John Taylor (1694-1761)

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John Taylor (1694-1761) was an English dissenting preacher, Hebrew scholar, and theologian. He studied in Whitehaven before becoming a preacher in Norwich, where he founded the Octagon Chapel in 1754. In 1757, he was appointed to Warrington Academy. His Hebrew Concordance of 1754-7 was both a concordance (based on earlier works) and a lexicon of Hebrew.

In theology, Taylor was against the doctrine of original sin in the late 1730s. In 1740, he wrote Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, refuting the basis of Calvinism's doctrine of utter depravity of man. The work was popular among divines and laid the basis for the Unitarian movement and the American Congregationalists. John Wesley addressed his nearly 300-page work establishing original sin to Taylor in 1754. Taylor was also Arian when it came to the nature of Christ.

[edit] References

• Cross, F.L. and E. A. Livingstone, eds. "John Taylor." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
• Gordon, A. in Leslie Stephens, ed. Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898.