them by their good life and conduct; and so there were two sorts of elders in the primitive church, the one laboured in the government of the church only, and the other, besides the care they had of the affairs of the church, took also pains in preaching and explaining the word, 1 Tim. v. 17. The deacons had the care of the poor, and pastors, elders, and deacons altogether had the government of the church. This is the discipline that the churches of Piedmont have always kept, for in their ancient manuscripts it is said, the churches there have always had pastors, elders and deacons to govern them, as they had till the year 1686, when they were dispersed. The pastors employed themselves to instruct and exhort the people to live well and holily; and the pastors, elders and deacons altogether watched over their flock, to banish all vice and scandal. It was requisite that the governors of the church should be of a good life and holy conversation, to edify others by their good example. There were schools kept to train up youth in piety: there was likewise a particular school to instruct those that aspired to the ministry, where was taught divinity. They made the young scholars learn by heart all the chapters of the gospels according to St. Matthew, and St. John, and all the canonical epistles, and a good part of the writings of Solomon, David, and the prophets. There came to this school young men out of Bohemia, and other places where the people of God dwelt and retained the profession of the ancient verity, to be instructed in the ministry.

The Vaudois were not only pure, as to their doctrine, but likewise as to their manners; even their adversaries witness the same. Reynerus Sacco, who was one of the first inquisitors, employed by Rome against those of the valleys, speaks thus of them in his relation which he made of them to the court of Rome.

After he had told that court that the sect of the Vaudois was the eldest that had ever been, beginning in the time of the apostles, or at least of Sylvester; he adds touching their manners, that whereas all other sects did strike the hearers with horror of their many blasphemies against God, that this of the valleys made great demonstration of piety, for they live justly in the face of the world: and in chap. vii. of his book, he says the Vaudois are chaste. The president Du Thou, commonly called Thuanus, in chap. xxvii. of his history, not only relates from their confession that the Vaudois observe the ten commandments of the law, which gives the rule of living holily and piously; that they give no entertainment to any sort of vices in their assemblies, that they hate and detest all sorts of unlawful oaths, perjuries, wicked imprecations, quarrels, seditions, debauches, drunkenness, whoring, inchantments, sacrileges, theft, usury, witchcraft, and the like; but gives afterwards of his own accord that noble character of them, in words that deserve to be written in letters of gold."

a In tanta tenuitate, imo miseria ac pædore degentibus, quae et horrida ac deformi specie præ se ferunt, est quod miresis, quod non incultis omnino moribus sunt; nam nemo epud cos nescit litteras, et scribere commode sciunt, lingeamque Gallicam callent, quatenus Biblia intelligere, et Psalmos canere possint; nec quenquam temere inter eos puerum reperias, qui interrogatus fidei quam profitentur, non expedite ac memoriter rationem reddat, quod illis cum cæteris convallensibus commune est. Tributum religiose pendent, idque secundum Dei in ipsorum Fidei Confessionibus præcipuum est. Quod si bellis civilibus prohibeantur, illud nihi. lominus coactum seponunt, et cum per pacem licet, coactoribus regiis studiose exolvi curant.

And Claudius de Seissel, Archbishop of Turin, in the book he wrote against the Vaudois, in the year 1500, confesses in formal terms, that as to their life and manners, they live in the world without reproach, observing with all their power the commandments of God. We could allege many other authorities given by the bitterest enemies of the Vaudois, of their good life and conversation.

CHAPTER V.

Of the great calm the Vaudois Churches enjoyed for many ages, and of the first Persecution which succeeded it, by way of Inquisition, from the year 1198, to the year 1400.

We cannot find in the ecclesiastical histories that the Vaudois, or Christians of the valleys of Piedmont, were persecuted under the reigns. of Nero, Domitian, or any other of the pagan emperors, who so cruelly persecuted the Christians; it is therefore probable, that during these cruel persecutions, many faithful Christians retired into these valleys to escape persecution, and to save themselves from the bloody hands of those cruel butchers. As we saw in France, during the last persecution, that many of the reformed religion fled into the woods and mountains, and hid themselves in caverns and rocks, to save themselves from the hands of the cruel and pitiless dragoons, and to avoid, by their flight, the danger of renouncing their religion so the church, which is represented by the woman, is at the same time, Rev. xii. described flying into the wilderness from the fury of the dragon. And is there a more dreadful wilderness than the mountains of the Alps, which are covered with snow eight or nine months of the year, amongst which are these valleys? It is said, that in the desert the woman had a place prepared of God for her, where she might be nourished one thousand two hundred and sixty days; and the valleys, have they not been the place which God has prepared to keep his church safe in, since the true church has always been conserved here from the time of the apostles, even to our days, without any interruption or want of succession? so that while the whole world ran after the beast, only the inhabitants of these valleys followed Jesus Christ, and walked according to the truth of the gospel. This was the true land of Goshen, which only was enlightened with celestial light, whilst the new Egypt was all covered with the thick and palpable darkness of ignorance and error; and accordingly they had for their arms a torch lighted surrounded with thick darkness, with this inscription, Lux lucet in Tenebris.

