He disapproved of the introduction of the Covenant and declared himself in favour of episcopacy. He was one of the forty-seven London clergymen who disapproved of the trial of Charles I.
He engaged in a public controversy with the astrologer William Lilly, who had mentioned Gataker in an almanac, which has some further biographical details.[4]
Works
Christian constancy crowned by Christ, a funerall sermon, preached, 1624, Thomas Gataker
His principal works, besides some volumes of sermons, are:
Of the Nature and Use of Lots (1619), a curious treatise which led to his being accused of favouring games of chance, but which Boswell called "a learned book of the age".[5] Gataker understood the random nature of lots and argued that they could not be used to discern the intention of God.[6][7] The second edition in 1627 contained a refutation of James Balmford's criticism. It was edited and republished in 2008 as The Nature and Uses of Lotteries, Conall Boyle (ed.)[8] Imprint Academic.[9]
Dissertatio de stylo Novi Testamenti (1648)
Cinnus, sive Adversaria miscellanea, in quibus Sacrae Scripturae primo, deinde aliorum scriptorum, locis aliquam multis lux redditur (1651), to which was afterwards subjoined Adversaria Posthuma
^James Boswell (Henry Morley, ed), The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. and The Journal of his tour to the Hebrides [Joshua Reynolds Edition], Vol V, Routledge, 1885, p. 228
^According to Hallam, is the "earliest edition of any classical writer published in England with original annotations," and, for the period at which it was written, possesses remarkable merit.
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