Edward Wightman the Unitarian Martyr, Article in The Bible Christian (May, 1843) Vol.5
Edward Wightman of Hinckley, Leicester, being suspected of heresy, was arrested at Burton, on the 9th April, 1611, and carried prisoner to the palace of Dr. Richard Neile,* bishop of Litchfield, by whom he was to be tried next day. From an article in the Christian Pioneer for last month, written by Mr. W. Mountford, we take the following account of his trial and death:—
At nine o'clock in the morning of Thursday the 10th April, Edward Wightman was taken from the bishop's palace to the cathedral. The streets, the windows of the houses, and the cathedral yard, were crowded with spectators. The chancellor, prebendaries, and most of the clergy of the county were present at the trial, for the bishop had sent to solicit their attendance, at the same time that he dispatched his proctor for the prisoner.
The bishop ordered the chancellor to read the indictment, which was listened to in the profoundest silence. It commenced with a preamble on the church's happiness in these latter days, in having a king as its head, instead of the pope, that antichrist; it then proceeded to enumerate the statutes against heresy, and went on to charge Edward Wightman of Hinckley, in the county of Leicester, as a heretic, on the vehement suspicion of his most sacred majesty, James, king of Britain, Ireland, and France. The indictment then proceeded to say, that his most Christian majesty, as Christ's vicegerent of the English church, and as defender of the faith, charged the said Edward Wightman with each and all of the following several heresies, namely, those of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manes, Manichaeus, Photinus, and of the Anabaptists.
Wightman knew at once the origin of his arrest, when he heard that the king was his accuser.
"What is thy plea," said the bishop, "guilty or not guilty?"
"My lord bishop," answered Wightman, "I am but this instant acquainted with the matter against me. Suffer my trial to be deferred, to give me time for thought."
"No," answered the bishop, "if thou art not guilty, say so, and I have then the king's directions to discharge and entreat thee well, on thy reading at the cross the thirty-nine articles, and the three creeds of most holy church."
Just then, Wightman discovered his friend Hadrian Hamsted, who seemed to entreat his compliance. For a minute or two he was tempted. He thought of his opinions, known only to two persons in the world. He looked at the bishop and the clergy; he looked over the faces of the thousands of persons crowded round him; these fellow-creatures of mine, he thought, shall I cut myself off from them, and be counted a monster; and what folly to peril myself for my opinions, which may only be carefully contrived falsehoods—why should I be right, and all those learned men, and those ten thousand persons be wrong. He thought of his dear wife and child, and if he died for his Unitarianism, how very little good his martyrdom could do it.
At last he spoke, "My lord bishop, the Lord Jesus Christ will not have us judge one another, but directs that each servant should to his own master, stand or fall. Let it be so with me, I pray. Swear me now to my firm belief in my master Christ. It is impossible to be guilty of those many heresies with which I am charged. They are self-contradictory. Therefore let me clear myself of his majesty's most vehement suspicion, by proving my belief in the Scriptures, and all that they contain."
"What!" exclaimed the bishop fiercely, "a man not guilty of all those heresies! thou art disloyal as well as a schismatic. I tell thee, the king** it is, hath drawn out thy indictment, and dost impeach the royal learning? Bethink thee, caitiff!"
