Armour,’ and in 1679 preached his funeral sermon. He preached also in 1691 a violent sermon at Lavenham against some baptists, who, under one Tredwell from London, were ‘making proselytes by rebaptising them in a nasty horsepond.’ Burkitt went to the barn in which the baptist meeting was held, and repeated his exhortation there. More commendable was his attitude towards the French protestant exiles. His generous efforts in their behalf, begun at midsummer 1687, and continued till 1692, resulted in the raising of 216l. 17s., which he personally distributed to needy refugees in Suffolk and Essex. He exhibited also a zeal for foreign missions; ‘by his great care, pains, and charges, he procured a pious minister to go and settle in Carolina.’ Possibly this was one of the ‘poor students’ towards whose maintenance at Cambridge he liberally contributed. He was exceedingly charitable, and was diligent in his pastoral duties, preaching thrice a week (besides village services) in a plain style with a winning voice, visiting and catechising with assiduity, and, though greatly attached to the prayer-book, constantly using the liberty of extemporary prayer before sermon. His character was somewhat wanting in geniality. A malignant fever carried him off in a week's time. He died on Sunday, 24 Oct. 1703, leaving a widow, and having married thrice. His funeral sermon was preached by his brother-in-law, Nathaniel Parkhurst, M.A., vicar of Yoxford, Suffolk. He bequeathed his house and some land as a residence for the lecturer at Dedham.
He published:
- ‘A Sermon preached soon after the solemn Enterrment of Mr. William Gurnall,’ 1680, 4to (from Heb. xiii. 7).
- ‘An Argumentative and Practical Discourse on Infant Baptism,’ 1692, 8vo; reprinted 1722, 12mo (this was the substance of his Lavenham sermon, 1691; the preface gives a minute account of the circumstances. It was answered by Benjamin Keach, of the ‘Scripture Metaphors,’ 1681, in ‘The Rector rectified and corrected; or Infant Baptism Unlawful,’ 1692, 8vo).
- ‘The Poor Man's Help, and Young Man's Guide … unto which is added an earnest Exhortation …’ 5th ed. 1701, 8vo; 6th ed. 1705, 8vo; another ed. 1715, 8vo; 32nd ed., with title, ‘A Help and Guide to Christian Families,’ &c., 1764, 8vo, has a supplement of forms of prayer and hymns, with separate title-page.
- ‘Family Instruction, a Catechism, explaining … the great and necessary Doctrines of Faith and Holiness’ (Middleton).
- ‘Explanatory Notes, with Practical Observations on the four Evangelists,’ 1700 fol. (Watt).
- ‘Expository Notes, with Practical Observations on the New Testament’ (issued posthumously), 1724, fol. (portrait by White); other editions are 1729, 1734, 1739, 1752, 1753, 1760, 1772, 1779, all folio; 1814, 1819, 4to; abridged by Samuel Glasse, D.D., 1806, 4to, 2 vols.; another abridgment in one vol. 8vo (on this work Burkitt's reputation rests; its character is that of a compilation, the original matter being mainly the author's sermon notes; the work has sometimes been accused of heterodoxy. Doddridge says the ‘sentiments vary in different parts of the work, as the authors from whom he took his materials were orthodox or not’).
[Parkhurst's Life of the Rev. W. Burkitt, with a Sermon on his Death, 1704; Calamy's Account, 1713, p. 483; Contin. 1727, ii. 626; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, 1714, ii. 209; Memoirs of Rev. W. Burkitt, Gloucester, n. d. (1720?); Middleton's Biog. Evangelica, 1786, iv. 110; Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial, 1803, iii. 8; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 1864, i. 316; Browne's Hist. Congregationalism in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1877, pp. 515, 517, 570, 592; extracts from Pembroke College Registers, per the Master of Pembroke.]
BURLEIGH, Lords of. [See Balfour.]
BURLEY, JOHN (d. 1333), a Carmelite of Stamford, whom Leland mentions only in order to distinguish him from the better known Walter Burley. Pits, possibly confusing him with Walter, attributes to him commentaries on Porphyry, Aristotle, and Peter Lombard, and says also that he opposed the division of his order in England into provinces, a division which was, however, carried out. His name is not given in the ‘Bibliotheca Carmelitana,'
[Leland, De script. Brit. p. 355, Pits, De Rebus Anglicis, p. 428.]
BURLEY or BURLEIGH, JOHN (d. 1647), royalist captain, belonged, according to Clarendon, to a good family in the Isle of Wight. In a ‘List of his Magestie’s Navy Royall and Merchant Ships in 1642’ (Peacock, Army lists of the Roundheads and Cavaliers, p. 61) his name appears as captain of the Antelope. Clarendon states that being put out of his command when the fleet rebelled against the king he joined the army, in which he became a general of ordnance. At the end of the war he took up his residence in the Isle of Wight, and, unable to control his indignation when the king entered Newport a prisoner, he caused a drum to be beaten, to gather a force to rescue him from the castle. The attempt was so quixotic as scarcely to deserve any severer punishment than ridicule; but in such a serious light was it regarded by the parliament that a special commission of
