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This containeth a Warrant to be granted by your Majefty unto the Lord Chancellor of England, for the awarding of a Writ under the Great Seal of England to the Sheriff of the City of London, for the burning of Bartholomew Legatt, who is convicted of divers horrible Herefies before the Bifhop of London, and by his Sentence left to the fecular Power, as is by the faid Bishop certified to your Majefty into your Highness's Court of Chancery: And is done by Force of your Majefty's Commandment to me given under your Highness's Signmanual.

Henry Hibirte.

The WBIT for burning an Heretick in English.

TH

HE King to the Sheriff's of London, greeting. Whereas the Reverend Father in Chrift, John Bishop of London, hath fignified unto us, That when he in a certain Bufinefs of heretical Pravity against one Bartholomew Legatt, our Subject of the City of London, of the faid Bishop of London's Diocefs and Jurifdiction, rightly and lawfully proceeding by Acts enacted, drawn, propofed, and by the Confeffions of the faid Bartholomew Legatt, before the faid Bishop judicially made and acknowledged, hath found in the faid Bartholomew Legatt very many wicked Errors, falfe Opinions, Herefies and curfed Blafphemies, and impious Doctrines, exprefly contrary and repugnant to the Catholick Faith and Religion, and the holy Word of God, knowingly and malicioufly, and with a pertinacious, obdurate, and plainly incorrigible Mind, to believe, hold, affirm and publifh, the fame Reverend Father the Bishop of London, with the Advice and Confent, as well of the Reverend Bishops and other Divines, as alfo of Men Learned in the Law, in Judgment

Judgment fitting and affifting, the fame Bartholo mew Legatt by his definitive Sentence hath pronounced, decreed and declared to be an obdurate, contumacious and incorrigible Heretick, and upon that Occafion, as a ftubborn Heretick, and rotten contagious Member, to be cut off from the Church of Chrift, and the Communion of the Faithful: Whereas the holy Mother Church hath not further to do and profecute in this part, the fame Reverend Father hath left the aforefaid Bartholomew Legatt, as a blafphemous Heretick, to our fecùlar Power, to be punifhed with condign Punishment, as by the Letters Patents of the faid Reverend Father in Chrift, the Bifhop of London, in this behalf above made, hath been certified unto us in our Chancery. We therefore as a Zealot of Juftice, and a Defender of the Catholick Faith, and willing to maintain and defend the holy Church, and Rights and Liberties of the fame, and the Catholick Faith; and fuch Herefies and Errors every where, what in us lieth, to root out and extirpate, and to punish with condign Punishment fuch Hereticks fo convicted, and deeming that fuch an Heretick in Form aforefaid, convicted and condemned according to the Laws and Customs of this our Kingdom of England in this part accuftomed, ought to be burned with Fire. We do command you, that the faid Bartholomew Legatt, being in your Cuftody, you do commit publickly to the Fire, before the People, in a publick and open Place in Weft-Smithfield, for the Caufe aforefaid; and that you caufe the faid Bartholomew Legatt to be really burned in the fame Fire, in Deteftation of the faid Crime, for the manifeft Example of other Chriftians, left they flide into the fame Fault: And this that you in no wife omit, under the Peril that fhall follow thereon. Witnefs, &c.

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Another Warrant to the Lord Chancellor, for iffuing the WRIT de Hærético comburendo.

James Rex,

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AMES, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. To our right Trufty and right. Well-beloved Counsellor, Thomas Lord Ellefmere, Our Chancellor of England, greeting. Whereas the Reverend Father in God, Richard Bifhop of Coventry and Lichfield, having judicially proceeded in the Examination, hearing and determining of a Cause of Herefy against Edward Wightman of the Parish of Burton upon Trent, in the Diocefs of Coventry and Lichfield, concerning the wicked [ Herefies of the Ebionites, Cerinthians, Valentinians, Arrians, Macedonians, of Simon Magus, of Manes, Manichees, of Photinus, and Anabaptifts, and of other heretical, execrable and unheard of Opinions, by the inftinct of Satan, by him excogitated and holden, viz.

