Book XI

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ALBIGENSES, THE VAUDOIS, THE WICKLIFFISTS, AND HUSSITES.

brief Summary. — A short history of the Albigenses and Vaudois. — That they are two different Sects. — The Albigenses are complete Manicheans. — Their origin explained. The Paulicians are a branch of the Manicheans in Armenia, whence they pass into Bulgaria, thence into Italy and Germany, where they are called Cathari ; and into Franccj where they took the name of Albigenses. — Their prodigious errors, and their hypocrisy, are discovered by all contemporary authors. — The illusions of Protestants endeavouring to excuse them. — The testimony of St. Bernard, who is wrongfully accused of credulity. — The origin of the Vaudois.—^ The Ministers in vain make them the disciples of Berengarius. — They believed Transubstantiation. — The seven Sacraments acknowledged by them. — Confession and sacramental Absolution. — Their error, a kind of Donatism. — They make the Sacraments depend on the holiness of their Ministers, and allow the administration of them to pious laymen.— Origin of the Sect called the Brethren of Bohemia. — ^That they are not Vaudois, which origin they contemn ; nor the disciples of John Huss, though they boast of it. — Their deputies sent over all the world to seek for Christians of their belief, without being able to find any. — Wickliff's impious doctrine. — John Huss, who glories in being his disciple, abandons him in regard of the Eucharist. — The disciples of John Huss divided into Taborites and Calixtins. — The confusion of all these Sects. — The Protestants can draw from thence no advantage for the establishment of their Mission, and succession of their Doctrine. — The agreement of the Lutherans, of the Bohemians, and the Zuinglians in Poland. — The divisions and reconciliations of sectaries make equally agaiiMst them.

52 THE HISTORY OP [bOOK

1. — What is the succession of Protestants.

It is incredible what pains our reformed have been at, in order to find themselves predecessors in all foregoing ages. Whilst in the fourth age, of all the most illustrious, none could be found but Vigilantius alone, that opposed the honour paid to saints and the veneration of their relics, he is looked on by Protestants as the person who preserved the Depositum, namely, the succession of apostolic doctrine, and is preferred to St. Jerome, who has the whole Church on his side. For the same reason, too, Aerius ought to be considered as the only one Avhom God enlightened in the same century, for he alone rejected the sacrifice which every where else, in the East as well as the West, was offered for the relief of the dead. But, unluckily, he was an Arian ; and they were ashamed to count amongst the witnesses of the truth, a man that denied the Divinity of the Son of God. But I am amazed they stuck at that. Claude of Turin was an Arian, and the disciple of Felix of Urgel, that is, a Nestorian into the bargain¹. But because he broke Images, he finds place amongst the forefathers of the Protestants. It matters not how far soever the rest of the Iconoclasts, as well as he, have outstretched this point, even to say, that God forbade the arts of painting and sculpture ; it is sufficient they taxed the rest of Christians with idolatry, to be enrolled amongst the first-rate witnesses of the truth. Berengarius impugned nothing but the Real Presence, leaving all the rest as he found it ; but the rejecting of one only tenet was sufficient to make him a Calvinist, and a doctor of the true church. Wickliff will be of that number, notwithstanding all the impieties Ave shall see he taught ; though even by asserting that kings, lords, magistrates, priests, pastors, are no longer such from their falling into mortal sin, he has equally subverted all order in the church and state, and filled both with tumult and sedition. John Huss followed this doctrine, and, what is more, said mass to the end of his life, and adored the Eucharist ; yet for standing up against the Church of Rome in other points, he must be placed by our reformed in the calendar of their martyrs. In a word, provided they have muttered against any one point of our tenets, especially inveighed against the Pope, in other respects, be they what they Avill, and of what opinion soever, they stand on the list of Protestant ancestry, and are deemed worthy to keep up the succession of that Church.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, KTC. 53

2. — The Vaudois and Alhuje.nscfi loeak support to Calvinists.

But of all the predecessors the Protestants have made choice of, the most welcome to them, at least to the Calvinists, are the Vaudois and Albigenses. What can be their aim in this ? It were but a weak support. To make their antiquity rise some ages higher, (for the Yaudois, allowing them all they desire, and Peter de Bruis, with his disciple Henry, reach no further than the eleventh age,) and there to stop short unable to shew one before them, is being forced to a stand much beneath the time of the Apostles ; it is calling for help from men as weak and as much [)ut to it as themselves; who, alike with them, are challenged to shew their predecessors ; who, no more than they, are able to produce them ; who, by consequence, are gudty of the same crime of innovation they are accused of; so that naming them in this cause, is naming accomplices of the same crime, not witnesses that may lawfully depose in their defence.

3. — JVIuj the Calvinists lay a stress on them.

Nevertheless, this support, such as it is, is eagerly embraced by our Calvinists, and the reason is this. The Vaudois and Albigenses, it seems, formed churches separated from Rome, which Berengarius and WicklifF never did. Making them therefore their ancestors, is giving themselves, in some manner, a series of church succession. As the origin of these churches, no less than the faith they made profession of, was as yet somewhat obscure at the time of the pretended Reformation, the people were made believe that they were of a very ancient date, and sprung from the lirst ages of Christianity.

4. — Ridiculous pretensions of the Vaudois and of Bcza.

1 wonder not that Leger, one of the Vaudois Barbes (for so they called their pastors) and their most celebrated historian, has given into this error, for he was unquestionably the most bold and ignorant of all mankind. But there is reason to wonder that it was embraced by Beza, and that he has written in his Ecclesiastical History, not only that the Vaudois, time immemorial, had opposed the abuses of the Church of Rome², but also, in the year 1541, entered on record, by a public and authentic act, the doctrine taught them as from father to son down from the year 120, after Christ's nativity, as their ancient predecessors always had informed them f.

6. — False origin boasted of by the Vaudois.

Here is certainly a fine tradition, had it but the least proof to countenance it. But, unfortunately, Waldo''s first disciples did not trace it up so high ; and the remotest antiquity they challenged ^vas of withdrawing from the Church of Rome at the time -when, under Pone Sylvester I., she accepted the temporal domains that Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, endowed her Avilh. This is so frivolous a cause of rupture, and the pretension withal so ridiculous, as not to deserve refuting. A man must have lost his wnts to persuade himself that, ever since St. Sylvester's time, that is about the year 320, there was a sect amongst Christians which the Fathers knew nothing of. We have in the councils held in the communion of the Roman Church, anathemas pronounced against an infinity of different sects ; we have the catalogues of heresies drawn by St. Epiphanius, by St, Austin, and several other church authors. The most obscure and the least followed sects, those which appeared in a corner of the world, as that of certain women called Collyridians, who were to be met with only in some part of Arabia, that of the Tertullianists or Abelians, who were only in Carthage, or in some villages near Hippo, and many others equally obscure, did not escape their knowledge *. The zeal of pastors that laboured to bring back the strayed sheep, discovered all to save all ; none, but these separatists on account of ecclesiastical revenues were unknown to every body. These men, more temperate than an Athanasius, a Basil, an Ambrose, and all the other doctors, more wise than all the councils, who, without rejecting goods given to the Church, were contented with making rules for their just administration ; so well, I say, did these men play their part, as never to have been heard of by them. The assurance to assert this, was certainly the height of impudence in the first Vaudois ; but, with Beza, to trace back this sect, unknown to all ages, up to the year of our Lord 120, is giving himself ancestors and church succession by too glaring an imposition.

0, — The design of this Eleventh Book, and what is to be shewn therein.

The Reformed, disgusted at their novelty, which they were continually upbraided with, stood in need of this weak support.

XI,] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 55

But, in order to derive some advantage from it, it was also requisite to set other artifices on foot ; it was requisite to conceal carefully the true state of these Albigenses and Yaudois. Of two quite different sects they made but one ; and this, lest the Reformed should discover amongst their ancestors a too manifest contrariety. But, above all, their abominable doctrine was kept a secret ; no notice taken that these Albigenses were complete Manicheans, no less than Peter de Bruis and Henry his disciple ; not a word that these Vaudois had separated from the Church upon grounds equally detested by the new Reformation, and by the Church of Rome. The same dissimulation was used in regard of the Polish Vandois, who were but nominally such ; and the people kept ignorant that their doctrine was neither that of the ancient Yaudois, nor that of the CaKinists, nor that of the Lutherans. The history I am going to furnish of these three sects, although epitomized, will be nevertheless sup[)orted with such pregnant proofs, as to make the Calvin ists ashamed of the ancestors whom they have selected for themselves.

THE HISTORY OF THE NEW MANICHEANS, CALLED THE HERETICS OF TOULOUSE AND ABIiV.

7. — Errors of the Manicheans, progenitors of the Albigenses.

In order to understand what follows, you must not be wholly ignorant what these Manicheans were. Their whole theology turned on the question of the origin of evil ; they beheld it in the world, and were for discovering its princi[)}e. It could not be God, because he is infinitely good. It was therefore necessary, said they, to acknowledge another principle, which, being evil by its nature, might be the cause and origin of evil. Here then is the foundation of the error : two first principles, one of good, the other of evil ; enemies by consequence, and of a contrary nature ; which having fought and mixed in the strife, one diffused good on the world, the other evil ; one light, the other darkness ; and so on — for it is needless to relate here all the impious extravagances of this abominable sect. It sprung from Paganism, and its principles may be seen even in Plitto. It reigned amongst the Persians. Plutarch has acquainted us with the names they gave to the good and evil cau.se. Manes, a Persian, strove to introduce this prodigy into the Christian religion in Aurelian's reign, viz. towards the end of the third century. iNIarcion had begun some years before; and his sect, divided into many branches, had pre-³ pared the way for the impieties and reveries Manes grafted on it.

8. — Consequences of the Manicheans' false Principle.

Now the consequences which these heretics drew from this doctrine were no less absurd than impious. The Old Testament, with all its severity, was but a fable, or at best, but the product of the evil principle ; the mystery of the incarnation an illusion ; and the flesh of Jesus Christ a phantom : for flesh being the work of the evil principle, Jesus Christ, the son of the good God, could not, in truth, have vested himself with it. As our bodies came from the bad principle, and our souls from the good, or rather were the very substance of it, it was not lawful to beget children, nor unite the substance of the good principle with that of the bad ; so that marriage, or rather the generation of children, was prohibited. The flesh of animals, and every thing proceeding from it, as Avhite meats, was the work of the evil cause ; the same of wine : all these were impure by nature, and the use of them criminal. Here then are manifestly those men seduced by devils, of whom St. Paul speaks, that were '' In latter times ... .to forbid to marry," and command " to abstain from meats," as unclean, " which God hath commanded⁴."

9. — The Manicheans endeavoured to justify themselves by the vsayes of the Church.

These wretches, who sought only to deceive the world by appearances, endeavoured to justify themselves by the example of the Catholic Church, wherein the number of those that forbore marriage, from the profession of continence, was very great, and abstinence from certain meats was either practised always, as by many Anchorets after Daniel's example, or at particular times, as in Lent. But the holy fathers replied, that there was a great difference between those that condemned the procreation of children, as the Manicheans did expressly, and those that preferred continence to it with St. Paul and Jesus Christ himself, and judged it unlawful for them to look back, after making profession of so perfect a state of lifef. Besides, it was a different thing to abstain from certain meats, either to signify some mystery, as in the Old Testament, or to mortify the senses, as was still continued in f Aug. 1. XXX. cont. Faust. Man. c. 3, 4, 5, G. Dan. i. 8, 12. 1 Cor. vii. 26, 32, 34, 38. Matt. xix. 12. Luke ix, 62. 1 Tim. iv. 4.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 57 the new ; a different thing to condemn them with the Manicheans, as impure, as evil, as the work, not of God, but of the bad principle. And the fathers observed, that the apostle expressly impugned this latter sense, which was that of the Manicheans, by these words : every creature of God is good. And, again, by these : nothing is to be refused of all God has created; from thence concluding, that there was no wonder the Holy Ghost had warned the faithful so long before, by the mouth of St. Paul, against so great an abomination.

10. — Three other characteristics of the Manicheans. First, the Spirit of Seduction.

Such were the principal points of the Manichean doctrine. But this sect had, beside, two remarkable characteristics ; one, that in the midst of these impious absurdities, which the devil had inspired them with, they yet mixed something in their discourses of so specious a nature, so prodigiously seducing, that St. Austin himself, so great a genius, was ensnared thereby, and remained amongst them nine whole years, a great zealot of this sect⁵. It was observed, likewise, that this was one of those heresies which it is most difficult to be reclaimed from ; for, to impose upon the vulgar, it had juggling and unaccountable delusions, so far even as to be taxed with sorcery; in a word, none of the implements of seduction were wanting to it.

11. — Second Characteristic, Hypocrisy.

The second characteristic of the Manicheans is, their knowing how to conceal what was most detestable in their sect, with so profound an artifice, that not only strangers, but even those of the profession, passed a long time amongst them in ignorance thereof For beneath the colourable pretext of chastity they hid impurities not to be named, and which made part of their very mysteries. Amongst them were several degrees. Those whom they called auditors, knew not the bottom of their sect ; and their elect, namely, those that were let into the whole mystery, carefully kej)t close from their probationers the abominable secret, till they had been prepared for it by several gradations. They made a show of abstinence and the exterior of a life not only good, but mortified ; and one part of the seduction was, the arriving as it were by stages to that Avhich was believed the more perfect, because hidden.

^Q THE HISTORY OF [bOOK

12. — Third Characteristic: mixing with the Catholics in the Churches, and concealing themselves.

For the third characteristic of these heretics, we may further observe in them a surprising dexterity in mixing with the faithful, and concealing themselves under the appearance of the same profession ; for this dissimulation Avas one of the arj^fices they employed to inveigle men into their sentiments⁶. They were seen promiscuously vv'ith others in the churches; there they received the communion ; and although they never received the blood of our Lord, as well because they detested wine used in consecration, as also because they did not believe Jesus Christ had true blood, the liberty allowed in the Church of partaking of one or both kinds, was the cause that, for a long time, the perpetual affectation of their rejecting that of wine, passed unperceived. At length, St. Leo discovered them by this mark : but their cunning to elude the notice of the Catholics, however vigilant, was so great, that they still concealed themselves, and scarce were discovered under the pontificate of St. Gelasius. At that time, therefore, in order to render them wholly distinguishable to the people, it was necessary to proceed to an express prohibition of communicating otherwise than under both kinds; and to show that this prohibition was not founded on the necessity of always taking them conjointly, St. Gelasius f grounds it in formal terms on this ground, because those who refused the sacred wine did it through a certain superstition; aii evident proof, that, were it not for this superstition, which rejected one of the parts of this mystery as evil, the usage in its nature had been free and indifferent, even in solemn assemblies. Protestants that believed this word, superstition, was not strong enough to express the abominable practices of the Manicheans, did not reflect that this word, in the Latin tongue, signifies all false religion ; but that it is particularly appropriated to the Manichean sect, on account of their abstinences and superstitious observances: the books of St. Austin prove this sufficiently |.

13. — The Paulicians or Manicheans of Armenia.

This so hidden a sect, so abomiinable, so full of seduction, of superstition, and hypocrisy, notwithstanding imperial laws which

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 59 condemned its followers to death, yet maintained and diffused itself. The Emperor Anastasius, and the Empress Theodora, wife to Justinian, had given it countenance. The followers thereof are to be seen under the children of Heraclius, that is, in the seventh age, in Armenia, a province bordering on Persia, the birth-place of this detestable superstition, and formerly subject to the empire. They were there settled⁷, or confirmed by one named Paul, from whom the name of Paulicians was given them in the East, by one named Constantine, and, finally, by one named Sergius. They arrived to so great power in that country, either by the weakness of the government, or the protection of the Saracens, or even by the favour of the Emperor Nicephoras, much wedded to this sect, that at length, being persecuted by the Empress Theodora, the wife of Basil, they were able to build cities, and take up arms against their sovereigns f .

14. — History of the PauUclans, by Peter of Sicily, addressed to the Archbishop of Bulgaria.

These wars were long and bloody under the reign of Basil the Macedonian, to wit, at the close of the ninth century. Peter of Sicily I was sent by this Emperor to Tibrica in Armenia, which Cedrenus calls Tephrica, a stronghold of these heretics, to treat about the exchange of prisoner's. During this time, he became thoroughly acquainted with the Paulicians, and dedicated a book concerning their errors to the Archbishop of Bulgaria, for reasons hereafter specified. Vossius acknowledges we are much obliged to Raderus for giving us, in Greek and Latin, so particular and so excellent a history§. There Peter of Sicily || ])aints out to us these heretics in their proper characters, their principles, the contempt they had of the Old Testament, their prodigious address in concealing themselves when they pleased, and the other marks already mentioned. But he notices two or three which must not be forgotten, viz., their particular aversion to the Images of Christ crucified ^, a natural consequence of their error, forasmuch as they rejected the jiassion and death of the Son of God ; their contempt of the Holy Virgin, whom they did not account the mother of Jesus Christ, since they denied his human flesh ; and, above all, their abhorrence of the Eucharist.**

{ Pet. Sic. Hist, de Manith. Cedr. lb. 541,&,c. ^ Voss. de iiist. Grac.

II Pet. Sic. lb. Prsef. &c. f Ibid. ** Ibid.

15. — The conformity of the Paulicians with the Manicheans, whom St. Austin refuted.

Cedrenus *, who has taken the greatest part of what he writes of the PauHcians from this historian, instances, after hira, these three characteristics, namely, their aversion to the Cross, to the blessed Virgin, and the holy Eucharist. The same sentiments had the Manicheans of old. We learn from St. Austinj, their eucharist was different from ours, and something so execrable as not to be thought on, much less written. But the new Manicheans had also received, from the ancient, another doctrine, Ave are to observe. So long since as St. Austin's time, Faustus, the Manichean, upbraided the Catholics with their idolatry in the honour they paid the holy martyrs, and in the sacrifices they offered on their relicsj'. St. Austin pointed out to them this worship had nothing common with that of the heathens, because it was not the worship of Latria, or of siibjection and perfect servitude; and if they offered to God the holy oblation of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, at the tombs and on the relics of the martyrs, they were far from offering to them this sacrifice, but hoped only "To excite themselves thereby to the imitation of their virtues, to be brought into partnership with their merits ; and, lastly, to be assisted by their prayers." So clear an answer did not prevent the new Manicheans from continuing the calumnies of their forefathers. Peter of Sicily § acquaints us, that a Manichean woman seduced an ignorant layman called Sergius, by telling him, Catholics honoured the saints as divinities, and for that reason laymen were hindered from reading the Holy Scripture, lest they should discover a number of the like errors.

16. — The design of the Pmdicians on the Bulgarians ; and Peter of Sicily's instruction to hinder the effect.

It was by such calumnies as these the Manicheans seduced the ignorant. A great desire of enlarging their sect was always remarked amongst them. Peter of Sicily || discovered, whilst ambassador at Tibrica, that it was resolved in the council of the Paulicians, to send preachers of their sect into Bulgaria, in order to seduce those new converts. Thrace, bordering; on

11 Peter Sic. initio lib.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 61 this province, had been infected with this heresy long Ijefore. So there was but too much reason to fear the worst for the Bulgarians, should the Paulicians, the most cunning of the Manichean sect, attempt to seduce them ; and it was this induced Peter of Sicily to inscribe the above-mentioned book to their archbishop, to secure them against such dangerous heretics. In spite of all his pains, it is certain the Manichean lieresy took deep root in Bulgaria, and thence soon after spread itself over the other parts of Europe ; whence came, as we shall see, the name of Bulgarians, given as the followers of this heresy,

17. — The Manicheans herjhi to appear in the West after the year of our Lord one thousand.

A thousand years had elapsed since the birth of Jesus Christ, and the ])rodigious relaxation of discipline threatened the Western Church with some extraordinary disaster. Besides, it was not unlikely the dreadful time when Satan was to be let loose, foretold in the Revelations⁸, after a, thousand years, which may denote a thousand years after the strong-armed, to wit, the victorious Satan, was bound by Jesus Christ at his coming into the world j. Howsoever that may be, in this time and in 1017, during king Robert's reign, heretics were discovered at Orleans, of such a doctrine, as long before had been unheard of amongst the Latins;];.

18. — Manicheans that came from Italy, discovered at Orleans in the time of King Robert.

An Italian woman brought into France this abominable heresy. Two Canons of Orleans §, one called Stephen or Heribert; the other Lisoius, both men of reputation, were the first inveigled. There was great difficulty in discovering their secret. But at length a person, named Arifaste, suspecting what it mio-ht be, having insinuated himself into their familiarity, these heretics and their followers confessed, after a great deal of pains, that they denied the human liesh of Jesus Christ 5 that they did not believe remission of sins was given in baptism ; nor that the bread and wine could be changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. It was discovered, they had a particular Eucharist, by them called the celestial food. It was cruel and abominable, and wholly suitable to the Mani-

• Acta Cone. Aurcl. spicil. t. ii. Cone. Lab. t. ix. Glab. Jib. iii. e, S,

62 THR HISTORV OF [bOOK chean genius, although not found amongst those of old. But besides what was seen at Orleans, Guy of Nogent⁹ also takes notice of it in other countries ; nor is it to be wondered at that new prodigies are to be met Avith in so close a sect, whether invented by them, or but newly brought to light.

