ample scope to the ambition of this bishop. Arles was the eye of Gaul, and her bishop, because the exarch of the seven provinces of Narbonne, was a Mordecai to Leo. Hilary, the envied rival, had deposed Celidonius from the episcopal grade. The discarded bishop received countenance, and was allowed to officiate at Rome. Hilary also came to the capital of the empire, and, after visiting the tombs, called on Leo, and complained, that bishops deposed in Gaul were allowed to exercise their ministry at Rome; but whilst he alleged it to be scandal, he said he did not come to accuse. After affirming the propriety of his own conduct, and disregard of the menaces of Leo, he returned to Arles; but sent a priest and two bishops to Leo, with suitable instructions. The answer which he received from the prefect of Rome, insinuates that Leo was governed by pride, and actuated by intolerance. Leo well knew that he could not canonically receive the complaint of Celidonius, but he was determined to subjugate the see of Arles. The success of the African churches, in combatting his claim of appellate jurisdiction, had probably excited him to efforts more violent in extending his jurisdiction in Europe. But the unrelenting cruelty which he practised against the ingenuous and excellent Hilary, because he opposed the unjust extension of the power of the Roman see, is not atoned by the canonization of the name of Hilary. And it excites disgust to see Leo pronouncing the memory of him blessed, when out of his way, whom, whilst living, he had reviled, in his letter to the bishops of Vienne, as the vilest of men.

At the commencement of this century, the Roman empire was severed into two. Before its termination, the Western fell wholly into the hands of the barbarians. The Ostrogoths possessed Italy, the Huns Pannonia, the Franks Gaul, the Visigoths Spain, the Vandals Africa, and the Saxons England. The policy

• Defuncto Sacræ memoriæ Hilario. Epist. 50.

of Leo aimed to secure to the bishop of Rome the ecclesiastical pre-eminence which had been incident to the imperial purple as Pontifex Maximus, but nominally abandoned by Constantine, and the Christian emperors. His efforts in the Eastern empire, and in Africa, were fruitless. In the West, his successors, following his steps, ultimately prevailed. The barbarian chiefs, well knowing the power and influence of the Christian clergy, even among their own tribes, willingly transferred to them the same profound respect which had been yielded to their idolatrous priests. Thus each of the kingdoms which arose in, and superseded the European portion of the Western empire, not only adopted and established the Christian religion, but with surprising passivity subjugated themselves to the usurped authority of the hierarchy of Rome.

Our purpose being to ascertain the primitive government of the Christian church, as it was left by the apostles and evangelists; and, in order to the right interpretation of the sacred word, first to know from facts the additions which have been made since their days, that we may exclude them from any part in such interpretation, it is unnecessary to continue an unin terrupted investigation of its history, lower than unto the period when the Western church was fully established in Europe.

SECTION XXII.

Separatists from the Western church prior to the Protestant Reformation.— The Piedmontese were in the Latin church in 817.-Their archbishop, Claude, lived and died in connexion with the Catholics.—Had bishops, after their separation, who were denominated Seniors or Ancients.-Perrin was a follower of Waldo, and incredible as to historical facts before his day.— The Waldenses of Bohemia and Moravia preferred the doctrines and worship of the Eastern church, but were obliged to yield to the persecutions of the Latin.-Their seniors or elders were superintendents or bishops in the modern sense.-The Waldenses of France were the followers of Peter Waldo and others, who adopted the ancient discipline of the evangelical churches in the valleys of Piedmont.

HAD this people, prior to the Reformation, an order of ecclesiastical officers, who were mute presbyters, or lay elders? This is the subject of the following investigation.

That a secluded Christian people had inhabited either the valleys of the Alps, or the forests of Germany, from the days of the apostles, without connexion either with the Roman or Greek church, has been often asserted, but never shown. The people of Piedmont, and those of Bohemia, have, with justice, claimed an existence, respectively, prior to the time of Waldo. His followers flying from persecution in the south of France, have often found sanctuary with both; and all of them have been persecuted under papal bulls made against the Waldenses. But whilst a similarity of doctrines obtained among them, they lived under different civil and ecclesiastical governments; their creeds, articles, confessions, and discipline, though in substance allied, were not identically the same. To escape the confusion which exists in

THE PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT, &c.

209 the histories of the Waldenses, this name must be used only for the followers of Waldo, amalgamated as they are with the orthodox of Albi, and the consideration of them postponed to the successive accounts of the Piedmontese and Bohemians.

THE PIEDMONTESE.

Piedmont, named from the valleys of the Alps, à pede montium, was subject to the Lombards, from the year 568, until 774, when Charlemagne destroyed the monarchy. It constituted a part of the German empire from that period until its dismemberment in 888. From thence till 919, all Italy was in confusion. In 936, Otho conquered Italy, and the valleys of the Alps remained under German princes till 1137, when they became the property of the house of Savoy; who were counts till 1416, dukes till 1713, and afterwards, by the acquisition of Sicily, kings till 1796.

In these valleys the gospel was planted at an early period; and being a frontier of Italy, their religious government was that of the peninsula. But remote from the vortex of corruption, they tardily received innovations. They were still a constituent part of the Latin church in the year 817, and subject to the religious government of that age, which was episcopal. Claude, in 815, had been promoted to be arch-bishop of Turin, the principal city of Piedmont, by Lewis the Meek, the son of Charlemagne and emperor of the West. But whilst Claude submitted to the ecclesiastic supremacy, he denied the orthodoxy of the Pope. In the council of Frankfort, 794, he had been active against image-worship, and had seconded the emperor's wishes to bring over pope Adrian the First from the errors of the second Nicene council of 786. When, in 823, this excellent man was accused of innovation, because he ordered the images to be cast out of his churches, he declared, "that he taught no new

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sect, but kept himself to the pure faith." The truth was supported during his life, in Piedmont, against the corruptions of the Latin and Greek churches. He lived and died the arch-bishop of Turin, in full connexion with the Catholic church. Nor did the Piedmontese depart from the communion of that church, so long as she did not attempt to force them to embrace her errors." The Piedmontese churches were episcopal before and during the life of Claude. His followers were persecuted by his successors in office, but not immediately; for Claude lived nearly to the dismemberment of the German empire, after which, the political confusions of Italy presented some defence against persecution, till the conquest by Otho. As this period was long before Dominic and his inquisition, it is not probable that the principles and doctrines of Claude produced a separation before the middle of the tenth-century. Sir Samuel Morland, who was sent by Cromwell to the duke of Savoy, in 1658, to mitigate his persecution of the Piedmontese reformers, has observed, that Claude left the lamp of his doctrine to his disciples, and they to their successive generations in the ninth and tenth centuries. The precise era of their separation from the Catholic church, we have not found; but no persecution appears to have been sustained by them under the German princes to whom they were subject, till 1137. If, indeed, that oldest document, which is furnished by Perrin, and by Morland, purporting to be a confession of their faith in fourteen articles, and which they place at 1120, were so old, that would prove a separation, before they came under the house of Savoy. But though in 1146, they were persecuted, and some of them fled into Bohemia, there is neither proof nor probability shown, that those articles were four centuries before the Reformation. The twelfth was made against the doctrine of transubstantiation, which we should not expect before the council of Lateran, in 1215, or at the earliest, in 1160. The ninth, expressly against the error of pur