1640-1645
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'.
Burges came to the front rank of leaders on the ecclesiastical question in 1641, in connection with the effort made by the House of Lords for an accommodation of ecclesiastical differences. On 12 March the lords' 'committee for innovations' called in the assistance of a body of divines to take part in a sub-committee for examining alleged innovations in doctrine and discipline unlawfully introduced since the Reformation. Of seventeen divines who answered the summons six, headed by William Twisse, and including Burges, Marshall, and Calamy, constituted the section most opposed to the existing ecclesiastical system or its abuses. The four bishops and their friends on the sub-committee agreed to the proposed reformations; while, on the other hand, Twisse and his friends made no proposals antagonistic to episcopacy. The court party was stubborn against all concession; a growing party on the other side was for a more drastic treatment of episcopacy. The lords' attempt to find a modus vivendi was abandoned.
In the commons a measure was introduced, still not attacking episcopacy as such, but for the suppression of deaneries and chapters. John Hacket, afterwards bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (a member of the sub-committee), was put forward on 12 May to defend the menaced corporations at the bar of the house. The house called for Burges to speak in reply to him, which he did on the same afternoon at an hour's notice. Hugh Trevor-Roper points out that this was the day of Strafford's execution. His speech is said to have contained invective; he shared the puritan objection to instrumental music in church services, and made a point of the dissoluteness of cathedral singing-men. At the close of his reply he gave it as his opinion that, while necessary to apply the cathedral foundations to better purposes, 'it was by no means lawful to alienate them from public and pious uses, or to convert them to any private person's profit'. This acknowledgement was afterwards turned against him, for he himself became a purchaser of alienated chapter lands. Burges declared that he had spoken in haste; his mature judgement was in favour of the right of the state to apply to its own purposes the lands which had been assigned for the support of offices since abolished. He had advanced £3,500 to the parliament, and took the lands in payment. The date of his resignation of one of his livings should be noticed: he ceased to be a pluralist within two months of his speech against useless dignities. In the conflict with the king, Burges disclaimed altogether the attitude of rebellion, and his 'Vindication' proves his case.
He sided with the parliament in consequence of the assurances conveyed in the 'propositions and orders' of both houses on 10 June 1642, viz. that any subsidies received by the parliament should be employed only in maintaining 'the Protestant religion, the king's authority, his person in his royal dignity, the free course of justice, the laws of the land, the peace of the kingdom, and the privileges of parliament, against any force which shall oppose them'. For a short time he was (according to Wood) chaplain to Essex's regiment of horse. Subsequent proceedings, at a time when the parliament was overridden by the army, he openly declared to be subversive of the fundamental constitution of the kingdom. Burges's name stands thirty-second on the list of Westminster Assembly divines appointed by the ordinance of 12 June 1643. Twisse was named in the ordinance as prolocutor. On 8 July the assembly appointed Burges one of the two assessors or vice-presidents, and as Twisse was in feeble health, and John White, the other assessor, had fits of gout, on Burges, 'a very active and sharpe man' (as Baillie calls him), fell a good deal of the duty of keeping the assembly in order, at least until the appointment of Charles Herle to succeed Twisse, who died 19 July 1646. Burges was also convener of one of the three committees into which the assembly divided itself at the beginning of its work. His liturgical knowledge (he had a fine collection of the various issues of the common prayer-book) may be traced, Alexander Ferrier Mitchell thinks, in the composition of the 'Directory'.
Burges was one of the few who, in 1643, opposed the imposition of the Solemn League and Covenant, and he carried his opposition so far as to petition the House of Commons to be heard against it. He was not anxious to create an irreparable breach with the episcopal party. IJohn Lightfoot on this occasion abused Burges as 'a wretch to be branded to all posterity, seeking for some devilish ends, either of his own or others, or both, to hinder so great a good of the two nations'. The commons on 2 September suspended Burges from the assembly as a 'turbulent doctor', and would not readmit him till on 15 September he had made his humble apology. However, the covenant was not signed until a clause had been inserted, limiting the sort of 'prelacy' against which it was aimed, so that the 'advocates of a reformed episcopacy could swallow it'. Having once taken the covenant, Burges revered its binding obligation, and could never be prevailed upon to renounce it. Four shillings a day was assigned by the ordinance to each assembly-man; but the allowance was paid in irregular driblets, and Burges was one of those who declined their share, that the poorer members might come somewhat better off.
On 12 March 1644 he was appointed (on the petition of the common councillors of London, December 1643) lecturer at St.Paul's, with a pension of £400 a year, and the dean's house as a residence. On 6 February 1645 he was ordered to give up Watford.
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