19. — Sequel.

Here are the general characteristics of Manicheism. We have seen these heretics reject the incarnation. As for baptism, St. Austin| says expressly, the Manicheans did not give it, and believed it useless. Peter of Sicilyj, and after him Cedrenus¹⁰, tells us the same of the Paulicians ; altogether shevv' us that the Manicheans had a different eucharist from ours. What was said by the heretics of Orleans, that we ought not to beg the saints' assistance, was also of the same stamp, and sprung, as is seen above, from the ancient source of this sect.

20. — Sequel.

They said nothing openly of the two principles, but spoke with contempt of the creation, and the books which record it, meaning the Old Testament ; and confessed, at the very time of execution, that they had entertained evil sentiments concerning the Lord of the universe||. The reader will remember, that he was judged the evil principle by the Manicheans. They went to the stake with joy, in hopes of a miraculous delivery, so strangely were they possessed with the spirit of seduction. Now this was the first instance of the like punishment. It is known, the Roman laws condemned the Manicheans to death ; the holy king Robert judged them worthy of the flames^.

21. — The same Heresy in Gascony and at Toulouse.

At the same time, the same heresy is discovered in Aquitaine and Toulouse, as appears by the history of Ademarus¹¹, of Chabanes, monk of the abbey of St. Cibard, in Angouleme, contemporary with these heretics. An ancient writer of the history of Aquitaine, published by the celebrated Peter Pithoufj, informs us, that there were discovered in this province, whereof Perigord made part, " Manicheans, that rejected baptism, the sign of the holy cross, the church, and the Redeemer himself;

•■ * Bib. nov. I'Abb. t. ii. pp. 17G, 180.

f f Frag. Hist. Aquit. edita a Petro Pith. Bar, t. xi. An. 1017.

XI.] TTIE VARIATIONS, KTC. 63 denying his incarnation and passion, and the honour due to saints, lawful marriage, and the use of meat." And the same author shows us they were of the same sect with the heretics of Orleans, whose error came from Italy.

22. — The Manicheans of Italy called Cathari, and why.

In effect, we see the Manicheans had settled in that country. They were called Cathari, as much as to say, pure. Formerly other heretics had assumed that name the Novatians, in the persuasion that their life was more pure than that of others, on account of the severity of their discipline. But the Manicheans, elated with their continency and abstinence from flesh, which they believed unclean, accounted themselves not only Cathari, or pure, but also, as St. Austin¹² relates, Catharists, namely, purifiers, by reason of that part of the divine substance, which was mixed with the herbs and pulse together with the contrary substance, from which, in eating them, they separated and purified this divine substance. These, I own, are monstrous opinions ; and it were hardly to be believed, that men could have been so strangely infatuated, had not experience taught us that God sets, to man's proud mind, examples of the blindness he may fall into, when abandoned to himself. This, then, is the true original of the heretics of France, sprung from the Cathari of Italy.

23. — Origin of the Manicheans of Toulouse and Italy. —Proof that they came from Bulgaria.

Vignier, whom our reformed have accounted the restorer of history in the last age, speaks of this heresy, and the discovery thereof made in the council of Orleans, whose date he places, by mistake, in 1021, and observes, that " In this year many people were taken and burnt, for the crime of heresy, in the presence of king Robert ; for it is written (continues he) that they spoke ill of God and the Sacraments, to wit, of baptism aud the body and blood of Jesus Christ, as likewise of marriage ;" nor would eat meats that had blood and fat, reputing them uncleanf. He reports, also, that the chief of these heretics was called Stephen, whereof he cites Glaber as a witness, with the chronicle of St. Cibard ; " according to whose testimony," proceeds he, " many other followers of the sanle heresy, called Manicheans, were executed elsewhere, as at Toulouse and in Italy." No matter though this author was¹³ mistaken in the date, and some other circumstances of his history ; he had not seen the acts, which have been recovered since that time. It is enough that this heresy of Orleans, which had Stephen for one of its authors, on the enormities of which king Robert took vengeance, and whose history Glaber hath reported, be acknowledged for Manichean by Vignier ; that he held it for the source of that heresy which afterwards was punished at Toulouse, and that all this impiety, as we are going to see, was derived from Bulgaria.

24. — The same Origin proved by an ancient Author quoted by Vignier — {^addition to the Second Part.)

An ancient author, cited in the additions of the same Vignier, leaves no room to doubt of it. The passage of this author, which Vignier transcribes entire in Latin, imports, 'Uhat as soon as the heresy of the Bulgarians began to spread itself in Lombard y, they had for Bishop a certain man called Mark, who had received his ordination from Bulgaria, and under whom were the Lombards, the Tuscans, and those of Mark Ancona ; but that another Pope, named Nicetas, came from Constantinople into Lombardy, who impeached the ordination of Bulgaria ; and that Mark had received his from Drungaria¹⁴.""

25. — Secpiel of the same Passage,

What country he meant by Drungaria I have no need to examine. Renier, thoroughly acquainted, as we shall see, with all these heresies, tells us of the Manichean churches of Dugranicia and Bulgaria, whence come all the rest of the sect both in Italy and Francef ; which perfectly well agrees, as is plain, with Vignier's author |. In this same ancient author of Vignier, we see that this heresy, brought from beyond sea, to wit, from Bulgaria, thence spread itself through other provinces, where afterwards it was in great vogue, into Languedoc, Toulouse, and especially into Gascony ; whence the name of Albigenses, as, for the like reason, that of Bulgares was conferred on the sect, on account of its origin. I shall not repeat what Vignier § observes, how the name Bulgare was turned to its present signification in our language. The word is too infamous, but its derivation certain ; nor is it less certain that the Albigenses were called by this name in token of the place they came from, namely from Bulgaria.

• Bibl. P. P, part. ii. p. 759. § Vignier. ibi

Xr.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 65

26. — Council of Tours and Toulouse cujaimt the Manicheans of this last City.

There needs no more to convict these heretics of Manicheism. But, in process of time, the evil grew more apparent, principally in Languedoc and Toulouse, for this city was like the metropolis of the sect, " whence the heresy, extending itself," as speaks the Canon of Alexander III. in the Council of Tours, "like a cancer, into the neighbouring countries, infected Gascony and the other provinces¹⁵." As the source of the evil, as I may say, there took its rise, there also the remedy was first applied. The Pope Callixtus II. held a Council at Toulousef, where were condemned the heretics that " rejected the sacrament of our Lord's body and blood, infant-baptism, the priesthood, and all ecclesiastic orders, with lawful marriage." The same canon was repeated in the general Council of Lateran J under Innocent II. The character of Manicheism is here seen in the condemnation of marriage. And again, in rejecting the sacrament of the Eucharist ; for it ought to be particularly observed, that the canon imports, not that these heretics had some error respecting the sacrament, but that they rejected it, as we have seen the Manicheans did likewise.

27. — Their conformity with the Manicheans known by St. Austin. — The same Heresy in Germany.

As for the priesthood and all ecclesiastical orders, the total subversion of the hierarchy introduced by the Manicheans, and the contempt they had of all church-subordination, maybe seen in St. Augustin and other authors §. In respect of infantbaptism, we shall observe hereafter, that the new Manicheans impugned it with particular industry ; and although they rejected baptism in general, what struck men with surprise was chiefly the refusal they made of this sacrament to children, whilst the Church in jieneral shewed so much eajrerness to confer it on them. Therefore, the sensible characteristics, whereby this Toulousian, afterwards called Albigensian heresy, made itself known, were specified in this canon of Toulouse and Lateran. The bottom of the error lay more deeply concealed. But the more this cursed offspring from Bulgaria diffused itself in the ^Vest, their Manicheau tenets became the more palpable

• Cone. liater. ii. An. 1130. Can. 23. ^ Aug. de liaer. iu hxr. Man. Jicb. Serm. i. Bib. PP. t. iv. part ii. p. 81. Ren. coat. Waltl. c. C.

VOL, II. F

They penetrated into the heart of Germany, and the Emperor Henry IV. there discovered them at Goslar, a city of Siiabia, towards the middle of the eleventh century, surprised whence could proceed this Manichean progeny¹⁶. These here were known by their abstaining " from the flesh of animals of what kind soever, and believing their use prohibited." The error soon spread in Germany on all sides ; and in the twelfth century, many of these heretics were met with near about Coloo-ne. The name of Cathari made the sect known, and Ecbert, a contemporary author and able divine, shews us, in these Cathari near Cologne, all the Manichean characters! ; the same detestation of flesh and marriage ; the same contemi)t of baptism ; the same abhorrence of communion ; the same repugnance to believe the truth of the Son of God's incarnation and passion : in short, other similar marks which it is needless to repeat.

28. — Sequel ofEcberfs Sentiments concerning the Manicheans of Germany.

But as heresies change, or in time shew themselves plainer, so many new tenets and usages are perceptible in this. For instance, in explaining to us amongst the rest, the contempt the Manicheans had of baptism, Ecbert informs us, that although they rejected the baptism of water, they gave, with ho-hted torches, a certain baptism of fire, the ceremony of which he sets forth|. They were firmly opposed to infant baptism, which I notice once more, it being one of the distinguishing marks of these new Manicheans¹⁷. They had likewise another not less remarkable; their maintaining that the sacraments lost their virtue by the bad life of those that administered them. Wherefore, they exaggerated the corruption of the clergy, in order to make it appear that we had no longer any sacraments amongst us ; and this is one of the reasons for which we have seen they were accused of rejecting all ecclesiastical orders, together with the priesthood.

29. — It is discovered that they held two first Principles.

The belief of these new heretics, as to the two principles, was not as yet fully brought to light. For although men were very sensible this was the foundation of their rejecting the union of

• Serm. i. viii. xi. ^ Serm. vii. Serm. iv., &c.

XI.] TIIK VAREATIONS, ETC. 07 both sexes, and whatever proceeded from it in all animals, as flesh, eggs, and white meats, yet, as far as 1 can find, Echert is the first that objects this error to them in express terms. Nay, he says, " he had most certainly discovered," that their private motive for abstaining from flesh was, " Because the devil was the creator of it¹⁸." You see how difficult it was to dive to the bottom of their doctrine ; yet it appeared sufficiently by its consequences.

30. — Variations of these Heretics.

We learn from this same authorf, that these heretics shewed themselves, at times, more moderate m regard to marriage. One<:alled Hartuvinus allowed a youth amongst them to marry a maiden, hut required they should be both virgins, and not |)roceed heyond the first child; which 1 take notice of, in order to shew the oddities of a sect contradictory to itself, and often forced to act counter to its own principles.

31. — Their industry to conceal themselves.

But the most certain mark by which to know these heretics, was the pains they took to conceal themselves, not onlv by receiving the sacraments with us, but also by answering like us when urged regarding their faith. This was the spirit of the sect from its begimiing, and we have before taken notice of it, ever since the time of St. Austin and St. Leo, Peter of SicilyJ, and after him Cedrenus, shew us the same character in the Paulicians. They did not only deny in general that they were Manicheans, but also, when interrogated in particular concerning each tenet of their ("aitii, they feigned themselves Catholics, betraying their sentiments by manifest lies, or at least disguising them by equivocations worse than lies, because more artful and more fraught with hypocrisy §. For example, when spoken to concerning the water of baptism, they received it, understanding by the water of baptism, the doctrine of our Lord, whereby souls are purified. All they say abounded with the like allegories; and men took them for orthodox, unless from long custom they had learnt to see through their equivocations.

32. — Their equivocations when interrogated about Faith.

Ecbert informs us of one which it was impossible to guess at. It was known that they rejected the Eucharist ; and

F 2 when, to sound them on so important an article, they were asked whether they made the body of our Lord ? they answered readily, They made it, understanding that their own body, which they made in some wise by their food, was the body of Jesus Christ, by reason that, according to St. Paul, they were the members of it *. By these artifices they appeared, outwardly, good Catholics. But, what is yet more unaccountable, one ot their tenets was, that the Gospel forbad swearing for whatsoever cause f : nevertheless, when examined concerning their religion, they believed it lawful not only to lie, but to forswear themselves ; and had learnt from the ancient Priscillianists, another branch of the Manicheans known in Spain, this verse, cited by St. Austin : " Jura, perjura, secretum prodere noli : Swear true or false, as long as thou betrayest not the secret of the sect|," For which reason Ecbert styled them obscure men, men that did not preach, but whispered in the ear, who lurked in corners, and muttered rather in private than explained their doctrine §. This was one of the sect's allurements; there was something of a charm in this impenetrable secret observed amongst them ; and as the wise man said, '^ Those waters you drink by stealth are thepleasantest[|." St. Bernard, who was well acquainted with these heretics, as we shall soon see, remarks in them this particular character, that, whereas other heretics, urged on by the spirit of pride, sought only to make themselves known ; these, on the contrary, strove only to conceal themselves — others aimed at victory ; but these, more mischievous, sought only to annoy, lurking silently in the grass, that they might instil their poison the more securely as the bite was less expected ^. The thing was, their error, once discovered, was already half vanquished by its own absurdity ; wherefore they betook themselves to the ignorant, to mechanics, to silly women, to peasants, and recommended nothing so much to them as this mysterious secret.

33. — Enervin consults St, Bernard about the Manicheans near

Cologne.

Enervin, who served God in a church near Cologne, at the time these new Manicheans, whom Ecbert speaks of, were

^ De haer. in haer. Priscil. Ecb. Serm. ii. Bern. lb. iuit. lib. id. Serm. i. ii. vii.; &c. § Ibid.

II Prov. ix. 17. Serm. \xv. in Cantlc. H Ibid. Ecb, Jnit. lib. &c. Bern. Serm. Ixv, Ixvi.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 69 discovered tliere, gives in the main the same account of them as this author; and not finding in the church a greater doctor to whom he coukl address himself for their conviction than the great St. Bernard, Abbot of Ckiir\aux, he wrote him that fine letter which the learned Francis Mabillon has given us in his Analects¹⁹. Therein, besides the dogmata of these heretics, which it is needless to repeat, we see the particularities which occasioned their discovery ; we see the distinction between "^ the Auditors and the Elect," a certain character of Manicheism specified by St. Austin ; we there see that they had their Pope, a truth which afterwards became more manifest ; and in fine, that they boasted, " their doctrine had a continued succession down to us, but hidden ever since the time of the martyrs, and after that in Greece, and in some other countries;" which is very true, since it came from Marcion and Manes, heresiarchs of the third century ; and thereby it is apparent in whose shop was first vended this method of maintaining the Church's perpetuity, by a hidden series, and doctors scattered here and there without any manifest and legitimate succession.

.34. — These Heretics interrogated before all the peo'ple.

But, lest it should be said the doctrine of these heretics was, perchance, calumniated for want of being well vmderstood, it appears, as well by Enervin's letter as by Ecbert's sermonsf , that the examination of these heretics Avas made in public ; and that it was one of their bishops, with a companion of his, who defended their doctrine to their utmost, in the presence of the archbishop, the whole clergy, and all the people.

35. — Tlie tenets of these Heretics refuted by St. Bernard, who was well acquainted with them at Toulouse,

St. Bernard, whom the pious Enervin excited to confute these heretics, then composed the two fine sermons on the Canticles, in which he so vigorously imimgned the heretics of his time. They carry so manifest a relation to Enervin's letter, that it is plain this gave occasion to them ; but it is no less plain by St. Bernard's firm and positive way of speaking, that he had also other informations, and kncAv more of the matter than Enervin himself. And, indeed, it was now above twenty years since Peter de Bruis and his disciple Henry had secretly spread their errors in Dauphiny, in Provence, and

"70 THE HISTORY OF [boOK especially in the neighbourhood of Toulouse. St. Bernard took a journey into that country expressly to root up this bad seed, and the miracles he there wrought in confirmation of the Catholic truth are more conspicuous than the sun. But the material point to be observed is, that he spared no pains to inform himself fully concerning a heresy he was going to oppose ; and after frequent conferences with the disciples of these heretics, he could not be ignorant of their doctrine. Now he distinctly instances, together with their condemnation " of infant baptism²⁰, the invocation of saints, the oblations for the dead," that of " the use of marriage, and of all that proceeded," far or near^ " from the union of both sexes, as flesh and white meats J." He taxes them likewise with not admitting the Old Testament, and their receiving the Gospel only. Another, also, of their errors remarked by St. Bernard was J, that a sinner ceased to be a bishop, and that the popes, the archbishops, the bishops, and priests, were neither capable of giving or receiving the sacraments, by reason they were sinners. But what he most insists on, is their hypocrisy, not only in the deceitful appearance of their austere and penitential life, but also in the custom they constantly obser\ ed of receiving the sacraments with us, and professing our doctrine publicly, Avhich they inveighed against in secret §. St. Bernard shews their piety was all dissimulation. In appearance they blamed commerce with women, and nevertheless were all seen to pass days and nights apart with them. The profession they made of abhorring the sex, seemed to warrant their not abusing it. They believed all oaths forbidden, yet, examined concerning their faith, did not stick at perjury ; such oddness and inconstancy is there in extravagant minds [j ! From all these things St. Bernard concluded this was "the mystery of iniquity"" foretold by St. Paul^, so much the more to be feared in proportion as it Avas more hidden ; and that these were they whom the Holy Ghost made known to the same apostle, as *' giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God has created **." All the characters agree too clearly with them to need insisting on. Behold here the fine ancestors whom the Calvin ists have selected for themselves !

II Ibid. H 2 Thess. ii. 7. ** Serm. Ixvi. 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2, 3.

Xr.] TUG VARIATIONS, ETC. 71

36. — Peter de Bruis, and Henry .

To say that these heretics of Toulouse, of whom St. Bernard speaks, are not the same with those vulgarly called Albigenses, Avere too gross a fallacy. The ministers are agreed that Peter de Bruis and Henry are two chiefs of this sect, and that Peter, the venerable Abbot of Cluny, their contemporary, of whom we shall soon speak, attacked the " Albigenses under the name of Petrobusians *." If the chiefs are convicted of Manicheism, the disciples have not degenerated from this doctrine, and these bad trees may be judged of by their fruit; for although it be certain, from St. Bernard's letters, and from the authors then living, that he converted many of these Toulousian heretics, the disciples of Peter de Bruis and Henry, yet the race was not extinguished, which the more private it kept itself the more proselytes it gainedf. They were called " the good men" from their af)parent meekness and simplicity ; but their doctrine became manifest in an interrogatory many of them underwent at Lombez, a little town near Alby, in a council held there in 1176 |.

37.— The Council of Lombez. — Famous examination of these

Heretics.

Gaucelin, bishop of Lodeve, equally well acquainted with their artifices and with sound doctrine, was there commissioned to examine them concerning their faith. They shuffle in many articles ; they lie in others ; but own in express terms, that " They reject the Old Testament ; that they believe the consecration of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, equally good Avhether made by laymen or clergy, if good men ; that all swearing is unlawful ; and that bishops and priests, devoid of the qualities prescribed by St. Paul, are neither bishops nor priests." They never could be brought, whatever was said, to ap|)rove of marriage, nor infant ba[)tism ; and the obstinate refusal to acknowledge such certain truths, was taken for a confession of their error. They were condemned also from the Scripture as men that refused to confess their faith ; and, on all the points proposed, Avere hard pressed by Ponce, archbishop of Narbonne, by Arnold bishop of Nismes, by the abbots, and especially by Gaucelin bishop of Lodeve, whom Gerald, bishop of Alby, there present, and ordinary of Lombez,²¹²² before the place was erected into a bishopric, had vested with his authority. I do not think there can be seen, in any council, either a more regular procedure, or Scripture better employed, or a dispute more precise and convincing. Let men come and tell us after this, that what is said of the Albigenses is all mere calumny.

38. — History of the same Council by a contemporary Author.

An historian of those times recites at length this council, and gives a faithful abridgment of more ample acts which have been since recovered *. He begins his account thus : " There were heretics in the province of Toulouse, Avho would have themselves be called good men, and were maintained by the soldiers of Lombez. Those said, they neither received the law of Moses, nor the Prophets, nor. the Psalms, nor the Old Testament, nor the Doctors of the New, except the Gospels, St. Paul's Epistles, the seven canonical Epistles, the Acts, and Revelations." Setting all the rest aside, here is enough to make our Protestants blush for the errors of their ancestors.

39. — TVIiy these Heretics are called Arians.

But in order to raise a suspicion of some calumny in the proceedings against them, they observe, they were not called Manicheans but Arians ; yet the Manicheans were never accused of Arianism ; a mistake, say they, which Baronius himself has owned f . "What a fetch is this, to cavil about the title men give a heresy, when they see it specified, not to mention other marks, by that of rejecting the Old Testament ! But we must also shew these contentious spirits, what reason there was to accuse the Manicheans of Arianism. It was because, as Peter of Sicily expressly tells us, " They professed the Trinity in words, but denied it in their hearts, and turned the mystery into impertinent allegories |."

40. — The sentiments of the Manicheans concerning the Trinity, from St. Austin.

