Anthony Burges or Burgess (died 1664) was a Nonconformist English clergyman, a prolific preacher and writer.

Life

He was a son of a schoolmaster at Watford

Watford

Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...

, and not related to Cornelius Burgess or John Burges

John Burges

John Burges was an English clergyman and physician. He held nuanced reformist views on the vexed questions of the time, on clerical dress and church ceremonies. His preaching offended James I of England, early in his reign, and Burges went abroad for medical training...

, his predecessor at Sutton Coldfield. He studied at St. John's College, Cambridge from 1623. He became a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...

. At Emmanuel he was tutor to John Wallis

From 1635 he was Rector at Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...

; during the First English Civil War

First English Civil War

The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...

, he took refuge in Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

, and lectured the parliamentary garrison. He was a member of the Westminster Assembly

Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...

. He lost his position as Rector in 1662, after the Restoration, despite John Hacket

John Hacket

John Hacket was an English churchman, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry from 1661 until his death.-Life:He was born in London and educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge. On taking his degree he was elected a fellow of his college, and soon afterwards wrote the comedy, Loiola , which...

's urging to conform, and then and lived at Tamworth

Tamworth

Tamworth is a town and local government district in Staffordshire, England, located north-east of Birmingham city centre and north-west of London. The town takes its name from the River Tame, which flows through the town, as does the River Anker...

.

Works

He published various separate sermons, including a funeral sermon on Thomas Blake

Thomas Blake (minister)

-Life:He was a native of Staffordshire, and entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1616 in his nineteenth year. He proceeded B.A. and M. A., and having obtained orders, had some minor church position. In 1648 he subscribed to the solemn league and covenant in 1648 among the ministers of...

, and:

• Vindiciae Legis, a Vindication of the Moral Law . . . (against Antinomians) in twenty-nine lectures at Lawrence Jury,' 1646.
• The True Doctrine of Justification Asserted and Vindicated from the Errors of Papists, Arminians, Socinians, and Antinomians, in thirty lectures at Lawrence Jury, 1648.
• Spiritual Refining (120 sermons), 1652.
• A Treatise of Justification, Including On the Natural Righteousness of God, and Imputed Righteousness of Christ (1654)
• Expository Sermons (145) on the 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, 1656
• The Scripture Directory ... a Practical Commentary upon the whole third chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, to which is annexed the Godly and Natural Man's Choice, &c., 1659.
• Doctrine of Original Sin asserted, 1659.

Two volumes of his major work on justification

Justification (theology)

Rising out of the Protestant Reformation, Justification is the chief article of faith describing God's act of declaring or making a sinner righteous through Christ's atoning sacrifice....

 appeared, followed by works of the 1650s on grace

Divine grace

In Christian theology, grace is God’s gift of God’s self to humankind. It is understood by Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to man - "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" - that takes the form of divine favour, love and clemency. It is an attribute of God that is most...

 and original sin

Original sin

Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...

.