His parents, Richard and Ann, farmed at Sladehouse and Thomas took over the business as a yeoman farmer even while his father was alive.
[1] His faith was initially Presbyterian[2] but in 1661 he read a book by Laurence Clarkson (presumably The Lost Sheep Found) and became attracted to Muggletonianism.
He converted a sizeable number of family, friends and neighbours to the new faith, enough to make himself a nuisance to the parish authorities.
In 1674 he found himself in serious trouble on account of his beliefs and, to evade arrest, contemplated emigrating to the New England Colonies.
Part of the time he followed Muggleton's trade of tailoring but he also had plans to wholesale cheese and butter in the capital.
Thomas Tomkinson died in London in 1710 and was succeeded as unofficial leader of the Muggletonians by Arden Bonell (?
The standard Muggletonian reply is that during Christ's sojourn on Earth, the affairs of heaven were managed by Elijah (perhaps in partnership with Moses and Enoch).
Elijah had temporary control of God's prerogative power, easily adequate to a resurrection and glorious return.
On the other hand, there is a man Elijah, directly translated to heaven without death, capable of exercising God's full prerogative power.
Tomkinson's most lasting contribution may have been to stress that there was no dividing line between the ideas of Lodowicke Muggleton and those of John Reeve.
This topic was a source of splits and dissent amongst Muggletonians, some believing that Muggleton, alone, had insisted that God took no immediate notice of everyday human activities.
His writings are profusely illustrated by references to classical authors, church fathers, and western philosophers.
He argues that people who hold to these views end up presuming to judge God by human standards.
"[17] Those who die in faith do so with the assurance that, after the sleep of the grave, they will enjoy resurrection in both body and soul, in a new glorified condition.
At the end of time, those left behind on this abandoned earth "in which darkness they shall hear one another's doleful cries and cursed blasphemies, but shall never see one another's dreadful faces; neither can they stir from the place of their resurrection having bodies as heavy as lead and as black as pitch.
Tomkinson simply denies any 'rebellion in heaven' as described in Revelation 12:7[22] Such angels, he says, are merely Cain's offspring on this earth.
For Muggleton, Williams would have been a misguided 'literalist' who, besotted with reason, failed to read Revelation in the manner appropriate to the last days.
Professor Lamont [23] shows that neither Reeve nor Muggleton ever really got to grips with the question of how they knew they were the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11:3.
So, Muggletonians pronounced sentence upon reprobates whose behaviour clearly showed the seed of the serpent at work within them.
This book[25] has seven topics The anonymous preface, presumably from 1729, says that Thomas Tomkinson's aim is to show the Muggletonian faith to be systematic and in accord with philosophical empiricism.
"[26] The modern reader may be disappointed that Tomkinson never engages with the arguments of Thomas Hobbes but sticks to preaching to the converted.
To say God is father, son and holy ghost is in the same style as saying a human being is body, soul and spirit "united and knit together".
God's word is a power and works like a "glorious wheel, that moved him to form living creatures to appear in his sight.
In Tomkinson's view it is the false doctrine of the soul leaving the body at death to migrate straight to heaven which is the cause of much foolish martyrdom and suicide.
[39] And it is the meaning of "God loved Jacob and hated Esau before they had done either good or evil" which, says Tomkinson, is an example of the impotence of free-will and human desiring, for "The potter hath power over the clay.
Good works coming to fruition are not the cause of salvation but evidence that the seed of faith is alive and well in a person.
It might have been hoped that, with the whole of scripture ranged before him, Tomkinson would have chosen to tackle those texts which seem hardest to square with Muggletonian beliefs.
"So likewise is the old heart given in Levi, which will have the old law of the old tabernacle forms, and multitudes of blind priests must be maintained for their fruitless prayers, outward formalities and simple ninny's.
"[48] Tomkinson sees the fight against sin to be won by putting into the field proportionate and opposite forces of faith at an early stage.
It is similar in style to the three volume set "Miscellaneous Works of Reeve and Muggleton" which was produced by the Frost brothers in 1832 but is less sumptuous being bound in boards and purple cloth, and lacking any special preface.