"May it please your lordship, I believe in God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and but for whose presence, the universe would sink into that chaos, 'without shape and void,' from which its Maker's voice on the morning of creation did command it. I believe in God, without whose ever-exerted power, there would be no sound, or motion, or life, throughout the silent world. I believe in him, as the fountain of all truth, justice, holiness, and love; whose face brightens the countenance of the angels, as they behold it; and whose character fills human minds with goodness, as they think of it. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world from the sin, gross ignorance, and wretchedness, which defile and darken it. I believe that what he has already done on earth, and what he is still preparing among the many mansions of his Father's house, surpasses in grandeur all mortal thought; and that his coming will eventually appear so important as to surpass in glory, the creation of this wonderful world, teeming as it does, with the divine goodness, and over-arched as it is, by the splendid firmament of God's building. I believe in the Scriptures, that they are so precious and of such infinite value, that their, perusal were worth a life-time of agony, had not God granted them to human reading freely. I believe that there is not a soul in your lordship's diocese, but that religion makes him richer, than if without it, he possessed the wealth of the Spaniards and the wisdom of Solomon. I believe in the future judgment with all the faith of which man's heart is capable. I believe that heaven is happier than prophets ever dreamed of, and that hell is more dreary and remorseful than sinner ever yet shuddered at. I believe that at the judgment, there will not be a child whom your lordship confirms in the church, that would part with one holy feeling from its heart, though some tempter should offer it the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them as an exchange. I believe that—"
"That about the church," cried the bishop, "is very true. Do you hear, you Wetherby farmers? This heretic does not grudge tithe like you. I could like well to hear thee rate these wretches, for impiously cheating holy church, and damning themselves everlastingly thereby. But I have much business and little time, I must away to his majesty. Here, let me hear thee read the articles; and then when thou hast read them again at the cross, together with the three creeds, in my chancellor's hearing, thou art acquit."
Wightman received the Book of Common Prayer, and read in a loud and solemn voice, "There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passion; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible." And there he stopped, and was seemingly lost in thought.
"Speed thee man," cried the bishop, "and in unity of this godhead there be three persons of one substance—art spelling a horn-book there?"
Wightman laid the book down.
"What! thou loathsome Arian, detestable Cerinthian, wilt roast like Legate a month ago. Ay! dost start? The sparks of his burning are coming across the country to Litchfield, and they'll fall in the yard here to-morrow. For his majesty has graciously been pleased to send bis warrant for thy instant burning in case of obstinacy. I talked with Legate myself.*** He was not altogether as abominable as thou; but he was a horrible wicked monster; he scrupled prayer to God the Son, and maintained against the king, the prayer-book, and myself, that the Godhead was one person. His majesty graciously permitted him to live in prison many months; but when the new Bible was to come out, the king said he must die;**** for that not a heretic should ever see it; and the king had him burned to death yesterday was three weeks. Why, thou pitiful ignorant man, what think you are curates for, and tithes, and priests, and church-ales, and rectors, and clerk-ales, and the prayer-book, and glebe-lands, and deans, archdeacons, doctors, and easter-dues; what are bishops and arch-bishops for? What is the church for, but to be believed? What is the king defender of the faith for, if the king's faith is not good enough for his subjects?"
"My lord, it is not the church that saves men, but what truth the church teaches. Saving faith is of God's giving and not of the king's forcing; it comes out of a man's heart, and cannot be put into his mouth."
"Dost thou believe in the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity," said the impatient bishop, "three persons in one God?"
"There is no such God in the Scriptures," answered Wightman.
"Ha!" cried the bishop, and clapped his hands, and turned himself to a canon who sat near him; "it will glad his majesty to learn, how miraculous a scent he hath for heresy.***** Here now hath he tracked it these six-score miles from Whitehall! By St. Andrew, his majesty's patron saint, but his gracious majesty will laugh to know, that he hath a touch for king's heresy, as well as for king's evil. What now is the Holy Ghost, if he be not God?"
Wightman answered, "It is God's Holy Ghost— his help—his Holy Spirit, which he gave Christ without measure, in which the apostles rejoiced, with which the early saints were strengthened and blessed, and which prayerful and earnest-minded men still obtain from God 'the Father of lights.'"
The bishop inquired, "Hast thou the Holy Spirit?"
Wightman answered him, "It is not a matter to boast of, my lord, scarcely to be mentioned but between man and his Maker. I humbly hope, however, that, in answer to my earnest entreaties, God did grant me the aid of his Holy Spirit, to rectify my judgment, purify my feelings, and to guide me in my researches after his hidden truth." "Now," said the bishop, "Master Secretary, write down that he sayeth he is the Holy Ghost." ******
Wightman remonstrated, "I said not so, my lord; you make me a blasphemer."
