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John Taylor (1752 -1835)
Trustee for tbe Future
By Chester R. Young, 1993

      In April 1795, Elder John Taylor moved from the thickly settled part of Woodford County, Kentucky, to Campbell County (now Boone County).1 A number of factors caused him to relocate on the Ohio River. He had sold all of his Woodford land except four hundred acres on Clear Creek, and his burgeoning family would soon need more land than this acreage ... Several of his Baptist neighbors who were anxious to move to the Ohio wanted him to accompany them. Also Taylor hoped to escape the ill effects of a land dispute between himself and a prominent member of the Clear Creek Baptist Church.2

      The personal preference of Taylor had always been "to live in a new country," as he like to put it.3 By this term he meant a region where forests were being changed into fields and where settlements were being made. At heart Taylor was a frontiersman. Even though he was a preacher and a farmer, he was a man of the frontier. He was born on the frontier of the Virginia Piedmont. He grew to maturity on frontier of the Great Valley of Virginia. He performed his first itinerancy as a missionary in the Allegheny Mountains.4 He would live out his calling as a man of the cloth and as a tiller of the soil in numerous "settlements" in the Kentucky wilderness.

      In June 1794, Elders Joseph Redding and John Taylor had organized the congregation that still regularly meets on this site in the community where we assemble this morning.5 It was named the Great Bend of Ohio Baptist Church. Later its name was changed to Bullittsburg in order to indicate the community that was growing up around it.6

      When John Taylor joined the Bullittsburg Church in May 1795, he was forty-two years of age. he had already been a member of five congregations and had taken part in the constitution of a number of other Baptist churches. These churches were located in the present states of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The relationship that he had enjoyed with these congregations

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had given him an exceptional insight into the worship and work of Baptist churches.7 The historical record is indeed blessed by his having written these experiences in a volume titled A History of Ten Baptist Churches. This book of unusually rare narration came from a press in Frankfort, Kentucky in 1823. It concerns the ten congregations in which he held his membership. This book-in addition to his other writings that have survived the passage of time-gives an unparalleled view into the religious principles by which Taylor conducted himself and administered the affairs of Baptist churches.

      By delving into his writings, one sees that a prominent purpose of his was to transmit to future generations a record of the principles that he had followed. In the preface of the first of the two editions of A History of Ten Churches, he wrote that his main object was "to benefit the young, rising generation." Taylor invited the old and the wise to "take part with them if they can."8 The earliest regular preacher and moderator of the Bullittsburg Church was indeed a trustee for the future.9

      One of the principles that Taylor advocated pertained to the relationship to of the preachers one another within a congregation. Taylor observed that among Separate and Regular Baptists in Virginia a congregation followed the practice of electing from among the ordained ministers who belonged to its membership one to be the "particular pastor," as the title was called at Clear Creek in Woodford County! At that church Taylor had been chosen unanimously to fill this post, even though there were three older ordained men within the membership,10 To Taylor's mind the arrangement did not prove to be satisfactory. After three years he resigned as the particular pastor at Clear Creek and took his turn with the other ordained ministers at serving as the preacher-moderator.11 Taylor wrote, "We had now no heads and tails among us, or in other words we had no superiority and inferiority in the ministry. We were as equally matched horses to lay our shoulders to the yoke at once."12

      Given today's multiplicity of church staffers and programs, one might ask, "What enduring value can be extracted from Taylor's principle of equality among ministers?" Taylor seemed to

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say that the absence of competition within the ministerials corps of a congregation in his day set an example for harmony, good order, and brotherly and sisterly love among church members and ministers. As for today, the bishop-like heads of modem megachurches within our own denomination might well lay to heart the implication of Taylor's principle that the pastor is a servant who ministers. Also we can say that the pastor should not be a master who by his dictatorial stance negates the priestly character of the church members. Thus the congregation has no place for the "lordly king," to use Taylor's term.13

      Taylor wrote thus regarding equality among believers: "In the church of Christ there are no masters and servants, no king and subjects. They all have a King and Master, and He is in Heaven. As in Heaven there is no distinction between one saint and another, for neither here nor there has Christ any distinct relations. All are children; all are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. What a blessed republic is the church of Christ, either militant or triumphant."14 Without doubt, John Taylor looked to the future when he considered the role of ministers within the congregation.

      A second principle advocated by Taylor concerns salvation. As a teenager he had been awakened and converted under the aegis of Separate Baptist preaching. He came to see that the difference between the preaching of Separate Baptists and that of Regular Baptists in Virginia was more a matter of style instead of doctrine. Calvinism and Arminianism were the two prominent theologies of Taylor's day. Calvin in his time had stressed the sovereignty of God and the predestination of the elect, whereas Arminius had emphasized the free will of the sinner. In Virginia and Kentucky the doctrinal creed of most Baptists represented a blend of these two dogmas. It is difficult to say with whom this harmony arose.

      We celebrate on this day the memory of Elder John Leland as a staunch advocate of religious freedom. He preached in Virginia during most of the Revolutionary War. On this day we Baptists celebrate Religious Liberty Sunday and recall the dedication of Leland and other preachers.

      Leland expressed the blending of the two theologies by a pharmaceutical metaphor, as compounding three grains of Calvinism

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with two grains of Arminianism.15 Andrew Fuller, of England, reconciled the two positions by coupling a special application of God's grace with a general atonement.16

      Taylor's wife came from Leland's church in Culpepper County.17 Taylor was a friend of Leland, and he was also acquainted with the work and writing of Fuller.18 As a result, Taylor embraced Fuller and Leland's positions regarding the doctrine of salvation and preached that Christ tasted death for every human being. Taylor thus justified his inviting all sinners to repent and to find a hope in Christ as their Saviour. Taylor saw that laying the claims of Christ before the lost was the chief biblical message:19 He was a trustee for the future of the church.

