Isaac, Daniel
1788-1834; e.m. 1800

WM minister, born at Caythorpe, Lincs. He became an outstanding theologian and preacher. His sermons were controversial rather than oratorical, full of humour, often satirical, but combined with deep and touching emotion. Though he retained the Lincolnshire dialect, he so distinguished himself as a thinker as to earn the title given him by James Everett, 'the Polemic Divine'. When his friends wished him to occupy the Presidential chair, he absented himself from the Conference.

His appointment in 1829 to the Leeds Circuit in the aftermath of the controversy over theBrunswick organ had a serious effect on his health. He died at Caythorpe on 21 March 1834 and was buried in St. Olave's churchyard, York. His extensive writings were republished in a collected edition (3 volumes, 1840-41) by John Burdsall.

Sources
  • J. Everett, The Polemic Divine, or Memoirs of ... the Rev. Daniel Isaac (1839)
  • Robert A. West, Sketches of Wesleyan Preachers (1849) pp. 110-33
  • Benjamin Gregory, Autobiographical Recollections (1903) pp.134-35
  • Methodist Recorder, Winter Number,1905, pp.36-8
  • W.L. Doughty, 'Daniel Isaac and his Condemned Book', in WHS Proceedings, 33 pp.49-52
  • John C. Bowmer, 'Daniel Isaac and Jabez Bunting', in WHS Proceedings, 36 pp.2-6