Micaiah Towgood

Micaiah Towgood (also spelled Michaijah; 17 December 1700 – 1 February 1792) was an English dissenting minister, theologian, and writer. He was known as having Arian views and was a theological controversialist.

Life The second son of Michaijah Towgood, M.D. (died 1715), he was born at Axminster, Devonshire, on 17 December 1700. He was at school with Thomas Amory, and with him entered in 1717 the dissenting academy in Taunton run by Stephen James and Henry Grove. On leaving he was called to succeed Angel Spark (died 1721) as minister of the presbyterian congregation at Moreton Hampstead, Devon, where he was ordained on 22 August 1722. He had a substantial congregation, and concentrated on pastoral work. Accepting at Christmas 1736 a call to Crediton, Devon, in succession to Josiah Eveleigh (died 1736), he moved there in January 1737.

On the death of James Green (1749), Towgood became colleague (1750) to his first cousin, Stephen Towgood (son of Stephen Towgood, his father's elder brother), as pastor of James's meeting, Exeter. The position was influential, and the duties were light; the Bow meeting had its two pastors, John Lavington and John Walrond; the four preached in rotation at the two places. James's meeting had been purged in 1719 by the exclusion of Joseph Hallett II and James Peirce. Towgood, originally orthodox, was now a high Arian, with views similar to Thomas Emlyn. He had the terms of membership relaxed; and in May 1753 the Exeter assembly quashed its resolution of September 1718 requiring adhesion to a Trinitarian formulary.

Works At Crediton Towgood began a series of controversial publications, which culminated in the Dissenting Gentleman's Letters (1746–8) in reply to John White (died 1755), perpetual curate of Stoke Nayland, Suffolk. White had published A Letter to a Gentleman Dissenting from the Church of England and sequels from 1743. This major work made his reputation, and became a classic compendium of nonconformist argument. Serious and Free Thoughts on … the Church, 1755. The Grounds of Faith in Jesus Christ, 1784.

Three papers by him signed "Paulus" are in The Old Whig, 1739. She was a daughter of James Hawker of Luppitt, Devon. The couple had four children, of whom a daughter survived him; his wife died in 1759. His son Matthew (1727–1791) was educated at Bridgwater under John Moore (died 1748), was minister at Bridgwater (1747–1755), afterwards merchant, and ultimately (1773) a banker in London, where he died in January 1791, leaving issue.

Towgood had a slight speech impediment, which he never entirely overcame, but was known as an effective preacher.