Wightman Edward

Wightman Edward was connected with the hamlet of Wykin, and appears, from Burton's "History of Leicestershire," to have resided there, before his apprehension on a charge of heresy at Burton-upon-Trent. Gerard Croese describes him as belonging to the "town" of Burton ; but in the King's letter, under the privy seal, as well as in the warrant for his execution, he is called "Edward Wightman, of the parish of Burton-upon-Trent, in the diocess of Coventry and Lichfield."

In the year 1651, a work was published in London, entitled, "The Narrative History of King James, for the first Fourteen Years, in Four Parts." The fourth Part purports to contain "A True Relation of the Commissions and Warrants for the Condemnation and Burning of Bartholomew Legatt and Thomas Withman," — an evident mistake for Edward Wightman. Gerard Croese errs, also, in calling him "JR. Wightman;" for in all the documents connected with his trial and execution, as well as in Fuller's "Church History," he is uniformly designated " Edward Wightman."

"The Narrative History" above alluded to is without any author's name ; but the documents adduced sufficiently attest the accuracy of the facts recorded. Locke, writing to his correspondent, Limborch, tells him, that, after briefly alluding to the circumstances attending the trial and condemnation of Bartholomew Legate, and his being delivered over to the secular arm, and finally committed to the flames, and burnt in West Smithfield, the anonymous author goes on to say, that Edward Wightman underwent the same punishment in the city of Lichfield, in the year 1611, after being condemned by the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, for holding certain heretical opinions. In the same letter, Locke gives his correspondent a list of the opinions, for holding which Wightman suffered; and Fuller, in his Church History, after stating, that " Edward Wightman, of Burton-upon-Trent, convicted before Richard Neile, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, was burned at Lichfield for far worse opinions (if worse might be) than Legate maintained," proceeds, in his usual quaint style, as follows. "Mary Magdalene indeed was possessed with seven devils, but ten several heresies were laid to Wightman's charge ; namely, those of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arrius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manes, Manichaeus, Photinus, and of the Anabaptists." From this enumeration, which is taken from the warrant for his execution, it is evident, that Wightman was charged with holding opinions, some of which were irreconcilably opposed to each other. "This list," says the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, "of no less than ten heresies, for which this person was condemned to so shocking a death, is very formidable, and deserves to be examined. Ebion, or the Ebionites, Arius and Photinus, severally held opinions concerning Christ, incompatible with each other ; therefore Wightman could but be charged with one of the three. Manes and Manichaeus, are names of one and the same person or sect. Of Simon Magus, Origen tells us expressly, (Contr. Cels. L. vi. p. 272,) that he was a total unbeliever, setting himself up, and being set up by his followers, as a rival to Christ. Here then are four of these heresies struck off the list." Mr. Lindsey might have added, that Ecclesiastical History affords no traces of the existence of any such heretic as "Valentinian," although there were three Roman Emperors of that name; and that the heresiarch intended was Valentinus, the founder of a sect, called, after his own name, Valentinians. This multiplication of heresies, therefore, was a mere artifice, for the purpose of covering the cruelty of the act, by a show of justice ; but it exhibits, at the same time, marks of the grossest, and most unpardonable ignorance.

What Limborch says, in reply to Locke, will be found to be much to the purpose, in this connexion. "I thank you for the labour which you have undertaken at my request. I am glad to have learnt from your letter, what, in the judgment of the Bishops of that period, were the horrid crimes, which could be expiated only by the cruel punishment of burning alive. I see that sometimes one and the same doctrine is expressed in different words ; and in such a manner, that what might have been comprehended in one article, is spun out into many, doubtless that the being charged with a number of heresies might serve as a pretext for so cruel a punishment. I should prefer reading the men's doctrines expressed in their own words; I should thus be certain, that I was not reading the inferences of others, but their own doctrines, and that too, not clothed in obnoxious terms, and perhaps distorted, so as to give a different sense, but openly and candidly enunciated in the very words of the persons themselves, and containing nothing but that, which each of the accused acknowledged as his own."

Mr. Lindsey regretted, that he was not fortunate enough to meet with a copy of the anonymous work mentioned above. (Hist. View of the State of the Unitarian Doctrine, Chap. iv. Sect. i. p. 274.) But the Rev. B. Mardon, to whom the literary world is already indebted for many occasional contributions to the history of Unitarians and Unitarianism, and from whom other important disclosures of a similar nature may be expected in due time, has made known so much of this work as relates to our present subject, in a valuable article on the "Burning of Edward Wightman," inserted in "The Christian Reformer" for the year 1844 (pp. 100—103). The Commission and Warrant for the execution of Wightman, which Mr. Mardon subjoined to that article, the reader will find transferred to the Appendix of the present work, No. ix.

Well might Gilbert Clerke, a learned Unitarian writer, who flourished towards the close of the seventeenth century, ask,—"Reader, if thou art a Christian, what dost I thou think that Christ will say in the day of judgment to those, who not only revile, but cruelly persecute his followers under the name of Pneumatomachi" (those who fight against the Spirit,—a name anciently given to the Macedonians, and sometimes applied, by the contemporaries of Gilbert Clerke, to those who denied the personality of the Holy Spirit): "nay, who burnt alive a certain martyr, (Whitman,) at Lichfield, because he denied the Supreme Godhead of the Holy Ghost, and his coequality with the Father ?"