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Matthias Illyricus saith, that he found by the writings of Waldo, which he left behind him in certain old parchments, and which he had in his custody, that he was a learned man, and that he did not only cause the books of the Bible to be translated into the vulgar tongue, but took pains himself therein. 15

It is most certain that the enemies of Waldo and the Waldenses will have no regard to the above-mentioned testimonies, because they will make the like account both of the witnesses, and of those to whom they bear witness, and will reckon all of them as heretics. This history is not calculated for the enemies of the truth; but that the lovers thereof might see that many great persons, whose memory we honour, have spoken of the Waldenses as of true servants of God, who have maintained the truth at the expense of their lives, and have earnestly desired to see in their days the Reformation which we enjoy in ours.

Aldegonde saith, the cause wherefore they condemned them as heretics, was only because they maintained that the mass is a wicked corruption of the Holy Supper of the Lord: 16

The Host is an idol forged by men :

The Church of Rome is wholly degenerated, and full of infidelity and idolatry:

The traditions of the Church are only superstitions and human inventions:

The pope is not the head of the Church: and for other like points.

Aldegonde also observes, it is the work of God; since whatever diligence the popes and their clergy have used, employing the assistances of princes and secular magistrates, they have not been able to exterminate them, nor by proscriptions, banishments, excommunications, publications of croisades, and pardons to all those who would wage war upon them; nor by all sorts of torments, fires, flames, gibbets, and cruel blood-shedding, have been able to hinder their doctrine from spreading itself almost through all the ends of the earth.

CHAPTER VII.

Peter Waldo and the Waldenses left books behind them, which manifest their faith and character.

FORASMUCH as it may be called in question, whether there be this day in the world any proofs of their faith, we must produce an inventory of books which the Waldenses have left us, that when their doctrine shall be in dispute, every one may understand which are the writings whence we have extracted that which they have taught.

The author of the History of the State of the Church gives the subsequent testimony. Waldo, saith he, at that same time made a collection in the vulgar tongue of the passages of the Ancient Fathers, that he might fortify his disciples, not only by the authority of the Holy Scripture, but also by the testimony of the doctors, against the adversaries.1

15 Matthias Illyricus, Catalogue of the Witnesses of the Truth, p. 134. 16 Aldegonde, Table of Differences. Part iii., p. 150.

! Vignaux, History of the State of the Church, p. 307.

About the year 1580, Sieur de Vignaux, pastor of the churches of the Waldenses in Piedmont, wrote as follows, in Memoirs concerning the Original, Antiquity, Doctrine, Religion, Manners, Discipline, Persecutions, Confessions, and Progress of the people styled Waldenses. I who am the author, saith he, can testify, that having been sent among those people to preach to them the gospel of Christ our Lord, which I did for near forty years; I had no occasion to labour to divert them from the ceremonies and customs of the Church of Rome, nor to wean them from the pope, the mass, and purgatory, and such things, in which they were already teachers before me, although the greatest part of them knew not their alphabet.

To that good servant of God we are much indebted for the collection of the ancient books of the Waldenses. For he collected, and carefully preserved as many as he could find of them; and he did this with the greater advantage, by reason that he lived among them. Towards the conclusion of his life, he delivered to certain particular persons his memoirs, which he wrote concerning the Waldenses, and all the old books which he had procured in their valleys; of which he expresses himself as follows:-We have, saith he, extant among us some old writings of the Waldenses, containing catechisms and sermons, which are manuscripts written in the vulgar tongue, wherein there is nothing which makes for the pope and papacy. And it is a wonderful thing, saith he, that they have seen so clearly in a time of darkness more gross than that of Egypt.2

Le Sieur de St. Ferriol, minister of the church of Orange, inspired with a holy curiosity, made a collection of several of the said books, which he showed to Aldegonde, who makes mention of it in his first table; in which place, he says, that there are some other books extant of a very ancient letter in the library of Joseph de la Scale.3

Now the above-mentioned books, having been remitted to me, to furnish materials for this history, I will set down a catalogue of them.

In the first place we have amongst us a New Testament in parchment in the Vaudois tongue, very well written, though of a very ancient letter.

A book entitled Antichrist, which begins after this manner; Qual cosa sia l' Antechrist en datte de l'an mille cent et vingt; in which volume are contained several sermons of the barbs of the Waldenses.

