The date of his first visitation, held at Lisburn, is not known. Reid thinks it was in April 1661. Adair, who gives an account of it, dates it by the funeral of Dame Mary Clotworthy, mother of Sir John Clotworthy, first lord Massereene [q. v.], which took place some time between 5 Dec. 1660 and 5 March 1661 (funeral entry in the office of arms, Dublin Castle). Fruitless negotiations were opened with Taylor by the presbyterian leaders prior to the visitation. He declined to regard them as ‘a body;’ they refused to recognise episcopal jurisdiction. Only two of them attended the visitation; thirty-six churches were at once declared vacant, the incumbents not having episcopal ordination. The Irish Act of Uniformity to this effect did not come into force till (29 Sept. 1667) after Taylor's death; the seventy-first of the Irish articles of 1615, which had never been repealed (Mant), left the point undetermined. A ‘declaration’ ordering conformity, but not specifying ordination, was adopted by the Irish parliament on 15 and 16 May 1661. John Bramhall [q. v.], the primate, whose measures were taken later, won over ‘such as were learned and sober’ by devising a form of letters in which, expressly leaving open the validity of former orders, he claimed only to supply anything previously wanting and ‘required by the canons of the Anglican church.’ Taylor's policy confirmed the presbyterians in rebellion against his authority; intending the reverse, he did more than any man to establish the loyal presbyterians of the north of Ireland as a separate ecclesiastical body.
Of Taylor there is a curious glimpse in Glanvil's ‘Saducismus Triumphatus’ (1681, ii. 276 sq.). In October 1662 he investigated at Dromore the account given by Francis Taverner of the apparition of James Haddock, who died in 1657, ‘was satisfied that the apparition was true and real,’ and gave Taverner six questions to be put ‘next time the spirit appeared.’ The questions were put, but unanswered, ‘the spirit’ vanishing ‘with a most melodius harmony.’ Early next year Taylor's neatherd at Portmore, David Hunter, was visited by an apparition. Both stories are recorded by the bishop's secretary, Thomas Alcock. And it is noteworthy that, in his funeral sermon for Bramhall (16 July 1663), Taylor refers to various stories of return from the grave, not as proofs of the fact, but as illustrations of the credibility of the idea.
Taylor's dedication to Ormonde of his treatise on ‘Confirmation’ in 1663 touches the topics of church decay and impoverishment; the religion of the country was ‘parted into formidable sects,’ and he was disheartened by the ill-success of his efforts. At the request of the hierarchy, he published in 1664 his ‘Dissuasive from Popery,’ one of the most interesting of his writings, furnishing a picture of the old religion drawn from the life, but exhibiting the writer as powerless to reach the people with his message, or persuade them ‘to come to our churches.’ Their ‘use of the Irish tongue’ he deprecates, and would have them ‘learn English,’ that they may ‘understand and live.’ On 24 May 1664 he writes to Archbishop Sheldon, pathetically pleading for translation to an English bishopric, on the ground of health and danger to life. York was the only English see then vacant; it was filled by the translation of Bishop Richard Sterne [q. v.], but nothing was done for Taylor. He suffered from ague, due doubtless to the marshy neighbourhood of his residences at Portmore. Conway wished him to try the powers of Valentine Greatrakes [q. v.] He removed from Magheralin, near Dromore (where he farmed forty acres), to a house in Castle Street, Lisburn. In 1666 he offered Henry Dodwell the elder [q. v.] a dispensation from taking orders while retaining his fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin.
On 24 July 1667 Taylor visited a fever patient at Lisburn, and was himself seized with fever on 3 Aug. He died at Lisburn on 13 Aug. 1667, his last words being ‘Bury me at Dromore.’ His funeral sermon was preached (21 Aug.) by George Rust [q. v.], whom he had invited to Ireland in 1661. He was buried in a vault in the then chancel of Dromore Cathedral; it is now in the body of the church, the building having been enlarged in 1866 by an apse. Rust was buried (1670) in the same vault. Heber relates, on the authority of William Todd Jones (d. at Rostrevor on 14 Feb. 1818, aged 63), a descendant, that ‘about a century afterwards’ the bones of Taylor and Rust were removed to make room for the coffin of another bishop, but were replaced by Bishop Thomas Percy (1729–1811) [q. v.] Mant shows that this unsupported story is incredible in both its parts. There is no monument to Taylor at Dromore; the leaden coffin, inscribed ‘J. T.,’ was seen in 1820; the existing episcopal chair was given (13 Oct. 1894) in memory of him. At Lisburn Cathedral a mural monument was erected in 1827 by the bishop and clergy of Down and Connor, with an inscription by Mant. There are original portraits of Taylor at All Souls' and at Trinity College, Dublin. Engravings are very numerous. Heber remarks on the num-
