Works
Field's apologetic literature attacked what he saw as the elevation of Scholastic opinion into articles of necessary faith, and the emergence of an exalted view of the Roman primacy over the conciliar authority. He concluded that modern Roman Catholicism was echoing the errors of Donatism in its claim to exclusive purity. Field was also at the forefront of the argument that Anglicanism should accept the decrees of the first seven ecumenical councils as binding.
His major work Of the Church was first published in 1606. This contained only the first four of the five intended books. In 1610 was printed the fifth book. A second edition was edited by Nathaniel Field, the author's son, and dedicated to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. This edition is charged by the Scots in their Canterburian's Self-conviction, 1641. with having additions made by Archbishop William Laud. The third edition was printed by William Turner (1635). A modern edition was published by the Ecclesiastical History Society, Cambridge, 1847–52, 4 vols., reprinted without the EHS imprimatur, 1853.
In 1604 Field had published a sermon on Jude 3.
At his death Field had apparently commenced a work entitled A View of the Controversies in Religion, which in these last times have caused the Lamentable Divisions in the Christian World. Only the preface (or perhaps an interim draft thereof), and a few preliminary notes, were completed, and these were printed in his 'Life', by his son Nathaniel. This latter was published by John Le Neve in 1716. From a copy of this life, interleaved with manuscript additions from the author's rough draft by the editor (Le Neve), and some notes by White Kennett, Richard Gough drew up the 'Life of Field,' which was printed in an edition of the Biographia Britannica. Chalmers, in his Biographical Dictionary, transcribed the article and preserved it.
Read more about this topic: Richard Field (theologian)
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