Thomas, was born at Northampton in 1669, and educated at Sidney College, Cambridge. He was chosen a fellow, and proceeded to the degree of B.D. His first appearance in the learned world was in 1705, in a work entitled "The old Apology for the Truth of the Christian Religion, against the Jews and Gentiles, revived." He afterwards wrote many pieces; but what made the most noise were his six Discourses on the Miracles of Christ, which occasioned a great number of books and pamphlets upon the subject, and raised a prosecution against him. At his trial in Guildhall, before the lord chief justice Raymond, he spoke several times himself; and urged, that "he thought it very hard that he should be tried by a set of men who, though otherwise very learned and worthy persons, were no more judges of the subjects on which he wrote, than himself was a judge of the most crabbed points of the law." He was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of L100. He purchased the liberty of the rules of the king's bench, where he continued after the expiration of the year, being unable to pay the fine. The greatest obstruction to his deliverance from confinement was the obligation of giving security not to offend by any future writings, he being resolved to write again as freely as before. While some supposed him to have written with the settled intention of subverting Christianity under the pretence of defending it, others believed him disordered in his mind; and many circumstances concurred which gave countenance to this opinion. He died January 27, 1732–3, after an illness of four days; and, a few minutes before his death, uttered these words: "This is a struggle which all men must go through, and which I bear not only patiently, but with willingness." His body was interred in St George's church-yard, Southwark.