Edward Wightman
Encyclopedia
Edward Wightman was an English radical Anabaptist
, executed at Lichfield
for his activities promoting himself as the divine Paraclete
and Savior of the world. He was the last person to be burned at the stake
for heresy
in England.
Between 1603/4 and 1610/11, his behavior grew increasingly bolder and louder. According to court records, he was a prolific writer, although none of his writings have been found to date. He came to the attention of the local church authorities and a warrant for his arrest was issued. The order instructed the constables of Burton to immediately bring him before Bishop Richard Neil for interrogation.
James I came to the English throne in 1603, “thinking himself a competent judge of religious questions and disposed to take seriously his title of ‘Defender of the Faith’”. Since 1607 he had been engaged in a battle of books with Roman Catholic apologists over the Oath of Allegiance, both personally and by encouraging others to write in his defence. “One of the central planks of the king's case was the preservation of his catholic orthodoxy through his adherence to the three great creeds of the church, the Apostles', the Nicene and the Athanasian.”
Wightman was fully aware of the king’s firm Catholic stance, yet he set about to willfully combat both his State and Church. Of the handful of fragments of his defence treatise that have survived, he refers to the doctrine and “heresies of the Nicolaitanes ... most of all hated and abhorred of God himself ... the common received faith contained in those 3 inventions of man, commonly called the Three Creeds ... the [Apostles’], Nicene and Athanasius Creed, which faith within these 1600 years past hath prevailed in the world.”
Wightman had by now totally isolated himself from all other groups, calling into question all aspects of Christian truth, arguing “that the baptizing of Infants is an abominable custom ... the practice of the Sacraments as they are now used in the Church of England are according to Christ his Institution ... [and affirming that] only the sacrament of baptism [is] to be administered in water to converts of sufficient age of understanding converted from infidelity to the faith”.
But what finally spelled his end was his grievous departure from the Trinity and the nature of God. It was presumably on these points that he so vehemently rejected the formulae of the Nicene Creed of 325 and the subsequent ‘Athanasius' Creed of 381. He claimed that the doctrine was a total fabrication stating that Christ was only a man “and a mere Creature and not both God and man in one person… [Although this did not mean that Christ was a man like all others but] only a perfect man without sin.” King James was by now more set than ever in securing the execution of Wightman, since in the intervening years he had launched a dual campaign against heresy at home and abroad.
to the University of Leiden. Vorstius was being accused of atheism, Arianism and heretical opinions about the Holy Spirit.
After months of being subjected to a series of conferences with “learned divines”, Wightman was finally brought before Bishop Neil for the last time. According to Wightman, the Bishop told him “that unless I did recant my opinions he would burn me at a stake in Burton before Allholland day next.” The final verdict and list of charges included “the wicked heresies of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manichees, Phontinus, and of the Anabaptists and other arch heretics, and moreover, of other cursed opinions belched by the instinct of Satan”.
He was ordered to be placed “in some public and open place below the city aforesaid [and] before the people burned in the detestation of the said crime and for manifest example of other Christians that they may not fall into the same crime”.
When he was finally brought to the stake his courage had all but left him. As the fires were lit he is said to have quickly cried out to recant, although by then he had been “well scorched”. But this would not last, since two or three weeks later he was again brought before the courts and, no longer fearing the searing flames, refused and “blasphemed more audaciously than before”. The King quickly ordered his final execution, and on April 11, 1612, he was once more led to the stake.
On May 2, 1648, a new ‘Ordinance for the Punishment of Blasphemies and Heresies’ was created, "principally those of the triune God, the resurrection, the last judgment, and that the Bible is the Word of God…relapse is to be punished as felony with death without benefit of clergy.” Opposition from Independents and sectaries, however, meant that the ordinance was never enforced. And only with the passage of another act in 1677 [“forbidding the burning of heretics”], was Wightman's position in history ‘as the last person in England to be burned at the stake for heresy’, secured.
