Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sherwin, William (1607-1687?)

by William Arthur Shaw

SHERWIN, WILLIAM (1607–1687?), divine, born in 1607, was appointed to the sequestered living of Wallington, Hertfordshire, shortly before October 1645. In that month the sequestered minister, John Bowles, was summoned before the committee for plundered ministers for assaulting Sherwin. Sherwin also acted as lecturer or assistant to Josias Bird at Baldock. He was either silenced at Wallington in 1660 or ejected in 1662. He died at Fowlmere, Cambridge, in the house of his son-in-law, aged about 80. Sherwin married, on 11 Sept. 1637, Dorothea Swan, described as ‘generosa.’ His son, William Sherwin (fl. 1670–1710) [q. v.], the engraver, prefixed an engraved portrait of his father to several of his works.

Most of Sherwin's works are anonymous, and they were sometimes reprinted with titles differing from the originals. He wrote:

1. ‘A Covenant to walk with God. … Solemnly entered into by certain persons resolving to live according to and in the power of the life of Christ in them,’ London, 1646, 12mo.
2. ‘Πρόδρομος,’ London, 1665, 4to.
3. ‘Eἰρηνικόν,’ London, 1665, 4to.
4. ‘Λόγος περὶ Λόγου, or the Word written concerning the Word Everlasting,’ London, 1670, 4to.
5. ‘Ίερo-μητρόπολις, or the Holy, the Great, the Beloved New Jerusalem … made manifest,’ London, 1670 (?), 4to.
6. ‘Ἐκκλησιαστης, or the first and last preacher of the Everlasting Gospel,’ &c., London, 1671, 4to.
7. ‘Xλεῖς [sic] εὐαγγελίου τοῦ μυστικοῦ or a key of the doctrines,’ &c., 1672; contains a reprint of fourteen separate tracts of Sherwin's dating 1671–4.
8. ‘Oἰκουμένη μέλλουσα: the world to come, or the doctrine of the Kingdom of God,’ 1671–4, 4to; a general reprint of several treatises, like No. 7.
9. ‘The doctrine of Christ's glorious Kingdom now shortly approaching,’ 1672, 4to.
10. ‘Ἐξαναστασις, or the Saints rising … at the first blessed resurrection,’ &c., London, 1674, 4to.
11. ‘Xρόνοι αποκαταστασέως πάντων, or the times of restitution of all things,’ &c., London, 1675, 8vo.
12. ‘Eὐαγγέλιον αἰώνιον, or the Saints first revealed and covenanted mercies,’ &c., London, 1676, 4to.

[Addit. MS. 15669, ff. 186, 365; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, ii. 201; Calamy's Account, p. 361; Urwick's Nonconformity in Herts, pp. 568–9.]

W. A. S.