 tioned in Fox's 'Book of Martyrs' as bringing upon himself the 

 persecution of the popish party in the reign of Mary, not only by 

 the popularity of his character and talents, but also by his wealth. 

 [TAYLOR, ROWLAND.] Taylor's father was a barbei-, a calling generally 

 united in those days with surgery. At an early age Taylor was sent 

 to Perse's grammar-school in Cambridge, and in his fourteenth year 

 he was entered at Caius College as a sizar, an order of students who, 

 Bishop Heber informs us, were then what the ' servitors' still continue 

 to be in some colleges in Oxford, and what the 'lay brethren' are in the 

 convents of the Romish Church. A little more than twenty years o; 

 age, having taken the degree of Master of Arts, and been admitted to 

 holy orders, he attracted the notice of Laud, then archbishop of 

 Canterbury, before whom he was invited to preach at Lambeth 

 Laud appreciated his eloquence and his talents, which he encouraged in 

 the most judicious manner by having him settled at Oxford, where he 

 was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts, and by the povverfu 

 I interposition of the archbishop, in 1636, nominated to a fellowship 

 Taylor does not appear to have remained long cr uninterruptedly a 



)xford. In 1637-38 he was presented by Juxon, bishop of London, to 

 he rectory of Uppingham in Rutlandshire. About this time an 

 cquaintance which-, in common with Laud, he maintained with a 

 earned Franciscan friar, Francis a- Sancta Clara, exposed him, to the 

 uspicion of a concealed attachment to the Roman Church a sus- 

 >icion to which the character of his mind, which tended to asceticism 

 n religion, and to an extravagant veneration for antiquity, and which 

 cherished a love of the gorgeous and imposing in the ceremonial of 

 worship, gave some plausibility. At a later period in life however 

 L"ay lor solemnly denied that there had ever been any solid ground for 

 questioning the sincerity of his Protestantism. 



In the civil wars he followed the fortunes of Charles, whose chaplain 



was, and in 1642, when the king was at Oxford, he published there 

 iia ' Episcopacy asserted against the Acephali and Aerians New and 

 )ld/ in which ho sought to maintain a cause that had then however 

 infortunately passed from the controversy of the pen to that of arms. 

 Charles rewarded Taylor in the only way which it remained in his 

 )ower to do, by commanding his admission to the degree of Doctor of 

 Divinity. This honour was diminished by the indiscriminate manner in 

 which it waa conferred upon many other loyalists at the same time, so 

 as to provoke an expression of dissatisfaction from the heads of the 

 university; and its advantages were overbalanced by the loss which 

 Taylor encountered in the same year, in the sequestration of his 

 ectory of Uppingham by the parliament. In 1647, when the crisis of 

 ;he civil war impended, he published his discourse, 'The Liberty of 

 Prophesying.' After the defeat of the royalists Taylor was frequently 

 .rnprisoned, but only for short periods. During the first years of the 

 Protectorate he supported himself by keeping a school, in Wales, in 

 company with Nicholson, bishop of Gloucester, and Wyat, afterwards 

 prebendary of Lincoln, by his occasional writings, and by whatever 

 contribution the friendship of the Karl of Carbery, on whose estate he 

 exercised his ministry, might afford to him. In the year 1658 he was 

 encouraged by Lord Conway to settle in Ireland, where he divided his 

 residence between Lisburn and Portmore, and he officiated in the 

 ministry ,t both these places. The provision which he received was 

 however so inadequate to his wants, that he was obliged to remain under 

 obligations to his friend John Evelyn, who generously allowed him a 

 yearly pension. In the obscurity of Portmore Taylor did not escape the 

 unhappy persecutions of that period. He was charged by an informer 

 with having used the sign of the cross in baptism, and dragged before 

 the Irish privy council, from a distance, and in the middle of a severe 

 winter, to be examined. A fever was the consequence of his arre.st, 

 which probably induced the council to act leniently towards him. 



In 1660 he travelled to London to prepare for publication hid 

 Ductor Dubitantium,' when he attached his signature to the decla- 

 ration of the royalists, dated April 24th, in which they expressed the 

 moderation of their views, and their confidence in the wisdom and 

 justice of Monk. Taylor was thus favourably brought under the 

 notice of Charles II., whose restoration took place this year, and to 

 whom he dedicated the ' Ductor Dubitantium.' The king nominated 

 him under the privy seal 'to the bishopric of Down and Connor, to 

 which he was consecrated in January 1661 : in the following month he 

 was made a member of the Irish privy council ; and in the next, in 

 addition to his original diocese, he was intrusted with the adminis- 

 tration of the small adjacent one of Dromore, on account, in the words 

 of the writ, " of his virtue, his wisdom, and industry." In the course 

 of the same year he was elected vice-chancellor of the University of 

 Dublin. Bishop Heber has deemed it recessary to account for Taylor's 

 not having received an English bishopric. Besides his eminent 

 abilities, and his faithful adherence to the cause of the church and the 

 king, he had married the natural daughter of Charles I., who was his 

 second wife, and then living. This last circumstance however, if 

 pleaded with the king iu favour of preferment for Taylor, as Bishop 

 Heber thinks, may have contributed to determine the scene of his 

 promotion : " Charles may not have been unwilling to remove to a 

 distance a person whose piety might have led him to reprove many 

 parts of his conduct, and who would have a plausible pretence for 

 speaking more freely than the rest of the dignified clergy." 



The new station which Taylor was called upon to fill had peculiar 

 and great difficulties connected with it. In the revolution through 

 which religion had passed, livings had been conferred on men whose 

 feelings were at variance with episcopacy, and they had to be con- 

 ciliated to a willing obedience, or, as time proved, to submit to the 

 severest test of principle in the sacrifice of their emolument?. Iu 

 Ireland there were additional circumstances to contend with. The 

 Episcopal or Protestant Church was unpopular ; the preachers wei-e 

 almost exclusively English ; the ritual was English, and to the mass 

 of the natives unintelligible; there was no translation of the Scrip- 

 tures, and yet attendance at the established churches was compulsory. 

 Bishop Taylor laboured with much zeal and energy for the establish- 

 ment of the Protestant religion ; but with little effect. He was 

 attacked by fever on the 3rd of August 1667, at Lisburn, and died in 

 ten days, in the fifty -fifth year of his age, and the seventh of his epis- 

 copacy. The children of his first wife died before him ; by his second, 

 who survived him, he left three daughters. 



The writings of Jeremy Taylor may be brought under four descrip- 

 tions : practical, theological, casuistic, and devotional. The first 

 comprises his 'Life of Christ/ which ho published in 1653; 'Con- 