Mention of his case came almost 100 years later by a handful of writers in the wake of the 1689 Toleration Act
. The only immediate result was that of a minority opposition to his execution, a shift in public opinion which may have led to a relative decline in the practice.
Meanwhile, King James I seemed to have lost faith in this method of discouraging heresy [his actions owed more to a thaw in his private attitude to Roman Catholics than to any feelings about the impropriety or inadvisability of burning heretics] and seeing that heresy still survived, “publicly preferred that heretics hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privately waste themselves away in the prison rather than to grace them, and amuse others, with the solemnity of a public execution”.
“If, then, dead books may be committed to flames, how much more live books, that is to say, men?”
about 1655. George Wightman, and hence Edward Wightman, is the ancestor of people living in the United States under the names "Wightman" or "Whitman." including the poet Walt Whitman
.
Radical Reformation
The Radical Reformation was a 16th century response to what was believed to be both the corruption in the Roman Catholic Church and the expanding Magisterial Protestant movement led by Martin Luther and many others. Beginning in Germany and Switzerland, the Radical Reformation birthed many radical...
, executed at Lichfield
Lichfield
Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...
for his activities promoting himself as the divine Paraclete
Paraclete
Paraclete means advocate or helper. In Christianity, the term most commonly refers to the Holy Spirit.-Etymology:...
and Savior of the world. He was the last person to be burned at the stake
Execution by burning
Death by burning is death brought about by combustion. As a form of capital punishment, burning has a long history as a method in crimes such as treason, heresy, and witchcraft....
for heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
in England.
Life
Edward Wightman was born at Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire and like most residents was baptized in traditional orthodox fashion. He attended Burton grammar school and entered the clothiers business of his maternal family. Eventually, he served an apprenticeship as a woolen draper in the town of Shrewsbury. He married Frances Darbye of Hinckley in 1593 and settled in Burton. Apart from his mercer's business in Burton he also became a minister of the local Baptist Church.Case of Thomas Darling
He became involved with the Puritans and in 1596 was chosen as one of the leaders assigned to the investigation of demonic possession by 13 year old Thomas Darling. This suggests that by the mid-1590s Wightman was an important and well-respected public figure, taking part in the newly formed movement that began to hold sway over Burton’s society and politics. His involvement in the Darling case proved a turning point in his life, making him entirely amenable to the possibility of unmediated spiritual intervention. Darling claimed not just to be possessed by the devil, but engaged in a series of ‘spiritual wars’ in which both demonic and angelic voices were said to emanate from him:As I know at this present for a certainty, that I have the spirit of God within me: so do I with the like certainty believe, that in my dialogues with Satan, when I [quoted] sundry places of scripture, to withstand the temptations he assaulted me with: I had the spirit of God in me, and by that spirit resisted Satan at those times, by [quoting] the scriptures to confound him.
Religious persecution
His initial descent into “heresy" involved his understanding of the mortality of the soul, a view that progressively became more radicalized and unorthodox. In one of his early public messages he claimed that “the soul of man dies with the body and participates not either of the joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell, until the general Day of Judgment, but rested with the body until then."Between 1603/4 and 1610/11, his behavior grew increasingly bolder and louder. According to court records, he was a prolific writer, although none of his writings have been found to date. He came to the attention of the local church authorities and a warrant for his arrest was issued. The order instructed the constables of Burton to immediately bring him before Bishop Richard Neil for interrogation.
Condemned by King James I
Wightman set about putting together a compendium of his theology for his upcoming hearing and defence. Perhaps thinking that he would at least be allowed time to plead his case, he delivered copies of it to members of the clergy in an effort to shore up support. But then, perhaps as a last resort, he delivered a copy to King James I, a move that would ultimately seal his fate.James I came to the English throne in 1603, “thinking himself a competent judge of religious questions and disposed to take seriously his title of ‘Defender of the Faith’”. Since 1607 he had been engaged in a battle of books with Roman Catholic apologists over the Oath of Allegiance, both personally and by encouraging others to write in his defence. “One of the central planks of the king's case was the preservation of his catholic orthodoxy through his adherence to the three great creeds of the church, the Apostles', the Nicene and the Athanasian.”