This is likewise Avhat St. Austin fully informs us of. Faustus, bishop of the Manicheans, had written : " We confess under three names one only and the same Divinity of God the Father Almighty, of Jesus Christ his Son, and of the Holy Ghost §." But then he further adds, " that the Father dwelt m the prin-

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 73 cipal and sovereign light called by St. Paul inaccessible. As for the Son, he resided in the second light, which is visible ; and being t\Yofold, according to the Apostle who speaks of the power and wisdom of Jesus Christ, his power resided in the sun, and his wisdom in the moon ; and finally, in regard of the Holy Gbost, his habitation was in our ambient air *." This is what Faustus said: whereby St. Austin convicts him of separating the Son from the Father even by corporeal spaces ; nay, of separating him from himself, and of separating the Holy Ghost from them both ; to situate them also, as did Faustus, in places so unequal, was placing betvv'een the divine persons a too manifest inequality. Such were these allegories frauo-ht with ignorance, by which Peter of Sicily convicted the Manicheans of denying the Trinity. Such an explanation as this was far from a confession of it; but, as St. Austin says, " was squaring the belief of the Trinity by the rule of his own conceits." An author of the twelfth century, contemporary with St. Hernardf, acquaints us that these heretics declined saying, Gloria Patri ; and Renier states it expressly that the Cathari or Albigenses did not believe that the Trinity was one only God, but believed that the Father was greater than the Son and the Holy Ghost :{:. No wonder then that the Catholics have sometimes ranked the Manicheans with those that denied the blessed Trinity, and, on this consideration, given them the name of Arians.

41, — Manicheans at Soissons. — The I'estimony of Guy of

Nocjent.

To return to the Manichcism of these heretics : Guy of Nogent²³, a celebrated author of the twelfth age and more ancient than St. Bernard, shews us heretics near Soissons that made a phantom of the incarnation ; that rejected infant baptism ; that held in abhorrence the mystery wrought at the Altar ; yet took the sacraments with us ; that rejected all manner of flesh, and whatsoever })roceeds from the union of both sexes. They made, after the example of those heretics above seen at Orleans, a Eucharist and sacrifice not fit to be described; and, to shew themselves completely like the other Manicheans, " they concealed themselves like them, and mixed clandestinely amongst us," confessing and swearing anything, to save themselves from punishment ||.

X Ren. cont. Wald. c. (i. t, iv. Bib. PP. p. 750. § De vita sua, lib. iii.c. IG.

11 Ibid.

74 THE HISTORY OP [bOOK

42. — Testimony ofRadulphus Ardens concerning the Heretics of the Agenois.

Let us add to these witnesses Radulphus Ardens, a renowned author of the eleventh age, in the description he gives us of the heretics of the Agenois, who " brag of leading the life of the Apostles ; who say, they do not lie, they do not swear ; who condemn the use of flesh and marriage ; who reject the Old Testament, and receive a part only of the New ; and, what is more terrible, admit two Creators ; who say, the Sacrament of the Altar is nothing but mere bread ; who despise baptism and the resurrection of bodies²⁴." Are not these Manicheans in their proper colours ? Now we descry no other characteristics in them than in those of Toulouse afid Alby, whose sect, we have seen, extended itself into Gascony and the adjacent provinces. Agen also had its particular doctors : but, be that as it will, the same spirit is discernible every where, and all is of the same stamp.

43. — The same Heretics in England.

Thirty of these heretics of Gascony took shelter in England in the year 1160. They were called Poplicans or Publicans. But let us see what was their doctrine from Gulielraus Neobridgensis, an historian near to those times, whose testimony SpehTian, a protestant author, has inserted in the second volume of his English Councils f . " These heretics," says he, " were brought before the council held at Oxford. Ciirard, the only person of any learning, answered well as to the substance of the heavenly physician : but proceeding to the remedies he had left us, they spoke very ill, abhorrmg baptism, the Eucharist and marriage, and despising CathoHc unity." Protestants put in the catalogue of their ancestors these Gascoign heretics, for speaking ill (in the sentiment of the English nation, then believing the real presence) of the Eiicharislic sacrament ;|:, But they ought to have considered, that these Poplicans stand accused, not of denying the real presence, but of abhorring the Eucharist, no less than baptism and marriage, — three visible characteristics of Manicheism : nor do I hold these heretics wholly justified as to the other points, under pretext that they did not answer amiss ; for we have seen too much of the wiles

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 75 of these people ; and at best they would not the less be Manicheans for mitigating some few errors of this sect.

44. — That the Poplicans or Publicans are Manicheans.

Even the name of Publicans or Poplicans was a name of the Manicheans, as is manifestly seen from the testimony of William le Breton. This author, in the life of Philip Augustus, dedicated to his eldest son Lewis, speaking of these heretics, vulgarly called Poplicans, says, " that they rejected marriage; accounted it a crime to eat flesh; and had other superstitions specified by St. Paul in a few words : viz. in the first to Timothy *."

45. — The ministers make the Vaudois Manicheans, in making them Poplicans.

Our Reformed nevertheless think they do an honour to the disciples of Waldo by ranking them amongst the Poplicans. There needed no more to condemn the Vaudois. But I shall take no advantage from this mistake : I shall leave to the Vaudois their particular heresies, it being enough for me here to have shewn the Poplicans convicted of Manicheismf.

46. — The Manicheans ofErmengard.

I own, with the Protestants, that Ermengard's treatise ought not to have been entitled, *' against the Vaudois," as it was by Gretser, for he speaks in no respect concerning these heretics; but the fact is, in Gretser's time, the general name of Vaudois was given to all sects separate from Rome ever since the eleventh or twelfth century down to Luther's days : which was the reason that this author, publishing divers treatises against these sects, gave them this common title, '^ against the Vaudois X-" Yet he did not omit to preserve to each book the title he had found in the manuscript. Now Ermengard or Ermengaud had entitled his book thus: "■ A Treatise against these Heretics, who say it is the devil, and not God, that created the world and all things visible §.'"²⁵ He refutes in particular, chapter by chapter, all the errors of these heretics, which are all those of Manicheism so frequently noticed by us||. If they sj)eak against the Eucharist, they speak no less against baptism; if they reject the worship of saints, and our

• AtilitTt. La Ro4ue. § Tom. x. Bil). PP. part i., p. 12.S:i.

II Ibid. cap. xi. Iliid. xii. Tliid. xiii. Iliid. c. i. ii. iii. vii. Ibiii v. xv. xvi.²⁶

other doctrinal points, they do no less reject the creation, the incarnation, the law of Moses, marriage, eating of flesh, and the resurrection ; so that to value themselves on the authority of this sect, is placing their glory in infamy itself.

47. — An examination of the Authors who treat of the Manicheans and Vandois is proceeded to,

I pass by many other Avitnesses which, after so many convincing proofs, are no longer necessary ; but some there are not to be omitted, for this reason, that they insensibly lead us to the knowledge of the Vaudois.

48. — Proof from Alamts that the Heretics of Montpellier are Manicheans.

In the first place, I produce Alanus, a famous monk of the Cistercian order, and one of the first authors that wrote against the Vaudois. He dedicated a treatise against the heretics of his time to the Count of Montpellier, his lord, and divided it into two books. The first regards the heretics of his country. To them he ascribes the two principles, the denial of Jesus Christ's incarnation, and attributing to him a fantastical body, and all the other points of Manicheism, against the law of Moses, against the Resurrection, against the use of Flesh, and Marriage²⁷; to which he adds some other things we had not as yet seen in the Albigenses ; amongst others, the damnation of St. John Baptist, for having doubted of the coming of Jesus Christ, for they took it for a doubt, in his holy precursor, what he caused his disciples to say to our Saviour, " Art thou he that should come ?" a most extravagant notion, but very conformable to Avhat Faustus, the Manichean, writes, as St. Austin testifies. The other authors who wrote against these new Manicheans, unanimously lay the same error to their charge.

49. — The same author distinguishes the Vaudois from the

Manicheans.

In the second part of his work, Alanus treats concerning the Vaudois, and there makes a list of their errors, which we shall see in due place ; it suffices to observe here, that there is nothing amongst them savouring of Manicheism, and that, at first sight, these two heresies are quite distinct.

■1= Alan. p.'31. Mat. xi. 3. Lib. v. cont. Faust, c. i. Ebrard. Antibser, C. xiii. t. vi. ' Bib. PP. 1332. Ermeng. c. vi. ibid. 1339, &c.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 77

50. — Peter of Vaucernay distinrjuishes mighty ivcll these two sects, and shews the Albiyenses are Manicheans.

That of Waldo was as yet a novelty. It took its rise at Lyons, in the year IIGO, and Alanus wrote in 1202, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. A little after, and about the year 1209, Peter of Vaucernay compiled his history of the Albigenses, where, treating on the different sects and heresies of his time, he begins with the Manicheans, and specifies their several parties, wherein are always to be seen some characteristics of those above observed in Manicheism, although in some strained higher, and in others more tempered, according to the fancy of these heretics²⁸. Be that as it will, the whole is bottomed on Manicheism, and this is the peculiar characteristic of that heresy which Vaucernay represents to us in the province of Narbonne, namely, the heresy of the Albigenses, whose history he undertakes. Nothing like this does he attribute to the other heretics of whom he treats. '^ There were," says he, '^ other heretics, called Vaudois, from a certain Waldius of Lyons. These doubtless were bad, but nothing in comparison Avith the first." Then he observes, in few words, four of their capital errors, and immediately after returns to his Albigenses, But these errors of the Vaudois are far remote from Manicheism, as will soon appear; here, then, we have again the Albigenses and Vaudois, two sects thoroughly distinct, and the last clear from any character of Manicheism.

51. — Peter of Vancernay in his plain ivay has well specified the characteristics of the Manicheans.

The Protestants will have it that Peter of Vaucernay spoke of the Albigensian heresy without well knowing what he said, on account of his charging them with blasphemies which arc not to be found even in the Manicheans. But who can answer for all the secrets and new inventions of this abominable sect ? What Peter of Vaucernay makes them speak regarding the two Jesus"'s, whereof one was born in the visible and terrestrial Bethlehem, the other in the celestial and invisible, is much of a piece with the other extravagances of the Manicheans. This invisible Bethlehem does not ill suit with the supernatural Jerusalem, which Peter of Sicily's Paulicians called the mother of God, whence Jesus Christ proceeded f.

7^ THE HISTORY OF [bOOK

Say what they will of the visible Jesus, that he was not the true Christ, that he was accounted evil by these heretics, I see nothing in all that more extravagant than the other blasphemies of the Manicheans. We meet in Renier with heretics holding something of the principles of the Manicheans, and acknowledging a Christ, son of Joseph and Mary, evil at first and a sinner, but afterwards turned good, and the restorer of their sect *. Certain it is these Manichean heretics were much addicted to change. Renier, one of their number, distinguishes the new from the ancient opinions, and observes many novelties to have arisen amongst them in his time, and since the year 1230'!'. Ignorance and extravagance seldom hold long in the same state, and know no bounds in man. However it be, if hatred conceived against the Albigenses made men charge them with Manicheism, or, if you please, something worse than hatred ; whence proceeds that care they took to excuse the Vaudois, since it cannot be supposed they were better loved than those, or less declared enemies to the Church of Rome ? Yet we have already two authors very zealous for the Catholic doctrme, and very averse to the Vaudois, who carefully distinguish them from the Manichean Albigenses.

52. — Distinction of the two sects by Ebrard of Bethune.

Here is also a third not less considerable. It is Ebrard, native of Bethune, whose book, entitled "Anti-heresy," was composed against the heretics of Flanders j. These heretics were called Piples or Piphles, in the language of that country. A Protestant author does not conjecture ill, imagining this word Piphles to be a corruption from that of Poplicans ; and thence it may be known that these Flemish heretics, like the Poplicans, were perfect Manicheans, nevertheless good Protestants, if we believe the Calvinists, and worthy to be their ancestors. But not to dwell on the other name, we need but give ear to Ebrard, an author of that country, in his description of these heretics. The first characteristic which he gives them is, that they rejected the Law, and the God that gave it ; the rest is of the same stamp, they not only despising marriage, but the use of flesh meat, and the sacraments §.

I Ibid. p. 1075. Pet. de Val-Cern. Ibid. c. ii. La Roq. p. 454.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 79

53. — The Vaudols ivell distinguished from the Manicheans.

After methodically digesting all he had to say against this sect, he proceeds to speak against that of the Vaudois, which he distinguishes, like the rest, from that of the new Manicheans ; and this is the third witness we have to produce²⁹. Hut here is a fourth, of greater importance in this fact than all the rest.

54. — Testimony of Renier, who had been of the Sect of Manicheans, in Italy, seventeen years.

It is Renier, of the order of Dominican friars, from whom we have already cited some passages. He wrote about the year 1250, or 54, and the title he gave his book was, " De Htereticis, of Heretics," as he testifies in his preface. He styles himself ** Brother Renier, formerly an Heresiarch, and now a priest," on account of his having been seventeen years among' the Cathari, as he twice acknowledges! . This author is well known among the Protestants, who never cease boastina; the fine description he has given of the manners of the Vaudois. He is the more to be credited on the occasion, as he tells us both good and bad with so great sincerity. Now it cannot be alleged he had not a competent knowledge of the several sects of his time. He had been frequently present at the examijmtion of heretics, and there it was that the minutest dilferences were most narrowly scanned of so many obscure and cunning sects, wherewith Christendom, at that time, was over-run. Many of them were converted, and disclosed all the mysteries of the sect, which had been so carefully concealed. A thorouo-h knowledge of the distemper is half the cure. Over and above this, Renier applied his study to the reading of heretical books, as of that great volume of John of LyonsJ, a leading man amongst the new Manicheans, and from thence extracted the articles of his doctrine which he re[)orts. No wonder, then this author has given us a more exact account than any other, of the differences in his contemporary sects.

55. — He distinguishes them mighty well from the Vaudois. The Characteristics of Manicheism in the Cathari.

The first he instances in is that of the " poor men" of Lyons, descended from Peter Waldo, all whose dogmata he sets down

Ibid. pp. 740, 756, 757. Ibid. c. vii. p. 765. Iliid. c. iii. p. 748. X Ibid. c. vi. pp. 7C2, l(i'3.³⁰

even to the nicest minutiae. All therein is far remote from Manicheism, as we shall see hereafter. Thence he proceeds to the other sects of the Man ichean race ; and comes at length to the Cathari, whose secrets he was entirely acquainted with³¹ ; for besides his having been, as already observed, seventeen years amongst them, and thoroughly initiated in the sect, he had heard their greatest doctors preach, and amongst others, one called Nazarius, the most ancient of them all, who boasted of having been formed, sixty years before, under the discipline of the two chief pastors of the Bulgarian Church, However, observe this extraction always from Bulgaria. It was from thence the Cathari of Italy, amongst whom Renier dwelt, derived their authority ; and as he had been conversant amongst them so many years, it is not to be wondered that he has explained more accurately, and more minutely, their errors, their sacraments, their ceremonies, the different parties formed amongst them, with the affinities as well as the diversities of one from the other. In ]>im, everywhere are to be seen very clearly the principles, the impieties, and the whole spirit of Manicheism. The distinction of the Elect and Auditors, a particular characteristic of the sect, frequent in St. Austin and other authors, is found here distinguished under another name. We learn from Renier, that these heretics, besides the Cathari or Pure, the most consummate of the sect, had also another class which they called "their Believers," made up of all sorts of peoplef . These were not admitted to all the mysteries ; and the same Renier relates that the number of the perfect Cathari, in his time, when the sect was weakened, " did not exceed four thousand in all Christendom ;" but " that the believers were innumerable ; a computation," says he, " which several times has been made amongst them j."

56. — A remarkable list of the Manichean Churches. — The Alhigenses comprised in it. — All of them descended from Bulgaria.

Amongst the Sacraments of these heretics, their imposition of hands, in order to remit sins, is chiefly to be observ^ed : they called it consolation ; it served both instead of baptism and penance. You see it in the above Council of Orleans, in Ecbert, in Enervin, and in Ermengard. Renier gives the best account of it, as an adept in the mysteries of the sect³². But the most remarkable thing in Renier's book is the exact list of

Xr.] THE VARIATIONS^ ETC. 81 the Churches of the Cathari, and his account of the state they ■were in at his tinae. They counted sixteen in all, and amoncrst the rest he reckons the Church of France, the Church of Toulouse, the Church of Cahors, the Church of Alby, and in fine, the Church of Bulgaria, and the Cliurch of Drunganicia, "whence," says he, " sprung all the rest." This considered, I see not how the Manicheisrn of the Albigenses can be called in question, nor their descent from the Manicheans of Bulgaria. The reader has but to call to mind the two orders of Bulgaria and Drungaria, mentioned by Vignier's author, and which united themselves in Lombardy. I repeat once more that there is no necessity of searching what this Drungaria can be. These obscure heretics often took their name from unknown places. Renier tells us of Runcarians, a Manichean sect of his time, whose name was taken from a village"³³. Who knows but this word, Runcarians, was a corruption of Druncarians ? We find in the same author, and elsewhere, so many different names of these heretics, that it were labour lost to inquire into their origin. Patarians, Poplicans, Toulousians, Albigenses, Cathari, were, under different names, and often with some diversity, in sect Manicheans, all of Bulgarian descent ; whence also they took the name most in use among the vulgar.

57. — Tho same origin proved from Matthew Paris. — The Pope of the Albigenses in Bulgaria.

So certain is this origin, that we find it acknowledged even in the thirteenth century. *' At this time," says Matthew Paris, (viz. in the year 1223,) " the Albigensian heretics made themselves an Antipope, called Bartholomew, in the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatiaf." It ajipears afterwards, that the Albigenses went in crowds to consult him; that he had a vicar at Carcassonne and Toulouse, and dispatched his Bishops far and near; which comes up manifestly to what was said by Enervin, that these heretics had their Pope ; although the same author informs us that all did not own him. And that no doubt might remain as to the error of the Albigenses, mentioned by Matthew Paris ; the same author assures us, " the Albigenses of Spain," that took up arms in 1234, amongst many other errors, "particularly denied the mystery of the incarnation."

58. — The great hypoci'isy of these Heretics from Enervin.

Notwithstanding such great inipieties, the outward appearance of these heretics was surprising. Enervin introduces them, speaking in these terms: — "You, for your part," said they to the Cathohcs, " join house to house, and field to field : the most perfect amongst you, as the monks and canons regular, if they possess no goods in property, have them at least in common. We, the poor of Jesus Christ, without repose, without settled habitations, wander from town to town like sheep in tiie midst of wolves, and suffer persecution like the martyrs and apostles³⁴." They boasted next of their abstinence, their fasts, the narrow ,\vay they walked in, and called themselves the only followers of the apostolic life, for that, contented with necessaries, they had neither house, nor land, nor riches, " for this reason," said they, " because Jesus Christ neither had, nor possessed the like things, nor suffered his disciples to possess them."

59. — And from St. Bernard. — Conformity of their discourse with that of Faustus the Manicheans in St. Austin.

According to St. Bernard, there was " nothing more Christian in appearance" than their speech, nothing more blameless than their manners. Therefore they called themselves the Apostolic, and boasted of leading the lives of the'apostles. Methinks, I hear over again Faustus the Manichean, who, in St. Austin, thus speaks to Catholics : — " You ask me whether I receive the gospel ? you see I do, inasmuch as I observe what the gospel prescribes : of you I ought to ask whether you receive it, since I see no mark of it in your lives. For my part, 1 have forsaken father, mother, wife and children, gold, silver, meat, drink, delights, pleasures ; content with having what is sufficient for life from day to day. I am poor, I am peaceable, I weep, I suffer hunger and thirst, I am persecuted for justice . sake, and do you question whether I receive the gospelf ?" After this, must persecutions be still taken for a mark of the true church and true piety ? it is the language of Manicheans.

60. — Their hypocrisy confounded by St. Austin and St. iBernard.

But St. Austin and St. Bernard shew them that their virtue was nothing but vain ostentation. To carry the abstinence

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 63 from meats so far as to say that they are unclean and evil in their nature, and continence, even to the condemnation of marriage, is, on the one hand, to attack the Creator, and on the other, loosing the reins to evil desires by leaving them absolutely without a remedy³⁵. Never believe any good of those Avho run virtue to extremes. The depravation of their minds venting itself HI such extravagance of speech, introduces into their lives disorders without end.

Gl. — The infamy of the Heretics and chiefly of the Patarians.

St. x^ustin informs us that these people, who debarred themselves of marriage, allowed liberty for every thing else. What, according to their principles, they had an abhorrence of, (I am ashamed to be forced to repeat it,) was properly conception ; whence it appears what an inlet was opened to tiie aboramations whereof the old and new Manicheans stand convicted. But, as among the different sects of these new Manicheans there were degrees of weakness, the most infamous of all were those called Patarians ; which I the more willingly take notice of, by reason that our Reformed, who place them expressly amongst the Vaudois, glory in descending from them f.

G2. — Doctrine of these Heretics, that the effect of the Sacraments depends on the sanctity of the Ministers.