"It was thy meaning, man," said the bishop; "one should never get the truth out of these foolish heretics if one did not help them. Hast written that he sayeth he is the Holy Ghost? And now, Edward Wightman, hast ought to say before I deliver thee over to the civil power, to be burned to-morrow; for holy mother church is too merciful herself to hurt even a heretic?"
Just then, the sunshine streamed through a painted window, casting on Wightman "a dim religious light."
"Bear witness," he said, "that I die for the worship of the one God, the Father, for worshipping as the six earliest, holiest generations of disciples, for they never heard of the name, much less the doctrine of a Trinity. I die, not for despising, but for loving the Lord Jesus Christ. If I valued the gospel less, I would say those creeds, and be happy with my wife and child, and keep my manor and my hall at Hinckley, which now will be confiscated. I die in the greatest cause man can die for, to uphold the unity, the unrivalled majesty, the undivided glory, and the unshared dominion of the Creator, the God of the heavens and earth, and of all eternity. I confess my fear of the dreadful death I am to be doomed to; but, with your feelings, it is your duty perhaps to sentence me. But there is light in the gospel, compared with which the common notions of religion are gross darkness. Many martyrs may have to die first, and many fierce persecutions have to be borne, and much contempt, and wrong, and loss, have to be endured, perhaps for ages; but the time will come when God the Father will be the only God, and when Christians will rise above these bloody, and all other persecuting practices, into the love of which the Lord Jesus was a revelation."
"Wicked and foolish man!" cried the bishop. "Dost thou not think so?" he said, turning to the rector of Wonnerton, down whose aged cheeks the tears were rolling; "and you," said he, to a scowling priest from Coventry, "guilty, is not he?" Then, when his grace had disengaged his lawn-sleeves which had become entangled with the ornamental work of his chair, he rose and said, "I pronounce decree, and declare thee, Edward Wightman, an obdurate, contumacious, and incorrigible heretic. Master Sheriff, remove thy prisoner. Here is his majesty's warrant for his execution in the manner prescribed.******* It is his majesty's will that no one be admitted to speech with him, for fear of heretical infection. Master, O, Sir Sheriff, thou must fix to-morrow evening at latest for the burning, for I am going to London, to examine the new translation of the Bible, which his majesty has been pleased to command, and which has been executed by learned men, deep in the interests of holy mother church. When I see his majesty, he will be discontented unless I report him the death, or at least the recovery of the heretic. Sir Sheriff, mind the counsel as touching the prisoner's seclusion, and make ready for to-morrow."
Soon after the crowd began to move, Hadrian Hamsted threw his arms round his friend's neck. "Officers!" exclaimed the Sheriff; and one of them struck Hadrian Hamsted on the head, and threw him aside insensible. Wightman was then guarded out of the cathedral by the constables. As he was taken through the door, a paper was put in his hands, which, when he was left alone in Litchfield gaol, he found was a hurried note from the chancellor of Litchfield cathedral, expressive of the profoundest sorrow for Wightman's fate, and informing him that his wife and child should be abundantly provided for, for that he, the chancellor, was aged and childless, and would make them his heirs.
The execution was announced for six o'clock on Friday evening. At five in the afternoon, the stake was erected in the cathedral yard, under the superintendence of a beadle. A stranger addressed him—"So you are going to burn the heretic, and thus cauterize the sores of the church. Their successors are better, more business-like bishops than the apostles themselves; don't you think so, master beadle? What way religion would have made; for every beadle now, there would have been fifty, if a few hundred Pharisees had been burned at first! But, do you know, the apostles cared nothing about tithe, or a high-priestship. They had no zeal for the church, like our bishop; they even forgave their enemies. Is the wood dry, my man?"
The beadle was rather confused by the stranger's manner and address, but answered,
"Yes, master, it has been cut these two years, out of Copsall-wood side. It'll burn when I light it."
