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Cornelius Burges
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Cornelius Burges
Cornelius Burges or Burgess, DD (1589? – 1665), was an English minister. He was active in religious controversy prior to and around the time of the Commonwealth of England and The Protectorate, following the English Civil War. In the years from 1640 he was a particularly influential preacher.
Burges was descended from the Burges or Bruges family of Batcombe, Somerset, was probably born in 1589. He was a son of Robert Burges (d. 1626) of Stanton Drew, Somerset and Alice Benbrick. Burges had brothers James and John, who remained at Stanton Drew, and a sister Hester who married Samuel Sherman of Dedham, Essex. In 1611 he was entered at Oxford, but at what college is unknown. He was transferred to Wadham College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 5 July 1615, and thence migrated to Lincoln College, Oxford, of which he was a member when he graduated M.A. on 20 April 1618. He must have taken orders before graduation, if it be true that on 21 December 1613 he obtained the vicarage of Watford, Hertfordshire, on the presentation of Sir Charles Morison. On 16 January 1626 he was allowed to hold, along with Watford, the rectory of St. Magnus, London Bridge. This latter he resigned in 1641, his successor being admitted on 20 July. Soon after the accession of Charles I he was made one of the king's chaplains in ordinary, and on 16 June 1627 he was made B.D. and D.D. by his university.
Wood represents him as being at this time a zealous son of the church, and as only taking to schismatical courses through the disappointment of his eagerness for preferment.
The Calvinistic views held by Burges are shown in his Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants, published at Oxford in 1629. A Latin sermon, preached in 1635 to the London clergy at St. Alphage's, London Wall, brought him before the Court of High Commission. In this discourse he had blamed the connivance of bishops at the growth of Arminianism and popery. The proceeding caused him trouble and expense, and deepened his hostility to the party of William Laud.
He was accused of being 'a vexer of two parishes with continual suits of law'. This may mean that he resisted the demands of visitation articles in reference to ceremonial observance. An Oxford pamphlet of 1648 is Wood's authority for saying that he was 'looked upon by the high commission as one guilty of adultery'. It is plain that there was no evidence to substantiate the charge.
The prestige of Burges steadily increased. Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick was his patron.
In September 1640 he conveyed to the king at York the petition of the London clergy against the 'etcetera oath', and succeeded in getting it dispensed with. Clarendon in his History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England goes so far as to say that the influence of Burges and Stephen Marshall was greater with both houses of parliament than that of Laud had ever been with the court, a statement which, as Edmund Calamy the Elder observes, 'carries a pretty strong figure in it'.
The DNB comments that to link Burges and Marshall together, as though their views and policy were identical, is an error. Marshall was also a client of the Earl of Warwick. Christopher Hill, however, states that their fast sermons, delivered in succession on 17 November 1640, were clearly in concert. Hugh Trevor-Roper comments that none of that day's arrangements were casual. Wood also puts Burges and Marshall at the head of those who preached in 1640, 'that for the cause of religion it was lawful for the subjects to take up arms against their lawful sovereign'.
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Cornelius Burges
Cornelius Burges or Burgess, DD (1589? – 1665), was an English minister. He was active in religious controversy prior to and around the time of the Commonwealth of England and The Protectorate, following the English Civil War. In the years from 1640 he was a particularly influential preacher.
Burges was descended from the Burges or Bruges family of Batcombe, Somerset, was probably born in 1589. He was a son of Robert Burges (d. 1626) of Stanton Drew, Somerset and Alice Benbrick. Burges had brothers James and John, who remained at Stanton Drew, and a sister Hester who married Samuel Sherman of Dedham, Essex. In 1611 he was entered at Oxford, but at what college is unknown. He was transferred to Wadham College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 5 July 1615, and thence migrated to Lincoln College, Oxford, of which he was a member when he graduated M.A. on 20 April 1618. He must have taken orders before graduation, if it be true that on 21 December 1613 he obtained the vicarage of Watford, Hertfordshire, on the presentation of Sir Charles Morison. On 16 January 1626 he was allowed to hold, along with Watford, the rectory of St. Magnus, London Bridge. This latter he resigned in 1641, his successor being admitted on 20 July. Soon after the accession of Charles I he was made one of the king's chaplains in ordinary, and on 16 June 1627 he was made B.D. and D.D. by his university.
Wood represents him as being at this time a zealous son of the church, and as only taking to schismatical courses through the disappointment of his eagerness for preferment.
The Calvinistic views held by Burges are shown in his Baptismal Regeneration of Elect Infants, published at Oxford in 1629. A Latin sermon, preached in 1635 to the London clergy at St. Alphage's, London Wall, brought him before the Court of High Commission. In this discourse he had blamed the connivance of bishops at the growth of Arminianism and popery. The proceeding caused him trouble and expense, and deepened his hostility to the party of William Laud.
He was accused of being 'a vexer of two parishes with continual suits of law'. This may mean that he resisted the demands of visitation articles in reference to ceremonial observance. An Oxford pamphlet of 1648 is Wood's authority for saying that he was 'looked upon by the high commission as one guilty of adultery'. It is plain that there was no evidence to substantiate the charge.
The prestige of Burges steadily increased. Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick was his patron.
In September 1640 he conveyed to the king at York the petition of the London clergy against the 'etcetera oath', and succeeded in getting it dispensed with. Clarendon in his History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England goes so far as to say that the influence of Burges and Stephen Marshall was greater with both houses of parliament than that of Laud had ever been with the court, a statement which, as Edmund Calamy the Elder observes, 'carries a pretty strong figure in it'.
The DNB comments that to link Burges and Marshall together, as though their views and policy were identical, is an error. Marshall was also a client of the Earl of Warwick. Christopher Hill, however, states that their fast sermons, delivered in succession on 17 November 1640, were clearly in concert. Hugh Trevor-Roper comments that none of that day's arrangements were casual. Wood also puts Burges and Marshall at the head of those who preached in 1640, 'that for the cause of religion it was lawful for the subjects to take up arms against their lawful sovereign'.