HISTORY

OF THE

VAUDO I S.

BOOK I.

HISTORY OF THE VAUDOIS INHABITING THE VALLEYS OF THE ALPS, BROUGHT DOWN FROM THE PRIMITIVE, TO THE PRESENT TIMES.

CHAPTER I.

The Introduction, showing the true Original of the Vaudois, the purity of their Religion, and their Ecclesiastical Government and Manners,

As to the general idea of those two great witnesses to the truth of Christianity, the Vaudois and Albigeois; Mr. Perrin in his work has already given us a general view of the afflicted state of both those sister churches in the middle ages, and of their several dispersions through all the parts of Europe. My endeavours in the remaining parts of this history shall be spent in an account of their original, their religion, their government and manners, and their terrible conflicts and sufferings, so as to show them to have endured under the second beast, the Roman antichrist, ten persecutions, as to some of them not less great than the other ten, which the primitive Christians before them had undergone under the first beast, the pagan powers.

CHAPTER II.

The Original of the Vaudois.

ONE cannot read the history of the Vaudois, without admiring the wonders God Almighty has done from time to time for their preservation and deliverance. Which are so great and so many, that we should not easily believe them, if they were not attested by eye-witnesses of indubitable credit.

They are called Vaudois, not that they descended of Peter Valdo of Lyons, but because they are original inhabitants of the valleys. For the word Vaudois or Valdenses comes from the word val, which signifies a valley. So the protestants of Bohemia were at first called Picards, because they came out of Picardy, the place of their ancient habitation. The Taborites were likewise so called from the city of Tabor, the place of their ordinary residence; and the Albigenses were so called, because they inhabited the city of Albi, which was full of protestants, against whom his crusade, impiously called a holy war," the pope declared to destroy them. From the Vaudois of Piedmont are descended the Vaudois of Provence, where some of them took up their habitation, and sowed their doctrine, and from Provence they spread themselves into Languedoc, where they made a wonderful progress.

This shows that the Vaudois of Piedmont, did not derive themselves from Peter Waldo; for after Valdo or Waldo was driven out of Lyons by the archbishop, according to the order he received from the pope, he did not retire into Piedmont, but into Flanders, where he sowed the doctrine of the gospel, which spread itself into Picardy, which joins to Flanders. These poor people being persecuted by the king of France, retired into Bohemia, and for that reason were called Picards, because they came out of Picardy. D'Aubigne in his Universal History says, that those of the remnant of Waldo, who fled into Picardy, did so increase and multiply, that to root them out, or at least to weaken them, Philip Augustus, king of France, destroyed three hundred gentlemen's houses.

It is proved by authentic records and acts, that the Vaudois of Piedmont, had protested against the errors of the church of Rome seventy years before Waldo appeared in the world. For Waldo did not begin to preach against the Roman court till the year 1175, but the Vaudois in their own language, produce divers acts and monuments of affairs relating to the reformation done in the year 1100, and others in the year 1120, seventy or seventy-five years before Waldo. These acts were saved from the flames in that lamentable massacre, committed upon these poor people, in the year 1655, and the originals were put into the hands of Mr. Moreland, the English ambassador, and after sent to be kept in the university of Cambridge. Copies of them are in the general history of the churches of the Vaudois, written by J. Leger, minister of the Valleys; and it is not to be doubted, but that the Vaudois of Piedmont, had more ancient acts and records of their doctrine, which were buried in the ruins of their churches, by their enemies. In this book we shall only speak of the Vaudois of Piedmont.a

a Those precious remains of the old Waldenses; containing their doctrine, worship, and discipline, and the controversy they had with, and the confession they exhibited against the antichrist of Rome. All these from Leger and Moreland, with those collected by Perrin, are combined in the preceding book.

CHAPTER III.

Religion of the Vaudois of Piedmont.

THE Vaudois, or the inhabitants of the valleys of Piedmont, received the doctrine of the gospel, in the times of the apostles, either from the apostles themselves, or by those who immediately succeeded them.