"Whence shall you get the light?" asked the stranger.
The beadle answered, "I live at yonder little house, with the green shutters."
"Look you there," said the stranger, and gave the beadle an open Bible; "if Christ would not let the disciples pray for fire on the Samaritans, ought you to allow fire from your house to burn this Edward Wightman?"
"Well," said the beadle, "there is gospel against it, and I'll let it alone." The stranger then went away, and the beadle added, "But some body must do it; as well I as another."
At seven o'clock, Edward Wightman was brought into the cathedral yard, and chained to the stake. The faggots were piled round him quickly, and in an hour his ashes were mingled with those of the wood, and his liberated spirit was returned "unto God who gave it."
• Dr. Richard Neile, Archbishop of York, passed through all the degrees and orders of the Church of England, having been a schoolmaster, curate, vicar, parson, chaplain, Master of the Savoy, Dean of Westminster, Clerk of the Closet, Bishop of Rochester, Litchfield, Lincoln, Durham, Winchester, and, lastly. Archbishop of York, 'tis certain, he had few or none of the qualifications of a primitive bishop, for he hardly preached a sermon in twelve years, but gained his preferments by flatter)' and servile court compliances.—Neals Hist. ii. p, 360.
**"The commissions and warrants for the condemnation and burning of Edward Wightman at Litchfield, 1611, were signed with king James's own hand."—History of the first 14 years of King James.
*** "That Arian who this year suffered in Smithfield. His name, Bartholomew Legate; native county, Essex; person, comely; complexion, black; age, about forty years; of a bold spirit, confident carriage, fluent tongue, excellently skilled in the Scriptures. -His conversation, for aught I can learn to the contrary, very unblameable. (Some (it) his damnable tenets were as followeth: 1. That the creeds called the Nicene creed and Athanasius' creed, contain not a profession of the true Christian faith. 2. That Christ was not' God of God; begotten, not made;' but begotten and made. 3. That there are no persons in the godhead. 4. That Christ is not to be prayed unto.
"To Smithfield he was brought to be burned, March 18th.—Vast was the conflux of people about him. Never did a scarefire at midnight summon more hands to quench, than this at noon-day did eyes to behold it. At last, refusing all merer (be was offered pardon if he would recant), he was burned to ashes. And so we leave him, the first that for a long time suffered death in that manner."— Thomas Fuller.
****Two of the conditions which the translators of our common version were to observe in their work, were to keep as close as possible to the Bishop's Bible, and that the old ecclesiastical words should he kept, as Church, not to be translated Congregation. And two of the events amid which the common version was completed, were the burning of two Unitarians.
*****This proposed flattery was exactly to the king's taste, and no doubt helped the bishop to the Lincoln mitre. James declared himself a Presbyterian on leaving Scotland to assume the English crown. But the bishops persuaded him to make it his aphorism "no bishop, no king." The bishops flattered him with the possibility of becoming absolute: hence this sudden liking for Episcopacy, and bis inveterate hatred of the liberty-loving Puritans. In the General Assembly of the Scottish church, in speaking of "our neighbour kirk of England," he called their service "an evil said mass in English," wanting "nothing of the mass but the liftings." But within nine months of bis coming to England, Bishop Bancroft bad fallen on his knees for joy "that Almighty God, of his singular mercy, has given us such a king, as since Christ's time has not been." Nay, so episcopalian had the king become from breathing English air for two hundred and eighty days, that the delighted Lord Primate told him "undoubtedly your majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's spirit."
******Among Wightman's enumerated opinions there are some that savour of vanity and superstition, such as his being the prophet foretold Deut xviii. but we may well hesitate here whether such were the man's real sentiments, or only those which his adversaries would fix upon him._ Lindsey.
******* Unitarianism was punishable with death, till towards the end of the seventeenth century; its professors were liable to perpetual imprisonment in England, and to death in Scotland, up to the year 1813, and it is still assorted to be an offence at common law.
