Thomas Case
1598–1682
Popular London preacher; Love plotter; ejected at the Restoration.
Biography
Of Christ Church Oxford, then a long London ministry — first at St Mary Magdalen, Milk Street (from 1641) and then at St Giles in the Fields. Case was one of the most popular London Presbyterian preachers of the 1640s and 50s; his fast-day sermons before Parliament were widely reprinted. He preached the funeral sermon for Christopher Love in 1651 and was himself implicated in the Love plot — arrested, brought before the Council of State, and held in the Tower for eight months before being released without trial. Continued to preach until ejected in 1662 under the Act of Uniformity; thereafter held a private congregation in Hackney until his death in 1682, having lived through the entire Restoration period as a leading London Dissenter.
Principal works
- Mount Pisgah (1670)
- Correction, Instruction (1652)
English Presbyterian divine
The great majority of the sitting members were English parish ministers of Presbyterian conviction. They formed the drafting core of the Assembly, manning its three standing committees and supplying most of the text of the Confession, the two Catechisms, and the Directory for Public Worship.