Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Thomas (1606-1679)
CALVERT, THOMAS (1606–1679), divine, a native of York, was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He became chaplain of Sir Thomas Burdet in Derbyshire, and was afterwards vicar of Trinity Church in the King's Court at York. During the Commonwealth he held one of the four preacherships endowed by the crown at the minster, besides the living of Allhallows, York. He was ejected from his living in 1662, was banished from York by the Five Mile Act, and ‘withdrew to the good Lady Berwicks, near Tadcaster.’ Later he returned to York, where he died in March 1679, aged 73. He had a son by whose extravagances he was much troubled, but found a congenial companion in his nephew James Calvert, and corresponded with the chief scholars of the time. He was well read in Hebrew. His works were: 1. ‘The Blessed Jew of Marocco, a Blackmoor made White,’ York, 1648. To this work, which is a translation (through the Latin) of the testimony of Rabbi Samuel, a converted Jew, to the truth of christianity, Calvert contributes annotations and a long diatribe on the mediæval history of the Jews and the wretchedness of their present condition. 2. ‘Heart-Salve for a wounded Soule: or Meditations of Comfort for Relief of a soul sick, of delayed prayers, and the hiding of God's countenance’ (a sermon on Ps. cxliii. 7), and ‘Eye-Salve for the blinde world’ (a sermon on Isaiah lvii. 1), York, 10 Oct. 1647. 3. ‘The Wise Merchant; or the peerless pearl, set forth in some meditations delivered in two sermons upon Matt. xiii. 45, 46, to the company of merchants in the city of York,’ London, 1660. Calamy and Palmer enumerate many other sermons, including one preached at the funeral of Lady Burdet, and a translation of Gerard's ‘Schola Consolatoria.’
[Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial, iii. 458–9; Brit. Mus. Cat.]