Edward Wightman of Hinckley, Leicester, being suspected of heresy, was arrested at Burton, on the 9th April, 1611, and carried prisoner to the palace of Dr. Richard Neile,* bishop of Litchfield, by whom he was to be tried next day. From an article in the Christian Pioneer for last month, written by Mr. W. Mountford, we take the following account of his trial and death:—
At nine o'clock in the morning of Thursday the 10th April, Edward Wightman was taken from the bishop's palace to the cathedral. The streets, the windows of the houses, and the cathedral yard, were crowded with spectators. The chancellor, prebendaries, and most of the clergy of the county were present at the trial, for the bishop had sent to solicit their attendance, at the same time that he dispatched his proctor for the prisoner.
The bishop ordered the chancellor to read the indictment, which was listened to in the profoundest silence. It commenced with a preamble on the church's happiness in these latter days, in having a king as its head, instead of the pope, that antichrist; it then proceeded to enumerate the statutes against heresy, and went on to charge Edward Wightman of Hinckley, in the county of Leicester, as a heretic, on the vehement suspicion of his most sacred majesty, James, king of Britain, Ireland, and France. The indictment then proceeded to say, that his most Christian majesty, as Christ's vicegerent of the English church, and as defender of the faith, charged the said Edward Wightman with each and all of the following several heresies, namely, those of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manes, Manichaeus, Photinus, and of the Anabaptists.
Wightman knew at once the origin of his arrest, when he heard that the king was his accuser.
"What is thy plea," said the bishop, "guilty or not guilty?"
"My lord bishop," answered Wightman, "I am but this instant acquainted with the matter against me. Suffer my trial to be deferred, to give me time for thought."
"No," answered the bishop, "if thou art not guilty, say so, and I have then the king's directions to discharge and entreat thee well, on thy reading at the cross the thirty-nine articles, and the three creeds of most holy church."
Just then, Wightman discovered his friend Hadrian Hamsted, who seemed to entreat his compliance. For a minute or two he was tempted. He thought of his opinions, known only to two persons in the world. He looked at the bishop and the clergy; he looked over the faces of the thousands of persons crowded round him; these fellow-creatures of mine, he thought, shall I cut myself off from them, and be counted a monster; and what folly to peril myself for my opinions, which may only be carefully contrived falsehoods—why should I be right, and all those learned men, and those ten thousand persons be wrong. He thought of his dear wife and child, and if he died for his Unitarianism, how very little good his martyrdom could do it.
At last he spoke, "My lord bishop, the Lord Jesus Christ will not have us judge one another, but directs that each servant should to his own master, stand or fall. Let it be so with me, I pray. Swear me now to my firm belief in my master Christ. It is impossible to be guilty of those many heresies with which I am charged. They are self-contradictory. Therefore let me clear myself of his majesty's most vehement suspicion, by proving my belief in the Scriptures, and all that they contain."
"What!" exclaimed the bishop fiercely, "a man not guilty of all those heresies! thou art disloyal as well as a schismatic. I tell thee, the king** it is, hath drawn out thy indictment, and dost impeach the royal learning? Bethink thee, caitiff!"
