III. CHAP. Christ, and is communicated by faith alone through the Holy Spirit." They then proceed to confute distinctly the various abominations of popery, on which points it is, at this day, unnecessary to enlarge. Suffice it to say, that to see and argue as they did in that dark age, required a wonderful light, and strength of judgment. It is more to my purpose to mention some testimonies of the offices of Christ, which are interwoven in their arguments. "He is our Advocate: he forgives sins. He presents himself in some measure to us, before we bestir ourselves. He knocks, that we may open to him: and, to obstruct all occasions of idolatry, he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, and desires that every faithful soul should have recourse to his Redeemer alone. For all the care of the faithful should be directed toward Christ, imitating him that is above. He is the gate: whosoever entereth by him shall be saved. He alone hath the prerogative, to obtain whatever he requests in behalf of mankind, whom he hath reconciled by his death. To what purpose should we address ourselves to any other Saint as Mediator, seeing he himself is far more charitable and far more ready to succour us than any of them?" There is also a short treatise on tribulation, a subject highly needful to be studied by all Christians, by those more particularly, who, like the Waldenses, live in the flames of persecution. The Noble Lesson, written in the year 1100, has already, in part, been given to the reader*, and it closes the account of Waldensian monuments, collected by Perry of Lyons. Some of the thoughts, which I have transcribed from this author, on account of their extreme simplicity, may appear almost childish to persons, whose taste has been formed purely by modern * See p. 388. XIII. models and maxims; and it must be confessed, that CENT. we discover no person of superior capacity or uncommon genius among this people. Their means of knowledge were ordinary, their situation confined, and their circumstances perhaps universally poor. Even so FATHER, FOR SO IT IT SEEMED GOOD IN THY SIGHT*. The excellency of the power was therefore of God and not of man. How happened it, that they should possess so sound a portion of evangelical truth, so ably and judiciously confute established errors, so boldly maintain the truth as it is in Jesus, so patiently suffer for it, live so singularly distinct from the world, and so nobly superior to all around them; while princes, dignitaries, universities, and all that was looked on as great, splendid, and wise among men, wandered in miserable darkness? It was of the Lord, who is wonderful in council and excellent in work; and his preservation of a godly seed in the earth, in such circumstances, is a pledge that he never will forsake his Church, and that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. We have seen the most satisfactory proofs of the genuine apostolical doctrine, connected with holy practice by the influence of the Holy Spirit, as subsisting among this people. At the Reformation, some fundamental doctrines, particularly that of original sin, and of justification by faith in Christ, were indeed more distinctly and explicitly unfolded. But every candid and intelligent reader has seen that these, with all other fundamental truths, were understood and confessed by the Waldenses. The principal defect of these records is, that invectives against Antichrist and its abominations make up too large a proportion of their catechetical instructions; and the general vital truths of the Gospel are not so much enlarged on as the reader, who seeks edi • Luke x. 21. III. CHAP. fication, would wish. How far this defect might be less obvious, or even disappear, could we see the many sermons of their pastors, I know not. But these Churches were in perpetual trouble and danger; and their distressed circumstances form, in some measure, an apology for the imperfection of their writings. IV. CHA P. IV. THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE WALDENSES. CHAP. THIS is the only subject relating to the Waldenses, which has not passed under our review. Their external history is indeed, little else than a series of persecution. And I regret, that while we have some large and distinct details of the cruelties of their persecutors, we have very scanty accounts of the spirit with which they suffered; and still less of the internal exercises of holiness, which are known only to the people of God. But this is not the first occasion which we have had to lament, concerning the manner in which Church-history has been transmitted to us. Remarka ation of our In 1162, two years after Waldo had begun to ble bumili preach the Gospel in Lyons, Lewis vII. of France, Henry II. and Henry 11. of England, on foot, holding the and of bridle of the horse of Pope Alexander VII. walking of France, one on one side of him, the other on the other, A. D. conducted him to his habitation; exhibiting, says 1162. Baronius*, a spectacle most grateful to God, to an Lewis VII. gels, and to men! The princes of the earth, as well as the meanest persons, were now enslaved to the popedom, and were easily led to persecute the children of God with the most savage barbarity. We • Baronius Annals, Cent. XII. XIII. are astonished in reading the details of persecution. CENT. That which raged against the Waldenses in the former part of the thirteenth century, was indeed an assemblage of every thing cruel, perfidious, indecent, and detestable. But we are not to imagine, that contemporaries beheld such scenes with the same horror with which we do: the "god of this world," with consummate dexterity, infatuates his slaves by a successive variety of wickedness adapted to circumstances. The scenes of villany, meanness, indecency, hypocrisy, and barbarity, which, for several years, have been carrying on in France, under the mask of philosophy, liberty, and rationality, have found, in our own country, many defenders, or at least apologists. The reason is, that irreligious scepticism or atheistic profaneness is the darling of these times, as superstition was that of the thirteenth century. And if men will not learn the allimportant lesson, to obey the divine oracles, there seems no end of the deceits by which the prince of darkness will impose on mankind. cused of In 1176 some of the Waldenses, called heretics, Waldenbeing examined by the bishops, were convicted of sians acheresy. They were said to receive only the New heresy, Testament, and to reject the Old, except in the A. D. testimonies quoted by our Lord and the Apostles *. 1176. This charge is confuted by the whole tenour of their authentic writings, in which they quote the Old Testament authority as divine, without reserve or hesitation. Being interrogated concerning their faith, we are told that they said, "we are not bound to answer." Other accusations against them were as follow, namely, that they asserted the truth of the Manichean doctrine of two independent principles, that they denied the utility of infant-baptism, that the Lord's body was made by the consecration of an unworthy priest, that unfaithful ministers had CHAP. IV. Henry II. and Lewis VII. en the Albi any right to the exercise of ecclesiastical power, or to titles and first-fruits, or that the faithful ought to attend their pastoral services, or that auricular confession was necessary, or that oaths were in any case lawful. The reader, who has attentively considered the foregoing accounts of the Waldenses, will know how to separate the falsehood from the truth contained in these charges. "All these things, says Baronius," the wretched men asserted that they learned from the Gospels and Epistles, and that they would receive nothing, except what they found expressly contained there; thus rejecting the interpretation of the doctors, though they themselves were perfectly illiterate. They were confuted," he adds, "at a conference before the bishop of Albi, from the New Testament, which alone they admitted; and they professed the Catholic faith, but would not swear, and were therefore condemned." From this account, however imperfect, and in several instances, palpably injurious, some further light may be collected of the state of the Waldenses at that time. In 1178, the same Lewis and Henry, who had sixteen years before, in so unkingly a manner, given deavour to their " power and strength to the beast," hearing bring back that the Albigenses grew in numbers, determined to attack them by the sword, but afterwards thought it more prudent to employ preachers t. They sent to them several bishops and ecclesiastics; and they 1178. employed Raymond of Toulouse and other noblemen genses to the Papal Church, A. D. Rev. xvii. 13. It is evident, that the term Albigenses, or rather Albienses, employed by our author, was taken from the town of Albi, where the Waldenses flourished. And, indeed, through the dominions of Raymond, earl of Toulouse, and through the south of France, including the territories of Avignon, their doctrines, at that time, spread with vast rapidity. All these were called in general, Albigenses, and, in doctrine and manners, were not at all distinct from the Waldenses. |