(Edmund), an eminent Presbyterian divine, born at London in the year 1600, and educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, where his attachment to the Armenian party excluded him from a fellowship. Dr Felton bishop of Ely, however, made him his chaplain; and, in 1639, he was chosen minister of St Mary Aldermary, in the city of London. Upon the opening of the long parliament, he distinguished himself in defense of the Presbyterian cause; and had a principal hand in writing the famous Smectymnus, which, himself says, gave the first deadly blow to episcopacy. The authors of this tract were five, the initials of whose names formed the name under which it was published; viz. Stephen Marhal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Sparrow.

He was after that an active member in the assembly of divines, was a strenuous opponent of sectaries, and used his utmost endeavors to prevent those violences committed after the king was brought from the isle of Wight. In Cromwell’s time he lived privately, but was affiduous in promoting the king’s return; for which he was afterwards offered a bishopric, but refused it. He was ejected for nonconformity in 1662; and died of grief at the fight of the great fire of London.

Calamy (Edmund), grandson to the preceding (by his eldest son Mr Edmund Calamy, who was ejected out of the living of Moxton in Essex on St Bartholomew’s day 1662), was born in London, April 5th 1671. After having learned the languages, and gone through a course of natural philosophy and logic at a private academy in England, he studied philosophy and civil law at the university of Utrecht, and attended the lectures of the learned Gravius. Whilst he resided here, an offer of a professor’s chair in the university of Edinburgh was made him by Mr Carstairs, principal of that university, sent over purpose to find a person properly qualified for such an office. This he declined; and returned to England in 1691, bringing with him letters from Gravius to Dr Pocock canon of Christchurch and regius professor of Hebrew, and to Dr Bernard Savilian professor of astronomy, who obtained leave for him to prosecute his studies in the Bodleian library. Having resolved to make divinity his principal study, he entered into an examination of the controversy between the conformists and nonconformists; which determined him to join the latter; and coming to London in 1692, he was unanimously chosen assistant to Mr Matthew Sylvestre at Blackfriars; and in 1694, he was ordained at Mr Anneley’s meeting-house in Little St-Helena, and soon after was invited to become assistant to Mr Daniel Williams in Hand-Alley. In 1702, he was chosen to be one of the lecturers in Salter’s hall; and, in 1703, succeeded Mr Vincent Alsop as pastor of a great congregation in Westminster. He drew up the table of contents to Mr Baxter’s history of his life and times, which was sent to the press in 1666; made some remarks on the work itself, and added to it an index; and, reflecting on the usefulness of the book, he saw the expediency of continuing it, for Mr Baxter’s history came no lower than the year 1684. Accordingly he composed an abridgment of it, with an account of many other ministers who were ejected after the restoration of Charles II.; their apology, containing the grounds of their non-conformity and practice as to stated and occasional communion with the church of England; and a continuation of their history till the year 1691. This work was published in 1702. He afterwards published a moderate defence of nonconformity, in three tracts, in answer to some tracts of Dr Hoadley. In 1709, Mr Calamy made a tour to Scotland; and had the degree of doctor of divinity conferred on him by the universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glasgow. In 1713, he published a second edition of his Abridgement of Mr Baxter’s history of his life and times; in which, among other additions, there is a continuation of the history through king William’s reign, and queen Anne’s, down to the passing of the occasional bill; and in the close is subjoined the reformed liturgy, which was drawn...