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ings. A very good sketch of it will be found in the third 

 volume of Mr. Hallam's ' Introduction to the Literature of 

 Europe, and a more detailed one in the first volume of 

 Ilcher's edition of Taylor's works. But the discourse itself 

 is not lone;, and will well repay the reading. It consider- 

 ably diminishes the admiration with which we are disposed 

 to connect this production of Taylor with the man, his 

 order, and the times, when we take into account the motives 

 which he afterwards assigned for its publication. ' In the 

 dedication to Lord Hatton of the collective edition of his 

 controversial writings after the Restoration, he declares that 

 when a persecution did arise against the Church of Eng- 

 land, he intended to make a reservation for his brethren 

 and himself, by pleading for a liberty to our consciences to 

 persevere in that profession, which was warranted by all 

 the laws of God and our superiors.' (Hallam, Introduction 

 tn the, Lit>'/-"fnrr ></' />;'/ e, vol. iii., p. 11G.) Bishop 

 Heber has vindicated Taylor from the charge of tergiversa- 

 tion, founded not upon the above testimony which Taylor 

 himself furnishes, but upon the character of his procecd- 



when episcopacy w'as restored. If we must, allow in 

 reference to his Sermon preached before the Irish Privy 

 Council, that the obedience which he there insists upon is 

 only, as Bishop Heber suggests, that obedience to the laws 

 of ecclesiastical superiors which is paid by the members 

 (clergy '> of their own communion ; and that il is in fact no 

 more than the privilege (which every Christian society 

 rxeits and mut exert for its own preservation) to have the 

 offices of its ministry supplied by such men as conform to 

 the regulation imposed by the body at large on those to 

 whom its powers are delegated ; we ought to add that this 



.1 tic, u is left in much ambiguity; that principles are 

 maintained with a much more general signification than 

 this explanation allows; and, in one word, upon ninety- 

 nine out of a hundred readers the sermon before the Irish 

 Pri\ v Council would produce impressions totally incon- 

 sistent witli those derived from the ' Discourse on the 

 Liberty of Prophesying.' After expressing his sorrow at 



g the horrid mischiefs which come from rebellion and 



.', and his hopes of better things, the bishop of 



Down and Connor proceeds in his sermon before the Privy 



( 'oimril to siiy that, he sees no objection ' against his hopes 



but that which ought least of all in this case to be pretended : i 



;ireteml conscience against obedience, expressly against 

 St. Paul's doctrine teaching us to obey for conscience sake ; 

 but to disobey for conscience in a thing indifferent is nev cr 

 to IK; found in the books of our religion. It is very- hard 

 when the prince is forced to say to his rebellious subjects, 

 I did to his stubborn people, 'Quid faciam tibi '.'' ' I 

 have tried all the ways I can to bring ihee home, and what 

 shall I now do unto thee ?' The subject should rather say. 

 ' Quid me vis facere T ' What wilt tliou have me to do .'" 

 This question is the best end of disputations. ' Corrwm- 

 pitur atque dissohitur impcrantis offickim. si quis ad id 

 quod facere ju.ssus c-,1. non obscqnio debito, sed eonsilio 

 non considerato, respondeat,' said one in A. Gellius : When 

 a subject is commanded to obey, and he disputes, and says, 



\a\ . 'ihcr i- better,' he is like a servant that 



- his master necessary counsel when he requires of him 

 a necessary obedience. ' Utilius parere edicto quam efferre 



ilium;' 'he had better obey than give counsel;' by 

 how much it is better to be profitable than to be witty, to 

 lie full of goodness rather than full of talk and argument.' 

 .. in the .-ame sermon, he distinguishes between 

 a 'tender conscience,' which is such in reference to age or 

 ignorance, or of ' new beginners,' and that which is the 



tenderness of a boil ; that is soreness indeed, rather than 

 tcmlcnies-. i, of the diseased, the abused, and the ini-per- 



1.' The first is. to lie dealt tenderly with. ' But for 

 that tenderrress of conscience which is the dUeaa 



i a conscience, it must be cured by anodynes and 

 soft nances, unless they prove ineffective, and that the 

 lancet may be necessary.' 



Mr. Haflam refers to the 'DuctorDubitantiuni' as the most 

 extensive and learned work on casuistry which has ap- 

 Knglish language. ' As its title shows, it 

 treats of subjective morality, or the guidance of the con- 

 lint this cannot be much discussed without esta- 

 blishing some principles of objective right and wrong, 

 some standard bv which the conscience is to be ruled. 

