Barlow, Thomas, 1607-1691

Thomas Barlow (1607, 1608 or 1609 – 8 October 1691) was an English academic and clergyman, who became Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, and Bishop of Lincoln. He was seen in his own time and by Edmund Venables in the Dictionary of National Biography to have been a trimmer (conforming politically for advancement's sake), and have a reputation mixed with his academic and other writings on casuistry. His views were Calvinist and strongly anti-Catholic – he was among the last English bishops to dub the Pope Antichrist. He worked in the 1660s for "comprehension" of nonconformists, but supported a crackdown in the mid-1680s. Despite his anti-Catholic prejudices, Barlow declared loyalty to James II of England upon his accession.