Chap. 1V. IleHISTORYof the PURITANS. 559 place, which was accordingly granted, fix juftices of the peace beingK. Charles I. prefent. Some time after Mr. Sheffield broke with his flaff the piftures of 1632. God the Father, in order to new glaze the window; an account of which being tranfmitted to London, an information was exhibited againft him in the liar-chamber, February 8. 1632-3. The information fets forth, " that being evil affeEted to the difcipline of the church, he, with certain con- " federates, without confent'of the bithops, had defaced and pulled down ea a fair and coftly window in the church, containing the hiforyof the a creation, which had Rood there Tome hundred years, and was a great or- namentto it; which profane all might give encouragement to other fchif matical perlons to commit the like outrages." Mr. Sherfield in his defence lays, that the church of St. Edmund's was a His defence:' layfee, and exempted from the jurifdilion of the bifhop of the diocefe ; that the defendant, with the refit of the parifhioners, had lawful power to take down the glafs; and that it was agreed by a weary that the glafs fhould be changed, and the window made new; and that accordingly he took down a quarry or two in aquiet and peaceablemanner; but he avers, that the true hiftory of the creation was not contained in that window, but a falle and impious one : God the Father was painted like an old man with a blue coat, and a pair ofcompafes, to fignify his compafing the heavens and the earth. In the fourth day's work there were fowls of the air flying up fromGod their maker, which fhould have been the fifth: day. In the fifth day's work a naked man is laying upon the earth afleep, with fo much of a naked woman as from the knees upward growing out of his fide, which fhould have been the fifth day; fo that the hif:ory is falle. Further this defendant holds it to be impious,, to make an image or pidture of God the Father, which he undertakes to prove from fcripture, from canons and councils, from the mandates and decrees of fundry em- perors, from the opinions of ancient doetorsvfthe church, and of our molt judicious divines fence the reformation. He adds, that his belief is agreeable to the doltrine of the church of England, and to the homilies, whichfay, that piétures of GOD are monuments of fuperftition, and ought to -be deflroyed; and to queen Elizabeth's injunélions, which command, that all pictures and monuments of idolatry fhouldbe removed out of churches, that no memory of them might remain in walls, glafs windows, or elfewh.ere : Which injunition is confirmed by the canons of the z3th of Elizabeth. Mr. Sherfield concludes his defence with denying, that he was difaffeéted to the difcipline ofthe church of England, or had encouraged any to oppofe thegovernment of it under the reverend bifhops. Though it is hard to make a tolerable reply to thisdefence, yet biLhop Sentence of Laud flood up and fpake in excufe of the painter, Paying, God the father the court. was
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