TAYLOR, JOHN (1694–1761), dissenting divine and hebraist, son of a timber merchant at Lancaster, was born in 1694 at Scotforth in Lancaster parish. His father was a churchman, his mother a dissenter. Taylor began his education for the dissenting ministry in 1709 under Thomas Dixon [q. v.] at Whitehaven, where he drew up for himself a Hebrew grammar (1712). From Whitehaven he went to study under Thomas Hill, near Derby [see under Hill, Thomas, (1628?–1677?)], improving his classical knowledge, which, according to Edward Harwood [q. v.] , was ‘almost unrivalled,’ though Samuel Parr [q. v.] found fault with his latinity. Leaving Hill on 25 March 1715, he took charge on 7 April of an extra-parochial chapel at Kirkstead, Lincolnshire, then used for nonconformist worship by the Disney family. He was ordained (11 April 1716) by dissenting ministers in Derbyshire. In 1726 he declined a call to Pudsey, Yorkshire. In 1733 he removed to Norwich, as colleague to Peter Finch [see under Finch, Henry, (1633–1704)].
Hitherto Taylor had not deviated from dissenting orthodoxy, though hesitating about subscription. According to a family tradition, given by Turner, on settling at Norwich he went through Clarke's ‘Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity’ (1712) with his congregation, adopted its view, and came forward (1737) in defence of a dissenting layman excommunicated for heterodoxy on this topic by James Sloss (1698–1772) of Nottingham, a pupil of John Simson [q. v.] The ethical core interested him more than the speculative refinements of theology; hence his remarkable work on original sin (1740, written 1735), the effect of which, in combating the Calvinistic view of human nature, was widespread and lasting. Its influence in Scotland is signalised by Robert Burns (Epistle to John Goudie); in New England, according to Jonathan Edwards, ‘no one book’ did ‘so much towards rooting out’ the underlying ideas of the Westminster standards. His study of Pauline theology, partly on the lines of Locke, produced (1745) a ‘Key’ to the apostolic writings with an application of this ‘Key’ to the interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans. Here, rather than in his special treatise on the topic (1751), his view of atonement is clearly defined.
In 1751 he issued proposals for publishing a Hebrew concordance, on which he had been engaged for more than thirteen years. The subscription list to the first volume (1754) contains the names of twenty-two English and fifteen Irish bishops, and the work is dedicated to the hierarchy. Based on Buxtorf and Noldius, the concordance is arranged to serve the purposes of a Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew lexicon. He employed no amanuensis, and his accuracy is equal to his industry. As a lexicographer he deserves praise for the first serious attempt to fix the primitive meaning of Hebrew roots and deduce thence the various uses of terms.
On 25 Feb. 1754 Taylor laid the first stone of the existing Octagon Chapel at Norwich, opened 12 May 1756, and described by John Wesley (23 Dec. 1757) as ‘perhaps the most elegant one in all Europe,’ and too fine for ‘the old coarse gospel.’ In his opening sermon, Taylor, who had received (6 April) the diploma (dated 20 Jan.) of D.D. from Glasgow, disowned all party names, presbyterian and the like, claiming that of Christian only; a claim attacked by a local critic, probably Grantham Killingworth [q. v.], writing as a quaker, under the name of ‘M. Adamson.’
About the close of 1757 Taylor returned to Lancashire as divinity tutor (including moral philosophy) in the Warrington Academy, opened 20 Oct. 1757 [see Seddon, John, (1725–1770)]. The appointment was a tribute to his reputation, but his acceptance of it (at the age of sixty-three) was unwise. His manner in class was oracular, and his prelections were of an antiquarian order. Underlying small items of dispute was Taylor's conviction that he was denied the deference which was his due. His health was breaking; rheumatism settled in his knees, and he could not walk without crutches. Rousing his powers, he wrote, but did not live to publish, his fervent tractate on prayer, by far the most impressive of his writings, and proving the truth of Job Orton's remark (1778) that ‘he had to the last a great deal of the puritan in him.’ Orton's earlier surmise (1771), adopted by Walter Wilson, that Taylor had become a Socinian, is quite groundless. Still earlier (1757) Wesley had described Taylor's views as ‘old deism in a new dress.’
He died in his sleep on 5 March 1761, and was buried in the chapel-yard at Chowbent, Lancashire. His funeral sermon was preached by Edward Harwood. A tablet to his memory is in Chowbent Chapel; another in the Octagon Chapel, Norwich, bearing a Latin inscription by Samuel Parr. The best likeness of Taylor is a portrait in crayons, now at Manchester College, Oxford; a fine engraving by Houbraken (1754), after a picture by Heins (1746), was prefixed to the concordance and issued separately. He married (13 Aug. 1717) Elizabeth Jenkinson