A treatise concerning Sins, and their remedies.

A treatise, entitled, a Book of Virtues.

A treatise inscribed De l'enseignament de li filli: the instruction of children.

A treatise Del Matrimoni; of matrimony.

Another entitled, La Parlar de li Philosophes et Doctors: that is, the sentences of the philosophers and doctors.

A commentary or paraphrase upon the Apostles' creed.

A treatise of Sacraments.

A paraphrase or commentary upon the Commandments of the law of God.

A paraphrase upon the Lord's Prayer.

2 Vignaux, History of the State of the Church, p. 3.

Aldegonde, first table; p. 153.

A treatise of Fasting.

One of Tribulations.

A little catechism, entitled Interrogations of Minors.
A treatise against Dancing and Taverns.
Another of the four last things:

Death to all: Life eternal to the

good: Hell to the wicked: and the Last Judgment.

A book entitled Del Purgatori soima, fictitious purgatory; or the dream of purgatory.

A treatise against the Invocation of Saints.

We have moreover a very ancient book entitled, A Eiço es la causa del nostre Despartiment de la Gleisa Romana: The cause of our separation from Rome.

In that volume, there is an epistle or apology of the Waldenses inscribed; La Epistola al serenissimo Rey Lancelau, a li Ducs, Barons, et a li plus veil del Regne. Lo petit tropel de li Christians appella per fals nom falsament. P. O. V. The poor, or Waldenses.

Also a book, wherein there are several Sermons of the Barbes, and an epistle to friends, containing several excellent doctrines, to instruct all sorts of persons how to behave themselves in this life, and in all ages.

To which volume is annexed, a treatise entitled Sacerdotium; in which the charge of good pastors is described, and the punishment of wicked ones.

We have likewise extant among us a Book of Poetry, in the Vaudois tongue, in which are the following treatises: A prayer inscribed New Comfort. A poem concerning the four kinds of seed mentioned in the Gospel. Another, entitled the Bark. A fourth, called the Noble Lesson. Which book is mentioned by Aldegonde.

We have also an excellent treatise, entitled, Vergier of Consolation; containing several excellent instructions confirmed by Holy Scripture, and by the authority of several of the ancients.

Likewise an old one in parchment, entitled, the Church. Also another called the Treasure and Light of Faith.

Also a book inscribed, the Spiritual Almanac.

Another in parchment, concerning the method of separating precious from vile and contemptible things; virtues from vices.

A tract of George Morel, wherein are contained all the inquiries of himself, and Peter Mascon, from Ecolampadius and Bucer, concerning religion, and their answers.

All which books are written in the Vaudois tongue, which is partly Provençal, partly Piedmontane. All of them sufficient thoroughly to instruct their people in a good life and faith, and whose doctrine is consonant with that at present taught and believed in the Reformed Churches.

Thence we conclude, that the doctrine maintained in our days against the inventions of men, is novel to those alone who have smothered it; or that their ancestors abhorred it, for want of the knowledge of its goodness since we find a considerable number of writings which manifest that the doctrine for these several hundred years past constantly maintained, down to the Reformation, is the same with that which for several ages hath been stifled by ignorance and ingratitude. Which the adversaries themselves have in some measure confessed, when they said, that that doctrine which is called novel, is nothing else but the essence of the errors of the ancient aldenses.

4 Aldegonde, first table; p. 153.

CHAPTER VIII.

The enemies of the ancient Waldenses acknowledge that their doctrine was agreeable to the religious creed and principles of the Reformation.

LINDANUS calls Galvin the inheritor of the doctrine of the Waldenses.' Cardinal Hosius saith, that the leprosy of the Waldenses spread its infection throughout all Bohemia, when following the doctrine of Waldo, the greatest part of the kingdom of Bohemia separated from the Church

of Rome.2

Gualtier, a Jesuitical monk, in his chronographical table, or to express it accurately, in his FORMULARY OF LIES, makes the faith of the Waldenses, and those whom he calles the injured poor, and the ministers of Calvin, the same in twenty-seven articles. 3

Claudius Rubis saith, that the heresies which have been current in our time, were founded upon those of the Waldenses, and calls them the relics of Waldo.1

Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., and John Dubravius, Bishop of Olmutz, make the doctrine taught by Calvin akin to that of the Waldenses.5