Those that make the greatest ostentation of their virtue and the purity of their lives, generally speaking, are the most corrupt. It may have been observed how these impure Manicheans prided themselves, at their beginning, and through the whole progress of the sect, in a virtue more severe than that of others ; and with the view of enhancing their own merit, said, that the sacraments and mysteries lost their efficacy in impure hands. It is necessary to take good notice of this part of their doctrine, which we have seen in Enervin, in St. Bernard, and in the Council of Lpmbez. Wherefore Kenier repeats twice, that this imposition of hands, by them called Consolation, and wherein they placed the remission of sins, was unprofitable to the receiver, if the giver of it were in sin, though hidden;];. Their manner of accounting for this doctrine, accorchng to Ermengard, was, because a person having lost the Holy Ghost, is no longer empowered to give it ; which was the very reason alleged by the Donatists of old.

f Atip. Ren. c. xvi. Ebrard. c. 2(J. T. Iv. Bib. PP. part. i. p. 1178. Ren.c. vi. T. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p. Tii'.i. La Roq. Hist, de I'Euc. part ii. c. 18 p. 445. I Ren, c. vi. Ibid. pp. 75C, 759. Erm. c. xiv. de imp. Man. Bib, PP. p. 1254.

63. — They condemn all Oaths and Punishment of Crimes.

It was moreover for shew of sanctity and to raise themselves above others, that they said, a Christian ought never to affirm the truth by oath for what cause soever, not even in a court of judicature, and that it was unlawful to put anyone to death, however criminal. The Vaudois, as we shall see, borrowed from them all these extravagant maxims and all this vain exterior of piety³⁶.

Such were the Albigenses by the testimony of all their contemporary authors, not one excepted. The Protestants blush for them ; and all they can answer is, that these excesses, these errors, and all these disorders of the Albigenses, are the calumnies of their enemies. But have they so much as one proof for what they advance, or even one author of those times, and for more than four hundred years after, to support them in it ? For our parts, we produce as many witnesses as have been authors in the Avhole universe who have treated of this sect. Those that were educated in their principles have revealed to us their abominable secrets after their conversion. We trace up the damnable sect even to its source; we shew whence it came, which way it steered its course, all its characteristics, and its whole pedigree branching from the Manichean root. They oppose against us conjectures ; nay, what conjectures ? We shall take a view of them, for I mean to produce here those that carry the best appearance.

65. — Examination of Peter de Brvis's doctrine — theMinistei^s objection taken from Peter of Clnny.

The greatest effort of our adversaries is in order to justify Peter de Bruis and his disciple Henry. St. Bernard, say they, accuses them of condemning meats and marriage. But Peter, the venerable Abbot of Cluny, who, much about that time, refuted Peter de Bruis, speaks nothing of these errors, and accuses him of five only: of denying infant baptism; of condemning hallowed churches; of breaking crosses, instead of venerating them ; of rejecting the eucharist ; of ridiculing oblations and prayers for the dead f . St. Bernard avers that this heretic and his followers " received only the Gospel." But venerable Peter speaks doubtingly of it. " Fame," says he,

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. '85

" has published that you do not \vholly believe either in Jesus Christ, or the Prophets, or the Apostles ; but reports, frequently deceitful, are not to be lightly credited, there being some even that say, you reject the whole Canon of the Scriptures *." "Whereupon he adds : " 1 will not blame you for Nvhat is uncertain." Here Protestants commend the prudence of venerable Peter, and blame St. Bernard's credulity, as one too easily assenting to confuted rejjorts.

66. — Pder de Bruin's doctrine accordiiuj to Peter of Cluny.

But, in the first place, to take only what the Abbot of Cluny reproves as certain in (his heretic, there is more than enough to condemn him. Calvin j- has numbered amongst blasphemies the doctrine condemning infant baptism. The denying it, with Peter de Bruis and his disciple Henry, was refusing salvation to the most innocent age of man ; it was saying, that for so many ages, during which scarce any were baptized but children, there had been no baptism in the world, no sacrament, no church, no Christians. It is what excited horror in the Abbot of Clunv. The rest of Peter de Bruis's errors, refuted by this venerable author, are not less insupportable. ]^et us give ear to what he is reproached with in regard of the eucharist by this holy abbot, who hath just declared to us, that he will object nothing to him but what is certain. " He denies," says he, " that the body and blood of Jesus Christ can be made by virtue of the divine word and ministry of the priest, and avers, that all that is done at the altar is unprofitable J." This is not only denying the truth of the body and blood, but, like the Manicheans, rejecting absolutely the Eucharist. For which reason the holy abbot subjoins a little after, " Were your heresy contained within the bounds of that of Berengarius, who, in denying the truth of the body, did not deny the sacrament or the appearance and figure of it, I would refer you to the authors that have refuted him. But," proceeds he, a little after, " you add error to error, heresy to heresy ; and not only deny the truth of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, but their sacrament, their figure, and their appearance, and so leave God's people without a sacrifice."³⁷

67. — St. Bernard as circumspect as Peter ofChiny.

As for the errors of which this holy abbot does not speak, and those he doubts of, it is easy to comprehend that the reason of this was, their not being as yet sufRciently proved, nor all the secrets of a sect, which had so many windings and turnings, thoroughly disclosed at the beginning. They came to light by degrees ; and venerable Peter assures ns himself, that Henry, the disciple of Bruis, had added a great deal to the five chapters condemned in his master *. He had by him the writing wherein all this heresiarch's new errors were col^ lected from his own mouth. But this holy abbot waited, before he refuted them, for still further assurance. St. Bernard, who had beheld these heretics at close view, knew more of them than venerable Peter, who wrote only from report ; nor did he know all, and for that reason would not venture to call them complete Manicheansi- ; for he was not less circumspect than venerable Peter, to impute nothing to them but what was certain. Accordingly, observe how he speaks of their imparities : " Men say, they do shameful things in private J." " Men say," implies, he had not as yet a full assurance of them, for which reason he durst not speak positively. Those who knew them, have spoken of them ; but this circumspection of St. Bernard shews us clearly the certainty of that which he objects to them.

68. — Answer to the objection regarding the credulity of St. Bernard.

But, say they, he was credulous, and Otho of Frisingen, an author of the time, has reproached him with it. We must still hear this conjecture, which Protestants lay so much stress on. It is true, Otho of Frisingen finds St. Bernard too credulous, because he caused the manifest errors of Gilbert of Poiree, bishop of Poictiers, to be condemned, whom his disciple Otho endeavoured to excuse. This reproach of Otho is then an excuse, which a fond disciple draws up for his master. Let us see, however, in what he makes the credulity of St. Bernard to consist. " This Abbot," said Otho, " both by the fervour of his faith, and by his natural goodness, had a little too much credulity ; so that the doctors, who trusted too much to human reason, and to the wisdom of the age, became suspected by him : and if it was mentioned to him, that their

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 87 doctrine was not altogether conformable to the faith, he easily believed it³⁸." Was he wrong? Unquestionably not; and experience sufficiently shews that Peter Abelard, who became suspected by him in consequence of this ; and Gilbert, who explained the Trinity rather according to the topics of Aristotle than according to tradition and the rule of faith, strayed from the right path, since their errors, condemned in the councils, are equally condemned by Catholics and Prote.itants.

69. — St. Bernard imputes nothing, of which he is not certain, to Peter cleBruis and Henry, the seducers of Toulousians.

Let us not then here arraign the credulity of St. Bernard. If he have represented to us Henry, the disciple of Peter de Bruis, and the seducer of the Toulousians, as the most Avicked and the most hypocritical of all men, all writers of the time have passed the same judgment on him. The errors which lie attributes to the disciples of these heretics have been acknowledged and discovered by themselves more and more every day, as the sequel of this history will shew. It was not without reason that St. Bernard imputed to them those which we find in his sermons. " I wish," said he, " to recount to you their extravagancies, which we have ascertained, either by the answers which they have given, without intending it, to Catholics, or by the mutued reproaches, which their divisions have caused to burst forth, or by the things which they did, after being converted." Thus, then, those extravagancies were discovered, which St. Bernard subsequently calls blasphemies. When there was nothing else in the Henricans, but their blind attachment for those women, whom they kept in their company, as St. Bernard states, and with whom they spent their lives, shut up in the same room night and day, that were sufficient for their being held in detestation. However, the matter was so public, that St. Bernard wished that they should be known by this mark. " Tell me,"" said he to. them, " my friend, what woman is this ? Is she your wife ?" — " No," say they, "that suits not my profession." " Is she your daughter, your sister, your niece ?" — " No ; she is no way related to me." — " But do you know that it is not allowed, according to the laws of the church, to those who have professed continence, to cohabit with women ? Put her away, then, if you wish not to scandalise the church ; otherwise, this fact, which is manifest, will make us suspect the rest, which is not so much so."³⁹

He was not too credulous in this suspicion, and the turpitude of these pretendedly chaste individuals has since been disclosed to the entire Avorld.

70. — Conclusion.

Whence comes it then, that Protestants undertake the defence of these wicked men ? The reason is too obvious. It is their ambition to procure themselves predecessors. They find none others who reject the worship of the cross, the prayers of the saints, and oblations for the dead. They are annoyed at finding the commencement of their reformation only among the Manicheans. Because they grumble against the pope and the church of Rome, the reformation is well disposed in their favour. The Catholics of that time reproach them with their bad notions concerning the Eucharist. Our Protestants would have been glad if they had been but mere Berengarians, displeased with the Eucharist in part, not Manicheans, averse to it in the whole. But though it had been so, these reformed, whom you will have your brethren, concealed their doctrine, " frequented our churches, honoured priests, went to the oblation ; confessed their sins, communicated, received with us,"" continues St. Bernard, "the body and blood of Jesus Christ⁴⁰." Behold them, therefore, in our assemblies, which in their hearts they detested as the conventicles of Satan ; present at mass, which, in their error, they accounted an idolatry and sacrilege; and, in short, practising the usages of the church of Rome, which they believed was the kingdom of Antichrist. Are these the disciples of Him, who commanded his gospel to be preached on the house-tops ? Are these the children of light? Are these the works which shine forth before men, or rather such as should be hid in darkness ? In a word, are these fit fathers for the Reformation to choose and boast of?

A HISTORY OF THE VAUDOIS.

71. — Beginning of the Faudois, or Poor Men of Lyons.

The Vaudois serve them no better with regard to establishing a legitimate succession. Their name is derived from Waldo, the author of the sect. Lyons was the place of their nativity. They were called the ^' poor men" of Lyons, on account of the poverty affected by them ; and as the city of Lyons was then called, in Latin, Leona, they had also the appellation of Leonists, or Lionists.

XI.] THE VARl.VnONS, ETC. 89

72. — The names of the Sect.

They were also called the Insabbatized, from an ancient word signifying shoes, whence have proceeded other words of a like signification, still in use in several other languages as well as ours⁴¹. They took, therefore, the name of the Insabbatized from a sort of shoes of a particular make, which they cut in the upper part, to shew their feet naked like the Apostles, as they said ; and this fashion was affected by them in token of their apostolic })overty.

73. — Their History bipartite. — Their beginnings specious.

Now, here is an abridgment of their history. At their first separation, they held but few tenets contrary to ours, if any at all. In the year 1160, Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, at a meeting held, as customary, with the other rich traders of the town, was so lively struck with the sudden death of one of the most eminent amongst them, that he immediately distributed all his means, which were considerable, to the poor of that city ; and having, on that account, gathered a great number of them, he preached to them voluntary poverty, and the imitation of the life of Jesus Christ and his Apostles. This is what Henier says, whom the Protestants, pleased with the encomiums we shall find he bestows on the Vaudois, will have us believe in this matter preferably to all other authorsf. But we are going to see, what misguided piety can arrive to. Peter Pylicdorf, who beheld the Vaudois in their most flourishing condition, and related, not only their dogmata, but deportment too, with much simplicity and learning, says, that Waldo, moved with those words of the gospel so highly favourable to poverty, believed the apostolic life was no longer to be found on earth. Bent on restoring it, he sold all he had. " Others, touched with compunction, did the same," and iniited together in this undertaking!. At the first rise of this obscure and timorous sect, either they had none, or did not publish any particular tenet ; Avhich was the reason that Ebrard of Bethune remarks nothing singular in them but the affectation of a proud and lazy poverty^. One might see these Insabbatized or Sabbatized, so he calls them, with their naked feet, or rather with " their shoes cut open" at top, waiting for alms, and living only on what was given thernj]. Nothing was blamed in them, at first, but osten-

I Reu. c. V, p. 740. + Lib. cont. Wal. c. i. T. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p. 779.

$ Aiitih. c. 25. Bib. Max.. IICC, || Ibid.

tation, and, without ranking them as yet amongst heretics, they were reproached only with imitating their pride*. But let us hear the sequel of their history: " After living a while in this pretended apostolic poverty, they bethought themselves that the Apostles were not only poor, but also preached thegospel-|-." They set themselves, therefore, to preach, according to their example, that they might wholly imitate the apostolic life. But the apostles were sent ; and these men, whose ignorance rendered them incapable of such mission, were excluded by the prelates, and lastly, by the Holy See, from a ministry which they had usurped without their leave. Nevertheless, they continued it in {)rivate, and murmured against the clergy, that hindered them from preaching, as they said, through jealousy, and on account that their doctrine and holy life cast a reproach on the corrupt manners of the others^.

74. — Whether Waldo were a man of learning.

Some protestants have asserted, that Waldo was a man of learning ; but Renier says only, " he had a small tincture of it;" aliquaiitidum literatus §. Other protestants, on the contrary, take advantage from the great success he had in his ignorance. But it is but too well known, what a dexterity often may be met with in the minds of the most ignorant men, to attract to them those that are alike disposed, and Waldo seduced none but such.

75. — The Vaudois condemned by Lucius III.

This sect, in little time, made a great progress. Bernard, abbot of Fontcauld, who saw their beginnings, remarks their increase under Pope Lucius 11I||. This Pope's pontificate commences in 1181, to wit, twenty years after Waldo had appeared at Lyons. Twenty years at least were requisite to make a body and so considerable a sect as to deserve notice. At that time, therefore, Lucius IIL condemned them ; and as his pontificate held but four years, this first condemnation of the Vaudois must have fallen between the year 1181, when this Pope was raised to St. Peter's chair, and the year 1185, wherein he died.

76. — They come to Rome. — I'hey are not accused of any thing in respect to the Real Presence. Conrade, abbot of LTrsperg, thoroughly acquainted, as we shall find, with the Vaudois, has written, that Pope Lucius placed

*Bib. p. 1170. f Pylicd.ib. + Pylicd. ib. Ren. ib. §Ren. c.vi. ■ II Bern. Abb. Fontiscal. adv. Wald, Sect. T. iv, Bib. PP. Pmf. p. 1195.

Xr.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 91 them in the number of heretics, on account of some dogmata and superstitious observances. As yet these docjmata are not specified ; but there is no question, that, if the Vaudois had denied such remarkable points as that of the Real Presence (a matter become so notorious by Berengarius's condemnation,) it had not been thought sufficient to say in general, they held *' some superstitious dogmata *."

77. — Another proof that their errors did not regard the

Eucharist.

Much about the same time, in the year 1194, a statute of Alphonsus or Ildephonsus, king of Arragon, reckons the Vaudois or Insabbatized, otherwise the poor men of Lyons, amongst heretics anathematized by the Church, and this is manifestly in consequence of the sentence pronounced by Lucius III. After this Pope's death, when in spite of his decree these heretics spread themselves far and near, and Bernard, archbishop of Narbonne, who condemned them anew after a great inquest, could not stem the current of their progress, many pious persons. Ecclesiastics and others, procured a conference, in order to reclaim them in an amicable manner. " Both sides agreed to choose for umpire"" in the conference, a holy priest called Raimond of Daventry, " a man illustrious for birth, but much more so for the holiness of his life," The assembly was very solemn, " and the dispute held long." Such passages of Scripture, as each {)arty grounded itself on, were produced on both sides. The Vaudois were condemned, and declared heretics in regard to all the heads of accusation |.

78. — Proof of the same truth by a famous Conference, wherein all points ivere discussed.

Thence it appears that the Vaudois, though condemned, had not as yet broken all measures with the church of Rome, in as much as they had agreed to the umpirage of a Catholic and priest. The abbot of Fontcauld, [)resent at the conference, did commit to writing, with much judgment and perspicuity, the debated points, and the passages alleged on both sides : so that nothing can give us a clearer insight into the whole state of the question, such as it then was, and at the beginning of the sect.

♦ Chroii. :i(l An. 1212. t Aptul Em. ji. ii. direct, inq. q. xiv. p. 287- et apud Marian. Prsef. in Luc. Trid. t. iv. Bib. PP. ii. p. ii. p. 582. Bern, do Font. Cal. adversus Wal. Sect, iu Praef. t. iv. Bib. PP. p. iii. p. 1195.

79. — Articles of the Conference.

The dispute chiefly turned on the obedience due to pastors. It is plain, the Vaudois refused it, and, notwithstanding all their prohibitions, believed they had a right to preach, both men and women. As this disobedience could be grounded on nothing else but the pastor''s unworthiness, the Catholics, in proving the obedience due to them, prove it is due even to the wicked, and that grace, be its channel what it will, never ceases to diffuse itself on the faithful⁴². For the same reason they shewed, that slandering of pastors (whence w'as taken the pretext of disobedience) was forbidden by the laws of God -f-. Then they attack the liberty, which laymen gave themselves, of preaching without the pastors' leave, nay in spite of their prohibitions, and shew, that this seditious preaching tends to the subversion of the Aveak and ignorant J. Above all, they prove from the Scripture §, that w'omen, to whom silence is enjoined, ought not to interfere in teaching ||. Lastly, it is remonstrated to the Vaudois, how much they are in the wrong, to reject prayer for the dead, so well grounded in Scripture, and so evidently handed down by tradition : and, whereas these heretics absented from churches in order to pray apart in their houses, they are made sensible, that they ought not to abandon the house of prayer, whose sanctity the whole Scripture and the Son of God himself had so much recommended.

80. — The Eucharist is not there spoken of.

Without examining here which side was right or wrong in this debate, it is plain, w-hat was the ground of it, and which were the points contested ; and it is more clear than day, that in these beginnings, far from bringing the real presence, transubstantiation, or the sacraments into question, they did not as yet so much as mention praying to saints, nor relics, nor images.

81. — Alanus, ivho makes a list of the errors of the Vaudois, objects nothing concerning the Eucharist.

It was nearly about this time, that Alanus wrote the book above-mentioned ; wherein, after carefully distinguishing the Vaudois from the other heretics of his time, he undertakes to prove, in opposition to their doctrine, " That none ought to

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 93 preach without mission ; that prelates should be obeyed, and not only good, but also evil ones; that their bad lives derogate not from their power : that it is to tlie sacred order we ought to attribute the power of consecrating and that of binding and loosing, and not to personal merit ; that we ought to confess to priests, and not to laymen ; that it is lawful to swear in certain cases, and to execute malefactors⁴³." This is much what he opposes to the errors of the Vaudois. Had they erred in relation to the Eucharist, Alanus would not have forgotten it, the very thing he was so mindful to reproach the Albigenses with, against whom he undertakes to prove both the real presence and transubstantiation ; and after reproving so many things of less importance in the Vaudois, he would never have omitted so essential a point.

82. — Nor Peter de Vaucernay,

A little after Alanus's time, and about the year 1201, Peter de Vaucernay, a plain downright man, and of unquestionable sincerity, distinguishes the Vaudois from the All3igenses by their proper characters, when he tells us, " the Vaudois were bad, but much less so than these other heretics," who admitted the two principles, and all the consequences of that damnable doctrine f. ** Not to mention," proceeds this author, " their other infidelities ; their error chiefly consisted in four heads : viz. their wearing sandals in imitation of the Aj)ostles ; their saying it was not lawful to swear for whatsoever cause ; nor to j)ut to death, even malefactors ; lastly, in that they said that each one of them, though but mere laymen, provided he wore sandals (namely, as above seen, the mark of apostolic poverty) might consecrate the body of Jesus Christ."" Here are in reality the specific characters that denote the lru(> spirit of the Vaudois; the affectation of poverty in the sandals which were the badge of it; simplicity and apparent meekness in rejecting all oaths and capital punishments, and, what was more peculiar to this sect, the belief that the laity, provided they had embraced their pretended apostolic poverty and bore its badge, that is, provided they were of their sect, might administer and consecrate the Sacraments, even the body of Jesus Christ. The rest, as their doctrine concerning prayer for the dead, was comprised in the other infidelities of these heretics, which this author forbears to particularize. Yet, had Ihey risen up against the real presence, since the disturbance⁴⁴ this matter had caused in the church, not only this rehgious would not have forgotten it, but had been far from saying, " they consecrated the body of Jesus Christ," thereby making them not to differ from Catholics in this point, except their attributing to laymen that power, which Catholics acknowledged only in the priesthood.

83. — Tlie Vaudois come to demand the approbation of Innocent III.

It appears then manifestly, that the Vaudois in 1209, at the time of Peter de Vaucernay's writing, had not so much as thought of denying the real presence, but retained so much either true or apparent submission to the church of Rome, that even in 1212, they came to Rome, in order to obtain " the approbation of their sect from the Holy See." It Avas then that Conrade, Abbat of Ursperg⁴⁵, saw them there, as he himself reports, with their master Bernard. They may be discovered by the characters given them by this chronicler : they were " the poor men of Lyons, those whom Lucius 111. had put in the list of heretics," who made themselves remarkable by the affectation " of apostolic poverty, with their shoes cut open at top ;" who in " their private preaching and clandestine assemblies reviled the church and priesthood." The Pope judged the affectation was very odd which they discovered *' in these cut shoes, and in their capuches, like those of the religious, though, contrary to their custom, they wore a long head of hair like laymen." iVnd truly, these strange affectations most commonly cover something bad ; but especially men took offence at the liberty these new apostles gave themselves of going promiscuously together, men and women, in imitation, as they said, of the pious women that followed Jesus Christ and the apostles to minister to them ; but very different were the times, the persons, and the circumstances.

