Jeremy Collier

Jeremy Collier (/ˈkɒlɪər/; 23 September 1650 – 26 April 1726) was an English theatre critic, non-juror bishop and theologian.

Born Jeremiah Collier, in Stow cum Quy, Cambridgeshire, Collier was educated at Caius College, University of Cambridge, receiving the BA (1673) and MA (1676). A supporter of James II, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary after the Glorious Revolution. Furthering his obvious disapproval of the new monarchs, he publicly absolved two Jacobites who had conspired to assassinate the King and Queen. In 1713 he was consecrated a non-juror bishop by George Hickes and two Scottish bishops, Archibald Campbell and James Gadderar.

Collier was the primus of the nonjuring line and a strong supporter of the four usages. In the years following the Revolution he wrote a series of tracts questioning the legitimacy of the new monarchs and the deprival of the Non-juror bishops. He was well known for his Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, 1708–1714, which was attacked for its tendentious political and theological comments, but nevertheless widely used. His Reasons for restoring some prayers and directions, as they stand in the communion-service of the first English reform'd liturgy, 1717 was the first salvo in the usages debate. His Essays were popular in his own day but are now little read. Collier wrote anti-theatrical polemic but was a high-church monarchist, unlike the many Puritans who wrote in this genre as well.

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