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Untitled Article
For answere whereunto , the reader is to understands the right title of the boobe set downe in the first page thereof , is , A Briefe and Plaine Declaration , &c . The other is of like the printer ' s , or some others to whose hande the copie might come , a thing usuallie done , and without any just note of ostentation in the author , who is
seldom or never privie to such additions * " From this it would appear that the work was printed by some one else than the writer , which is indeed more plainly intimated in the introductory sentences of the Dedication of the Defence .
The Editor of the late quarto edition of Wood's Athenae quotes a passage which fixes the work upon Dr . John Field , He says , ( I . 536 , ) " Dr . Matthew Sutcliffe , in his Answer to a
certain Libel Supplicatorie , 4 to ., 1592 , p . 41 , says , * Neither hath the libeller any reason to build his fancies upon Mr . Fulk's opinions , for in the confutation of the notes of the Rhemish
Testament , he doth defend the government of the Church of England as it now is , and albeit he was sometime of other mind , yet did he afterward retract his former sayings- And when John Field , contrary to his mind , did publish the pamphlet called the Learned Discourse , he was offended with him , and if he had lived would have confuted
the same himselfe / " That Field was the author , as here suggested , appears to us very probable . There is , however , a difficulty on this hypothesis . The author , as we have seen , wrote his own Defence , which was published in 1588 ; but Field ' s death is placed
by Wood ( Athen . Oxon . 4 to ., ut sup . ) in the latter end of the year 1587 . This is still not an insuperable objection ; for Wood acknowledges that there is much uncertainty in Field's history , no less than three persons of both his names having been at Oxford about the same time . Even if he died
in the latter end of the year 1587 , he might have answered Bridges , whose attack was made in the cour 3 e of that year , and the Defence might not have beera published until after his death .
It should be added , that Strype ( Life of Whitffift , fol . p . 531 ) puts Field amongst the chief Puritan ministers that * ' fel into troubles ' in the year 1590 A . third person has been named as
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the , author . The copy before us has the following manuscript entry on the side of the title-page : " Best says in \\\ $ Churches Plea for her Right , p . 72 , ' That this Learned , &c , was writt by Dr . Ffulkr On the right-hand side of the leaf is written in the same hand , "Answered by Dr . Bridges , Dean of Sarum , 1587 , in 4 to . " This memorandum is supported by a MS . work
in Dr . Williams ' s Library , entitled , u A Chronological Account of Eminent Persons , Letters , &c ., from 1534 to 1695 , in 3 volumes , " folio ; a work which came to the Library from Mr . Neal , and was apparently much relied on by that historian . The following is from Vol . II . 419 , ( 1—5 , ) under the head Wm . Fulke : " Tho * he was
a very holy man and a great scholler , yet ( as it fared with many other such ) rose no higher in the Church , some thinke because he scrupled some points of Conformity , and they are confirmed in those thoughts ( among many other reasons ) because it is affirmed in . a book , entitled , ' A Brief and Plain
Declaration / &c , or , ' A Learned Discourse' ( as it is entitled in every page in some editions ) . Though it hath Mr . Dudley Fenner ' s name put to it , it was written by Dr . Wm . Fulke : divers writers quote him as the author of it , as the Answerer of Dr . George Downham ' s Sermon ia 1609 . Died
28 th Aug ., 1589 /' This is positive but anonymous authority . Wood , however , with all his industry , had never learned the fact ; and it casts a little suspicion on the statement that Fulk was better known
as a writer than either of the other persons to whom the book is attributed , and could scarcely have remained concealed if he had been the author , and that he continued not only in communion with the Church of England , but also in possession of his living of Kedington , in Suffolk , to the day of his death .
What the author of the manuscript in Dr . Williams ' s Library means by saying that the " Brief and Plain Declaration" " hath Mr . Dudley Fenner ' s name to it , " we know not . Is
there a printed edition with his name ? Or , does the assertion merely refer to some rumour to this effect , in consequence of which Fenner's name had been entered on the title-page by collectors and in the catalogues of libra-
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The Puritans . —No . I .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1825, page 131, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2534/page/3/
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