29 October 1666 A.D. Rev. Edmund Calumy Passes—English Presbyterian, Partial Conformist, Westminster Divine, Advocate of Comprehension, Supporter of Charles II’s Return & 1662 Ejectee

29 October 1666 A.D.  Rev. Edmund Calumy Passes—English Presbyterian, Partial Conformist, Westminster Divine, Advocate of Comprehension, Supporter of Charles II’s Return & 1662 Ejectee

Wiki-offering.

Edmund Calamy (February 1600 – October 29, 1666) was an English Presbyterian church leader and divine. Known as "the elder", he was the first of four generations of nonconformist ministers bearing the same name.

Contents 

• 1 Early life
• 2 Presbyterian activist
• 3 After the Restoration
• 4 Works
• 5 Calamy the Younger
• 6 See also
• 7 Further reading
• 8 Notes
• 9 External links
• 10 Further reading

Early life

The Calamy family claimed to be of Huguenot descent. Edmund Calamy was born in the parish of St Thomas the Apostle, London, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School and then Pembroke College, Cambridge,^[1] where his opposition to the Arminianism excluded him from a fellowship. Nicholas Felton, Bishop of Ely, nevertheless made him his chaplain, and gave him the living of St Mary, Swaffham Prior, which he held till 1626.

He then moved to Bury St Edmunds, where he lectured for ten years, the later Congregationalist Jeremiah Burroughs was another preacher in the town ^[2] He retired when his bishop Matthew Wren insisted on the observance of certain ceremonial articles: Calamy refused to read out the Book of Sports in his church.^[3] In 1636 he was appointed rector (or perhaps only lecturer) of Rochford in Essex, but had to leave for the sake of his health. In 1639 he was elected to the perpetual curacy of St Mary Aldermanbury in London, where he had a large following.

Presbyterian activist

At the opening of the Long Parliament he distinguished himself in defence of the Presbyterian polity, in contributing to the joint conciliatory work known as Smectymnuus. It argued against Bishop Joseph Hall's presentation of episcopacy, while articulating the Presbyterian positions. The initials of the names of the contributors formed the name under which it was published, viz., Stephen Marshall (SM), Edmund Calamy (EC), Thomas Young (TY), Matthew Newcomen (MN), and William Spurstow (WS, then often written VVS equivalent to UUS). These were clerical leaders of the Presbyterian movement within the Church of England. At the same period Calamy was an influential evangelical preacher, calling in December 1641 for a preaching ministry throughout England.^[4]

Calamy was an active member in the Westminster Assembly of divines, set up in 1643. In that year he edited the Souldier's Pocket Bible, a popular Biblical anthology designed for the Parliamentarian military forces.^[5]

The Smectymnuans were against religious tolerance and Calamy strongly advocated checking independent religious thinkers in 1644, attracting allies such as Lazarus Seaman.^[6] Refusing to advance to Congregationalism, he found within Presbyterianism a middle course which best suited his views of theology and church government. Calamy belonged to the Amyraldian group in the Assembly, those influenced by John Davenant or his reading of the Synod of Dort. Richard Baxter reported that Calamy, Lazarus, Richard Vines and John Arrowsmith were not hostile to universal redemption.^[7]

In 1647 he worked on the Assembly's Catechism.^[8] In 1648 he was preaching at St Benet Fink, to find an adversarial atmosphere in which the Baptist Edward Barber had been invited to contradict him.^[9]

He opposed the execution of King Charles I, and lived quietly under the Commonwealth. Asked for advice by Oliver Cromwell on the dissolution of the Rump Parliament and the establishment of a Protectorate, he replied that nine out of ten would oppose it.^[10]

After the Restoration

He was assiduous in promoting the return of Charles II of England, travelling to the Netherlands as one of the negotiators.^[5] After the Restoration in 1660 he was offered the bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield, but declined it. Presbyterians had warned him that his reputation and honour would suffer if he accepted, and he tried to co-ordinate a refusal with Richard Baxter, in the same position.^[11]

He was made one of Charles's chaplains, and vainly tried to secure the legal ratification of Charles's declaration of October 25, 1660. He was ejected for Nonconformity in the Great Ejection of 1662, and was so affected by the sight of the devastation caused by the Great Fire of London that he died shortly afterwards. He was buried in the ruins of his church, near the place where the pulpit had stood.

Works

His publications are almost entirely sermons.

• The Art of Divine Meditation (London: for Tho. Parkhurst, 1634) - not sermons.
• An Answer to a Book entitled, An Humble Remonstrance (1641) as a member of Smectymnuus
• Gods Free Mercy to England (1642)
• Englands Looking-glasse (1642)
• Souldier's Pocket Bible (1643) editor
• Jus Divinum Ministerii Evangelici (1654)

Calamy the Younger

His eldest son was also called Edmund Calamy, known as "the Younger". Calamy the Younger followed a religious path similar to his father's, and lost the rectory of Moreton, Essex in the Great Ejection of 1662. He was of a retiring disposition and moderate views, and died in 1685. He was the father of the historian Edmund Calamy.