Wightman was fully aware of the king’s firm Catholic stance, yet he set about to willfully combat both his State and Church. Of the handful of fragments of his defence treatise that have survived, he refers to the doctrine and “heresies of the Nicolaitanes ... most of all hated and abhorred of God himself ... the common received faith contained in those 3 inventions of man, commonly called the Three Creeds ... the [Apostles’], Nicene and Athanasius Creed, which faith within these 1600 years past hath prevailed in the world.”
Wightman had by now totally isolated himself from all other groups, calling into question all aspects of Christian truth, arguing “that the baptizing of Infants is an abominable custom ... the practice of the Sacraments as they are now used in the Church of England are according to Christ his Institution ... [and affirming that] only the sacrament of baptism [is] to be administered in water to converts of sufficient age of understanding converted from infidelity to the faith”.
But what finally spelled his end was his grievous departure from the Trinity and the nature of God. It was presumably on these points that he so vehemently rejected the formulae of the Nicene Creed of 325 and the subsequent ‘Athanasius' Creed of 381. He claimed that the doctrine was a total fabrication stating that Christ was only a man “and a mere Creature and not both God and man in one person… [Although this did not mean that Christ was a man like all others but] only a perfect man without sin.” King James was by now more set than ever in securing the execution of Wightman, since in the intervening years he had launched a dual campaign against heresy at home and abroad.
Summary of views
Edward Wightman was convicted of publicly attacking Christianity while promoting the following views:- That there is no Trinity;
- That Jesus Christ was not God;
- That Jesus Christ was a mere man;
- That Christ was never incarnateIncarnation (Christianity)The Incarnation in traditional Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity, also known as God the Son or the Logos , "became flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the Theotokos .The Incarnation is a fundamental theological...
and did not fulfill the promises of salvation; - That the three creeds of the apostolic church were lies;
- That he, Edward Wightman, was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament;
- That he was the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete;
- That to deny that he was divine was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, worthy of everlasting death;
- That Jesus Christ is dead and that there is no punishment for sinners in the afterlife;
- That he, Edward Wightman, is literally the prophet Elijah;
- That historic baptism of the church is wickedness;
- That the Lord's SupperLord's SupperThe Lord's Supper may refer to:*Eucharist, Mass or Communion, a rite in Christianity*The Last Supper, the last meal Jesus of Nazareth shared with his disciples in the collection of Christian Scriptures called The Holy Bible....
(Communion) is evil; - That God ordained him Saviour of the world.
Trial and execution
Wightman's trial was played out against the backdrop of the so-called “Vorstius Affair”, involving the intense opposition on the King’s part to block the appointment of the German academic Conrad VorstiusConrad Vorstius
Conrad Vorstius was a German-Dutch Protestant Remonstrant theologian, and successor to Jacobus Arminius in the theology chair at Leiden.-Early life:...
to the University of Leiden. Vorstius was being accused of atheism, Arianism and heretical opinions about the Holy Spirit.
After months of being subjected to a series of conferences with “learned divines”, Wightman was finally brought before Bishop Neil for the last time. According to Wightman, the Bishop told him “that unless I did recant my opinions he would burn me at a stake in Burton before Allholland day next.” The final verdict and list of charges included “the wicked heresies of Ebion, Cerinthus, Valentinian, Arius, Macedonius, Simon Magus, Manichees, Phontinus, and of the Anabaptists and other arch heretics, and moreover, of other cursed opinions belched by the instinct of Satan”.
He was ordered to be placed “in some public and open place below the city aforesaid [and] before the people burned in the detestation of the said crime and for manifest example of other Christians that they may not fall into the same crime”.
