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Oldfield, Joshua, D.D.

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a noted English Presbyterian divine, flourished near the opening of the last century. He was probably born in 1656. He took a prominent part in the disputes which arose in his day regarding the Trinitarian question, and was present at the Salter's Hall Convocation, which had been called February, 1718 or 1719, to bring about, if possible, a harmonious orthodox profession on the basis of the first article of the Church of England, and the answers to the fifth and sixth questions in the Westminster Catechism. Among those who refused to subscribe, Dr. Oldfield was most prominent. He was at that time minister of the Presbyterian Church in Maiden Lane, Globe Alley, close to the spot where the Globe Theatre formerly stood. He was universally conceded to be "a man of great learning and sound judgment, and one of the most eminent of the tutors connected with the Presbyterian body." He died in 1729. He published several of his Sermons (1699-1721), and an essay on the Improvement of Reason (1707, 8vo), from which Paine is believed to have borrowed some ideas for his Age of Reason. See Skeats, History of the Free Churches of England, p. 306-7. (J. H. W.)