TAYLOR, JEREItY, one of the greatest names in the English church, was the son of a Cambridge barber, and was born in that town, Aug. 15, 1613. At the age of 13 lie entered Cams college as a sitar, and after seven years' strenuous and brilliant study is classics and theology, took the degree of A. Like archbishop Usher, lie was admitted to holy orders before he had reached his 21st year. Soon after, he attracted the notice of Laud (who had a regard for learning, if none for liberty), and was preferred by bins to a fellowship at All Souls, Oxford (1636). About the same time, he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king: and in 1638, rector of Uppingliam, a preferment which he retained till the successes of •the parliamentarians deprived him of it. The first nota ble publication of Taylor's was a defense of ,the church, entitled Episcopacy asserted (0x ford,1642). It procured for him the honor of D. D. During the next three years, Taylor probably accompanied the royal army; but when fortune had unmistakably declared against the king he withdrew into Wales (1645-46), and, in conjunction with Mr. W. Wyatt of St. John's college, Oxford,opened a school at Newton, in Caerrnarthenshire. It appears to have been a pretty successful adventure, and many of his scholars, we are told, "hav ing, as it were, received instruction from this prophet in the wilderness, were trans planted to the universities." Taylor also found a patron in the earl of Carbery, who was then living at the family seat of Golden Grove, in the same county, and who appointed him his domestic chaplain. But if this period of Taylor's life had become to the outward eye obscure and mean, it is rendered illustrious by the splendor of his literary achieve ments. Between 1647 and 1660, the long 13 years of his enforced seclusion, appeared all his great works, and rememberino. their unsurpassed merits, we are almost disposed to feel grateful to those who expelled him from his rectory, and drove him to strictly literary pursuits. In 1647, was published the Liberty of Prophesying, a work written on behalf of the clergy of the church of England, who were being expelled from their liv ings by the victorious Puritans, but in which the pleadings are based on principles far more comprehensive and tolerant than the age was disposed to acknowledge; in 1650, the Life of Christ (2 vols.), one of the most popular of his productions, and The Rule and Reercises of Holy Living; in 1651, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, a portion of his Sermons, and the Discourse of the Divine Institution, Necessity, and Sacredness of the Office Ifi'nisterial; in 1652, a Discourse on Baptism, its Institution, and Efficacy upon all Believers; in 1653, 25 additional Sermons; in 1654, The Presence Real and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; in 1655, The Guide of Infant Devotion, or the Golden Grove, and the Unum .Yecessarium, or the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, a decidedly Pelagian treatise, which involved him in a considerable controversy; in 1657, a Collection, of Polem ical and Moral Discourses, a Discourse on Friendship, etc.; and in 1660, his famous
Doctor Dulkitantium, or the Role 1>f Conscience in all her General Measures, the most learned, subtle, and curious of all Taylor's works. It was dedicated to Charles II. He was a stanch royalist, a splendid scholar, a consummate theologian, and a man of wonderful literary genius, and so it was in the nature of things almost impossible that he should escape preferment. Before 1660 had expired, he was elevated to the bishopric of Down and Connor, a he only retained some seven years, dying Aug. 13, 1667. Taylor was not happy in his Irish see. Before a year was over, he was anxious to be delivered from it as from a "place of torment." The Scorh Presbyterian ministers were "incen diaries"-they robbed him of the "people's hearts;" they even "threatened to murder" him; his only hope was in the government and the military. Altogether, it is a melancholy spectacle to behold the finest ecclesiastical genius of the time half broken-hearted by petty squabbles with intolerable fanatics, who had, nevertheless, in the points at issue between them and Taylor, something like justice on their side.• No modern mind would hesitate for an instant to acknowledge that the Scoto-Irish Presbyterian clergy were per fectly entitled to act as they did, and yet we fear it is too plain that the good bishop would have gladly seen them prohibited by an Episcopalian soldiery. Nay, the author of the Liberty of Prophesying went a step furtliN.; and on one occasion, only three months after his consecration, actually deposed 36 Presbyterian ministers occupying livings which the restoration had inconsiderately and tyrannically declared to be Epis copalian. Some very interesting information in regard to this all but unknown period of Taylor's life is to be found in Notes and Queries (Nov. 11, 1865).
Taylor, sometimes styled the modern Chrysostom (q.v.), on account of his golden elo quence, has no equal in the whole series of ecclesiastical writers for richness of fancy. All other divines=patristic, meditnval, and modern—show poor and meager beside him in this respect. Some more logical, or penetrating, or profound; some grasp more clearly the spiritual significance of doctrine, or display a deeper knowledge of human nature; but Taylor ranks among the first men of his age in point of learning, subtlety of .argument, elevation of devout feeling, and philosophic largeness of view, while his in exhaustible imagery, shining "like the glossy purples of a dove's neck," and full of all tender and pathetic beauty, reminds us of Spenser and Shakespeare, of Sidney and Fletcher, rather than of the somber order of theologians.-The best edition of Taylor's works is by the rev. C. P. Eden, M.A., fellow of Oriel college, Oxford (10 vols., London, 1854).