In the history of the image
debate, this woodcut stands as a visual example of the growing rift between the
nascent puritan movement and the more conforming Protestants. In 1572, puritan
leaders published An Admonition to Parliament and A Second Admonition
to Parliament, demanding that the Queen continue to purify the English Church
by riddling it of what remained of Roman Catholic practices. In the Second
Admonition, Thomas Cartwright condemned the “blasphemous pictures of God
the father” that appeared in the original Bishops Bible (1568). Despite the
apparent hypocrisy of the Puritans in promoting the Geneva Bible (with its
image of Ezekiel’s vision) while condemning the Bishops Bible, it was the
Bishops Bible that became the appointed scripture to be read in Elizabethan
churches. While the woodcuts used for the first edition of the Bishops Bible,
created by the German artist Virgil Solis, could not be utilized subsequently more
woodcuts (like this image of Isaiah’s vision) were created or copied for later
editions, insisting upon the importance of visual images in religious contexts.
(David J. Davis, From Icons to Idols: Documents on the Image Debate in
Reformation England [Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2015, 2016], 78)
