When the
king's cause went down, and during the protectorate of Cromwell, he
retired to Wales, where he kept a school, and was also chaplain to the
Earl of Carberry. The vicissitudes of fortune compelled him to leave for a
while this retreat, and he became a teacher in Ireland. The restoration of
Charles II. gave him rest and preferment: he was made Bishop of Down and
Connor. Taylor is now principally known for his learned, quaint, and
eloquent discourses, which are still read. A man of liberal feelings and
opinions, he wrote on "The liberty of prophesying, showing the
unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the iniquity of
persecuting different opinions:" the title itself being a very liberal
discourse. He upholds the Ritual in _An Apology for fixed and set Forms of
Worship_. In this he considers the divine precepts to be contained within
narrow limits, and that beyond this everything is a matter of dispute, so
that we cannot unconditionally condemn the opinions of others.
His _Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life_, his _Rule and Exercises of
Holy Living and of Holy Dying_, and his _Golden Grove_, are devotional
works, well known to modern Christians of all denominations.
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