Paul being carried prisoner to Rome, in the reign of Nero, sojourned there two years, during which space he had the liberty to go round the city, from house to house, dragging a chain after him, which was the badge of a criminal prisoner; and in the capital city, mistress of the world, he preached the gospel of Christ, and laid the foundation of a flourishing church; to which he wrote from Corinth, after his departure, that excellent Epistle of Paul to the Romans. During his imprisonment, he wrote many other learned Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians: his fame and doctrine sounded high in the court of the emperor, as is clear from the Epistle that he then wrote from Rome to the Philippians, where he says, Phil. i. 12 and 13, that what happened to him there proved the great advancement of the gospel, so that his bonds in Christ were become famous through all the Prætorium, which (as every body knows) was the court of the emperor, and all other places of Rome.

This great apostle having gained many disciples in this famous city, God made them instruments of planting the Christian religion in Italy, and in Piedmont, which is a part of Italy. For the history of the church tells us, that those whom God had illuminated with his holy doctrine, burnt with a desire of imparting the saving grace, of which they participated, to others.

If it be true also that Paul performed his voyage into Spain, as he designed, Rom. xv. 24, he took Rome in his way; and it is not to be doubted, but that if he went by land he passed through Piedmont, for it is in the direct way from Rome to Spain. And if he went by sea, it was necessary, that in going from Corinth to Spain, he should pass by Italy; but he was at Corinth when he wrote that he had a desire to go into Spain. If he had passed through Piedmont, as in all appearance he did, it is certain he preached there, for he preached wherever he came.

Since the valleys of Piedmont were enlightened with the bright rays of the gospel, the inhabitants of these countries have conserved the purity of the Christian religion without any mixture of human traditions; they never had any images or altars in their churches; they never invoked angels or saints, never believed a purgatory; they never acknowledged other mediator than Jesus Christ, nor other merit than that of his death: they never owned the doctrine of the mass, of auricular confession, of abstinence from certain sorts of meat, of the celibacy of priests, of the doctrine of transubstantiation; but always held the holy Scriptures to be the perpetual rule of faith, and would never receive or believe any thing but what they taught; and their doctrine was always the same it is now. This is proved clearly from the acts that were preserved from the flames that reduced their churches and houses into ashes; among the which, there is one written in their vulgar tongue, in the year 1100, called the Noble Lesson, because it gives the rules of holy living and good works,

besides a Catechism of the same year, where, in question and answer, are taught the principal mysteries of the Christian religion, according to the word of God, without any mixture of traditions; besides an explication of the Lord's prayer, in the year 1120, and an explication of the apostles' creed, with several passages of the holy Scripture explaining every article; to which is joined an explication of the ten commandments in short; also a little book entitled, A Treatise of Antichrist.

Those three acts were made in the year 1120, and the last of these treatises shows that all those are antichrists that teach doctrines contrary to the word of God. They confute the doctrines of prayers for the dead, purgatory, auricular confession, abstinence from flesh, and reject all traditions that are not in the word of God, and are not conformable to it.

When these acts were made the Christian doctrine was not corrupted every where, for there were then many persons in France, Germany, and England, who wrote against the errors which were by Rome and her doctors introduced into the church. If the purity of Christian religion had not been conserved in these valleys of Piedmont, from the time of the apostles, till the beginning of the eleventh age, in which these acts were made, how had it been possible for them to have made so many famous acts, in which the purity of the Christian religion is so clearly taught? if they had before received the errors of Rome, by whom, and when were these errors purged out of the churches of Piedmont? Who was the reformer? Where are the acts that speak of this reformation, that they may be produced? If there be none, then there was never any reform, and by a clear consequence the Christian religion has remained from the time that the Vaudois received it, such as is contained in those acts, till the time that the acts were made.

