Marcus Dods

“ All his gifts were made available for influencing other men by his easy command of a style rarely matched in dignity and colour. With all the majesty and stately elaboration and musical rhythm of Milton's finest prose, Taylor's style is relieved and brightened by an astonishing variety of felicitous illustrations, ranging from the most homely and terse to the most dignified and elaborate. His sermons especially abound in quotations and allusions, which have the air of spontaneously suggesting themselves, but which must sometimes have baffled his hearers. ”

“ Indeed, he had very limited faith in the human mind as an instrument of truth. "Theology," he says, "is rather a divine life than a divine knowledge." His great plea for toleration is based on the impossibility of erecting theology into a demonstrable science. "It is impossible all should be of one mind. And what is impossible to be done is not necessary it should be done." ”

“ His immense learning served him rather as a storehouse of illustrations, or as an armoury out of which he could choose the fittest weapon for discomfiting an opponent, than as a quarry furnishing him with material for building up a completely designed and enduring edifice of systematized truth. ”