Anthony Burgess
d. 1664
*Vindiciae Legis* (1646); the Assembly’s great writer on the third use of the law.
Biography
Of St John's Cambridge, Anthony Burgess (distinct from the Assessor Cornelius Burgess) served as Fellow of Emmanuel Cambridge in the 1630s before becoming vicar of Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire from 1635. Burgess was the Assembly's most thorough writer on the third use of the law against the antinomian wing — Vindiciae Legis: or, A Vindication of the Morall Law and the Covenants (1646) is the canonical Reformed response to Tobias Crisp and the strongest English defence of the law's continued normative use for the regenerate. His enormous True Doctrine of Justification Asserted and Vindicated (2 vols, 1648-54) defends imputed righteousness against both Roman and antinomian readings at length. Spiritual Refining (1652-54) is his pastoral magnum opus on sanctification. Ejected at Sutton Coldfield in 1662; died in 1664.
Principal works
- Vindiciae Legis (1646)
- The True Doctrine of Justification (1648–54)
- Spiritual Refining (1652)
English Presbyterian divine
The great majority of the sitting members were English parish ministers of Presbyterian conviction. They formed the drafting core of the Assembly, manning its three standing committees and supplying most of the text of the Confession, the two Catechisms, and the Directory for Public Worship.