Taylor was a copious writer. Beside many separate sermons, and others to be found in contemporary collections, he was author of: 1. 'Beauties of Bethel,' London, 1609, 8vo, 2. 'Japhet's First Pvblique Perswasion into Sem's Tents,' Cambridge, 1612, 4to. 3. 'A threefold Alphabet of Christian Practice,' 1618; republished 1688, fol. 4. 'A Commentarie vpon the Epistle of St. Paul to Titus,' Cambridge, 1619, 4to. 5. 'A Mappe of Rome,' five sermons preached on gunpowder treason plot, London, 1620, 4to, translated into French by Jean Jaquemot, as 'La Mappe Romaine,' Geneva, 1623, 8vo; republished with third edition of 6. 'The Parable of the Sower and of the Seed,' London, 1621, 4to; 2nd edit., with engraved frontispiece, 1623, 4to; 3rd edit, (with 'A Mappe of Rome'), 1634, 4to; translated into Dutch by J. Sand, 'Merck Teeckenen van een goet ende eerlick heerte;' 2nd edit., Rotterdam, 1658, 12mo. 7. 'A Man in Christ,' 2nd edit., London, 1629, 12mo, with which is 8. 'Meditations from the Creatures,' 4th edit. 1635, 12mo. 9. 'The Practice of Repentance, laid downe in sundry directions, together with the Helpes, Lets, Signes and Motives,' 2nd edit. 1629, 12mo; 4th 1635. 10. 'Regula Vitae: The Rvle of the Law under the Gospel,' London, 1631; reprinted 1635, 12mo; answered by Robert Towne in 'The Assertion of Grace,' 1644, 8vo. 11. 'The Progresse of Saints to Fvll Holinesse,' London, 1630, 4to; another edit. 1631. 12. 'Circumspect Walking,' London, 1631, 12mo; reprinted London, 1658, 8vo. 13. 'Christ's Victorie over the Dragon, or Satan's Downfall,' London, 1633, 4to. 14. Three treatises: 'The Pearle of the Gospell,' 'The Pilgrim's Profession,' and 'A Glasse for Gentlewomen,' London, 1633, 12mo. 15. 'The Principles of Christian Practice,' 1635, 12mo. 16. 'Christ Revealed,' 1635, 4to; reprinted at the Lady Huntingdon seminary at Trevecca, Wales, 1766, 8vo, at Glasgow 1816, 8vo, and translated into Welsh, Merthyr Tydvil, 1811, 12mo. 17. 'Moses and Aaron, or the Types and Shadows . . . explained,' 1653, 4to, with an introduction by Jemmat, in which he calls Taylor 'The illuminate doctor,' a phrase copied by Fuller and Wood.
Collected editions of Taylor's works, none of them quite complete, were published: (1) with a preface by Edmund Calamy and address by Joseph Caryl, London, 1653, fol.; (2) with a life of the author and portrait, aetatis suae 56, engraved by Cross; underneath are the lines commencing
This Picture represents his face,
This Booke his Soules interior grace,
London, 1658 fol.; (3) 'The Works of the Judicious and Learned Thomas Taylor,' in 3 vols.; only one apparently published, though the others are said to be in the press, London, 1659, fol.
[Fuller's Worthies, 1662, Yorkshire, p. 210; Taylor's Works; Clark's Lives, ii. 125; Coates's Hist. of Reading, pp. 353–6; Mullinger's Hist. of the Univ. of Cambr. pp. 508–9; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 397; Wood's Athenae Oxon. iii. 1147, and Fasti, i. 457; Newcourt's Rep. Eccles. i. 918; Granger's Biogr. Hist, of England, ii. 178; Evans's Cat. of Engr. Portraits, i. 343.]
TAYLOR, THOMAS (1618–1682), quaker, was born near Skipton in Craven, on the borders of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, in 1618. He was educated at Oxford, but cannot be certainly identified with the Thomas Taylor, a native of Ravenstonedale, mentioned in Foster's ‘Alumni’ (early ser. iv. 1458, 1463). He was licensed to preach and became lecturer at Richmond, Yorkshire. He afterwards held a living in Westmoreland, near Kendal, and preached in neighbouring places. A strong puritan, he refused to baptize his own children, and in 1650 held a conference or dispute on baptism with three neighbouring ministers in Kendal church. Two years later he went at Judge Fell's invitation to meet George Fox at Swarthmore Hall. In reply to Fox's questions he owned he had never been ‘called’ to preach as the apostles were. The same day he accompanied Fox to Newton in Lancashire, and preached in the churchyard to the rector of Underbarrow and other persons.
Although he had a wife and six children, he resigned his benefice and preached no more for pay. His wife also became a quaker, and was assisted by Margaret Fell [q. v.], while Taylor commenced itinerant preaching. In September 1653 he was taken prisoner at Appleby for speaking in the church. He was released in 1655, but was again in Appleby gaol from August 1657 to August 1658 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1658–9, p. 164), and was imprisoned at York, Leicester, and Coventry. At the Stafford assizes (1662) he had sentence of præmunire passed, under which he remained prisoner more than ten years. His wife hired a house near, and he was allowed to write books and teach children, but he was not released until the general pardon granted by Charles II in March 1672. Taylor was fined 20l. for preaching to two or three friends in a house at Keele, Staffordshire, in 1679, and was again in prison in Stafford gaol that year. He died at Stafford on 18 March 1682 in his sixty-fifth year; his wife Margaret in December following.