That there is not the Trinity of Perfons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft, in the Unity of the Deity. 2. That Jefus Chrift is not the true natural Son of God, perfect God, and of the fame Subftance, Eternity and Majefty with the Father in refpect of his Godhead. 3. That Jefus Chrift is only Man and a meer Creature, and not both God and Man in one Perfon. 4. That Chrift our Saviour took not humane Flesh of the Subftance of the Virgin Mary his Mother; and that that Promife, The Seed of the Woman fball break the Serpent's Head, was not fulfill'd in Chrift. 5. That the Perfon of the Holy Ghoft is not God coequal, coeternal, and coeffential with the Father and the Son. 6. That

the

the three Creeds, viz. The Apoftles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and Athanafius's Creed are the Herefies of the Nicolaitanes. 7. That he the faid 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 Ifaiah, I alone have trodden the Wine-prefs: and that that Place, Whofe Fan is in his Hand, are proper and perfonal to him the faid Edward Wightman. 8. And that he the faid Wightman is that Perfon of the Holy Ghoft fpoken of in the Scriptures; and the Comforter fpoken of in the fixteenth of St. John's Gofpel. 9. And that thofe Words of our Saviour Chrift of the Sin of Blafphemy against the Holy Ghoft, are meant of his Perfon. 10. And that that Place, the fourth of Malachi, of Elias to come, is likewife meant of his Perfon, 11. That the Soul doth fleep in the fleep of the firft Death, as well as the Body, and is mortal, as touching the Sleep of the first Death, as the Body is: And that the Soul of our Saviour Jefus Chrift did fleep in that fleep of Death as well as his Body. 12. That the Souls of the elect Saints departed, are not Members poffefs'd of the triumphant Church in Heaven. 13. That the baptizing of Infants is an abominable Cuftom. 14. That there ought not to be in the Church the Ufe of the Lord's Supper to be celebrated in the Elements of Bread and Wine; and the Ufe of Baptifm to be celebrated in the Element of Water, as they are now practis'd in the Church of England. But that the Ufe of Baptifm is to be administer'd in Water only to Converts of fufficient Age of Understanding, converted from Infidelity to the Faith. 15. That God hath ordained and fent him, the faid Edward Wightman, to perform his Part in the Work of the Salvation of the World, to deliver it by his Teaching, or Admo

nition,

tiition, from the Herefy of the Nicolaitanes, as Christ was ordained and fent to fave the World, and by his Death to deliver it from Sin, and to reconcile it to God. 16. And that Christianity is not wholly profefs'd and preach'd in the Church of England, but only in part. Wherein he, the faid Edward Wightman, hath before the faid Reverend Father, as alfo before our Commiffioners for Caufes Ecclefiaftical, within our Realm of England, maintain'd his faid moft perilous and dangerous Opinions, as appeareth by many of his Confeffions, as alfo by a Book written and fubfcrib'd by him, and given to us. For the which his damnable and heretical Opinions, he is by divine Sentence declar'd, by the faid Reverend Father the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, with the Advice and Confent of learned Divines, and others learned in the Laws affifting him in Judgment, juftly adjudged, pronounced and declared to be an obftinate and incorrigible Heretick, and is left by them under the Sentence of the great Excommunication, and therefore, as a corrupt Member, to be cut off from the reft of the Flock of Chrift, left he fhould infect others profeffing the true Chriftian Faith; and is to be, by our fecular Power and Authority, as an Heretick punished; as by the Significavit of the faid Reverend Father in God, the Bifhop 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 altho' the faid Edward Wightman hath, fince the faid Sentence pronounc'd against him, been often very charitably mov'd and exhorted, as well by the faid Bifhop, as by many other godly, grave, and learned Divines, to diffuade, revoke, and remove him from the faid blafphemous, heretical, and anabaptif

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