"May it please your lordship, I believe in God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and but for whose presence, the universe would sink into that chaos, 'without shape and void,' from which its Maker's voice on the morning of creation did command it. I believe in God, without whose ever-exerted power, there would be no sound, or motion, or life, throughout the silent world. I believe in him, as the fountain of all truth, justice, holiness, and love; whose face brightens the countenance of the angels, as they behold it; and whose character fills human minds with goodness, as they think of it. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world from the sin, gross ignorance, and wretchedness, which defile and darken it. I believe that what he has already done on earth, and what he is still preparing among the many mansions of his Father's house, surpasses in grandeur all mortal thought; and that his coming will eventually appear so important as to surpass in glory, the creation of this wonderful world, teeming as it does, with the divine goodness, and over-arched as it is, by the splendid firmament of God's building. I believe in the Scriptures, that they are so precious and of such infinite value, that their, perusal were worth a life-time of agony, had not God granted them to human reading freely. I believe that there is not a soul in your lordship's diocese, but that religion makes him richer, than if without it, he possessed the wealth of the Spaniards and the wisdom of Solomon. I believe in the future judgment with all the faith of which man's heart is capable. I believe that heaven is happier than prophets ever dreamed of, and that hell is more dreary and remorseful than sinner ever yet shuddered at. I believe that at the judgment, there will not be a child whom your lordship confirms in the church, that would part with one holy feeling from its heart, though some tempter should offer it the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them as an exchange. I believe that—"
"That about the church," cried the bishop, "is very true. Do you hear, you Wetherby farmers? This heretic does not grudge tithe like you. I could like well to hear thee rate these wretches, for impiously cheating holy church, and damning themselves everlastingly thereby. But I have much business and little time, I must away to his majesty. Here, let me hear thee read the articles; and then when thou hast read them again at the cross, together with the three creeds, in my chancellor's hearing, thou art acquit."
Wightman received the Book of Common Prayer, and read in a loud and solemn voice, "There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passion; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible." And there he stopped, and was seemingly lost in thought.
"Speed thee man," cried the bishop, "and in unity of this godhead there be three persons of one substance—art spelling a horn-book there?"
Wightman laid the book down.
"What! thou loathsome Arian, detestable Cerinthian, wilt roast like Legate a month ago. Ay! dost start? The sparks of his burning are coming across the country to Litchfield, and they'll fall in the yard here to-morrow. For his majesty has graciously been pleased to send bis warrant for thy instant burning in case of obstinacy. I talked with Legate myself.*** He was not altogether as abominable as thou; but he was a horrible wicked monster; he scrupled prayer to God the Son, and maintained against the king, the prayer-book, and myself, that the Godhead was one person. His majesty graciously permitted him to live in prison many months; but when the new Bible was to come out, the king said he must die;**** for that not a heretic should ever see it; and the king had him burned to death yesterday was three weeks. Why, thou pitiful ignorant man, what think you are curates for, and tithes, and priests, and church-ales, and rectors, and clerk-ales, and the prayer-book, and glebe-lands, and deans, archdeacons, doctors, and easter-dues; what are bishops and arch-bishops for? What is the church for, but to be believed? What is the king defender of the faith for, if the king's faith is not good enough for his subjects?"
"My lord, it is not the church that saves men, but what truth the church teaches. Saving faith is of God's giving and not of the king's forcing; it comes out of a man's heart, and cannot be put into his mouth."
"Dost thou believe in the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity," said the impatient bishop, "three persons in one God?"
"There is no such God in the Scriptures," answered Wightman.
"Ha!" cried the bishop, and clapped his hands, and turned himself to a canon who sat near him; "it will glad his majesty to learn, how miraculous a scent he hath for heresy.***** Here now hath he tracked it these six-score miles from Whitehall! By St. Andrew, his majesty's patron saint, but his gracious majesty will laugh to know, that he hath a touch for king's heresy, as well as for king's evil. What now is the Holy Ghost, if he be not God?"
Wightman answered, "It is God's Holy Ghost— his help—his Holy Spirit, which he gave Christ without measure, in which the apostles rejoiced, with which the early saints were strengthened and blessed, and which prayerful and earnest-minded men still obtain from God 'the Father of lights.'"
The bishop inquired, "Hast thou the Holy Spirit?"
Wightman answered him, "It is not a matter to boast of, my lord, scarcely to be mentioned but between man and his Maker. I humbly hope, however, that, in answer to my earnest entreaties, God did grant me the aid of his Holy Spirit, to rectify my judgment, purify my feelings, and to guide me in my researches after his hidden truth." "Now," said the bishop, "Master Secretary, write down that he sayeth he is the Holy Ghost." ******
Wightman remonstrated, "I said not so, my lord; you make me a blasphemer."
