Burkitt, WILLIAM

Burkitt, WILLIAM, commentator, was born at Hitcham, Suffolk, in 1650. He was educated at Stowmarket, and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and must have been ordained at a very early age, as in 1672 he was curate, afterwards rector, at Mildenhall, in Suffolk. In 1692 he was preferred to the vicarage of Dedham, in Essex, and here he died in 1703. Burkitt's sermons were soon forgotten; his Notes on the four Evangelists, and his Expository Notes on the New Testament, were long popular. The last was a meritorious compilation, although as Doddridge said, the 'sentiments vary in different parts of the work, as the authors from whom he took his materials were orthodox or not.'