84. — The Vaudois begin to be treated like obstinate heretics.

It was, says the Abbot of Ursperg, Avith the design of giving to the Church men truly poor, more divested of earthly goods than these false poor of Lyons, that the Pope afterwards approved the institute of the Brother-Minors, assembled under the direction of St. Francis, the true pattern of humility, and miracle of the age ; whilst these other poor, fraught with hatred against the Church and her ministers, notwithstanding

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 95 their fallacious humility, were rejected by the Holy See ; insomuch that, afterwards, they were treated as contumacious and incorrigible heretics. Yet they made a shew of submission till the year 1212, which was the fifteenth of Innocent III., and fifty years since their beginning. ,

85. — The Church's patience in regard to the Vaudois.

Thence a judgment may be formed of the Church's patience with respect to these heretics, using no rigour against them for fifty years together, but endeavouring to reclaim them by conferences. Besides that mentioned by Bernard, Abbot of Fontcauld, we also find another in Peter de Vaucernay⁴⁶, about the year 1206, where the Vaudois were confounded ; and lastly in 1212, when, on their coming again to Rome, the Church proceeded no farther against them than by rejecting their imposture. Three years after. Innocent III. held the great Council of Lateran, where, in his condemnation of heretics, he particularly takes notice of " those, who, under pretext of piety, arrogate to themselves the authority of preaching without mission ;" whereby he seems to have particularly pointed out the Vaudois and distinguished them by the ori<iin of their schism.

8G. — The Sect of the Vaudois a species of Donatism.

Here are seen evidently the beginnings of this sect. It was a kind of Donatism, but different from that impugned of old in Africa, in that the African Donatists, making the effect of the sacraments depend on the virtue of the ministers, reserved at least the power of conferring them to holy priests and bishops; whereas these new Donatists attributed it, as above seen, to laymen whose life was pure. Nor did they come to this excess but by degrees; for at first they allowed nothing to the laity but preaching. They not only re[)roved evil manners, which the Church no less condemned than they, but also many other things she approved of, as ceremonies, yet so as not to touch on the sacraments : for Pylicdorff , who was very accurate in observing both the ancient spirit and the whole progress of the sect, observes that they discarded every thing employed by the Church to edify the faithful, " except," says hej, "the sacraments alone ;" which shews, they left them untouched. The same author relates, moreover, " that it was a long while before they began, being laymen, to hear confessions, to enjoin penances, and give absolution ; and it has been observed l)ut a little time since," continues this author, " that one of these heretics, a mere layman, did consecrate, according to his notion, our Lord's body, and communicated himself, together with his accomplices, although somewhat reprimanded for it by the rest."

87. — Their presumption increased by little and little.

See how their presumption increased by degrees. The followers of Waldo, scandalized at the lives of several priests, " believed themselves," says the same Pylicdorf, better absolved by their own people, seemingly to them more virtuous, than by the ministers of the Church⁴⁷, which proceeded from the opinion, wherein principally consisted the error of the Vaudois, that personal merit had greater influence in the sacraments than character and order.

88. — The Vaudois doctrine concerning Church goods.

But the Vaudois carried the merit necessary to Ministers of the Church so far as to have nothing in property ; and this was one of their dogmata, that to consecrate the Eucharist, it was requisite to be poor like them : so " that Catholic priests were not the true and legitimate successors of Jesus Christ's apostles, because they possessed goods of their ownf;" which they pretended Jesus Christ had forbidden his apostles.

89. — No error relating to the Sacraments.

Hitherto their whole error, in respect to the sacraments, regarded only the persons empowered to administer them ; all the rest was left entire, as says expressly Pylicdorf. So they doubted not either of the real presence, or transubstantiation ; and, on the contrary, this author has but just informed us, that the layman presuming to give communion, did only believe " he had consecrated the body of Jesus Christ." After all, by the manner we have seen this heresy begin, it seems as if Waldo had a good design at first ; that the glory of poverty which he boasted of, did seduce both him and his followers ; that, puffed up with the holiness of their lives, they swelled with a bitter zeal against the clergy, and whole Catholic

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 97

Church⁴⁸'; that, exasperated with their benig prohibited to preach, they fell into schism, and, as Gui says, " from scliism into heresy."

90. — Manifest insincerity of Protestant Historians, and of Paul Perrin, concerning the becjinnings of the Vaiidois.

From this faithful account, and the incontestable proofs with which it is manifestly supported, it is easy to judge how much Protestant historians have abused the public credit by their relation of their origin of the Vaudois. Paul Perrin, author of their history printed at Geneva, says, that in the year IIGO, when the penalty of death was denounced against all who should disbelieve the Real Presence, " Peter AValdo, a citizen of Lyons, was one of the most courageous in opposing such an invention -{-." But nothing is more false; the article of the Real Presence had been defined a hundred years before, against Berengarius : nothing had been done anew relating to this article ; and so far from Waldo's opposing it, we have seen both him and all his disciples in the common faith for fifty years together.

91. — The Minister de la Roqiie.

Mr. de la Roque;j;, more learned than Perrin, is not more sincere, when he says, " that Peter Waldo, having found whole nations divided from the commimion of the Latin Church, joined himself to them with his followers, in order to make but one and the same body, and one and the same society, by the unity of one and the same doctrine." But, on the contrary, we have seen, in the first place, that all the contemporary authors (for not one have we omitted) have shewn us the Vaudois and Albigenses as two distinct sects ; secondly, that all these authors discover these Albigenses to be Manicheans ; and I defy all the Protestants in the world to shew, me that there was anywhere in Europe, when Waldo arose, any one sect se()arate from Rome which was not either the very sect, or some branch and subdivision of Manicheism. Thus, nothing can make Waldo's cause more evidently defenceless, than to grant his abettors what they demand in his behalf, namely, that he joined himself in unity of doctrine with the Albigenses, or with such people as, at that time, were separated from the communion of Rome. In a word, though Waldo should have united himself to guiltless churches, his particular errors would

I Hist, de rUuch. part ii. ch. xviii. p. 454. VOL. II. II

98 tllE ItiSTORY OF [book not have allowed any advantage to be drawn from this union, these errors being detested, not by Catholics only, but also by the Protestants.

92. — Whether the Vaudois afterwards changed their Doctrine about the Eucharist.

But let us proceed in the history of the Vaudois, and see •whether our Protestants will discover in it anything more favourable from the time these heretics broke off entirely from the Church. The first act we meet with against the Vaudois, since the great Council of Lateran, is a Canon of the Council of Tarragona, describing the Insabbatized, as men " that forbad to swear, and obey ecclesiastic and secular powers, and moreover to punish malefactors, and other such like things'^"," not the least word appearing in regard of the Real Presence, which not only would have been expressed, but also set foremost, had they denied it.

93. — Proof of the contrary from Renier.

At the same time, and towards the year 1250, Renier, so often quoted, who so carefully distinguishes the Vaudois or Leonists and the poor men of Lyons, from the Albigenses, sets down moreover all their errors, reducing them to these three heads : against the Church, against the Sacraments and Saints, and against Church Ceremonies f. But so far from anything appearing in all these articles against transubstantiation, you there find expressly, amongst their errors, that " transubstantiation ought to be made in the vulgar tongue ; that a priest could not consecrate in mortal sin ;" that when a man communicated from the hand of an unworthy priest, the transubstantiation was not made in his hand that consecrated unworthily, but in the mouth of him Avho worthily received the Eucharist ; that one might consecrate at table, at common meals, and not in churches only, conformably to those words of Malachi, " In every place there is sacrificing, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation^.:" which shews, they did not deny the sacrifice nor the oblation of the Eucharist; and that, if they rejected the mas?, it was on account of the ceremonies, making it only to consist in "■ the words of Jesus Christ pronounced in the vulgar tongue⁴⁹." Thence it clearly appears, that they admhted transubstantiation, and in nothing

Xr.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 99 differed from the Church's doctrine as to the substance of this Sacrament : but said only, that it could not be consecrated by evil priests, and might be by good laymen, according to these fundamental maxims of their sect, which Renier is always exact in observing, " that every good layman is a priest, and the f)rayer of an evil priest availed nothing⁵⁰ :" whence also they concluded, the consecration by an evil priest is worth nothing. It is likewise to be seen in other authors, that, according to their princi[)lesf , "a man, without being a priest, might consecrate and administer the sacrament of penance ; and every laic, even women, ought to preach."

94. — A list of the Vaudois errors.

We find also in the catalogue of their errors, as well in Renier as other authors, " that it is not lawful for clergymen," namely, the ministers of the Church |, " to have goods ; that neither lands, nor f)eople, ought to be divided ;" which aims at the obligation of setting all in common, and establishing, as necessary, this pretended apostolic poverty, which these heretics gloried in⁵¹ ; " that every oath is a mortal sin ; that all princes and judges are damned, because they condemn malefactors contrary to these words |( : ' Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord ;' and again, ' Let both grow together until the harvest^.' " Thus did these hypocrites abuse the Scripture, and with their counterfeited lenity subvert the whole foundation of Church and State.

95. — Another list, and no mention of their erring in regard of the Eucharist.

We find in Pylicdorf, a hundred years after, an ample refutation of the Vaudois, article by article, without appearance of the least opposition in their doctrine to (he Real Presence or transubstantiation. On the contrary, it always appears in this author, as in the rest, that the laymen of this sect made the body of Jesus Christ**, allhongh with fear and reser\e in the country wherein he wrote ; nor, in short, does he observe any kind of error in these heretics relating to the Eucharist, except, that evil priests did not make it " any more than the other Sacraments."

I UiMi. p. 750 Ibid. eiT. 820. * ^ Ibid. p. 75-2.

II Ind. err. Ibi. 8.31. 9. 2;$ f Rom. xii. 19. Alatth. xiii 30, h2

96. — Another list.

Finally, in all the lists we have of their errors, whether in the Bibliotheca Patrum⁵², or in the Inquisitor Emerick, we meet with nothing against the Real Presence, although the least differences between these heretics and us, the minutest articles whereon they are to be interrogated, be there specified ; on the contrary, Emerick the Inquisitor thus reports their error on the Eucharist : " They Avill have it that the bread is not transubstantiated into the body of Jesus Christ, if the priest be a sinner f :" which clearly evidences two things; first, that they believed ttansubstantiation ; and secondly, believed the sacraments depended on the sanctity of the ministers.

You find in the same list all the errors of the Vaudois we have already mentioned. The errors of the new Manicheans, M'hom we have shewn were the same with those of the Albigenses, are also related apart in the same book It is plain from thence, that these two sects are utterly distinct, nor is there anything amongst the errors of the Vaudois that savours of Manicheism, which the other list abounds with.

97.— Demonstration that the Faudois did not in the least err about Transiibsfantiation.

But to return to Transubstantiation : whence coidd it proceed, that the Catholics should have spared the Vaudois in a point of so essential a nature, they who were so zealous in exposing even the least of their errors!? Was it perchance that these matters, and especially that of the Eucharist, were not of sufficient importance, or not sufficiently known, after Berengarius's condemnation by so many councils ? Was it the desire of keeping the people ignorant that this mystery was attacked.? But they were not afraid to re[)ort the much greater blasphemies of the Albigenses, even against this mystery. Nothing was concealed from the people of Avhat the Vaudois said, the most shocking against the Church of Rome, as that she was " the harlot mentioned in the Revelations ; her Pope, the chief of those that erred ; her prelates and religious, scribes and pharisees." Their excesses were pitied, but never kept private ; and had they rejected the Church's faith in regard of the Eucharist, they would liave been upbraided with it.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 101

98. — Sequel of the same ckmonsfration. — Testimony of Claude Seyssel in 15 17. — Gross evasion of D' Auhertin,

Further, in the last a^e, in J5L7. CUinde Seyssel *, famous lor his learning and offices of trust, held under Louis XII. and Francis I., and raised by his merit to the Archbishopric of Turin ; in the search he made after these heretics, hidden in the valleys of his diocese, in order to unite them to his flock, relates in the minutest manner all their errors, like a faithfid shepherd willing to know the bottom of the distemper afllicting his sheep, that he might heal them ; and we read in his account all that other writers relate of them, neither more nor less. With them he chiefly observes, as the source of their error, that " they made the authority of ecclesiastical ministry to depend on personal merit ; thence concluding, that they ought not to obey the Pope, nor Bishops, because being wicked, and not imitating the lives of the apostles, they have no authority from God, either to consecrate, or absolve ; and as to themselves, they alone had this power, because they observed the law of Jesus Christ, that the Church was no where but amongst them, and the See of Rome v,as that harlot of the Revelations, and the fountain-head of all errors." This is what that great Archbishop says of the Vaudois in his diocese. The minister Aubertin y is aslonished that in so exact an account as he gives of their errors, it is not discovered, that they rejected either the Real Presence or Transubstantiation ; nor any other rej)ly can he make to it, than that this prelate, who had so strenuously confuted them in all other points, was, in this, conscious of his too great weakness to resist them : as if so learned and eloquent a man could not at least transcribe what so many other learned Catholics had written on this subject. Instead, therefore, of so miserable a shift, Aubertin ought to have acknowledged, that if so accurate, so knowing a person, did not reproach the Vaudois with this error, it was in reality because he had discovered none such amongst them : wherein there is nothing particular as to Seyssel, since all the other authors have no more accused them of it than this Archbishop.⁵³

99. — Auhertin^s vain objection.

Nevertheless, Aubertin triumphs at a passage of the same Seyssel, where he says⁵⁴, " He did not think it worth his while to relate what some of that sect, to shew themselves more learned than the rest, prattled, or rallied, ratlier than discoursed, concerning the substance and truth of the Eucharistic Sacrament, because, what they vented by way of secret, was so high, that the most expert divines could scarce comprehend it." But so far are these words of Seyssel from shewing the Real Presence was denied by the Vaudois, that 1 should, on the contrary, conclude from them, that some amongst them pretended to subtilize in expounding it. And should it be allowed (yet gratuitously and without any kind of reason, since Seyssel speaks not a word of it) that these high notions entertained by the Vaudois, relating to the Eucharist, regarded the real absence, to wit, a thing the least sublime of any in the world, and the most suited to carnal sense; yet then, it is nevertheless manifest that Seyssel does not report here the belief of all, but the babble and idle discourse of some : so that, on all hands, nothing is more certain than what 1 have advanced, that the Vaudois never were re[)roached with rejecting transubstantiation ; but, on the contrary, had always been supposed to believe it.

]00. — Another proof from Seyssel that the ^Faudois believed Transubstantiation.

Accordingly the same Seyssel f, introducing a Vaudois summing up all his reasons, puts these words into his mouth against a wicked priest and bishop : " How can the bishop and priest, enemies to God, render God propitious to others ? how can he, that is banished the kingdom of Heaven, have the keys of it? in fine, since his prayer and other actions have no manner of effect, hoAv shall, Jesus Christ transform himself, at his word, under the species of bread and wine, and suffer himself to be handled by that person, who has utterly rejected him?" It is then still manifest, their error consists in a Donatism, and nothing but a priest's life hinders the bread and wine from being changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 103

101. — Interrogatory of the Vaudois in the library of the Marquis of Sc'ujnelay . — Two Volumes marked 1769, 1770.

And what leaves no kind of doubt on this head is, what may be seen still at this day among the manuscripts of Mr. de Thou, collected together in the valuable library of the Marquis of Seigiielay; there, I say, inay be seen the inquests, in the original, juridically made against the Vaudois of Pragelas and. the other valleys in 1-J95, collected in two great volumes ; wherein you have the examination of one Thomas Quoti of Pragelas, who being asked whether the barbes (their priests) taught them to believe the sacrament of the altar, answers, "That the barbes both preach and leach that when a chaplain who is in orders, utters the words of consecration on the altar, he consecrates the body of Jesus Christ, and that a true change is wrought of the bread into the true body," and says, moreover, " that prayer made at home, or on the road, is every whit as good as in the church." Conformably to this doctrine, the same Quoti answers at two several times, " That he received every year, at Easter, the body of Jesus Christ; and the barbes taught them, that, in order to receive it, they ought to have been well confessed, and rather by the barbes than by the chaplains," meaning the priests.

102. — Sequel of the same Examination.

The reason of this preference is derived from the so often repeated principles of the Vaudois; and it is pursuant to these principles the same person answers, " that the gentlemen of the church-ministry led a life too large, but the l)arbes led a holy and upright life." And in another answer, " that the barbes led the life of St. Peter, and had the power of absolving from sins, and this was his belief; and if the Pope did not lead a holy life, he had no power of absolving." For this reason, the same Quoti answers again in another place, " that he had given credit, without any doubting, rather to the discourses of the barbes than to those of the chaplains, because, in those times, no ecclesiastic, no cardinal, no bishop, nor priest, led the life of the apostles; and, therefore, it was better believing the barbes who were good, than an ecclesiastic that was not so."

103. — Sequel.

It were superfluous to relate the other examinations, the same language a{)pearing throughout, as well in respect of the Heal

Presence as of all the rest ; and especially it is repeated there continually, "that the barbes behaved in the world like the imitators of Jesus Christ, and had more power than the priests of the Church of Rome, who lived too much at large."

104. — Necessity of Confession.

Nothing is repeated there so much as these dogmata, " That you ought to confess your sins ; that they confessed to the barbes, who had [lower of absolving them; that they confessed kneeling ; that at each confession they gave a quart (a certain piece of money); that the barbes imposed penances on them which generally did not exceed a Pater and Credo, but the Ave Mary was never enjoined ; that they forbad them all oaths whatsoever, and taught them neither to sue for help from the saints, nor to pray for the dead." Here is enough whereby to discover (he principal tenets and genius of the sect; further than this, to expect to meet with order and one constant form in such odd opinions, in all times and all places, were to be deceived.

105. — Sequel of the same Subject.

I do not find they were interrogated concerning sacraments administered by the generahty of laymen, whether because the inquisitors were not apprised of this custom, or that the Vaudois had at length forsaken it⁵⁵. And, indeed, we have observed, it was not without difficulty and contradiction first introduced amongst them with regard to the Eucharist. But, as for confession, nothing is more established in the sect, than the right good laymen have to it: "A good layman," said they, " has power to absolve ; they all gloried in forgiving sins by imposition of hands; they heard confessions; enjoined penances; and lest such an extraordinary practice should be discovered, they very privately received confessions, and those of women even, in cellars, in caverns, and other unfrequented places ; they preached clandestinely in corners of houses, and often in the niiiht-time."

106. — The Vaudois exteriorly did the Duties of Catholics.

But what cannot be too much remarked is, that although they had such an opinion of us as we have seen, yet they fre-

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 105 quented our assemblies: "There they oflerj" says Renier⁵⁶, " there they confess, (here they communicate, but- Avith dissimukition." The reason was, in short, wluitever they might say f , because " some distrust remained in them of the communion they practised among themselves."''' Wherefore, "they came to communicate in the clunch when the throng was greatest, for fear of discovery. Many also remained even ibur, nay, six years, without communicating, concealing themselves either in villages, or towns, at Easter time, lest notice should be taken of them. They also judged it advisable to communicate in the church, but at Easter only, and, under this appearance, they passed for Christians." This is wiuit the ancient authors say of them J, and what also frequently may be found in the interrogatories above-mentioned. " Being asked whether he made his confession to the parish priest, and discovered his sect to him, his answer was, that he confessed yearly to him, but did not mention his being a Vaudois, which the barbes had forbid discovering." They answer also as above, "that every year they communicated at Easter, and received the body of Jesus Christ; and that the barbes warned them of the necessity, before they received, of having made a good confession." Observe, there is no mention here made but of the body alone, and of one only species; as, since the Council of Constance, it was then given over all the Church, the barbes never thinkino; all this while of condemning it. An old author § has observed, " They very rarely received from their teachers either baptism or Christ's body, but as well teachers as simple believers went to seek them at the {)riest's hands." Nor, indeed, do we conceive how they could have acted otherwise, in regard to baptism, without discovering themselves, for it would soon have been taken notice of, had they not brought their children to church, for which they would have been called to an account. Thus, separated in sentiments from the Catholic Church, these hy[iocrites, as far as they were able, shewed themselves e.\lernally of the s-ame faith with others, and exhibited no act of religion in public which did not belie their doctrine.

X Pylicd. c. XXV. Iliid 7!"^- Iiitfrrogat. of Quoti and others. Ibid.⁵⁷⁵⁸

107. — fVJiether the Vaudois had discarded any one of the Seven Sacraments. — Confirmation ,

The Protestants may perceive by this example what kind of men those hidden faithful before the Reformation were, whom they extol so much, and who had not bent a knee to Baal. It might be doubted whether the Vaudois had discarded any of the Seven Sacraments. And it is already manifest, they were not accused of denying so much as one at the beginning; on the contrary, an author has been produced, who, upbraiding them with their changes, excepts the sacraments. Those, Renier speaks of⁵⁹, might be suspected of varying in this matter, he seeming to say, they rejected not only orders, but also confirmation and extreme unction ; but it is manifest, he means such only as Catholics conferred. For, as to confirmation, Renier, who makes them reject it, adds, " They were astonished we permitted none but bishops to confer it :" for this reason, because they were for allowing to good laymen the power of administering this as well as the other sacraments. Wherefore, these same heretics, mentioned as rejecting confirmation, boast, a little after, " of giving the Holy Ghost, by laying on of hands f ;" which is, in other words, the very substance of this sacrament,

108. — Extreme Unction.

