There is no ISBN for this book and this will give a clue that it was written and published before such things existed. Probably Highway Press no longer prints literature now either, but this is an enduring little gem of a book. It is the work of an Anglican minister who became a missionary in Africa, he wrote it in the nineteen fifties and it was published in the middle of that decade. To my knowledge it was never reprinted, mores the pity. It is a concise and very readable Biblical Doctrine of man. Only eighty pages long it centers upon the history of man as God created him, his fall, his state and condition in sin, the wonder of the Man Jesus who came to redeem lost man and then man in Christ. The dust jacket carries William Blake’s picture of the “Ancient of Days” stretching down towards creation with an architects compass in His hand, Blake’s design symbolizes God’s cosmic plan within which the whole drama of Man takes shape. In the design Man lies across the intersection of many spheres of being, natural, supernatural, body and soul and the issues of family and culture are all involved. The author shows just how, because man lies at the heart of things this way, the effects of sin are felt everywhere and the manner of his salvation is to be found in Christ alone and the impact of this salvation upon the whole terrestrial and celestial orders. I am not aware that John Taylor wrote any other books, but his style and vocabulary is rich with not a wasted word. His Biblical background is evidently very thorough; this book is soaked in the word of God. He also employs stories and illustrations that are very telling, some of them from his experiences in Africa. Those who take the trouble to find a copy of this book will find it to be good doctrine indeed. It lifts us away from the psychologized view of man popular as the underlying view in so many of today’s writings and shows us a scriptural view of man in Adam and right through to man in Christ. A thoroughly edifying book.