      A third principle that Taylor transmitted to posterity pertains to the role of women in the work of the church. Taking I Corinthians chapter 11 and I Timothy chapter 5 as his bases, Taylor wondered whether or not a woman of the spiritual nature such as was possessed by Mrs. John Price, a daughter of Elder John Gano, ought to be numbered as a deaconess of the church. Taylor asked whether or not such a woman should be invited to pray and prophesy in the church, provided she wore a covering on her head. He answered his own questions by writing, "Nothing but the pride or folly of man would object to it."20 Taylor concluded, "It is a pity a church should lose any gift that is among them, merely because it is found in a female."21 Taylor was indeed a trustee for the future. Here he preserved the hope that some day women's gifts of ministry might yet be widely recognized among Baptist people.

      The last principle that I will cover relates to the equality in the church of slaves and their owners. The preacher had a good deal to say in A History of Ten Churches about this subject. When Taylor discussed this principle he gave thanks that God is no respecter of persons.22 In 1800, while the Taylor family lived near the river bank here at Bullittsburg, six of Taylor's slaves were converted and baptized into the membership of this church. That was the year when the Great Revival as at its peak, sweeping mightily across Kentucky and neighboring states. Twenty other black people were baptized into the fellowship of this church during that year.23

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Taylor wrote in his book: "It is probable more slaves will go to Heaven than masters."24

      Taylor also told of a revival two decades later at the Clear Creek Church. On a November Sunday thirteen converts were baptized - twelve blacks and one white. Taylor, who did the baptizing, wrote about this particular Sunday: "For the sake of convenience, I took two or three of them into the water at once, and when I would return them to the hundreds of their black friends on the shore, with tears of joy their friendly hands and arms would grasp them to their bosom. The air would ring with their thanksgiving and praise to God for His wonderful works of grace on the hearts of poor sinners."25

      One of the black men baptized on that day was named Essex. As soon as his head was raised above the water he began to inquire for his master, who then stood weeping on the bank of the stream. The slave wanted to give his right hand to his master and soon did so. Taylor wrote: "Here master and servant meet on perfect equality."26 The preacher continued: "Jack and Harry or Essex has a master in the shop or on the farm, but not so in the church of Christ. There [in the church] they all have a Master and only one Master - Jesus Christ - and there they are all Christ's free men and on perfect equality with each other. There, as in the grave, the servant is free from his master, and the oppressor's voice [is] not to be heard. . . . "27

      In Taylor's day, custom and economy kept this ideal from being applied in most circumstances. But Taylor's principle of racial and ethnic equality stated so eloquently in 1823 looked to the future and to the time when brothers and sisters throughout the whole world would be one in Christ.

      It would appear that John Taylor saw further into the future than did most preachers in his day. He beheld the equality of ministers and members in the congregation. He trumpeted forth the call of the Gospel to all human beings. He saw an expanded role for women in the work of the church. He envisioned an ethnic and racial equality that has not yet been attained. Of a truth, Taylor was a trustee for time to come.
      Chester R. Young *

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* (This address was presented by Professor Young at the morning worship of the Bullittsburg Baptist Church on Sunday 6 June 1993, the 199th anniversary of the congregation, which is located in the Great Bend of the Ohio River near Burlington in present-day Boone County, Kentucky. This Sunday marked the beginning of a year-long celebration of the bicentennial of the Bullittsburg Church that will culminate in June 1994. Mr. Young has prepared for publication and the third edition of Elder Taylor's famous book, A History of Ten Baptist Churches.)
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1 John Taylor, A History of Ten Baptist Churches, 1st ed. (Frankfort, KY., 1823), p. 81.
2 Ibid., pp. 76-78.
3 Ibid., pp. 76-77.
4 Ibid., pp. 288-99.
5 Bullittsburg Church, Minute Book A (MS., Office of Church Historian, Burlington, Ky.) pp. 1, 47.
6 Elkhorn Association, "Minutes," in William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier, 4 vols. (Chicago, 1931), 1: 468,471.
7 Taylor, Ten Churches, 1st ed., pp. 5-81 passim.
8 Ibid., p. iii.
9 Ibid., p. 61.
10 Ibid., pp. 50-53.
11 Ibid., pp. 53-62.
12 Ibid., p. 62.
13 Ibid., p. 113.
14 John Taylor, A History of Ten Baptist Churches, 2d ed. (Bloomfield, Ky.), p. 208.
15 David Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists (New York, 1860), p. 144.
16 Ibid., p. 135.
17 L. F. Greene, ed., The Writings of the Late John Leland (New York, 1845), p. 600; Taylor, Ten Churches, 1st ed., pp. 39-40.
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18 Taylor, Ten Churches, 2d ed., p. 53.
19 Ibid., pp. 203, 246, 247.
20 Ibid., p. 204.
21 Ibid., p. 205.
22 Taylor, Ten Churches, 1st ed., p. 156.
23 Bullittsburg Church, Minute Book A, p. 183.
24 Taylor, Ten Churches, 1st ed., p. 112.
25 Ibid., p. 156.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., pp. 156-57.
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[From Doris B.Yeiser, editor, The Kentucky Baptist Heritage, Volume XVIII, November 1993, Number 1, pp. 2-8; via Boyce Digital Repository. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]


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