In regard to extreme unction, this is what Renier says of it^: *' They reject the sacrament of unction, as if given to the rich only, and because many priests are necessary thereto ;" words, which sufficiently evince that its nullity, which they pretended was amongst us, proceeded from imaginary abuses, not from the nature of the thing. Besides, St. James § having enjoined to call in the priests in the plural number, these cavillers were for believing that unction, given by a single person, as commonly practised amongst us even so long ago, was not sufficient, and this bad pretext served for their neglecting it.

109. — What was the Ablution Renier speaks of in Bajjtism

As for baptism, notwithstanding these ignorant heretics had cast off its most ancient ceremonies with contempt, there is no doubt but they received it. One might only be surprised at Renier's words II , as uttered by the Vaudois, " that ablution, given to children, is of no advantage to them." But, w'hereas

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. |()7 this ablution is in the list of those ceremonies of baptism, which were disapproved by these heretics, \i is plain, he S[)eaks of" the wine given to children after their baptism ; a custom that may be still seen in many ancient rituals, about that time, and which was a remnant of the communion heretofore administered to them under the liquid species only. This wine, put into the chalice to be given to these children, Avas called ablution, because this action resembled the ablution taken by the j)riest at mass. Again, this word ablution is not to be found in Renier as signifying baptism; and, at all events, if men will persist to ha\e it signify this sacrament, all they could conclude from it would be for the worst, viz., that Renier's Vaudois accounted as null whatever baptism was given by unworthy ministers, such as they believed all our priests were ; an error so conformable to the princi[)les of the sect, that the Vaudois, whom we have seen appro\e our baptism, could not do it without running counter to their ovvn doctrine.

110. — Confessio n .

Here, then, already are three sacraments, which the Vaudois approved in the main, Baptism, Confirmation, and Extreme Unction. We have the whole sacrament of penance in their private confession, in the penances imposed by them, in the absolution received for the remission of sins; and if they said, oral confession was not always necessary when contrition v-'as in the heart ; they said true, in the main and in certain cases, although frequently, as above instanced, they abused this maxim by too long deferring their confession.

Ill, — The Eucharist.

There was a sect called the Siscidenses, who differed little or nothing from the Vaudois, says Renier, but in that they received the Eucharist. Not that he meant the Vaudois, or poor men of Lyons, did not receive it, he having shewn, on the contrary, that they received even transubstantiation ; but he means only, they had an extreme repugnance to receive it from the hands of our priests, whereas these others made less ditticulty in it, or perchance, none at all.

112. — Marriage. — Whether Renier hath calumniated the Vaudois.

Protestants accuse Renier of calumniating the Vaudois, by reproaching them, " that they condemned marriage ;" but these authors mutilate his words⁶⁰, which here you have entire: " They condemn the sacrament of marriage, by saying, married people sin mortally when they use marriage for any other end than to have children ;" whereby Renier would observe only the error of these proud heretics, who, to shew themselves above human infirmity, would not admit the secondary end of marriage, namely, its serving as a remedy against concupiscence ? It was then in this respect only that he accused these lieretics of condemning marriage, to wif, of condemning this necessary part, and making that a mortal sin, which the grace of so holy a state renders pardonable.

113. — Demonstration that the Catholics icere neither ignorant of, nor dissembled, the doctrine of the Vaudois.

It is now seen what was the doctrine of the Vaudois or poor men of Lyons. The Catholics cannot be accused, either of not knowing it, since they dwelt and conversed amongst them, and daily received their abjurations ; or, of neglecting to inform themselves, since, on the contrary, they applied themselves with so much care to report its minutest points ; or, in fine, of calumniating them, since we have seen they were so exact, not only in distinguishing the Vaudois from the Cathari and the rest of the Manicheans, but also in acquainting us with all the temperaments applied by some of them to the extravagances of others ; and, in a word, of relating to us with so much sincerity Avhat was commendable in their manners, that their partisans even now-a-days take advantage from it. For we have seen, they did not dissemble the specious appearances at Waldo's first setting out, nor the first simplicity of his followers. Renier |, who so much blames them, hesitates not to say, " that they lived justly before men ; that they believed of God what v.'as fitting to believe, and all that was contained in the Creed ;" that they were regular in their deportment, modest in their dress, just in their dealings, chaste in their marriages, abstemious in their diet, and so of the rest, as it is well known. We shall have a word to say on this testimony of Renier ; but, in the interim, we see he rather flatters, as I may say, than calumniates the Vaudois ; and, therefore, it cannot be doubted that what he says besides of these heretics is true. And though we should suppose with the ministers, that Catholic authors, urged on by the hatred they had conceived against them, charged them with calumnies : this is a new proof of what we h?.ve but just said concerning their doctrine, because

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 109 finally, had the Vaudois stood in opposition to transubstantiation and the adoration of the Eucharist, at a time when our adversaries agree it was so well established amongst us, the Catholics, whom they represent so inclined to load them with false crimes, would never have failed reproaching them with what was so true.

114. — Division of the Vaudois Doctrine into three heads.

Now then that we know the whole doctrine of the Vaudois, we may divide it into three sorts of articles. Some there are which we detest together with the Protestants: some that we approve, and Protestants reject: others that they approve, and we condemn.

115. — Doctrine which the Protestants as well as the Catholics reject in the Vaudois.

The articles we condemn in common are, in the first place, that doctrine so injurious to the Sacraments, which makes their validity depend on the holiness of their ministers ; secondly, that of rendering the administration of the Sacraments common to priests and laity without distinction ; next, that of forbidding oaths in all cases whatsoever, thereby condemning not only St. Paul the Apostle⁶¹, but even God himself who has sworn : lastly, that of condemning the just ])unishments of malefactors, and authorizing all crimes by impunity.

.Y(rt.— ^Doctrine which the Catholics approve in the Vaudois, and Protestants condemn.

'^rho articles which we ai)prove, and the Protestants reject, are that of the Seven Sacraments, except, j)erchance. Orders, and in the manner above spoken to, and what is still more imporlant, that of the Real Presence and Transuhstantiation. So many articles which the Protestants detest either with us, or, contrary to our sentiments, in the Vaudois, pass under the cover of five or six points, wherein these same V^audois favour them ; and notwithstanding their hypocrisy and all their errors, these heretics are made to be their ancestors.

117. — The Vaudois have chamjed their Doctrine since Luther s and Calvin's time.

Such was the state of this sect till the time of the new Reformation. For all the noise this made ever since the year 1517, no THE HISTORY OF [bOOK the Vaudois, whom we have seen till that date abiding in all the sentiments of" their ancestors, still remained unaltered. At length in 1530, after much suffering, whether solicited to it, or taking it into their heads themselves, they thought fit to make them their protectors, whom like themselves they had heard exclaim against the Pope so many years. Those who had withdrawn for'near two hundred years, as Seyssel⁶² remarks, into the mountains of Savoy and Dauphiny, consulted Bucer and (he Swiss, their neighbours. With much commendation which they received, Gilles j, one of their historians, acquaints us, they received also admonitions concerning three defects observed amongst them. The first related to the decision of certain points of doctrine; the second, to the establishment of the order of discipline and ecclesiastical assemblies, to the end they might be held more openly ; the third invited them, no longer to })ermit those that desired to be accounted members of their Churches, to be present at Mass, or to adhere, in any kind, to papal superstitions, or to acknowledge the priests of the Roman Church for pastors, or to make use of their ministry.

118. — New Articles proposed to the Vaudois by the Protestants.

There needs no more to confirm every thing we have said, concerning the state of these wretched Churches, which concealed their faith and worship under a contrary profession. On these advertisements of Bucer and Qicolampadius, the same Gilles assures us, new articles were proposed to the Vaudois. He owns he does not report them all: but here are five or six of such as he specifies, Avhich sufficiently discover the ancient spirit of the sect. For in order to reform the Vaudois to the Protestant mode, it was necessary to make them say , " that a Christian may swear lawfully ; that auricular confession is not commanded of God ; that a Christian may lawfully exercise the office of magistrate over other Christians ; that there is no determined time for fasting ; that the minister may possess something in particular wherewith to maintain his family, without prejudice to apostolic community; that Jesus Christ has appointed but two Sacraments, Baptism and the holy Eucharist." Hereby appears a part of what was necessarily to be reformed in the Vaudois, in order to make them Zuinglians or Calvinists, and, amongst the rest, one of

XT,] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. Ill the corrections was, to admit but two Sacraments. It was also necessary to hint to them a word or two concerning predestination, which assuredly they had heard but htlle of; and they Avere infornied as to this new dogma, which was then hke the soul of the Reformation, that whosoever owns free-will, denies predestination. It appears by these same articles that, in process of time, the Vaudois had fallen into new errors, since it was requisite to teach them * " they were to cease from earthly labours on the Sabbath-day, in order to attend God's service ;" and again, " that it is not lawful for a Christian to revenge himself on his enemy." These two articles shew the brutality and barbarity, which these Vaudois Churches (the main support, it seems, of decayed Christianity) were faUen into, at the time the Protestants reformed them : and this confirms whatSeysself says of them, that " they were a base and be^^tial race of men, that hardly could distinguish, by reason, whether they were men or brutes, alive or dead." Such, by Gilles's account, were the articles of reformation proposed to the Vaudois towards incorporating them with the Protestants. If Gilles mentioned no more of them, it might either proceed from a fear of exposing too great an opposition between the Vaudois and Calvinists, of whom the design then was to make but one communion, or because this was all the Vaudois could be drawn to at that time. Be that as it will, he owns nevertheless ^, they could not come to an agreement, because some of the barbes were of opinion, that by assenting to all these conclusions, they should dishonour the memory of those who had so very prosjjerously conducted those churches to that time. Thus, it is manifest, the design of the Protestants was not to follow the Vaudois, but to make them change and reform, to their fabhion.

119. — Conference of the P'audois ivitk (Ecolampadius.

During this negociation with the ministers of Strasburg and Basil, two of the Vaudois de[)uties had a long conference with CEcolampadius, which Abraham Scultet, a Protestant historian, relates whole and entire in his Evangelical Annals §, and declares he had transcribed it word for word.

One of the deputies opens the conversation, by owning that the ministers, of which number he was, " being prodigiously ignorant, were incapable of teaching the people: that they li\ed by alms and labour, poor shepherds or hus-

112 THE iiisTOiiY OF [book bandmen, the cause of their profonnd ignorance and incapacity: that they were not married, nor hved always very chastely ; but v.hen they had been caught tripping, they were expelled the company of the rest : that it was not the ministers, but the priests of the Roman Church who administered the Sacraments to the Vaudois ; but that their ministers made them ask pardon of God for receiving the Sacraments from those priests, because forced to it ; moreover, they admonished them not to adhere to the ceremonies of Antichrist: that they practised auricular confession, and, till then, had always owned seven Sacraments, wherein, they heard it said, they were very much mistaken." They proceed to give an account how they rejected the mass, purgatory, and the invocation of saints, and in order to clear up their doubts, they propose the following queries : — " Whether or no it be lawful for magistrates to put criminals to death, by reason God has said, 1 will not the death of the sinner ?" But asked at the same time, " If it were not allowable in them to kill the false brethren who informed against them to Catholics, because, they having no jurisdiction amongst them, there was no other way to keep them in awe : whether the human and civil laws, by which the world was governed, were good, the Scripture having said, that the laws of men are vain : whether churchmen might receive donations and have anything of their own : whether it were lawful to swear : whether the distinction they made of original, venial, and mortal sin, were good : whether all children, of whatsoever nation, be saved by the merits of Jesus Christ ; and whether the adult, of whatsoever religion, not having faith, may also be saved; what be the judiciary and ceremonial precepts of the law of Moses: and whether they have been abolished by Jesus Christ ; and which be the canonical books." After all these queries, which so clearly confirm all we have said of the Vaudois' belief, and the brutal ignorance these heretics were at last fallen into, their deputy s[)eaks in these terms : — " Nothing has so much disturbed us, weak and simple as we are, as what I have read in Luther concerning free-will and predestination ; for Ave believe all men have naturally some power and strength, which, excited by God, might do something, conformably to those words, Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; and whosoever would not open, should receive according to his works : but if the thingbe not so, 1 do not see, as says Erasmus, of what use the commandments are. As for predestination, we believe that God has foreseen from all eternity those that were to be saved or damned, and that he had made all men in order to be saved,

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 113 and the reprobate become such through their own fault : but should all come to pass of necessity, as Luther says, and the predestinated not have it in their power to turn reprobate, nor contrarywise, to what end so much preaching and so much writing, since, every thing happening by necessity, matters never will be better or worse ?" Whatever ignorance may appear throughout this discourse, it is plain, these ignorant people, with all their rusticity, spoke better than those they had chosen for reformers; and here are the men, forsooth, they present us as the remains and refuge of Christianity.

We find nothing here particular relating to the Eucharist ; which makes it likely, that the whole of the conference was not related ; nor is it difficult to guess the reason. It was, in short, because the Vaudois were, as above seen, greater Papists on this head than the Zuinglians and Lutherans desired. Moreover, this deputy speaks nothing to GEcolampadins of any Confession of Faith as in use amongst them ; and we have already seen that even Beza * reports none but that which the Vaudois made in 1541, so long after Luther and Calvin : which shews manifestly, that the Confessions of Faith produced by them, as of the ancient Vaudois, can be but very modern, as we shall soon discover.

120. — The Vaudois nowise Calmnists, as proved from Crespin.

After all these conferences with those of Strasburg and Basil in 153G, Geneva was consulted by her neighbours the Vaudois, and then it was that their society with the Calvinists commenced, by the instructions of Farel, minister of Geneva. But we need only hear the Calvinists themselves, to be con\ inced how far remote the Vaudois were from their Reformation. Crespin |, in liis History of Martyrs, says, that those of Angrogne, by a long succession, and as from father to son, had retained some purity of doctrine. But to shew how small, even in their estimate, was this piuity of doctrine, he says in another place 'I, speaking of the Vaudois of Meriudol, " that the very Utile true li<jht they had, they endeavoured to increase from day to day, by (lis[)atching people on all sides, even to a great distance off, wheresoever they heard some ray of light did discover itself." And he agrees moreover in another place §, that "their ministers, who taught them in private, did not do it with that purity, which was requisite ; inasmuch as ignorance having overflowed i la 1543. f. 133. §• lu loUl. f. 532.

YOL. II. 1⁶³⁶⁴⁶⁵ the whole universe, and God having a right to let men go astray as he did, like brute beasts, it is no wonder these poor men had not so purea doctrine as they have since enjoyed, -and at this day more than ever." These last words shew the pains the Calvinists were at since the year 1536, to lead the Vaudois whither they had a mind ; and after all, it is but too manifest that, from that time, this sect is not to be looked on as persisting in her ancient doctrine, but as reformed by the Calvinists.

121. — Proof from Beza.

We learn as much from Beza⁶⁶, though Avith a little more precaution, when he owns in his description of them, " that the purity of doctrine was somewhat adulterated by the Vaudois ;" and in his history, that " in process of time, they had somewhat swerved from piety and doctrine." Afterwards he speaks more openlyf , confessing that " in a long series of time the purity of doctrine had been greatly adulterated by their Ministers, insomuch that they became sensible, by the ministry of CEcolampadius, of Bucer, and others, how, by little and little, the purity of doctrine had not remained amongst them, and gave orders, by sending to their brethren in Calabria, to put all thmgs in a better state."

122. — The change of the Calahrian Vaudois, and their entire extinction.

These brethren of Calabria Avere, like them, fugitives, who, according to the maxims of the sect, held their assemblies, as Gilles reports J, "in the most secret manner it was possible, and dissembled many things against their will." What this minister endeavours to hide under these words, you must understand was, that the Vaudois of Calabria, after the example of all the rest of them, performed all the external duties of good Catholics ; and I leave you to judge whether they could have been exempt from it in that country, considering what we have seen of their dissimulation in ihe valleys of Pragelas and Angrogne. Accordingly Gilles acquaints us, how that these Calabrians, pressed at last to withdraw from church assemblies, yet not able to take the resolution, though advised to it by this minister, " of forsaking so fine a country," \ere soon abolished.

}; Gilles, ch. iii. et xxix.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 115

123. — The present Vaudois are not the predecessors, but followers of the Calvinists.

Thus expired the Vaudois. As they had only subsisted by conceahng what they were, they fell as soon as ever they resolved to declare themselves ; for those that afterwards remained under that name, it is plain, were nothing else but Calvinists, whom Farel and the other ministers of Geneva had formed (o their mode ; so that these Vaudois, whom they make their ancestors and predecessors, to speak the truth, are nothing but their successors, and new disciples whom they have proselyted to their faith.

124. — JVo advantage to be derived from the Vaudois in behalf of the Calvinists.

But, after all, what help can these Vaudois, by whom they seek to justify themselves, afford our Calvinists ? It is manifest by this history that Waldo and his disciples were all mere laymen, who thrust themselves in to preach, without orders, without mission, and afterwards to administer the sacraments. They separated from the church by a manifest error, detested as much by Protestants as Catholics, which was that of Donatism ; nay, this Donatism of the Vaudois is beyond comparison much worse than the African Donatism of old, so strongly confuted by St. Austin. Those Donatists of Africa said, indeed, that none but a holy person could validly administer the sacraments ; but they did not arrive at the extravagance of the Vaudois, to allow the administration of the sacraments as well to holy laymen as holy priests. If the African Donatists pretended that the Catholic bishops and priests had forfeited their ministry by their crimes, they at least accused them of crimes, which were actually reproved by the law of God. liut our new Donatists separate themselves from the whole Catholic clergy, and would have 'it, they were degraded from tlieir orders for not observing their pretended apostolic poverty, which, at most, was but a counsel. For this was the origin of the sect, and what we have seen it stood to, as long as it persisted in its first belief Who, therefore, does not see that such a sect is nothing at bottom, but hypocrisy boasting her poverty and other virtues, and making the sacraments depend, not on the efKcacy Jesus Christ has given them, but on man's merits!'' And, after all, these new doctors, from Avhom the Calvinists derive their succession. Whence came they themselves, and who sent them? Puzzled at this query no less than the Protestants, like them

116 THE HISTORY OP [bOOK they went in quest of predecessors, and here is the fable trumped up by them. They were told, that in the time of St. Sylvester *, when Constantine endowed the churches with revenues, " One of this pope's companions would not consent to it, and withdrew from his communion, abiding, together with them that followed him, in the way of poverty ; and then it was the church failed in Sylvester and his adherents, and remained with them." Let not "this be called a calumny invented by the enemies of the Vaudois, for we have seen, that the authors, who unanimously report it, had no design of calumniating them. This fable was still in vogue in Seyssel's timef. The vulgar were then told, " This sect had taken its rise from a certain man called Leo, a very religious person, in the time of Constantine the Great, who detesting the avarice of Sylvester, and Constantine's excessive liberality, chose rather to follow the poverty and simplicity of faith, than, with Sylvester, to defile himself with a fat and rich benefice, to which Leo and all those joined themselves, that judged aright in faith." These ignorant people had been made to believe, it was from this counterfeit liCO, the sect of Leonists derived their name and birth. Christians are all for finding a succession in their church and doctrine. Protestants boast of theirs in the Vaudois, the Vaudois in their pretended companion of St. Sylvester; and both are equally fictitious.

125.— The Calvinists have no contemporanj authors to favour their pretensions to the Vaudois »

All the truth to be found in the origin of the Vaudois is, that they took their motive of separation from the endowing of churches and church-men, contrary, as they pretended, to that poverty Jesus Christ requires of his ministers. But as this origin is absurd, and besides, nowise serves the turn of Protestants, we have seen what an account Paul Perrin has given of it in his history of the Vaudois [j]. He represents this Waldo as a person " the most courageous in opposing the Real" Presence in the year 1160. But does he produce any author in confirmation of what he says ? No, not so much as one ; neither Aubertin, nor La Roque, nor Chappel, — in a word, no Protestant of Germany or France hath produced, or ever will produce, asy one author, either of those times, or of succeeding ages, for the space of three or four hundred years, who gives

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 117 the Vaudois that origin which this historian lays for the foundation of his history. Have any of the Cathohcs, who wrote so copiously, whatever Berengarius and the rest objected against the Real Presence, so much as named Waldo amongst those that opposetl it ? None ever has dreamed of it ; we have seen what they said of Waldo was far different. But why must they have spared him only? What, then, did this man, whom they make so courageous in stemming the torrent, so conceal his doctrine that none ever could perceive he im[)ugned an article of this importance ? Or, was Waldo so formidable a person, that no Catholic durst impeach him of this error at the time they impeached him of so many others? An historian that sets out with a fact of this nature, and lays it for the foundation of his history, what credit does lie deserve ? Nevertheless, Paul Perrin is heard, like an oracle, among Calvinists, so readily do they come into whatever favours the prejudices of the sect.

