Calamy, Edmund

Calamy, Edmund, an eminent English divine, was born in London A.D. 1600, and took his B.A. degree at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1619. After spending some years as chaplain to the bishop of Ely, in 1626 he was made a lecturer at Bury St. Edmund's, where he continued until the publication of bishop Wren's "Articles," and the enforcement of the order for the reading of the "Book of Sports," compelled him to protest, and to leave the diocese. He then received the living of Rochford, but in 1639, having avowed himself a Presbyterian, he was made lecturer of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, in London, which office he filled for twenty years. In the ecclesiastical controversies of the times he bore a prominent part. He joined with Marshall, Young, Newcomen, and Spurstow in writing, under the title of Smectymnuus, a reply to bishop Hall's "Divine Right of Episcopacy." As a preacher Mr. Calamy was greatly admired, and listened to by persons of the first distinction during the twenty years that he officiated in St. Mary's. His celebrity was so well established by his writings, as well as by the distinguished station which he occupied among the ministers in the metropolis, that he was one of the divines appointed by the House of Lords in 1641 to devise a plan for reconciling the differences which then divided the Church in regard to ecclesiastical discipline. This led to the Savoy Conference (q.v.), at which he appeared in support of some alterations in the Liturgy, and replied to the reasons urged against them by the Episcopal divines. As a member of the Westminster Assembly (q.v.), he earnestly opposed the execution of king Charles, and promoted the restoration of his son, who made him one of his chaplains, and offered him the see of Lichfield and Coventry, which he refused. When the Act of Uniformity was passed he resigned his preferment, but refused, like many others, to gather a congregation, preferring regularly to attend the church in which he had so long officiated. He died Oct. 29,1666, of a nervous disorder occasioned by the sight of the misery caused by the fire of London. He published The Godly Man's Ark, Sermons on Ps 119:72 (Lond. 1693, 17th ed. 12mo); The Noble-man's Pattern (Lond. 1643, 4to), and many single sermons, etc.