destination and grace: defended them with great ability; was heard with deep attention, but was publicly condemned, whipped and confined in a loathsome dungeon until he died, A. D. 869. The tenth century was, as the Papists acknowledge, an iron, a leaden, an obscure age. "Then." says Baronius, their chief annalist, "Christ was in a very deep sleep, when the ship was covered with waves; and what seemed worse, when the Lord was thus asleep, there were wanting disciples, who, by their cries might awaken him, being themselves all fast asleep." The Church then sunk to its very lowest depression. Yet the witnesses lived. Some few pious men were carrying the Gospel to the heathen, and others were found declaiming against the abominations of popery. A council at Trosly, in France, witnessed a good confession. Athelstan caused the scriptures to be translated into the Anglo-Saxon idiom, and Afric wrote against transubstantiation. Arnulphus, a Luther in embryo," presi dent of a council at Rhiems, ventured even then, to call the pope Antichrist, sitting in the temple of God. The eleventh century differed little from the tenth. It was almost equally sunk in wickedness and ignorance. The pope reigned with absolute and awful sway. But there were some pious people in France, who ventured to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the propriety of praying to martyrs and confessors. Thirteen of them were burnt alive, A. D. 1017. Others appeared in Flanders, who came from Italy, disciples of Gundulphus, who denied the papal doctrines. Berengarius of Tours, wrote against the doctrine of the real presence, and had many followers in France, Italy and England. A decree of the pope, commanding celibacy among the clergy, met with great opposition throughout Germany, as unscriptural. In the twelfth century, new light dawned upon the Church. New and powerful witnesses appeared for the truth. In England, the constitution of Clarendon, forbidding all appeals to the pope of Rome, without the king's license, were sworn to by the clergy and laity. Bernard inveighed loudly against the corruptions of popery. Fluentius, bishop of Florence, publicly declared that Antichrist was come. Joachim, abbot of Calabria, in presence of Richard 1. king of England, said, that Antichrist was born in the city of Rome, and would be advanced to the apostolic chair. Peter de bruis, and Henry his disciple, exposed in France, the corruptions of popery, and were both martyrs. Arnold of Brescia did the same, and was burned at Rome. A. D. 1155; his ashes were thrown into the Tyber, that the people might not venerate his relics. Some faith 1 ful men sought refuge in England from the persecutions of Germany in 1160, who were condemned, whipped and tortured because they made the word of God the rule of their faith. But the distinguishing witnesses of this, and the succeeding centuries, were the WALDENSES. They were a people scattered through the vallies of Piedmont. T'here, two centuries before, Claudius had sowed the seeds of truth, which had taken root. This people had long been poor and despised, but for their piety had been a spectacle to the world, and objects of enmity and malice. They had been called Vallenses, or dwellers in the valley ;-Cathari, or pure; Leonists or poor men of Lyons; Sabbatati, for wearing wooden shoes and dressing with great simplicity, and Albigenses, from Albi a town where many resided. In the year 1160, Peter Waldo a merchant of Lyons, disgusted with the abominable practice in the papal church of falling down before the consecrated host and adoring it as God, sought for divine instruction from the Scriptures Light shone upon his mind. He learned the doctrines of Christ, and had the four gospels translated from the Latin into the French tongue and circulated among the people. It was an invaluable gift. As the Latin had become obsolete, a dead language, the Scriptures were inaccessible to all who could not read that. Waldo first put them into the hands of the multitude and became himself an expounder of their doctrines. was prodigious. Crowds flocked to hear him. of men, adopting his sentiments, were formed. But the spirit of persecution arose. Waldo and his adherents were anathematized and obliged to disperse for safety. He retired first into Dauphiny, then into Picardy, and at last into Bohemia, where he died about 1179. He was a wonderful man. piety, his labours and the good he effected, have seldom been equalled. Wherever he went, the truth took deep root and spread wide. The word of God grew mightily, and converts were multiplied. From him the witnesses who testified to the truth against the errors of popery, were called Waldenses. Neither his death nor the persecutions of the pope, checked their growth. On the contrary, they increased amazingly throughout the south of France, Switzerland, Germany and the Low countries. In Bohemia alone, it is computed there were not less in 1325 than 80,000. The effect Associations His Their religion was the religion of the Bible. By their adversaries they were charged with holding every monstrous heresy and with the commission of every abomination. But it is evident, from the writings of their persecutors as well as their own, that their greatest crime consisted in denying the supremacy of see feel the pope, in affirming that the scripture was the only rule of faith and practice, and ought to be read by all men ; that masses were impious; that purgatory was an invention of man; that the invocation and worship of dead saints was idolatry; that the Fie church of Rome was the whore of Babylon; that the marriage of priests was lawful and necessary; that monkery was a rotten carcass, and that so many commemorations of the dead. benedictions of creatures, pilgrimages, forced fastings and the like, were diabolical inventions Their moral character was that alone on earth which deserved at all the appellation of Christian. Bu Wa ther Were avar 9 sa dend des. leath As bro The Waldensian churches looked for salvation by grace through faith, the gift of God. They received the two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper, in their simplicity, rejecting the popish ceremonies. About the year 1150," says Wall," one sect among them declared against the baptism of infants, as being incapable of salvation, but the main body of that people rejected their opinion. And the sect that held to it quickly disappeared." Their