 " The who rule of conscience," according to 



Taylor, "is the Inw of God, or God's will signified to 

 nature or revelation; and by the several ma 



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times and parts of its communication it hath obtained se- 

 veral names: the law of nature, the consent of nations, 

 right reason, the Decalogue, the sermon of Christ, the 

 canons of the apostles, the laws ecclesiastical and civil of 

 princes and governors, expressed by proverbs and other 

 instances and manners of public honesty. . . . These being 

 the full measures of right and wrong, of lawful and un- 

 lawful, will be the rule of conscience and the subject of 

 the present book." The heterogeneous combination of 

 things so different in nature and authority, as if they were 

 all expressions of the law of God, does-tiot augur well for 

 the distinctness of Taylor's moral philosophy, and would be 

 disadvantageous^ compared with the Ecclesiastical Polity 

 of Hooker. Nor are we deceived in the anticipations we 

 might draw. With many of Taylor's excellencies, his vast 

 fertility, and his frequent acuteness, the "Ductor Dubitan- 

 tium " exhibits his characteristic defects : the waste of 

 quotations is even greater than in his other writings, and 

 his own exuberance of mind degenerates into an intole- 

 rable prolixity. His solution of moral difficulties is often 

 unsatisfactory ; after an accumulation of argument and 

 authorities we have the disappointment to perceive that 

 the knot is neither untied nor cut ; there seems a want of 

 close investigation of principles, a frequent confusion and 

 obscurity, which Taylor's two chief faults, excessive dis- 

 play of erudition and redundancy of language, conspire to 

 produce. . . .Taylor seems inclined to side with those who 

 resolve all right and wrong into the positive will of God. 

 The law of nature he defines to be "the universal law of 

 the world or of mankind, to which we are inclined by 

 nature, invited by consent, prompted by reason, but whici'i 

 is bound upon u.; only by the command of God." Though 

 in the strict meaning of the word law, this may be truly 

 said, it was surely required, considering the large sense 

 which that word has obtained as coincident with moral 

 right, that a fuller explanation should be given than Taylor 

 has even intimated, lest the goodness of the Deity should 

 seem something arbitrary and precarious. And, though 

 in maintaining against most of the scholastic metaphy- 

 sicians that God can dispense with the precepts of the DC 

 calogue, he may be substantially right, yet his rca 

 seem by no means the clearest and most satisfactory that. 

 might be assigned. It maybe added, that in his prolix 

 rules concerning what he calls a probable conscience, 'he, 

 comes very near to the much-decried theories of the 

 Jesuits. There was indeed a vein of subtlety in Taylor's 

 understanding which was not always without influence on 

 his candour.' (Introduction to the Literature of /y, 

 chap, iv., vol. iv.) 



Bishop Heber has also remarked on some of Taylor's 

 positions to the same effect ; instancing his admission that. 

 private evil maybe done by public men and for the public 

 necessity; his justification on moral grounds of the sup- 

 posed fraud of the children of Israel in borrowing je 

 of the Egyptians without any intent ion of restoring them. 

 In t lie first chapter of the third book, which treats <f 

 human laws and their obligations, a case occurs in illus- 

 tration of Rule iv., that " a law founded on a false pre- 

 sumption does not bind the conscience," in which the 

 Romish canonists seem to have given a more just decision 

 than Taylor : Biretti, a Venetian gentleman, pretends a 

 desire to marry Julia Medici, the daughter of a neighbour, 

 with a purpose to seduce and desert her. A contract is 

 made ; but before its execution he gains his end, ami 

 leaving her, marries another. The canonists clr 

 former contract, followed by congress, to be a mama ire, 

 and that he is bound to return to Julia. "No,". 

 Taylor, " if he did not lie with her, ' affectu maritali,' " he 

 was extremely impious and unjust; but he. made no mar- 

 riage; for without mutual consent marriages arc not 

 made."' To these illustrations, adduced by Heber, may be 

 added another, referred to elsewhere: Rule xi., 484, he 

 maintains the right, of using arguments and authorities in 

 controversy which we do not believe to be valid ; a rule 

 of which 'he appears to have taken advantage; for, 'in 

 the Di'l'i'iin' f Episcopacy, published in 1642, he. main- 

 tains the authenticity of the first fifty of the apostolic . 

 canons, all of which, 'in the " Liberty of Prophesyin: . 

 very few years afterwards, he indiscriminately rejects.' 

 -Hallam.; " 



On devotional subjects the character of Taylor's mind 

 lifted him to write with most success. In these we find 

 his most glowing language, his aptest illustrations; and 



