JEREMY, a learned English nonjuring divine, born in 1650, and educated in Caius College, Cambridge. He had first the small rectory of Ampton, near St Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk, which, in six years, he resigned, in order to proceed to London, where, in 1685, he was made lecturer of Gray's Inn; but the change of government that followed soon rendered the public exercise of his function impracticable. He was committed to Newgate for writing against the revolution; and again, for carrying on a correspondence which that change of events made treasonable; but he was released both times without trial, by the intervention of friends. It is observable that he carried his scruples so far as to prefer confinement to the tacit acknowledgment of the jurisdiction of the court by accepting his liberty upon bail. Conformably to these principles, he next acted a very extraordinary part with two other clergymen of his own way of thinking, at the execution of Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins for the assassination plot; namely, by giving them solemn absolution, and by imposition of hands. After this he absconded, and continued under an outlawry till the day of his death. These proceedings having put a stop to his activity, he employed his retired hours more usefully in literary works. He had already distinguished himself by several political and controversial pieces; but in 1698 he attempted to reform our theatrical entertainments, by publishing his Short view of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, which engaged him in a controversy with the wits of the time. As he defended his censures not only with wit, but with learning and reason, it is allowed that the decorum observed by succeeding dramatic writers has been mainly owing to his animadversions. He next undertook a translation of Moreri's Historical and Geographical Dictionary, a work of extraordinary labour, and which appeared in 4 vols. folio, 1701, 1705, 1721. After this he published An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, chiefly of England, in 2 vols. folio, 1708 and 1714. His Essays upon several Moral Subjects, in 3 vols. 8vo, published between 1697 and 1709, display considerable learning and ability, and are written in an agreeable style. In 1701 he published a translation of Antoninus's Meditations. His last work was a volume of Practical Discourses, published in 1725. He died of the stone on the 26th April 1726.