Burroughes, Jeremiah

, a puritan divine, was born in 1599, and educated at Cambridge, but was obliged to quit that university for nonconformity. He sheltered himself for some time under the hospitable roof of the earl of Warwick, and afterwards retired to Holland, where he was chosen minister of an English congregation at Rotterdam. In 1642 he returned to England, and became preacher of two of the largest and most numerous congregations in London, Stepney and Cripplegate. It was not his object to spread sedition, but peace, for which he earnestly laboured. His “Irenicum” was one of the last subjects upon which he preached. He was a man of learning, candour, and modesty, and of irreproachable life. A considerable number of his writings are in print, many of Vhich were published after his death, which happened November 14, 1646. When the assembly of divines reformed the church by placing that of Scotland in lieu of that of England, Mr. Burroughes was a dissenter from their decrees, and lamented that after all the mischiefs of rebellion and revolution, men were not allowed to have liberty of conscience any more than before. These divisions are said to have shortened his days. Baxter used to say that if all presbyterians had been like Mr. Marshall, and all independents like Mr. Burroughes, their differences might easily have been compromised. Such men, however, in those distracted times were the “rari nantes in gurgite vasto.” We have before us a list of twelve quartos, and four octavos, mostly published from his Mss. after his death, among which is an “Exposition on Hosea,” 3 vols. but none of them seem, to have attained any great degree of popularity. ¹