"It was thy meaning, man," said the bishop; "one should never get the truth out of these foolish heretics if one did not help them. Hast written that he sayeth he is the Holy Ghost? And now, Edward Wightman, hast ought to say before I deliver thee over to the civil power, to be burned to-morrow; for holy mother church is too merciful herself to hurt even a heretic?"
Just then, the sunshine streamed through a painted window, casting on Wightman "a dim religious light."
"Bear witness," he said, "that I die for the worship of the one God, the Father, for worshipping as the six earliest, holiest generations of disciples, for they never heard of the name, much less the doctrine of a Trinity. I die, not for despising, but for loving the Lord Jesus Christ. If I valued the gospel less, I would say those creeds, and be happy with my wife and child, and keep my manor and my hall at Hinckley, which now will be confiscated. I die in the greatest cause man can die for, to uphold the unity, the unrivalled majesty, the undivided glory, and the unshared dominion of the Creator, the God of the heavens and earth, and of all eternity. I confess my fear of the dreadful death I am to be doomed to; but, with your feelings, it is your duty perhaps to sentence me. But there is light in the gospel, compared with which the common notions of religion are gross darkness. Many martyrs may have to die first, and many fierce persecutions have to be borne, and much contempt, and wrong, and loss, have to be endured, perhaps for ages; but the time will come when God the Father will be the only God, and when Christians will rise above these bloody, and all other persecuting practices, into the love of which the Lord Jesus was a revelation."
"Wicked and foolish man!" cried the bishop. "Dost thou not think so?" he said, turning to the rector of Wonnerton, down whose aged cheeks the tears were rolling; "and you," said he, to a scowling priest from Coventry, "guilty, is not he?" Then, when his grace had disengaged his lawn-sleeves which had become entangled with the ornamental work of his chair, he rose and said, "I pronounce decree, and declare thee, Edward Wightman, an obdurate, contumacious, and incorrigible heretic. Master Sheriff, remove thy prisoner. Here is his majesty's warrant for his execution in the manner prescribed.******* It is his majesty's will that no one be admitted to speech with him, for fear of heretical infection. Master, O, Sir Sheriff, thou must fix to-morrow evening at latest for the burning, for I am going to London, to examine the new translation of the Bible, which his majesty has been pleased to command, and which has been executed by learned men, deep in the interests of holy mother church. When I see his majesty, he will be discontented unless I report him the death, or at least the recovery of the heretic. Sir Sheriff, mind the counsel as touching the prisoner's seclusion, and make ready for to-morrow."
Soon after the crowd began to move, Hadrian Hamsted threw his arms round his friend's neck. "Officers!" exclaimed the Sheriff; and one of them struck Hadrian Hamsted on the head, and threw him aside insensible. Wightman was then guarded out of the cathedral by the constables. As he was taken through the door, a paper was put in his hands, which, when he was left alone in Litchfield gaol, he found was a hurried note from the chancellor of Litchfield cathedral, expressive of the profoundest sorrow for Wightman's fate, and informing him that his wife and child should be abundantly provided for, for that he, the chancellor, was aged and childless, and would make them his heirs.
The execution was announced for six o'clock on Friday evening. At five in the afternoon, the stake was erected in the cathedral yard, under the superintendence of a beadle. A stranger addressed him—"So you are going to burn the heretic, and thus cauterize the sores of the church. Their successors are better, more business-like bishops than the apostles themselves; don't you think so, master beadle? What way religion would have made; for every beadle now, there would have been fifty, if a few hundred Pharisees had been burned at first! But, do you know, the apostles cared nothing about tithe, or a high-priestship. They had no zeal for the church, like our bishop; they even forgave their enemies. Is the wood dry, my man?"
The beadle was rather confused by the stranger's manner and address, but answered,
"Yes, master, it has been cut these two years, out of Copsall-wood side. It'll burn when I light it."
