Opposition To Cromwell
Later Burges was to shift positions. Around 1645-6, according to Trevor-Roper, the new kind of radical preacher exemplified by Hugh Peter becomes prominent, and Burges was in the group dropping away from the close supporters of Oliver Cromwell. He joined the Presbyterian wing of the opposition. The Vindication of the Ministers of the Gospel in and about London was drawn up by Burges in January 1649, and subscribed to by fifty-six other ministers who followed his lead.
When King Charles was brought to trial, Burges was the foremost, at great personal risk, in protesting against the proceeding with his usual freedom and vigour. On 14 January 1649, the day preceding that on which the king was brought from Windsor to be arraigned before the high court of justice, Burges preached at Mercers' Chapel, denouncing the measure in the strongest terms. He and his friends had taken up the cause of the parliament, as he declared in the 'Vindication', published while the trial was in progress, 'not to bring his majesty to justice (as some now speak), but to put him in a better capacity to do justice'.
Read more about this topic: Cornelius Burges
Famous quotes containing the words opposition to, opposition and/or cromwell:
“A man with your experience in affairs must have seen cause to appreciate the futility of opposition to the moral sentiment. However feeble the sufferer and however great the oppressor, it is in the nature of things that the blow should recoil upon the aggressor. For God is in the sentiment, and it cannot be withstood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No man rises so high as he knows not whither he goes.”
—Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)