When he was finally brought to the stake his courage had all but left him. As the fires were lit he is said to have quickly cried out to recant, although by then he had been “well scorched”. But this would not last, since two or three weeks later he was again brought before the courts and, no longer fearing the searing flames, refused and “blasphemed more audaciously than before”. The King quickly ordered his final execution, and on April 11, 1612, he was once more led to the stake.
[Wightman] was carried again to the stake where feeling the heat of the fire again would have recanted, but for all his crying the sheriff told him he should cost him no more and commanded faggots to be set to him whence roaring, he was burned to ashes.
Aftermath
In the months that followed his execution, a number of religious radicals nearly met the same fate, even though the downfall of the bishops and abolition of the High Commission in 1640–2 did not bring about any changes to the constitution:
The act of the Long Parliament which abolished the Court of High Commission used such very general words that, if it did not abolish the old ecclesiastical courts, it practically deprived them of their power. At the Restoration, however, by statute passed in 1661 (13 Car II, c. 12) it was ‘explained’ that this was not the desired result; the Court of High Commission was not to be re-established, but the old ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts was to be exercised as of old.
On May 2, 1648, a new ‘Ordinance for the Punishment of Blasphemies and Heresies’ was created, "principally those of the triune God, the resurrection, the last judgment, and that the Bible is the Word of God…relapse is to be punished as felony with death without benefit of clergy.” Opposition from Independents and sectaries, however, meant that the ordinance was never enforced. And only with the passage of another act in 1677 [“forbidding the burning of heretics”], was Wightman's position in history ‘as the last person in England to be burned at the stake for heresy’, secured.
Mention of his case came almost 100 years later by a handful of writers in the wake of the 1689 Toleration Act
Toleration Act
Toleration Act may refer to:* Act of Toleration 1689, in England* Maryland Toleration Act, of 1649...
. The only immediate result was that of a minority opposition to his execution, a shift in public opinion which may have led to a relative decline in the practice.
Meanwhile, King James I seemed to have lost faith in this method of discouraging heresy [his actions owed more to a thaw in his private attitude to Roman Catholics than to any feelings about the impropriety or inadvisability of burning heretics] and seeing that heresy still survived, “publicly preferred that heretics hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privately waste themselves away in the prison rather than to grace them, and amuse others, with the solemnity of a public execution”.
Legacy
Edward Wightman, a name still unknown to modern Bible students, has unceremoniously gone down in history as the last person in England to be burned at the stake for heresy. Like most cases of this kind, it is a story dominated by the religious and political climate of its time, an environment firmly controlled by men who held sway over all matters pertaining to the Christian faith. Most sources are biased in their portrait of the ‘heretic’ as some kind of demon-possessed, deranged mind. Yet Wightman was a well-respected business man and community leader, whose zeal for his faith and freedom of expression brought him in direct conflict with the religious establishment led by King James I. A man whose own religious zeal and stalwart of the “Defender of the Faith”, led him to sign the last known execution for burning via the stake.“If, then, dead books may be committed to flames, how much more live books, that is to say, men?”
Family
Very little is known about the subsequent fate of his wife and children, though it is known that his son, John, and grandsons, George (1632–1722)and Valentine, emigrated to Quidnesset, Rhode IslandRhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
about 1655. George Wightman, and hence Edward Wightman, is the ancestor of people living in the United States under the names "Wightman" or "Whitman." including the poet Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
.
Further reading
- A History of the Baptists, by John T. ChristianJohn T. ChristianJohn Tyler Christian was a Baptist preacher, author and educator. He was born December 14, 1854, near Lexington, Kentucky. His family moved to Henry County, Kentucky, when he was six years old...
- A History of the English Baptists, by Joseph Ivimey
- The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness, by H. Leon McBeth
- George Wightman of Quidnessett, RI and Descendants, by Mary Ross Whitman, (1939, Chicago: Edwards Brothers).
- The Wightman Ancestry, Wade C. Wightman, , (1994, Chelsea, MI: Bookcrafters).
External links
- Bruce Wightman's history of Edward the heretic: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~wightman/Edward1566.htm