See also

• Thomas Vincent
• Edmund Calamy (historian) (1671 - 1732) - the son of Edmund Calamy the Younger

Further reading

• Richard L. Greaves, Saints and Rebels: Seven Nonconformists in Stuart England (1985), pp. 9–62

Notes

1.       Jump up ^ "Calamy, Edmund (CLMY616E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. 

2.       Jump up ^ http://www.apuritansmind.com/MemoirsPuritans/MemoirsPuritansEdmundCalamy.htm

3.       Jump up ^ http://www.stedmundsbury.gov.uk/sebc/visit/1539-1699.cfm

4.       Jump up ^ Christopher Hill, Change and Continuity in 17th Century England (1974), p. 25.

5.       ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.vi.xxi.htm

6.       Jump up ^ http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Life-of-John-Milton-Vol-3-1643-16494.html

7.       Jump up ^ Alan C. Clifford, Atonement and Justification: English Evangelical Theology, 1640-1790 : An Evaluation (1990), p. 26.

8.       Jump up ^ http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/church_history/s.htm

9.       Jump up ^ Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (1972), p. 1o5.

10.   Jump up ^ Christopher Hill, The Experience of Defeat (1984), p. 182.

11.   Jump up ^ William M. Lamont, Richard Baxter and the Millennium (1979), p. 233.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• The Life of John Milton Volume3 1643-1649 by David Masson
• Profiles in Puritanism
• The Art of Divine Meditation

Further reading

• Achinstein, Sharon (2004). "Calamy, Edmund (1600–1666)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 16 November 2013. Retrieved 16 November 2013.

29 October 1666 A.D. Rev. Edmund Calumy Passes—English Presbyterian, Partial Conformist, Westminster Divine, Advocate of Comprehension & 1662 Ejectee

29 October 1666 A.D.  Rev. Edmund Calumy Passes—English Presbyterian, Partial Conformist, Westminster Divine, Advocate of Comprehension & 1662 Ejectee

Myers, David T.  “October 29: Death of Edmund Calumy (1666).”  This Day in Presbyterian History.  29 Oct 2014.  http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/10/october-29-2/.  Accessed 29 Oct 2014.

October 29: Death of Edmund Calumy (1666)

Written by Smectymnuus

Smectymnuus! What? Who? What rational parent would give his kid this confusing name? Yet it wasn’t a birth name. It was rather the nom de plume framed by the initials of five authors to a book against episcopacy in seventeenth century England. To be exact, this was 1641 and the book itself had a title which may well be one of the longest titles in existence, ever!  It was “An Answer to a Book entitled, An Humble Remonstrance in which, the original of Liturgy and Episcopacy is discussed: and Queries proposed concerned both. The Parity of Bishops and Presbyters in Scripture demonstrated.  The Occasion of their Imparity in Antiquity discovered. The Disparity of the Ancient and our modern Bishops manifested. The Antiquity of Ruling Elders in the Church vindicated. The Prelatical church bounded.” It would seem to this writer that the outline of the book was put into the title thereof!  Oh yes, and it written by Smectymnuus or S(tephen) M(arshall), E(dmund) C(alamy), T(homas) Y(young), M(atthew) N(ewcommen), and W(illiam–rendered as “UU“) S(purstow).

Our attention  today in Presbyterian History is on the “E” and the “C” of the title, or on Edmund Calamy, known as Calamy the Elder. Born in London, England, in February 1600, day unknown, he was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. England.  He pastored and lectured at three Anglican churches from 1626 to 1639 when he was chosen to serve as the pastor of the London church of St.Mary Aaldermanbury.  In most of these parishes, he conformed to some of the ceremonies of the Anglican tradition, like bowing when the name of Jesus was mentioned, but resisting other practices of the Anglican liturgy.  Indeed, he was a Presbyterian delegate at the Savoy Conferences between April and July in 1661, attempting to find some compromise in the liturgy of the Anglican Church.  He, along with the other authors of the above title, were members of the Westminster Assembly of Divines from 1643 onward.  With the passing of the  Uniformity Act of King Charles II, the Rev. Edward Calamy was one of 2400 Presbyterians and Puritans who were ejected from his pulpit.   He preached his farewell sermon to his congregation at St. Mary’s on August 17, 1662.

Calamy continued to worship at the services of his old church. Once the appointed preacher did not attend the worship service, he was prevailed upon by his old congregation, and so took the pulpit and preached “with some warmth,” it was reported. Arrested for disobeying the Uniformity act, he was imprisoned for a time on January 6, 1663. He was freed later by the king and closed out his public ministry.

He survived to witness the terrible fire of London in 1666, which catastrophe contributed to his death when he saw his last congregation in ruins from the fire. He died on this day, October 29, 1666, and was buried in the ruins of the church as close as his mourners could guess was the place of the pulpit.

Words to Live By:
Where there had been earlier compromises of Presbyterian principles in his early life and ministry, he ended well with a firm commitment to Presbyterian principles and practice. Let that be our resolve as Christians, that we will end well in commitment to Biblical principles and practices. As Scottish pastor John Livingstone put it: “Let God be your only rule; Christ your own hope; The Holy Spirit your only guide, the Glory of God your only end.”