Edward Taylor Essay, Research Paper

Edward Taylor was born in 1642 in the town of Sketchley, England. He had two brothers named Joseph and Richard and a sister-in-law named Alice. He taught school for a short time in England then moved to the Bay Colony, which is now known as Boston in April 1668. Edward Taylor landed in Boston on July 5, 1668. On July 14 he had an interview at Harvard and was admitted on July 23. During his three years at Harvard, Taylor was the college butler. He studied, Hebrew, Greek, rhetoric, divinity, physics, ethics, metaphysics, and geography, language, logic, and mathematics. The study of divinity was Edward Taylor’s preference. He graduated in three years with the class of 1671. A new town in Massachusetts was in need of a minister so Taylor decided to go. On December 1671, he traveled to Westfield, Massachusetts. On November 5, 1674, Edward Taylor married Elizabeth Fitch. During their fifteen years of marriage, they had eight children. Five died in infancy. He wrote many poems on the trouble of his childrens death. His wife died July 7, 1689. In 1692, Taylor remarried to Ruth Wyllys of Hartford. There were six children by this marriage. He died June 24, 1729.Edward Taylors view on the new world is probably a good one. He probably saw it as a relief from the oppression in Europe. He came from England and had the opportunity to study at Harvard and become a minister. He just felt that he didn’t have a lot in common with the people in his town because he was so much more educated than they were. Being that Edward Taylor was very religious (being a minister), he believed that men were first under an order to obey God through the exercise of good works, but after the fall, men could only be saved through faith, and not through work. He was completely in accord with the beliefs of the time. Among other puritans, he believed that god had delivered him from oppression in Europe.