"Whence shall you get the light?" asked the stranger.
The beadle answered, "I live at yonder little house, with the green shutters."
"Look you there," said the stranger, and gave the beadle an open Bible; "if Christ would not let the disciples pray for fire on the Samaritans, ought you to allow fire from your house to burn this Edward Wightman?"
"Well," said the beadle, "there is gospel against it, and I'll let it alone." The stranger then went away, and the beadle added, "But some body must do it; as well I as another."
At seven o'clock, Edward Wightman was brought into the cathedral yard, and chained to the stake. The faggots were piled round him quickly, and in an hour his ashes were mingled with those of the wood, and his liberated spirit was returned "unto God who gave it."
• Dr. Richard Neile, Archbishop of York, passed through all the degrees and orders of the Church of England, having been a schoolmaster, curate, vicar, parson, chaplain, Master of the Savoy, Dean of Westminster, Clerk of the Closet, Bishop of Rochester, Litchfield, Lincoln, Durham, Winchester, and, lastly. Archbishop of York, 'tis certain, he had few or none of the qualifications of a primitive bishop, for he hardly preached a sermon in twelve years, but gained his preferments by flatter)' and servile court compliances.—Neals Hist. ii. p, 360.
**"The commissions and warrants for the condemnation and burning of Edward Wightman at Litchfield, 1611, were signed with king James's own hand."—History of the first 14 years of King James.
*** "That Arian who this year suffered in Smithfield. His name, Bartholomew Legate; native county, Essex; person, comely; complexion, black; age, about forty years; of a bold spirit, confident carriage, fluent tongue, excellently skilled in the Scriptures. -His conversation, for aught I can learn to the contrary, very unblameable. (Some (it) his damnable tenets were as followeth: 1. That the creeds called the Nicene creed and Athanasius' creed, contain not a profession of the true Christian faith. 2. That Christ was not' God of God; begotten, not made;' but begotten and made. 3. That there are no persons in the godhead. 4. That Christ is not to be prayed unto.
"To Smithfield he was brought to be burned, March 18th.—Vast was the conflux of people about him. Never did a scarefire at midnight summon more hands to quench, than this at noon-day did eyes to behold it. At last, refusing all merer (be was offered pardon if he would recant), he was burned to ashes. And so we leave him, the first that for a long time suffered death in that manner."— Thomas Fuller.
****Two of the conditions which the translators of our common version were to observe in their work, were to keep as close as possible to the Bishop's Bible, and that the old ecclesiastical words should he kept, as Church, not to be translated Congregation. And two of the events amid which the common version was completed, were the burning of two Unitarians.
*****This proposed flattery was exactly to the king's taste, and no doubt helped the bishop to the Lincoln mitre. James declared himself a Presbyterian on leaving Scotland to assume the English crown. But the bishops persuaded him to make it his aphorism "no bishop, no king." The bishops flattered him with the possibility of becoming absolute: hence this sudden liking for Episcopacy, and bis inveterate hatred of the liberty-loving Puritans. In the General Assembly of the Scottish church, in speaking of "our neighbour kirk of England," he called their service "an evil said mass in English," wanting "nothing of the mass but the liftings." But within nine months of bis coming to England, Bishop Bancroft bad fallen on his knees for joy "that Almighty God, of his singular mercy, has given us such a king, as since Christ's time has not been." Nay, so episcopalian had the king become from breathing English air for two hundred and eighty days, that the delighted Lord Primate told him "undoubtedly your majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's spirit."
******Among Wightman's enumerated opinions there are some that savour of vanity and superstition, such as his being the prophet foretold Deut xviii. but we may well hesitate here whether such were the man's real sentiments, or only those which his adversaries would fix upon him._ Lindsey.
******* Unitarianism was punishable with death, till towards the end of the seventeenth century; its professors were liable to perpetual imprisonment in England, and to death in Scotland, up to the year 1813, and it is still assorted to be an offence at common law.
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