Thomas Blake (minister)
An entry in the 1639 Liber Cleri or record book of a canonical visitation under Bishop Robert Wright confirms that Blake was then the curate, generally at that time meaning the incumbent, of Tamworth with Glascote and Hopwas.
Although the Repingtons and the corporation could not agree in principle, they accepted a working compromise by which the family appointed the vicar and the town the assistant ministers.
In The Birth Priviledge, or, Covenant-Holinesse of Beleevers (1644) he defended the universal right to baptism against strict Calvinist exclusiveness, so long as the child's parents expressed visible penitence.
Over the next two years he also published critiques of works by both Baptists and Presbyterians that upheld believer's baptism, including Two Treatises by John Tombes.
Blake then moved to the church of St Alkmund[16] (sometimes rendered Alkmond) in Shrewsbury, where the parliamentary committee had assumed power after overwhelming the royalist garrison on 21 February 1645.
[19] At the time of Blake's appointment Parliament's alliance with the Scottish Covenanters was still strong and it had decided that each county should plan and secure approval for a Presbyterian polity, in fulfilment of the Solemn League and Covenant, to which parliamentarian forces had subscribed in 1643.
This is entitled: The Severall Divisions and Persons for Classicall Presbyteries in the County of Salop[22] and was issued over the signature of Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester.
He was one of 57 signatories to a document entitled A Testimony of the Ministers in the Province of Salop to the Truth of Jesus Christ and to the Solemn League and Covenant: as also against the Errors, Heresies and Blasphemies of these times and the Toleration of them.
The divisions between the different strains of Puritanism led to conflict after Parliament in March 1650 imposed the Oath of Engagement: "I do declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords."
On 16 August the English Council of State wrote ordering Governor Mackworth "to turn out of his garrison all such persons as, either in the pulpit or elsewhere, by seditious words endeavour to stir up sedition and uproar among the people.
"[31] On 23 August the Council wrote again, specifically naming Blake and Fisher and ordering Mackworth to arrest and "examine them as to their former and late offences.
The leading lay Puritan in the area was Robert Corbet of Stanwardine[28] and his secretary, Richard Gough, later mentioned the visit in his famous Antiquities & Memoirs of the village.
The following year, back at Tamworth, Blake dedicated to them a new tract, Vindiciae foederis, or, A Treatise of the Covenant of God Entered with Mankind, thanking them for their "free and liberal entertainment" and the use of their library.
However, it seems his successor, Ralph Hodges was occupying benefices in plurality, as he was appointed Rector of Birmingham on 29 June 1646,[34] only two days after he took up the post at Tamworth.
His funeral sermon was preached by Anthony Burgess of Sutton Coldfield and was published in 1658, along with an oration by Samuel Shaw, then schoolmaster at Tamworth.
The following are the chief works named by Alexander Balloch Grosart,[3] based on a list in Anthony Wood's Athenae Oxonienses:[36] Ebenezer, or Profitable Truths after Pestilential Times, 1666, which has been attributed to him, was not his, but by another Thomas Blake, who was ejected from East Hoadley, Sussex.