126. — Vmidois books produced by Perrin.

But, for want of known authors, Perrin produces⁶⁷, for his only proof, some old books of the Vaudois, in manuscript, which he pretends to have recovered ; amongst the rest, one volume, wherein was " A book, concerning Antichrist, bearing date i 120, and in this same volume, many sermons of the Vaudois Barbes." But it is already evidently made out, that there neither were Vaudois nor Barbes in 1120; since Waldo, by Perrin's own account, did not appear till 1160. The word barbe was not known, nor in use among the Vaudois to signify their doctors, till many ages after, and manifestly in the latter times. So, these discourses cannot all of them be made to pass as of eleven hundred and twenty years standing. Nay, Perrin himself is reduced to allow this date only to the discourse concerning Antichrist, which, by this means, he hopes to father on Peter de Bruis, who lived about that time, or on some of hi.s disciples. But the date standing in the front, should seemingly extend to all, and consequently is utterly false in regard of the first, as it evidently is in regard of the rest. And besides, this treatise about Antichrist, which he j)retends to be of 1160, is not in a dillbrent language from the other pieces of the Barbes cited by Perrin ; and this language is very modern, very little unlike the Provence dialect, now in use. Not only Villehardouin's language, who wrote a hundred years since⁶⁸⁶⁹

Peter de Bruis, but that also of the authors subsequent to Villehardouin, is more obsolete and obscure than that which he would make to pass for eleven hundred and twenty years old ; so that there is not a more gross and palpable imposition, than to palm on us these pieces as of remote antiquity.

127. — Sequel.

Nevertheless, on account of this sole date of 1 120, placed, you know not by whom, you know not when, in this Vaudois volume no body knows any thing, of, our Caivinists have cited this book about Antichrist as undoubtedly the work of " some one of Peter de Bruis's" disciples, or as his own⁷⁰. The same authors quote, with great confidence, some discourses which Perrin J has annexed to that concerning y\ntichrist, as if of the same date 1120, although, in one of those where purgatory is handled, is cited a book which St. Austin entitled, as the original has it, "Milparlemens," that is, of a thousand sayings, as if St. Austin had written a book with this title ; which can be attributed to nothing but a compilation made in the thirteenth century, bearing this title, " Milleloquium Sancti Augustini," which the ignorant author of this treatise on Purgfitory took for the work of this father Besides this, we might be able to say something of the age of these Vaudois books, and the alterations possibly made in them, Avere we told of some known library where they might be seen. Till the public has received this necessary information, we cannot but wonder such books have been produced to us for authentic as have not been seen but by Perrin alone ; neither Aubertin nor La lloque citing them otherwise than on his word, without so much as telling us they have ever handled them. This Perrin [j], who alone boasts of them to us, observes none of those marks in them whereby the date of a book may be ascertained, or its antiquity proved ; and all he tells us is, they are old Vaudois volumes; which, in general, may be said of the most modern Gothic books of no more than a hundred or sixscore years' antiquity. There is then every reason for believing that these books, whence they produce what they please without any solid proof of their date, have been composed or altered by those Vaudois, whom Farel and his brethren reformed in their way.

j- Hist, des Vaud. part iii. liv. iii. ch. ii. p. 305.

X Ibid. liv. i. ch. vii. p. 56.

X|.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 119

128. — Confession of Faith produced by Perrin — That it is posterior to Calvinism.

As to the Confession of Faith published by Perrin⁷¹, and which all Protestants quote as an authentic piece of the ancient Vaudois, " It is extracted," says he, " from a book entitled the ' Spiritual Almanac,' and from the ' Memoirs of George Morel.' " As for the Spiritual Almanac, I know not what to say to it, unless, that neither Perrin, nor even Leger, who speaks with so great a regard for the books of the Vaudois, have mentioned any thing of the date of this. They have not even thought it worth their while to acquaint us whether it may be a manuscript or in print; and we may hold it for certain, it is very modern, since those who would make the most of it, have not specified its antiquity. But what Perrin reports is decisive, viz., that this Confession of Faith is extracted from the Memoirs of George Morel, Now it is plain from Perrin himselff , that George Morel was the man who about the year 1530, (so many years after the Reformation) went to confer with CEcolampadius and Bucer, concerning the means to bring about an union : which makes it clear enough that this Confession of Faith is not, any more than the rest, produced by Perrin, of the ancient Vaudois, but of the Vaudois reformed according to the model of the Protestants.

129. — Demonstration that the P^audois had no Confession of Faith before the jyretended Reformation.

Accordingly it has been already remarked by us, that no mention of a Vaudois confession of faith was made in the Conference of 1530, betwixt Q^colampadius and the said Vaudois. We may even boldly assert, they never made a confession of faith till a long while after, since that Beza, so diligent in his researches into, and taking advantage from, the acts of these heretics, says nothing, as has been seen, of any such confession of faith, that he knew of, except in 1541. However that may be, never before Luther's and Calvin's Reformation had a Vaudois confession of faith been so much as heard of J. Seyssel, whom pastoral vigilancy and the duty of his charge engaged in those latter times, namely, in 1510 and 1517, to so exact an inquiry into all that concerned this beet, says not one word of a confession of faith : and the reason was § , because he had never

•\ Lett, of (Ecolamp. Perr. Ibid. cli. vi. p. Aii ; vii, p. 59.

X S. u. 4. § Seyss. f. 3. ct seq.

heard of any such thing, either from juridical examinations, or from those of his own converts, who, with so great tokens of sincerity, discovered to him, with tears and compunction, the Avhole secret of the sect. They had not, therefore, at that time, any such confession ; their doctrine was to be learnt, as we have seen, by their interrogatories at tribunals; but as for a confession of faith, or any Vaudois writing, we find not a word in those authors that knew them best. On the contrary, the brethren of Bohemia, a sect of whom we shall speak presently, and which the Vaudois have frequently strove to unite themselves to, both before and since Luther's time, assure us they wrote nothing. " They never had," say they⁷², " a church known in Bohemia, nor had our people learnt anything of their doctrine, by reason they never had published any writings we know of." And in another place — " They would not suffer that there should be any public testimony of their doctrine." But if you will say, they had nevertheless, amongst themselves, some writing and some confessions of faith ; if so, doubtless they would have communicated them to the brethren with whom they wished to unite themselves. But the brethren declare, they knew nothing as to that point, except from some articles of Merindol, " which articles," say they, " possibly might have been polished since our time." This is what a learned minister of the Bohemians writes f, a long while after the Reformation of Luther and Calvin. He would have spoken more accurately if, instead of saying these articles were " polished," he had said they were coined since the Reformation. But so it was that men were willing, in the party, to give some air of antiquity to the Vaudois articles, nor would this minister entirely disclose the secret of the sect. Be that as it Avill, he says enough of it to convince us what we ought to credit concerning the confessions of faith produced, in his time, under the name of the Vaudois ; and it is easily perceived they knew nothing of the Protestant doctrine before they had been taught it by the Protestants, Nay, they scarce knew what they themselves believed, and but confusedly delivered their minds concerning it to their best friends, so far from having confessions of faith already at hand, as Perrin would fain persuade us.

148. Praef. Conf. fid. frat. Bohem. An. 1572. Ibid. 173, f Rud. Ibid. pp. 147, 148.

XI,] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 121

130. — 'The Vaudois,in drawincj their Calvinisfical Confession of Faith, retained somethinrj of the Doijmata that ivere pecidiar to them.

And nevertheless we perceive, even in these pieces of Perrin, some footsteps of tlie ancient genius of the Vaudois, a confirmation of what Ave have aheady said concerning them. For example, in the book about Antichrist, it is said⁷³, " That the emperors and kings supposing that Antichrist resembled the true and holy mother the Church, they loved him, and endowed him contrary to God's command," which comes up to the tenet of the Vaudois, that the clergy are forbidden to have any goods ; an error, as above seen, which was the first groundwork of their separation. What is advanced in the catechism, viz., that you may know the ministers " by their true sense of the faith, and by their holy doctrine and life of good example," &c., suits also with that error, which made the Vaudois believe, that ministers of an evil life were degraded from their ministry, and lost the administration of the sacraments. For which reason, in the book that treats of Antichrist, it is also said, that one of his works is, " to attribute the Reformation of the Holy Ghost to faith exteriorly dead, and to baptize children into this faith, teaching that, by this faith, these children do receive from him baptism and regeneration:" words whereby a living faith is required in the ministers of baptism, as a thing necessary for the child's regeneration, and the contrary is ranked among the works of Antichrist. Thus, when they composed these new confessions of faith agreeable to the Reformation, which they had a design of entering into, there was no hindering them from still insinuating something that savoured of the old leaven ; and without further loss of time in this inquiry, it is sufficient you have observed, in these works of the Vaudois, the two errors which were the ground of their separation.

131. — Reflections on the History of the Albigenses and Vaudois— Artifice of the Ministers.

Such is the history of the Albigenses and Vaudois as reported by the authors of those times. Our Reformed, finding nothing therein favourable to their pretensions, connived at their being imposed upon by the most gross of all artifices. Many Ca- tholic authors who wrote in this, or towards the end of the preceding age, have not sufficiently distinguished the Vaudois from the Albigenses, but given the general name of Vaudois alike to both of them. Whatever might have been the cause of their error, our Protestants are more able critics than to require we should credit either Mariana, or Gretser, or even Thuanus, and some other moderns, to the prejudice of the ancient authors, who all unanimously, as we have seen, distinguished these two sects. Nevertheless, on so gross an error, the Protestants, after taking it for granted that the Albigenses and Vaudois were but one and the same sect, have concluded, that nought but calumny branded the Albigenses with the imputation of Manicheism, since the Vaudois, according to the ancient authors, are exempt from that blemish.

132. — Demonstration that the Heretics, who denied the Reality in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, were Manicheans. — Notoriously false supposition of the Ministers.

They ought to reflect that these ancients, who, in accusing the Vaudois of other errors, have acquitted them of Manicheism, at the same time have distinguished them from the Albigenses whom we have convicted of it. For example, the minister de la Roque, who, as he was the last who wrote on this subject, has mustered up the subtle quirks of all the other authors of the party, and especially those of Aubertin, believes he has justified the Albigenses as to their rejecting the Old Testament, like the Manicheans, by shewing from Renier's testimony, that the Vaudois received it * ; he gains nothing, since these Vaudois are, in the same Renier f , thoroughly distinguished from the Cathari, the stem of the Albigensian progeny. The same La Roque J thinks to reap advantage from certain heretics, who, according to Radulphus Ardens, said, "That the sacrament was nothing but mere bread." It is true ; but the same Radulphus adds, what La Roque no less than Aubertin have dissembled, that these same heretics " admit two Creators, and reject the Old Testament, the truth of the incarnation, marriage, and the use of flesh-meat." The same minister also cites certain heretics mentioned by Peter de Vaucernay §, who denied the truth of Jesus Christ's body in the Eucharist. I own it ; but, at the same time, this historian || assures us, they

X La Roq. 450. Aub. p. 904. B. Rad. Ard. Serm. 8. Post Pentec.

11 Hist. Albig. cap. 2.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 123 admitted the two principles, with all the train of Manichean errors. La Roque would make us believe, that the same Peter de Vaucernay distinguishes the Arians and Manicheans from the Vandois and Alhigenses. The half of his statement is true: it is true that he distinguishes the JManicheans from the Vaudois, but he distinguishes them not from the heretics " that Avere in the country of Narbonne ;" and certain it is, these are the same that were called Alhigenses, and who unquestionably were Manicheans. But, continues the same La Roque⁷⁴, Renier owns heretics who say, " the body of Jesus Christ is mere bread ; " they were those he calls Ordibarians that spoke thus, and, at the same time, denied the Creation, and vented a thousand other blasj)hemies which Manicheism had introduced : so that these enemies of the Real Presence were at the same time no less enemies of the Creator than the Deity.

133. — Sequel. — Manicheism at Mefz. — The Bogomilists.

La Roque returns to the attack with Aubertin, and believes he finds good Protestants in the persons of those heretics, who, by the testimony of Cesarius of Hesterback f , " blas[)hemed the body and blood of Jesus Christ." But the same Cesarius informs us, they admitted the two principles, and all the other Manichean blasphemies j which he avers he is very well assured of, not from hearsay, but " from his frequent conversation with them in the Diocese of Metz." A famous minister of Metz, whom i was well acquainted with, made the Calvinists of that country believe these Alhigenses of Cesarius were their ancestors ; and then they were plainly shewn, that these ancestors he had given them, were abominable Manicheans. La Roque, in his history of the Eucharist, would fain have us believe, the Bogomilists Avere the same with those called, in divers jjlaces, Vaudois, poor men of Lyons, Buljjarians, Tiisabbatized, Gazares, Poplicans, and Turlupins. 1 agree that the Vaudois, the Insabbatized, and the poor men of I^yons are the same sect; but that they were called Gazares or Cathari, Poplicans, Bulgarians, or Bogomilists, is what never will be proved from any author of those times. Nevertheless, INL de la Roque must needs have these Bogomilists to be their friends ; surely for this reason, because " they accounted the body and blood, which we consecrate, unworthy of all esteem." But he ought to have learned from Anna ComnenaJ, who has

" La Roque, p. 457. Aub. p. 965. Ren. cap. vi. f Caesar. Hesterb. lib. v. cap. 2, in Bibl. Cisterc. La Roque, p. 457. Aub. p. 964. Ferri Cat. Geu. pp. 85,455. J Au. Comu. Alex. lib. xv. y,486,etseq.⁷⁵

given us a right notion of these heretics, "that they reduced to a phantom the incarnation of Jesus ; that they taught such impurities as the modesty of her sex forbad this princess to repeat; and, ill a word, that they had been convicted by the Emperor Alexius, her father, of introducing a dogma mixed with two the most infamous of all heresies, that of the Manicheans and that of the Massalians."

134. — Sequel of the suppositions of the Ministers.

The same La Roque * numbers also amongst his friends Peter Moran, who, pressed to declare his faith before all the people, confessed, " He did not believe the consecrated bread was the body of our Lord ; " and he forgets that this Peter Morau, by the report of the author whose testimony he cites, was of the number of those heretics convicted of Manicheism, who were called Arians for the reason abovementioned.

135. — Another falsity.

This author reclions also amongst his friends | those heretics, concerning whom it is said in the Council of Toulouse, under Calixtus IL, " that they rejected the sacrament of Jesus Christ's body and blood ; " and he mutilates the very canon he has taken these words from, in the sequel whereof is to be seen, that these heretics, together with the sacrament of the body and blood, " rejected also infant baptism and lawful wedlock."

136. — Another passage mutilated.

With the like boldness he corrupts J a passage of Emerick, the inquisitor, concerning the Vaudois. "Emerick, (says he,) attributes to them, as a heresy, their saying that the bread is not transubstantiated into the true body of Jesus Christ, nor the wine into blood." Who would not believe the Vaudois convicted by this testimony of denying transubstantiation ? but we have given the Avhole passage, where you will read, " The ninth error of the Vaudois is, that the bread is not transubstantiated into the body of Jesus Christ, if the priest wlio consecrate it be a sinner.'' M. la Roque cuts off these last words, and, by this falsification alone, takes from the Vaudois two important points of their doctrine : one, which is the abhor-

Xr.] THE VARIATIONS, KTC. 125 rence of all Protestants, to wit, transnbstantiation ; the other, ■which is the abhorrence of all Christians, namely, their. saying, that the sacraments lose their virtue in the hands of unworthy ministers. Thus do our adversaries prove what they please by manifest falsifications, nor dread giving themselves predecessors even at this rate.

137. — Recapitulation.

These are a part of Aubertin's and La Roque's illusions with regard to the Albigenses, and Vaudois, or poor men of Lyons. In a w^ord, they perfectly vindicate these last from Manicheisra, but, at the same time, bring no kind of proof to shew they denied transnbstantiation ; on the contrary, they corrupt the passages which prove that they admitted it. And as for those who denied it in those days, they produce none but such as are convicted of Manicheism, by the testimony of the same authors that accuse them of denying the change of substance in the Eucharist ; so that their ancestors either, Avith us, defend transnbstantiation as the Vaudois, or are convicted of Manicheism with the Albigenses.

138. — Tivo other objections of the Ministers.

But here is what these ministers have atlvanced with greater subtilty. Overpowered by the number of authors, who, treating of these Toulousian and Albigensian heretics, make them perfect Manicheans, they cannot deny there were such, and even in those countries ; and they were those, say they *, who were called Cathari or Puritans. But, they add, they were very few ill number, since Renier f , who knew them so well, assures us, they had but " sixteen churches in the whole world ; " nay, that the number of these Cathari did not exceed four thousand in all parts of the earth; "whereas," says Renier |, "the believers are not to be numbered." These ministers would have it understood from this passage, that these sixteen churches, and four thousand men spread in all parts of the universe, could not have caused in it all that noise and all those wars the Albigenses were authors of; it must, therefore, have happened that the name of Cathari or Manicheans was extended to some other sect more numerous, and that the Vaudois and Ali)igenses had the name of Manicheans given them either by mistake or calumny.⁷⁶⁷⁷

139. — Sixteen Churches of the Manicheans that comprehend the whole Sect.

Whoever wishes to see what length prejudice or illusion will go, needs but to hear, after what the ministers ha\e said, the truth I am going to relate, or rather, call to mind what has already been related. And, in the first place, as to these sixteen churches, you have seen that the word Church was taken iti this place by Renier *, not for particular churches which were in certain towns, but often, for whole provinces : thus you find amongst these churches, the church of Sclavonia, the church of Marc-Ancona in Italy, the church of France, the church of Bulgaria, the mother of all the rest. All Lombardy was contained under the title of two churches : those of Toulouse and Alby, which in France formerly were the most numerous, comprehended all Languedoc, and so forth ; so that, under the denomination of sixteen churches, the whole sect was expressed as divided into sixteen cantons, all which had their relation to Bulgaria, as above seen.

140. — The CatJiari, in number four thousand. — How is this to be understood.

We have also observed, with respect to those four thousand Cathari, that none were understood by that name but the perfect of the sect, called elect in St. Austin's time ; but at the same time that Renier assures us, in his time, to wit, in the middle of the thirteenth century, when the sect was weakened, though there were but four thousand perfect Cathari, yet, that the multitude of the rest of the sect, namely, of simple believers, was then infinite.

141. — Whether the tvord Believers, in the ancient authors, signified the Vaudois. — AuberVuis fallacy.

La Roque, after Aubertin f, pretends, the word " Believers" signified the Vaudois, by reason that Pylicdorf, and Renier himself, call them so. But here is again too palpable a fallacy. The word " Believers" was common to all the sects : each sect had its believers or followers. The Vaudois had their believers, Credentcs ipsorum, whom Pylicdorf has spoken of in divers places. Not that the word " Believers" was appropriated to the Vaudois; but the thing meant was, that they had theirs like

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. iSt the rest. The passages cited from Renier, by the ministers, says, the heretics " had their believers, Credenfes suos, to whom they allowed all kind of crimes." It is not theVaudois he speaks of, since he commends their good deportment. The same Renier relates the mysteries of the Cathari, or the breaking of their bread, and says⁷⁸, " they admitted to this table not only the Cathari, mi'n and ivomcn, but also their believers," namely, those who were not as yet arrived to the perfection of the Cathari : which shews manifestly these two orders so well known among the Manicheans ; and what he further remarks, that the simj)le believers were admitted to this kind of mystery, makes it evident, that there were other mysteries which they were not deemed worthy of. These believers of the Cathari were therefore the " innumerable" abovementioned ; and these, guided by the rest of an inferior number, raised all the commotions which disturbed the world.

142. — Conclusion : that the Vaudois concur not in sentiment with the Calvinists.

Here have you then the subtilties, not to say artifices, the ministers are reduced to, in order to find themselves predecessors. They have none of an apparent and continued succession : of such they go in search the best way they are able, amongst obscure sects whom they strive to unite, and make of them good Calvinists, though there be nothing they all agree in, but their hatred against the Pope and Church.

143. — What is to he believed concerning the lives of the Vaudois.

It will be asked me, perhaps, what is my opinion concerning the manners of the Vaudois so much extolled by Renier? 1 can easily credit all he says, nay, if they please, more than Renier said of them ; for the Devil matters not by what sort of bands he secures men to him. Those Toulousian heretics, confessedly Manicheans, had not less of this apparent piety than the Vaudois. It was of them St. Bernard said f : " Their manners are irre[)roachable ; they ojipress none; they injure no man; their countenances are morllHed and wan with fasting ; they eat not their bread hke sluggards, but labour to gain a livelihood," What can be more plausible than these heretics mentioned by St. Bernard ? But after all, they were Manicheans, and their piety but disguise. Inspect the foun-⁷⁹ dation : it was pride, it was hatred against the clergy, it was rancour against the church ; this made them drink in the wliole poison of an abominable heresy. An ignorant people may be led whither you please, when, after kindling a violent passion in their breasts, especially hatred against their guides, you use it as a chain to drag them by. But what shall we say of the Vaudois, who kept themselves so clear of the Manichean errors ? The Devil had accomplished his work in them, when he inspired them with the same pride ; the same ostentation of their pretended Apostolic poverty ; the same presumption to boast their virtues ; the same hatred against the clergy, carried so far as even to despise the Sacraments in their hands ; the same bitterness against their brethren, even to a rupture from them and open schism. With this hatred in their breasts, even though they were externally still more just than has been reported, St. John assures me⁸⁰, they are murderers. Were they as chaste as angels, their lot would be no better than that of the " foolish virgins |," whose lamps were void of oil, and hearts void of that sweetness which alone can nourish charity.

