Commission and warrant for the execution of Edward Wightman

James R.

James by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. To our right trusty and right wel beloved Councellor, Thomas Lord Ellesmere, our Chancellour of England, greeting. Whereas the Reverend Father in God, Richard, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, having judicially proceeded in the examination, hearing and determining of a cause of heresie against Edward Wightman, of the parish of Burton-upon-Trent, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, concerning the wicked heresies of the Ebionites, Cerinthians, Valentinians, Arrians, Macedonians, of Simon Magus, of Manes, Manichees, of Photinus, and Anabaptists, and of other heretical, execrable and unheard-of opinions, by the instinct of Satan, by him excogitated and holden, viz.

That there is not the Trinity of Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, in the Unity of the Deity. 2. That Jesus Christ is not the true natural Son of God, perfect God, and of the same substance, eternity and majesty with the Father in respect of his Godhead. 3. That Jesus Christ is only man and a meer creature, and not both God and man in one person. 4. That Christ our Saviour took not humane flesh of the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that that promise, The seed of the woman shall break the serpent's head, was not fulfilled in Christ. 5. That the person of the Holy Ghost is not God co-equal, co-eternal and co-essential with the Father and Son. 6. That the three Creeds, viz. the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasius Creed, are the heresies of the Nicolaitanes. 7. That he the said Edward Wightman is that prophet spoken of in the eighteenth of Deuteronomy, in these words, I will raise them up a prophet, &c.; and that that place of Isaiah, I alone have trodden the wine-press; and that that place, Whose fan is in his hand, are proper and personal to him, the said Edward Wightman. 8. And that he the said Wightman is that person of the Holy Ghost spoken of in the Scriptures, and the Comforter spoken of in the sixteenth of St John's Gospel. 9. And that those words of our Saviour Christ, of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, are meant of his person. 10. And that that place, the fourth of Malachy, of Elias to come, is likewise meant of his person. 11. That the soul doth sleep in the sleep of the first death, as well as the body, and is mortall as touching the sleep of the first death, as the body is; and that the soul of our Saviour Jesus Christ did sleep in that sleep of death as well as his body. 12. That the souls of the elect saints departed, are not members possessed of the triumphant church in heaven. 13. That the baptizing of infants is an abominable custom. 14. That there ought not to be in the church the use of the Lord's Supper to be celebrated in the elements of bread and wine, and the use of baptism to be celebrated in the element of water, as they are now practised in the Church of England. But that the use of baptism is to be administered in water, only to converts of sufficient age of understanding, converted from infidelity to the faith. 15. That God hath ordained and sent him, the said Edward Wightman, to perform his part in the work of the salvation of the world, to deliver it by his teaching or admonition from the heresie of the Nicolaitanes, as Christ was ordained and sent to save the world, and by his death to deliver it from sin, and to reconcile it to God. 16. And that Christianity is not wholly professed and preached in the Church of England, but only in part. Wherein he the said Edward Wightman hath before the same Reverend Father, as also before Our Commissioners for causes Ecclesiastical within Our realm of England, maintained his said most perillous and dangerous opinions, as appeareth by many his confessions, as also by a book written and subscribed by him and given to us. For the which his damnable and heretical opinions, he is by divine sentence, declared by the said Reverend Father, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, with the advice and consent of learned divines, and other learned in the laws assisting him in judgment, justly adjudged, pronounced and declared to be an obstinate and incorrigible hcretick, and is left by them under the sentence of the great excommunication, and therefore as a corrupt member to be cut off from the rest of the flock of Christ, lest he should infect others professing the true Christian faith; and is to be by Our secular power and authority as an heretick punished; as by the Significant of the said Reverend Father in God, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, bearing date at Lichfield the fourteenth day of December, in the ninth year of Our reign, and remaining in Our Court of Chancery, more at large appeareth. And although the said Edward Wightman hath, since the said sentence pronounced against him, been often very charitably moved and exhorted, as well by the said Bishop, as by many other godly, grave and learned divines, to dissuade, revoke and remove him from the said blasphemous, heretical and Anabaptistical opinions; yet he arrogantly and wilfully persisteth and continueth in the same. We, therefore, according to Our Regal Function and Office, minding the execution of justice in this behalf, and to give example to others lest they should attempt the like hereafter, have determined by the assent of Our Councel to will and require, and do hereby authorize and require you Our said Chancellor immediately upon the receipt hereof to award and make out under Our Great Seal of England, Our Writ of Execution according to the tenor in these presents ensuing. And these presents shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge for the same.

This containeth a warrant to be granted by Your Majesty unto the Lord Chancellour of England, for the awarding of a writ under the Great Seal of England, to the Sheriff of the City of Lichfield, for the burning of Edward Wightman, who is convicted of divers horrible hesesics before the Bishop of Coventrey and Lichfield, and by his sentence left to the secular power, as is by the said Bishop certified to Your Majesty, into Your Highness Court of Chancery,

And is done by force of Your Majesties commandment to me given under Your Highness Sign Manuel.

Henry Hibaitb.

The King to the Sheriff of Our City of Lichfield, greeting. Whereas the Reverend Father in Christ, Richard by Divine Providence of Coventry and Lichfield Bishop, hath signified unto us that he judicially proceeding, according to the exigence of the Ecclesiastical Canons, and of the Laws and Customes of this Our kingdome of England, against one Edward Wightman, of the parish of Burton-upon-Trent, in the diocess of Coventry and Lichfield, of and upon the wicked heresies of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arrius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, of Manes, Manichees, Photinus, and of the Anabaptists and other archhereticks, and moreover, of other cursed opinions belched by the instinct of Satan, excogitated and heretofore unheard of, the aforesaid Edward Wightman appearing before the aforesaid Reverend Father and other divines, and learned in the law, assisting him in judgement, the aforesaid wicked crimes, heresies and other detestable blasphemies and errours stubbornly and pertinaciously, knowingly, maliciously and with an hardened heart, published, defended and dispersed, by definitive sentence of the said Reverend Father, with the consent of divines, learned in the law, aforesaid, justly, lawfully and canonically against the said Edward Wightman in that part brought, stands adjudged and pronounced an heretick, and therefore as a diseased sheep out of the flock of the Lord, lest Our subjects he do infect by his contagion, he hath decreed to be cast out and cut off. Whereas, therefore, the Holy Mother Church hath not further in this part what it ought more to do and prosecute, the same Reverend Father, the same Edward Wightman as a blasphemous and condemned heretic, hath left to Our secular power to be punished with condign punishment, as by the letters patents of the aforesaid Reverend Father the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in this behalf thereupon made is certified unto us into Our Chancery. We, therefore, as a zelot of justice and a defender of the Catholike faith, and willing that the Holy Church and the rights and liberties of the same and the Catholike faith to maintain and defend, and such like heresies and errors every where so much as in us lies to root out and extirpate, and hereticks so convict to punish with condign punishment, holding that such an heretick in the aforesaid form convict and condemned according to the laws and customes of this Our kingdome of England in this part accustomed ought to be burned with fire. We command thee that thou cause the said Edward Wightman being in thy custody, to be committed to the fire in some publike and open place below the city aforesaid, for the cause aforesaid, before the people, and the same Edward Wightman in the same fire cause really to be burned in the detestation of the said crime and for manifest example of other Christians, that they may not fall into the same crime, and this no waies omit, under the peril that shall follow thereon. Witness, &C,

No. X. (Vol. II. p. 544.)