About two hundred years before the acts were made, lived Claudius of Turin, bishop of that city and the valleys, who wrote sharply against the errors of the church of Rome. This bishop condemned the invocation of saints, the worshipping of images, of relics, and the cross: he maintained the doctrine of St. Augustine concerning grace, and by consequence he rejected the merit of good works; he taught that the salvation of mankind doth wholly depend upon the merits and death of Christ; he condemned likewise pilgrimages made to Rome, which the monks brought into request. His whole diocese, according to the writings of a learned man, followed exactly his doctrine, the sheep lovingly following the shepherd. The doctrine of transubstantiation was not in his time received in France, except in some few bishoprics; the greatest stream of writers opposed it; they received the communion under both kinds; they did not adore the sacrament; they read the holy Scriptures, and taught them to their children; they made no direct prayers to saints, as they have done since; they attributed all to the grace and mercy of God.

The Christian religion being pure in Piedmont at this time, as it appears by the writings of Claudius of Turin; there is no doubt to be made of its conserving itself so till the twelfth century, in which those acts, of which we have spoken, were made. So we cannot learn from any histo rian that those valleys were either before or after the time of this great bishop reformed; and we see clearly by indubitable acts, that two hundred

Allin's remarks upon the ecclesiastical history of the ancient churches of Pied.

mont.

years after, the same religion was in its purity, without the alloy of human traditions and ceremonies; and the greatest enemies of the Vaudois, for all their boasting, are not able to show the contrary.

But above all, the purity of their religion appeared by that excellent profession of their faith made the year 1120, more than fifty years before Waldo of Lyons.

It is now five hundred and seventy years since this confession of faith was made by the churches of Piedmont, at which time all other churches were corrupted, by the mixture of human doctrine and pagan ceremonies; the world at that time being overspread with an Egyptian darkness, and so the authors of both religions agree, in calling that age, the dark age.

This confession of faith being drawn from the writings of the holy apostles, and in every respect conformable to their doctrine, it follows, by a necessary consequence, that the religion of the Vaudois is the true and pure religion of the apostles, and that they have always kept it pure from the first receiving of it till the beginning of the twelfth century, and from thence till these times, since they now profess the same faith, and teach the same doctrine that was contained in that famous confession. All other churches, both of the east and west, being infected with divers heresies, Satan, to hinder the advancement of the reign of Jesus Christ, has from time to time stirred up false teachers, who have sown their cursed seed in the field of our Lord, and by their false doctrine, varnished over with a seeming piety, have corrupted the doctrine of the gospel: this is what our Saviour foretold, saying to his disciples, that false Christs and false prophets would arise, and would do signs and wonders to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect; &c. St. Peter (2 Ep. chap. ii. v. 1, 2, 3.) prophesied the same thing, there have been false prophets among the people, as likewise there will be among you false teachers, who shall privately introduce sects of perdition, and shall deny the Lord who hath redeemed them, bringing upon them sudden perdition, and many shall follow them, whereby the ways of truth shall be blasphemed: but O the wonderful works of God! who has conserved by his wise Providence, the purity of his religion in the valleys of Piedmont, from the time of the apostles, to our time, by a singular effect of his goodness towards these poor people of the valleys, and has hindered Satan's false doctors and teachers from sowing the cockle of their poisonous doctrine in the mystical field of his church. Notwithstanding all their crafty endeavours, God, in spite of the devil and all his works, has kept among these mountains and deserts the bright light of his gospel, and has never suffered the candle to be extinguished. The great wonders that God has doue from time to time, to keep his bright lamp always shining clear to these happy countries, makes it evident, that this is the place which God has prepared to keep and defend his church in, against the furious attacks of the infernal dragon, who gave his power and throne to the beast, to make war against the saints, and to vanquish them. For this is the true desert, whither the woman (Apoc. xii. 6.) clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, crowned with twelve stars, made her retreat, where God has prepared her a place, where she might be nourished one thousand two hundred and sixty prophetical days, which make one thousand two hundred and sixty years; where God Almighty has kept her safe against all the storms

• Ancient confession of the faith of the Waldenses, in the fifth book of Perrin's History.