Thus far from Boyer, and it is thought a very just remark; but whereas he next tells us that these churches of the valleys have enjoyed a continual peace, and perfect repose, from the beginning of the first age that the papal empire began to erect its throne, till towards the end of the fifteenth age, viz. till the year 1487, that Pope Innocent the VIII. made, as they call it, a holy war upon them, to destroy them; I must crave leave to put in my exceptions, so as to date their first formal persecution some centuries higher, that is, from about the year 1198; from which time till 1440, they suffered very grievously by papal bulls and anathemas, and the executions by virtue of them, from the inquisitors. commissioned and employed by the popes to harass and exterminate them, of which the reader has

already had some account in Perrin's first book, in the first and second chapters. To which I shall here add a more ample account from Leger's General history of the Vaudois, book ii. chap. ii. And surely the series of sufferings they underwent from papal inquisitions may very well be taken into the number of their persecutions, since as Leger observes, if he should undertake to give a full and particular account of all the persecutions which the people of the valleys have suffered until the end of the thirteenth, or the beginning of the fourteenth century, we should find them nothing but a continual execution. Indeed this being so signal a method of persecution, so very vexatious, tyrannical, and cruel, and running on concurrently with the others of crusades and massacres; I presume it may be of use to give a larger account thereof, which the reader may by pleased to have as it is described by that excellent historian.

and

It is true, says Leger, that the little flocks of Jesus Christ, in the valleys of Piedmont, and the neighbouring ones; by reason of the small communication which they have with the rest of the world, because of the remoteness of their habitations, dwelling in the valleys among the Alps, and upon the tops of the mountains, and for other reasons, have had some respite for the space of several hundred years, and have also enjoyed some tranquillity after the almost general dispersion of the Vaudois of Lyons, and other parts and places of France; or at least that they have not for some time been harassed with persecution, unless it were some few particular persons, who, travelling far from their habitations, did from time to time fall into the hands of the inquisitors. But so soon as the second Apocalyptical beast had sufficiently strengthened his seat of iniquity, had fully fortified himself in the power of the first beast, which it was to usurp, according to the prophecy of St. John; and so soon as it went about to compel the people "to drink the cup of its whoredom," these good Nathaniels, who could never be induced to do it, did not for that reason fail to become the objects of its hatred, and to be at length exposed to the fury of the dragon, who came forth out of the pit of destruction. Yet still did they not fall immediately to fire and sword, and massacres; for as the beast mentioned in the Revelations hath the voice of the dragon, it hath likewise the horns of the lamb; his emissaries, although devouring wolves, were nevertheless first to appear in sheep's clothing, according to the prediction of Jesus Christ in the gospel, to endeavour by mildness, flattery, and fair promises, to ensnare the souls of the simple. But this method not meeting with success, the aforesaid beast, as it hath the voice of the dragon, it was in the next place, to send forth the thunders of its vatican before it did proceed to further violence, and employ its utmost might and power, to exterminate and destroy them; its excommunications and anathemas being notwithstanding commonly accompanied with terrible decrees, bulls, patents, orders, and arrogant injunctions, as well as pathetical exhortations addressed to the kings, princes, and potentates of the earth, to oblige them to make use of all manner of means and artifices to drive those poor faithful either into apostacy, or else into such a terrible condition, that there should remain no hopes for them, but the extremity of despair. Moreover, they caused them to be cast out from the society of the rest of mankind, depriving them of all commerce; proclaiming and crying them down every where, not only as persons altogether unworthy of the least office or dignity, but also of all manner of negotiation; nay, which is more, not worthy to be buried among Christians; they also confiscated their goods, demolished their houses, cut down their