discipline was severe. They gave a literal interpretation to the whole of Christ's sermon on the mount and allowed no wars, nor suits of law, nor increase of wealth, nor oaths nor self-defence against unjust proceed-Tha ings. They were poor and ignorant and needed greatly the light of a future age. But it cannot be doubted, that among them existed truth and holiness. Luther rejoiced and gave thanks to God, that "he had enabled the reformed and the Waldenses to see and own each other as brethren." hey ts who with OIC en Com Tere dent DOU Fic st On these faithful witnesses, fell the vengeance of papal Rome. For three centuries, an incessant persecution raged against them. All the horrors of the Inquisition were employed th for their subjection. Armies were raised and sent to terrify them into submission or utterly extirpate them. By the axe, by fire, the sword and other shocking barbarities, were they hurried into eternity. In France alone, above a million were slain for their adherence to the truth. In Germany and Flanders too, they were persecuted with peculiar severity. The monks were urged by the popes to treat them worse than they treated the Saracens. In the castle of Menerbe on the frontiers of Spain, 140 persons of both sexes were burned alive. Persecution often drove the Waldenses to the top of the Alps in the dead of winter, where they perished. One hundred and eighty infants were at one time found dead there in their cradles. Four hundred little children were suffocated in a cave in the valley of Loyse, where they had been placed for safety, Often did this unhappy people change masters, and every new sovereign as ch ers But ca er or Ca seemed anxious to commend himself to the pope, by extirminating them with fire and the sword. A reader of their sufferings feels himself to be among the ancient martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, and involuntarily exclaims with the poet, "Avenge O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones But, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. The Their As in the persecution of Stephen, the saints were scattered abroad in the earth, so in that of the Waldenses and Lollards, they were driven through Europe. Some fled to England. That country was completely subject to the papal dominion. Its triumph was completed in the reign of John, when the whole kingdom was laid under an interdict. As many as twenty witnesses are mentioned by historians, who had raised their voice against it, but they were obliged to hide themselves. The mendicant orders were exceedingly numerous, and were so many harpies feeding on the vitals of the kingdom. The national universities had received great endowments, and were crowded with youth. The friars endeavoured to recruit their number from among them; and, such was their success, that parents were afraid to trust their sons there; so that the number of students at Oxford was reduced, in a short period, from thirty thousand to six thousand. This roused the indignation of John Wickliff, who had imbibed the sentiments of the Lollards. That distinguished man, the brightest light of the fourteenth century, was born in 1324, in Yorkshire. He ranked among the first scholars of that dark period, and was advanced to the mastership of Baliol College, and wardenship of Canterbury-hall. But defending the university against the encroachments of mendicants, and writing against the tyranny of the pope, and the superstitions of the age, he became the object of papal persecution, and was ejected from his office by Langham, archbishop of Canterbury. Wickliff appealed to the pope, who deferred any decision upon his case for three years. In the mean time, the reformer diligently studied the scriptures, and made himself ac the pope, in affirming that the scripture was the only rule of faith and practice, and ought to be read by all men ; that masses were impious; that purgatory was an invention of man; that the invocation and worship of dead saints was idolatry; that the church of Rome was the whore of Babylon; that the marriage of priests was lawful and necessary; that monkery was a rotten carcass, and that so many commemorations of the dead. benedictions of creatures, pilgrimages, forced fastings and the like, were diabolical inventions Their moral character was that alone on earth which deserved at all the appellation of Christian. The Waldensian churches looked for salvation by grace through faith, the gift of God. They received the two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's supper, in their simplicity, rejecting the popish ceremonies. About the year 1150," says Wall," one sect among them declared against the baptism of infants, as being incapable of salvation, but the main body of that people rejected their opinion. And the sect that held to it quickly disappeared." Their discipline was severe. They gave a literal interpretation to the whole of Christ's sermon on the mount and allowed no wars, nor suits of law, nor increase of wealth, nor oaths nor self-defence against unjust proceedings. They were poor and ignorant and needed greatly the light of a future age. But it cannot be doubted, that among them existed truth and holiness. Luther rejoiced and gave thanks to God, that "he had enabled the reformed and the Waldenses to see and own each other as brethren." On these faithful witnesses, fell the vengeance of papal Rome. For three centuries, an incessant persecution raged against them. All the horrors of the Inquisition were employed for their subjection. Armies were raised and sent to terrify them into submission or utterly extirpate them. By the axe, by fire, the sword and other shocking barbarities, were they hurried into eternity. In France alone, above a million were slain for their adherence to the truth. In Germany and Flanders too, they were persecuted with peculiar severity. The monks were urged by the popes to treat them worse than they treated the Saracens. In the castle of Menerbe on the frontiers of Spain, 140 persons of both sexes were burned alive. Persecution often drove the Waldenses to the top of the Alps in the dead of winter, where they perished. One hundred and eighty infants were at one time found dead there in their cradles. Four hundred little children were suffocated in a cave in the valley of Loyse, where they had been placed for safety. Often did this unhappy people change masters, and every new sovereign |