NATHANIEL

WILLIAM

See also:

• TAYLOR
• TAYLOR, ANN (1782-1866)
• TAYLOR, BAYARD (1825–1878)
• TAYLOR, BROOK (1685–1731)
• TAYLOR, ISAAC (1787-1865)
• TAYLOR, ISAAC (1829-1901)
• TAYLOR, JEREMY (1613-1667)
• TAYLOR, JOHN (158o-1653)
• TAYLOR, JOHN (1704-1766)
• TAYLOR, JOSEPH (c. 1586-c. 1653)
• TAYLOR, MICHAEL ANGELO (1757–1834)
• NATHANIEL WILLIAM TAYLOR (1786-1858)
• TAYLOR, PHILIP MEADOWS (1808–1876)
• TAYLOR, ROWLAND (d. 1555)
• TAYLOR, SIR HENRY (1800-1886)
• TAYLOR, THOMAS (1758-1835)
• TAYLOR, TOM (1817-1880)
• TAYLOR, WILLIAM (1765-1836)
• TAYLOR, ZACHARY (1784-1850)

TAYLOR (1786-1858)  , American Congregational theologian, was born in New Milford, Connecticut, on the 23rd of June 1786, grandson of Nathaniel Taylor (1722–1800), pastor at New Milford . He graduated at Yale College in 1807, studied theology under Timothy Dwight, and in 1812 became pastor of the First Church of New Haven . From 1822 until his death in New Haven on the loth of March 1858 he was Dwight professor of didactic theology at Yale . He was the last notable representative of the New England School, in which his predecessors were the younger Edwards, John Smalley (1734–1820) and Nathaniel Emmons . In the Yale Divinity School his influence was powerful, and in 1833 one of his foremost opponents, Bennet Tyler (1783–1858), founded in East Windsor a Theological Institute to offset Taylor's teaching at Yale . Taylorism, sometimes called the " New Haven " theology, was an attempt to defend Calvinism from Arminian attacks, and the defence itself was accused of Arminianism and Pelagianism by A . A . Hodge of Princeton and Leonard Woods of Andover . Taylor's theology was distinctively infra-lapsarian; it disagreed with Samuel Hopkins and Emmons in rejecting the theory of divine efficiency " and in arguing that man can choose the right " even if he won't " —distinguishing like Edwards between natural ability and moral inability; it distinguished sensibility or susceptibility as something different from will or understanding, without moral qualities, to which the appeal for right choice may be made; and it made self-love (a term borrowed from Dugald Stewart, connoting the innocent love of happiness and distinct from selfishness) the particular feeling appealed to by the influences of the law and gospel . He wrote Practical Sermons (1858; edited by Noah Porter); Lectures on the Moral Government of God (2 vols., 1859), and Essays and Lectures upon Select Topics in Revealed Theology (1859), all published posthumously .