Project Canterbury
The Collected Works of the Most Reverend Father in God,
William Laud, D.D. Now First Collected.
Volume the Second: Conference with Fisher
Oxford: John Henry Parker.
MDCCCXLIX
Transcribed by John D Lewis
Murdoch University, Western Australia
May 2001
Transcriber's Note
Archbishop Laud believed that the Conference with Fisher was his most important writing. He saw his book as a defence against both Puritan and Romanist and was convinced "That the Church of England must leave the way it is now going, and come back to that way of defence which I have followed in my book, or she shall never be able to justify her separation from the Church of Rome." His enemies tried to use it against him at his trial in 1645, but even they believed that the Conference with Fisher would be his epitaph.
The Editor’s Preface, which makes up this document, provides the religious and social background to the work. It also provides the history of the text and the source of the additions to Laud’s work which are included as footnotes, marginal notes and inserted texts.
Note: In the body of the text the system of footnotes is excessively complex. There is inserted text of marginal notes from ‘A.C’ (ie. Fisher’s account of the Conference); marginal notes of page numbers from ‘A.C.’ for Laud’s quotations; marginal notes of text variations from the original ‘A.C.’ in Laud’s quotation; editorial footnotes to the marginal notes; marginal biblical references; original footnotes; and editorial footnotes! Wherever possible I have included the marginal notes within the text, in square brackets, including biblical references. Footnotes, both original and editorial, become endnotes and are numbered rather than lettered.
Greek text, mostly in footnotes, has been transliterated to italic characters, Latin is left as upright characters unless given italics in the text.
Page numbers from the original are included in square brackets, but note, in the original the Editor’s Preface is numbered in small Roman numerals from [i]-[xxix] enclosed in square brackets, while the next section, the Dedication to King Charles I, is also numbered in small Roman numerals, from iii-xl, without brackets. The introductory material of this volume also includes, as Appendices, the introductory material from ‘A.C.’. Original page numbers are indicated approximately in square brackets. The main text is paged in Arabic numerals.
Section numbers are found as marginal notes in the original, I have included them as headings within the text.
All material enclosed in square brackets is editorial insertion, either by the original editor of the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, or by J.D.L.