Thomas Walden, who wrote against Wickliff, saith, that the doctrine of Waldo was conveyed from France into England. To which agrees Sieur de la Popeliniere, who adds, that the doctrine of the modern Protestants is but little different from that of the Waldenses, which having, saith he, been received into the quarters of Albi, and communicated by the Albigenses to the English their neighbours, when the English held Guienne in their possession, was infused into the understandings of some persons, who carried it into England, and was, as it were, handed down to Wickliff, a very eminent divine in the University of Oxford, and curate of Lutterworth, in the diocess of Lincoln, who by his eloquence and extraordinary doctrine, so won upon the hearts and understandings of several Englishmen, even of the greatest quality, that a scholar brought to Prague a book of Wickliff, entitled, the Universals, which being diligently read by John Huss, increased and explained the doctrine sowed a long time before in Bohemia by the Waldenses, who fled thither ever since Waldo's time: So that several of the people, scholars, nobility, and ecclesiastics, did embrace it.6

Cardinal Bellarmin saith, that Wickliff could add nothing to the heresy of the Waldenses."

Eccius reproaches Luther, that he did but renew the heresies of the Waldenses and Albigenses, of Wickliff and John Huss, formerly condemned.8

'Lindanus, Analytic Tables.

2 Hosius, Heresies of our Time; Book I.

3 Gualtier, Chronological Table, xii. Chapter xv., p. 494.

4 Claudius Rubis, History of the city of Lyons; Liber iii; p. 269.

5 Sylvius, History of Bohemia.-Dubravius, History of Bohemia.

6 Walden, Things Sacramental, vol. vi., title 12.-Papoliniere, History of France.

7 Bellarmin, Tom. ii., Liber i., Chapter xxvi.,-Column 86.

Eccius, Common Places.-Chapter xxviii.

Alphonsus de Castro saith, that Wickliff did only bring to light again the errors of the Waldenses."

Arnald Sorbin, Priest of Monteig, casts this reproach upon the cities of Antonin, Montauban, Millan, Castres, Puylorens, Gaillac, and others of the Albigeois, that they only renewed the erroneous doctrines of the Albigenses. 10

John de Cardonne, in his rhymes in the title-page of the history of the Monk of the Valleys of Sernay, speaks after this manner:

"What the sect of Geneva doth admit,

The heretics Albigeois do commit."

Anthony d'Ardene, of Thoulouse, saith, that the Albigenses held the same heresies

"With which the Huguenots, our brethren, were
Seasoned; the same design, the self-same care.'
"12

We are not then to dispute the antiquity of the doctrine, but the purity thereof. Since, not only according to the words even of the enemies of the Waldenses, and of those of the last reformation, there hath been for the space of whole ages a series of persons, who, crying out against the abuses which had crept into the Church, were oppressed by persecutions.

CHAPTER IX.

Enumeration of the pastors of the churches who instructed the Waldenses during several hundred years, as far as they have come to our knowledge.

FORASMUCH as it is denied that there hath been a succession of those instruments, who from time to time have opposed the corruptions and errors which have been in vogue, we will produce a list of those whom the adversaries have mentioned and put to death, as of the pastors of the Waldenses, for these four hundred and fifty years past.

Waldo began to teach the people in the year of our Lord 1160.

Le Sieur de St. Aldegonde observes, that at the same time that Waldo was inspired at Lyons, God raised up others in Provence and Languedoc, of whom the chief were Arnold, Esperon, and Joseph; from whom they were called Arnoldists, Josephists, and Esperonists. As their doctrine was first received in Alby, in the country of the Albigenses, they were commonly styled Albigenses; so that the Waldenses on one hand and the Albigenses on the other, were like the two olive trees, or the two lamps of which John speaks, the fatness and light of which were diffused throughout all the ends of the earth.

Next followed Peter Bruis, from whom many gave them the name of Petrobrusians.

Whose successors in the doctrine were two evangelists, named Henri,

9 Alphonsus de Castro, Heresies, Liber vi., page 99.

10 Arnold Sorbin, History of Friar Peter of the Valleys of Sernay; folio 172.

11 John de Cardonne, History of the Monk of the Valleys of Sernay.

12 Anthony d'Ardene's history of the Monk of the Valleys of Sernay.

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