trees, and as much as in them lay, ravished and robbed them of their dear children. For as it was by such excommunications, orders, and decrees, that Alexander III. ruined and dispersed the poor Vaudois of Lyons about the year 1180; it was thought fit, by the prudence of the council de propaganda fide et extirpandis hæreticis, to try a second time, whether the same remedies, or rather the same poison, would have power enough upon their brethren, before they dyed the earth with blood of those innocents; not failing to intermix them with a great many instructions full of falsehood and cruelty, to the end, that those poor faithful might never find any security in the world without casting themselves into the bosom of the church of Rome; indeed we find a great many commands and injunctions, as rude and unmannerly as they were arrogant and urgent, which the sovereign pontiff laid even upon kings, princes, and potentates, and all sorts of magistrates, to give exact information of all the Vaudois that were found in their kingdoms, principalities, lands, and jurisdictions, to deliver them up into the hands of the inquisitors; even so far as to give express orders for that purpose every where to shut the cities, to the end, that not one of them might escape, assigning the third part of their goods to those who should give notice of the place of their habitation, and condemning to unheard of penalties all sorts of persons, of what quality or condition whatsoever, who should undertake to afford them in any manner, either directly or indirectly, counsel, aid, or refuge, or even who knowing the place of their retreat, should not give speedy notice of it, that those who out of an appetite of gain, and desire to enjoy and possess their spoils could not be induced to make themselves the instruments of their ruin, might at least be moved thereto by the apprehension of punishment. But at length, when these expedients were looked upon to be too mild and moderate, or at least did not expedite and hasten on the total execution of these undertakings; since this sort of persecution seemed only to encourage them the more, so that they did increase in the midst of torments and sufferings, as saffron does under hail, visibly multiplying, as if the ashes of those who were thus martyred, with the design to strike a terror into the minds of others, had been the divine seed which sprang up, and yielded increase a hundred fold. Their pastors on the other hand never ceasing to instruct, comfort, and encourage them, and to preach with their usual zeal, that the pope was antichrist, the host an idol, purgatory a fable, as Reynerus the inquisitor doth still charge them in the book which hath been often already quoted. Pope Innocent, the successor of Celestin, about the year 1198, resolved to take a more sure and expeditious course for their utter ruin and extirpation, root and branch, by ordaining inquisitors, on whom he conferred an entire, absolute, nay and sovereign authority; 1. To try them. 2. To deliver them up to the secular power, and cause them to be put to death without mercy: a damnable expedient, by which within a little time they filled christendom with horrid and lamentable spectacles of unheard of, and more than barbarous cruelty. And because the power of these inquisitors was so general, as we learn by the bulls with which they were fortified, as well as by their practices; and because also they were in such credit and esteem with the people, as to be able to gather them together by the sound of a bell, when, and as often as they pleased; and which is much more strange, they could proceed even against the bishops, who they thought had let slip the last opportunity of apprehending and putting any of those pretended heretics to death, and because they had power to imprison them themselves, and punish

them at their discretion, there was not any extremity to which they did not proceed, no one daring to make the least opposition or resistance against them.

All manner of accusations were valid against these poor people, a murderer, a common strumpet, and every infamous person, was a witness more than sufficient to take away the goods and life of a poor Vaudois, without even (a horrid thing) so much as holding it necessary to confront the witnesses, nor to form the inquests, nor make examinations: nay, it was enough if a stranger had given in a bill, though it were not signed at all, or at least in an unknown and unintelligible manner. If any one of the Vaudois had some small matter of goods and possession, there needed no more to convict him of heresy, and his goods never failed to be the means of his death, since they became the prize and reward of the accuser. No advocate durst undertake the defence of their cause, nor notary receive any act in their favour, lest he should render himself suspected of heresy, and be himself condemned as a heretic. He who was once entangled in the snares of this inquisition, was certain never to get out of it again; or if he was set at liberty, it was only quickly to be seized anew by those who having played with him as a cat does with a mouse, did at length crush his bones, and make him his prey. And as if it had been too little to take away their life; we can still produce several of the sentences which these bloody inquisitors pronounced even against the carcasses and the bones of the poor Vaudois already rotten, having caused several of them to be disinterred twenty-five and thirty years after their death, and burnt them in public places, only to have some colour and pretence to confiscate their goods, which their children (in such case) though become papists, did not dare to possess any longer, to avoid the suspicion of heresy.

And to keep the people in greater fear and terror, it was the custom of these good fathers to lead some of these poor captives in triumph in all the processions which they made, compelling some to whip themselves, and others to wear red garments with great crosses, taking the name of Benedictines converted, that it might be believed by this means, that they were convinced in their consciences of the heresy of which they had been accused, and did acknowledge that they were justly chastised for the faults which they had committed; and others again were obliged to walk in their shirts barefoot and bareheaded, with a rope about their neck and boughs in their hands. In this miserable condition were all sorts of persons, of what rank or quality soever, forced to show themselves, to the great astonishment of the spectators. They still were not permitted to enter into the churches whilst the service was saying; and which is no less cruel, several of them were condemned to go on pilgrimage to the holy land; which journey they were to make at their own expense and charges, and this precisely within the time which was prescribed them; during which, the inquisitors themselves, the priests, and other good brethren, villanously abused their wives; of which, several instances might be produced. Besides all these practices, the inquisitors had also secret instructions, and exact formularies of the stratagems which they were to make use of in all their proceedings, as may be seen in the rules and maxims taken from the archbishopric of Ambrun," which the divine Providence hath put into our

These rules may be seen in Perrin's History.