BURROUGHES (BURROUGHS), JEREMIAH:
English Congregationalist; b. about 1600; d. in London Nov. 13, 1646. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and was graduated M.A. in 1624, but left the university because of non-conformity; was assistant to Edmund Calamy (q.v.) at Bury St. Edmunds; in 1631 became rector of Tivetshall, Norfolk; suspended for non-conformity in 1636 and soon afterward deprived, he went to Rotterdam (1637) and became "teacher" of the English church there; returned to England in 1641 and served as preacher at Stepney and Cripplegate, London. He was a member of the Westminster Assembly and one of the few who opposed the Presbyterian majority. While one of the most distinguished of the English Independents, he was one of the most moderate, acting consistently in accordance with the motto on his study door: Opinionum varietas et opinantium unitas non sunt aarnrara (" Difference of belief and unity of believers are not inconsistent "). His publications were many, the most important being An Exposition with Practical Observations on the Prophecy of Hosea (4 vols., London, 1643-57).
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Burrell Burton
BURROUGHS (BURROUGH), GEORGE: The
most prominent victim of the Salem witchcraft delusion; b. about 1650; executed on Gallows Hill, Salem' Mass., Aug. 19, 1692. He was graduated at Harvard, 1670; preached at Casco (Portland), Me.; at Salem Village (Danvers), Mass., 1680-83, where he suffered because of a church quarrel antedating his pastorate; was in Casco again in 1685, and when the town was destroyed by the French and Indians in May, 1690. In 1692, while acting as preacher at Wells, Me., he was accused of witchcraft by certain of his old parishioners at Salem and arrested; was brought to trial at Salem Aug. 5 and convicted on all indictments against him; before his execution he made an address which moved the hearers to tears and led Cotton Mather to remind the crowd that the devil often appeared as an angel of light.
Bibliography: J. L. Sibley, Harvard Graduates, vol. ii., Cambridge, 1881; C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ib. 1867.
BURROWS, WINFRID OLDFIELD: Church of England; b. at London Nov. 9, 1858. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (B.A., 1881) and Christ Church, Oxford (M.A., 1885), and ■was ordered deacon in 1886 and priested two years later. He was a tutor of Christ Church from 1884 to 1891, after which he was principal of Leeds Clergy School until 1900. He was then vicar of Holy Trinity, Leeds, for three years (1900-03), and since 1903 has been vicar of St. Augustine's, Edgbaston, Birmingham. He was commissioner for North China in 1894 and for Natal in 1901, as well as surrogate for the diocese of Ripon in 1900- 1903 and examining chaplain to the bishop of Wakefield in 1888-1905. Since 1904 he has been archdeacon of Birmingham, and since 1905 has also been examining chaplain to the bishop of Birmingham. In addition to briefer contributions, he has written The Mystery of the Cross (London, 1896).
BURSFELDE, CONGREGATION OF: An association of reformed Benedictine monks, taking its name from the abbey of Bursfelde on the Weser, about 10 m. west of Gbttingen, founded by Count Henry of Nordheim and his wife Gertrude in 1093. It had been richly endowed, but by the beginning of the fifteenth century was so far fallen into decay that only a single monk lived there, and he in great poverty, while the church was used by traveling merchants as a stable. Johann of Minden, abbot of Rheinhausen, with Rembert ter List, prior of the Windesheim monastery of Wittenberg, was charged with reforming monastic life in Saxony and Brunswick after the Council of Basel; and the case of Bursfelde was specially commended to him by Duke Otto of Brunswick. He took up the task in 1433, and obtained the monks he needed from the abbey of St. Matthias at Treves. Dying in 1439, he left an equally energetic successor in Johann Hagen, who thoroughly completed the task in the thirty years of his rule, and founded the Congregation, including four other monasteries, with a view to the strict observance of the monastic rule, after the model of the Windesheim Congregation (q.v.). The spirit grew until Hagen
could number thirty-six monasteries, besides some nunneries, under his leadership. The movement spread into the Netherlands also, under the influence of Jan Busch and Nicholas of Cusa. A yearly chapter of the whole congregation was held, always under the presidency of the abbot of Bursfelde. It received numerous privileges from the provincial council held by Nicholas of Cusa in 1451, and was confirmed by Pius II. in 1458 and 1461. It grew after Hagen's death until it numbered 142 monasteries; but in the sixteenth century it began to decline, though there was a brief revival about 1629 and during the Thirty Years' War. Many of the monasteries came into the possession of Protestant princes, including Bursfelde itself, whose Catholic abbot was replaced in 1579 by a Lutheran. Since the foundation of the University of Gottingen, the senior professor of the theological faculty has borne the title of abbot of Bursfelde, with an income derived from the revenues of the foundation. The last head of the Congregation was Bernhard Bierbaum, abbot of Werden; who was elected in 1780 at a chapter held in Hildesheim and died in 1798. L. Schulze.
Bibliography: Sources are: The Chronicon Windeshemense by J. Busch, ed. with introduction by K. Grube, Halle, 1886; J. G. Leuckfeld, Antiquitates Bursfeldenses, Leipsic, 1713; Ewelt, Die Anfange der Bursfelder Benediktiner-Kongregation, in Zeitschrift fur vaterlandische Geschichte, 3d series, vol. v., Munster, 1865. Consult Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, i. 141-144, 159, 196.
BURT, WILLIAM: Methodist Episcopal bishop; b. at Padstow (38 m. n.w. of Plymouth), Cornwall, England, Oct. 23, 1852. He was educated at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. (B.A., 1879), and Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J. (1881). He entered the New York East Conference in 1881, and after being successively pastor of St. Paul's Church, Brooklyn (1881-83), and the De Kalb Avenue Church in the same city (1883-86), he was transferred to the Italy Conference and made presiding elder of the Milan district. He then resided in Florence from 1888 to 1890, when he removed to Rome, where he remained fourteen years, having charge of the Methodist Episcopal churches and schools of Italy and establishing several churches and schools, as well as a publishing house and two colleges. He was a delegate to the Ecumenical Methodist Conference at London in 1901, and to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1892, 1896, 1900, and 1904. He was also a fraternal delegate to the Irish Conference at Belfast in 1906 and to the British Conference at Nottingham in the same year. In theology he is an orthodox, though liberal, member of his denomination. In 1904 he was elected bishop by the General Conference at Los Angeles, Cal. Since that time he has resided in Europe, with special jurisdiction over the Methodists of the Continent. He was created a cavalier of the Order of Mauritius and Lazarus in 1903, and is the author of several works in Italian, and in 1889 founded the Italian weekly U Evangelista.
BURTON, ASA: Congregational minister; b. at Stonington, Conn., Aug. 25, 1752; d. at Thetford, Vt., May 1, 1836. He was graduated at
Burton Busch,