144. — Sourness is ihe character of this Sect. — Abuse of the

Scripture.

Renier| has therefore justly pointed out the character of these heretics, when he resolves the cause of their error into hatred, bitterness, and rancour : Sic processit doctrina ipsorum, et rancor. These heretics, says he, whose exterior was so specious, read much, " and prayed little. They Avent to sermons, but in order to lay snares for the preacher, as the Jews did for the Son of God ;" as much as to say, there was amongst them much of the spirit of contention, but httle of the spirit of compunction. All of them in general, Manicheans and Vaudois, never ceased inveighing against human inventions, and citing the holy Scripture, whence they always had a text at hand upon all occasions §. When examined concerning faith, they eluded the question by equivocating ; if reproved for this, it Avas Jesus Christ himself, said they, that taught them this practice when he said to the Jev.-s : " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up [| ;" meaning of the temple of his body what the Jews understood of that of Solomon. This text, to those that knev/ no better, seemed expressly made for their purpose. The Vaudois had a hundred others of this

9 Ren, Ibid. |1 John ii. 19,

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 129

^ sort, which they were expert in wrestinf^ to their own purposes ; and to those not tlioroughly versed in Scripture, itwus no easy matter to escape their snares. Another author⁸¹ remarks a very singular character in these false professors of povert5^ They did not proceed like a St. Bernard, like a St. Francis, like other apostolic preachers, and attack in the midst of the world the dissolute livers, the usurers, the gamesters, the blasphemers, and the like })ublic sinners in order to convert them : on the contrary, whomsoever they found, in towns or villages that were peaceable and retired, it was into their houses they insinuated themselves under the covert of their exterior simplicity. Scarce durst they raise their voice, their meekness was so great : yet the topic of wicked priests and wicked monks was introduced forthwith: a keen and merciless satire put on the disguise of zeal ; well-meaning people, that listened to them, were ensnared ; and transported with this bitter zeal, imagined even they became better men by becoming heretics : thus an universal contagion diffused itself. Some were drawn into vice by the great scandals that appeared in the world on every side : the devil took in the simple after another manner; and, by a false horror of the wicked, alienated them from the Church, wherein the number of such was daily seen to increase.

145. — Eminent sanctity in the Catholic Church.

Nothing could be more unjust; since the Church, far from approving the disorders which gave a handle to the revolt of heretics, by all her decrees detested them, and nourished at the same time in her bosom men of so eminent a holiness, that in comparison to it, all the virtue of these hypocrites ap[)eared as nothing. St. Bernard alone, whom God raised in those days with all the graces of the Prophets and Apostles to combat these new heretics, when they were making their greatest efforts to spread themselves in France, was alone sufficient to confound them. In him might they behold a spirit truly apostolical, a sanctity of such a lustre, that even those whose errors he impugned were in admiration of it, insomuch that there were some of them who, whilst they wickedly anathematized the holy doctors, excei)ted St. IBernard from that sentence f, and thought themselves obliged to publish, that at last he had come over to their party : so much did they blush to have against them so great a witness. Amongst his other virtues, was seen to shine in him, and his brethren the holy Monks of

VOL.11. K

Cisteaux and Clairvaux, to mention nothing of the rest, that apostolic poverty these heretics boasted so much of; but St, Bernard and his disciples, notwithstanding they carried this poverty and Christian mortification to its utmost height, did not glory that they alone had preserved the Sacraments, nor were they the less obedient to superiors however wicked, distinguishing, with Jesus Christ, abuses from the chair and doctrine.

146, — Bitterness and presumption of Heretics.

At the same time, great saints might be numbered, not only among the bishops, among the priests, among the monks, but also among the common people, and even amongst princes, in the midst of this worldly pomp ; but heretics cared to look on nothing but vice, that they might say more boldly with the pharisee, " We are not as other men are⁸² ;" we are spotless, we are the [)Oor beloved of God ; come to us if you will receive the Sacraments.

147. — Whether their false constancy ought to surprise us. — St. Bernard's memorable answer.

One ought not, therefore, to be surprised at the a{)parent regularity of their manners, this being a part of that seduction against which we have been put on our guard by so many admonitions of the gospel. To finish the external piety of these heretics, this last stroke is added ; that they suffered with a surprising patience. It is true, and this it is which completes the illusion. For the heretics of those times, and even the Manicheans, whose infamies we have beheld, after shifting and dissembling as long as ever they were able to escape punishment, when convicted, and condemned by the laws, ran to death with joy. Their false constancy amazed the world: Enervin, their accuserf , was nevertheless astonished, and inquired of St. Bernard with concern the meaning of such a prodigy. But the saint, too well versed in the deep wiles of Satan to be ignorant of his being able to make those he held captives mimic even martyrdom itself, answered, that by a just judgment of God, the evil one might have power, " Not only over the bodies of men, but also over their hearts^ ;" and if he was able to prevail with Judas to destroy himself, he might well work on these heretics to suff'er death from the hands of others. Let us not, therefore, wonder, if we see martyrs of all

XI,] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 131 religion?;, even of those the most monstrous, but let us learn from this exannpie, to hold none for true martyrs but those who die in unity.

148. — Inevitable condemnation of these Heretics, in that they denied their Reliyion.

But what ought to put Protestants for ever out of conceit with all these im[)ious sects, is the detestable custom they had of denying their religion, and partaking outwardly of our worship wliilst they rejected it in their hearts. It is certain the Vaudois, like the Manicheans, lived in this practice ever since the beginning of the sect, till towards the midst of the last century. Seyssel⁸³ could not sufficiently wonder at the false piety of their Barbes, who condemning even the minutest lies, as so many grievous sins, yet dreaded not, in presence of the judges, to lie in point of faith, with an obstinacy so surprising, that the confession of it could scarcely be extorted from them by the most acute tortures. They forbade swearing, though even to bear witness to truth in courts of judicature ; and at the same time stuck at no oath to conceal their sect and faith : a tradition they had received from the Manicheans, as they had also inherited from them their presumption and rancour. Men inure themselves to any thing, when once their guides have gained the ascendant over their minds; but especially when engaged in a cabal under the pretext of piety.

A HISTORY OF THE BOHExMIAN BRETHREN, VULGARLY AND FALSELY CALLED VAUDOIS.

149. — The Sect of the Bohemian Brethren,

We are now to speak of those who were falsely called Vaudois and Picards, and who called themselves the Brethren of Bohemia, or the Orthodox Brethren, or, barely, Brethren. They constitute a particular sect distinct from the Albigenses and the poor men of Lyons. When Luther rose up, he found some churches in Bohemia, and especially in Moravia, which he long detested. He approved afterwards of their confession of faith, corrected as we shall see. Bucer and Musculus have also bestowed great {)raises on them. The learned Camerarius, whom we have so much spoken of, that intimate friend of Melancthon, judged their history worthy to be written by his fine pen. liis son-in-law, Kudigerf, though called by the k2⁸⁴

Protestant churches of the Palatinate, preferred to them those of Moravia, and cliose to be their minister ; and of all the sects separated from Rome before Luther, this is the most commended by Protestants : but its birth and doctrine will soon evince nothing could be drawn from it to their advantage.

150. — They disown those who call them Vaudois, and why.

As for its birth, many, led into a mistake by the name, and some conformity of doctrine, make these Bohemians descend from the ancient Vaudois : but for their part, they renounce this origin⁸⁵, as appears clearly in the preface they prefixed to their Confession of Faith in 1572. There they set forth their origin in an ample manner, and say, amongst other things, that the Vaudois are more ancient than they ; that these had, indeed, some churches dispersed in Bohemia when their own began first to appear, but they had no acquaintance with them ; that nevertheless these Vaudois, in process of time, made themselves known to them, yet refused, say they, to make any deep research into their doctrine. " Our annals," continue they, ''■ inform us they were never united to our churches, for two reasons : first, because they gave no testimony of their faith and doctrine ; secondly, because, in order to keep peace, they made no difficulty of assisting at masses celebrated by those of the Church of Rome." Whence they concluded, not only " that they never had entered into any union with the Vaudois, but also, that they had always believed they could not enter into any such with a safe conscience." So far are these people from acknowledging a Vaudois extraction, that what is eagerly sought for by the Calvinists is rejected by them with scorn.

151. — The sentiments of Camerarius and Rudiger.

Camerarius writes the same thing in his history of the Bohemian brethren | : but RudigerJ, one of their pastors in Moravia, says, still more clearly, that " these churches are far different from those of the Vaudois ; that the Vaudois were in being ever since the year 1160, whereas the Brethren did not begin to appear till the fifteenth century ; and finally, that it is written in the annals of the Brethren, how they always with constancy refused to make any union with the Vaudois, by reason they did not give a full Confession of their Faith, and went to mass."

• De orig. Eccl. Boli. et confess, ab iis editis. Ileid. An. IG05, cum Hist. Joach. Camer. ]). 173. f Hist. p. lO.'i, &c.

X Rudig, de Eccl. Frat. in Bobera. et Mor, nar. p. 147.

THE VARIATIONS, KTC. 133

152. — The Vaudois disowned by the Brethren as ivell as the

Picards.

Accordingly, we see the Brethren, in all their synods and all their acts, style themselves the Brethren of Bohemia, falsely called Vaudois*. The name of Picards is still more detested by them : '' It is very likely," says Rudiger, " that those, who first gave it to our ancestors, took it from a certain Picard, who, renewing the ancient heresy of the Adamites, introduced nudities, and shameful actions ; and as this heresy penetrated into Bohemia about the time our churches were established, they were discredited by so infamous a title, as if we had been nothing but the miserable remains of that impure Picardf ." You see thereby how these two pedigrees, from the ^'^audois and this Picard, are rejected by the Brethren ; " they account it even an affront to be called Picard and Vaudois} ;" and if the first origin displeases them, the second, in which our Protestants glory, seems to them but little less shameful ; but now we are going to see that which they give themselves is not much more reputable.

THE HISTORY OF JOHN WICKLIFF, AN ENGLISHMAN.

153. — JVichllff's impious Doctrine in his Trialogue.

They boast of being the disciples of John Huss ; but to judge of their pretension, we must ascend higher still, since John Huss himself gloried in having WicklifF for his master. What judgment we then ought to pass on AVicklifF shall be shewed in few words, without producing any other records than his own works, and the testimony of all candid Protestants.

The chief of all his works is the Trialogue, that famous book which set all Bohemia in a flame, and raised such troubles in England. This was the theology contained in it§, " That all happens by necessity: that he, a long while, spurned at this doctrine, because it was contrary to the liberty of God; but, at last, was obliged to yield, and acknowledge at the same time, that all the sins committed in the world are necessary and inevitable^ : that God could not prevent the sin of the first man, nor forgive it without Jesus Christ's satisfaction, but

" In Syn. Senilom. Synt. Gen. part ii. p. 21f).

f Riidif^. Eccl. Frat. in Bohem. et I\Ior. nar. p. 140.

I Apo. 1532. ap. I/yd. 1. ii. p. Ki?-

^1 Ibid. c. xxiv. xxv. p. 85, &c.

then it was impossible the Son of God should not become incarnate, should not satisfy, should not die : that God indeed might have done otherwise, had he willed it, but he could not will otherwise ; that he could not but forgive man ; that the sins of man proceeded from seduction and ignorance, and so it was requisite, of necessity, that the divine wisdom should put on flesh to repair them. That Jesus Christ could not save the devils ; that their sin was a sin against the Holy Ghost * : that to save them, it would have been necessary the Holy Ghost should have become incarnate, which was absolutely impossible; therefore, ihat| no possible means were left of saving the devils in general. That nothing was possible to God, but what actually came to pass ; that the power admitted for things, which did not happen, was an illusion. That God can produce nothing within himself, which he does not necessarily produce, nor out of himself, which he does not likewise necessarily produce in its time. That when Jesus Christ said, he could ask of his Father more than twelve legions of angels, you must understand he could if he would, but must acknowledge at the same time he could not will it |. That the power of God is limited in the main, and is no otherwise infinite than because there is no greater power: in a word, that the world, and all Avhich exists §, is of absolute necessity, and were there anything possible that God should refuse a being to, he would be either impotent or envious; and as he could not refuse a being to anything capable thereof, so can he annihilate nothing [|. That we ought not to ask why God does not hinder sin — the reason is, because he carmot ; nor, in general, why he does or does not such a thing — because he does necessarily all he can do; yet is he nevertheless free^, but in like manner, as he is free to produce his Son, whom nevertheless he produces necessarily. That the liberty, so called, of contradiction **, whereby you may do a thing or not do it ft, is an erroneous term introduced by the doctors ; and the imagination we have of our being free, is a perpetual illusion like to that of a child who thinks he walks alone whilst led : yet we deliberate J|., we consult about our affairs, we damn our souls, but all this is inevitable, no less than all that is done or omitted in the world either by the creature §§, or by God himself That God has determined everything, and necessitates, as well the pre-

II Ibid. c. iv. lb. c. x. Lib. iii. c. ix. •[[ Lib. i. c. x. ** lb. c. xi.

tf lb. c. X. IX Ibid. c. X. §§ lb. lib, iii, c. ix.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 135 destinated as the reprobate to all they do *, as also each particular creature to its several actions ; and thence it happens that there are elect and reprobate j and thus it is not in God's power to save one single reprobate f. That he laughs at what is said in schools, De sensu cmnposito et diviso, seeing that God can save none but such as are saved actually J; that there is a necessary consequence for sinning if certain things fall out ; that God wills these things to happen, and that this consequence be good, because otherwise it would not be necessary : so he wills you should sin, and wills sin on account of the good he draws from it ; and although it does not please God that Peter should sin, yet ihe sin of Peter plea-es him § : that God approves sinning; that he necessitates to sin. That man can do no better than he does; that sinners and the damned are nevertheless beholden to God, who shews mercy to the damned in giving them existence, which is more advantageous to, and to be wished for by, them than non-existence : that indeed, he dares not wholly ascertain this opinion, nor push men on to sin by teaching that it is agreeable to God they should thus sin, and that God allows it them as a recompense ; he being aware || that the wicked might take occasion, from this doctrine, to commit grievous crimes, which, if they may, they will commit: but if no better reasons are given him than what are commonly alleged, he shall abide confirmed in his sentiment without uttering a word.""

You see thereby, he feels a secret horror of the blasphemies he vents; but he is hurried into them by the spirit of pride and singularity to which he had abandoned himself, nor does he know how to restrain the transports of his pen. This is a faithful extract of his blasphemies ; they are reduced to two heads, to make a God over-ruled by necessity, and, what is a consequence from thence, a God, author and approver of all crimes; namely, a God whom the atheists would have reason to deny : so that the religion of so great a reformer is worse than atheism.

At the same time may be seen how many of" his Dogmata were followed by Luther. As for Calvin and the Calvinists, we shall see them hereafter ; nor, in this sense, is it in vain that they have reckoned this impious wretch among their predecessors.^86878889

154. — He imitates the false piety of the Vaudois.

In the midst of all these blasphemies, he was for imitating the false piety of the Vaudois, by attributing the effect of the sacraments to personal merit * : saying, " The keys did not operate except in the hands of holy persons ; and those ^Yho do not imitate Jesus Christ cannot have the power of them : that, nevertheless, this power is not lost in the Church ; that it subsists in the humble and unknown : that laymen may consecrate and administer the sacraments f : that it is a great crime in churchmen to possess temporal goods, a great crime in princes to have bestowed such on them^ and not to employ their authority to take them from the clergy." Here you have in an Englishman, if I may be allowed to say it, the first pattern of the English Reformation, and church plundering. Some will say, it is self-interest we here combat for ; no, we do but discover the mischievousness of extravagant minds, Avhich, as we see, are capable of every excess.

155. — IVickliff's Doctrine not calumniated at the Council of Constance.

M. la Roque pretends, WicklifF was calumniated at the Council of Constance |, and that propositions, w'hich he did not believe, were laid to his charge, this amongst the rest: " God is obliged to obey the Devil." But if we find so many blasphemies in one only Avork that remains of Wickliff, we may easily believe there Avere many others in his books, so very numerous at that time ; and particularly as for this, it is a manifest consequence from the above doctrine, forasmuch as God, in all things acting by necessity, is draAvn by the Avill of the devil to do certain things Avhen obliged of necessity to concur to them.

156. — Wickliff ' s pernicious Doctrine concerning Kings.

Neither do Ave find, in the Trialogue, that proposition imputed to WicklifF §, " that a king ceased to be a king by the commission of a mortal sin." There were other books enough of WicklifF Avhence this might be taken. In fact Ave have a conference betAvixt the Catholics of Bohemia and the Calixtins, in presence of King George Pogiebrac, Avherein Hilary, dean

I Hist, de Euch. Cone. Const. Scss.rA'iii. prop. G. § Ibid. prop. xv.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 137 of Prague, maintains to Roquesane⁹⁰, chief of the Calixtins, that WickUff had written in express terms, " that an old woman might be king and pope, were she better and more virtuous than the pope and king ; and in such case she might say to ihe king, ' Rise up, I am more ivortlnj than thou to sit upon the throne.'"" U[)on Roquesane's answering this was not AVickhff's meaning, the same Hilary offered to shew these propositions to the whole assembly, and this besides f ; " that whosoever is, by his virtue, the most praiseworthy, is also the most worthy in dignity, and the most holy old woman ought to be placed in the most holy employment." Roquesane stood mute, and the fact passed for incontestable.

157. — Such of JVicklif's Articles as were conformable to our Doctrine.

The same WicklifF;|; consented to the invocation of saints, honoured their images, acknowledged their merits, and believed in purgatory.

As for the Eucharist, what he most contended against was transubstantiation, which he said was the most detestable heresy that ever had been broached. Wherefore, it is his great article that bread is in this sacrament. With respect to the Real Presence, he has some things for, and some against it. He says, " The body is hidden in each morsel and crumb of bread." In another place, after saying, according to his cursed maxim, that the sanctity of the minister is necessary to a valid consecration, he adds, '^ you must presume for the sanctity of priests ; but,'"" says he, " on account that Ave have but a bare probability of it, I adore conditionally the host which I see, and adore absolutely Jesus Christ who is in heaven." He does not, therefore, doubt of the Presence, but inasmuch as he is not certain of the holiness of the minister, Avhich he believes absolutely necessary thereto. Other suchlike passages may be found in him, but it is of little consequence to know more of them.

158. — WickUff^ s Confession of Faith jxroduced by M. de la Roqiie, son of the Minister.

A fact of greater importance is advanced by M. la Roque, junior §. He produces a confession of faith, wherein the Real Presence is clearly owned, and transubstantiation no less clearly⁹¹ rejected ; but most material of all is what he affirms, that this confession of faith was proposed to WicklifF in the Council of London, where happened that great earthquake, called for that reason concilium terrcB motus ; some saying the earth had a horror of the bishop's decision, and others, of WicklifF's heresy.

159. — Proved false from Wickliff himself.

But without further examination of this confession of faith, of which we shall speak with more certainty when we shall have seen it entire, 1 may venture to say beforehand, that it could not have been proposed to WicklifF by the council. I prove it from Wickliff himself⁹², who repeats four times, that " in the Council of London, where the earth trembled," in suo concilio terrcB motus ; it was defined in express term, '^ that the substance of bread and wine did not remain after consecration;" wherefore it is more clear than the day, that the confession of faith wherein is rejected this change of substance, can never be of this council.

160. — Wickliff renounces his Doctrine and dies in the external Communion of the Church.

I take M. la Roque for a man of too great sincerity not to yield to so clear a proof. Meanwhile, we are obliged to him for sparing us the trouble of proving here the faintheartedness of Wickliff; his recantation in the presence of the council; that " of his disciples, Avho at first had no more resolution than he ; the shame he conceived at his dastardly comportment in departing from the notions then received y,"" which made him break off all commerce with men ; so that, since his retractation, you hear no more mention of him ; and, finally, his dying in his cure, and in the exercise of his function, which proves, as also does his burial in hallowed ground, that he died externally in the communion of the church.

I have, therefore, no more to do but conclude with this author, that Protestants can reap nothing but shame from Wickliff's conduct |, " who either was an hypocritical prevaricator, or a Roman Catholic ; who died in the church even whilst he assisted at the sacrifice accounted the mark of distinction between both parties."

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 139

161, — Melancthon's sentiment concerning WickUff.

Those who have a mind to know Melancthon's opinion of Wickliff, will find it in the Preface to his ' Commonplaces,' where he says*, '* You may judge of Wickliff's spirit by the errors he abounds Avith. He understood nothing," says he, '* of the justice of faith; he makes a jumble of gospel and politics ; he maintains it unlawful for priests to have anything of their own ; he speaks of the civil power after a seditious manner, and full of sophistry ; with the same sophistry he cavils about the universally received opinion touching our Lord's Supper." This is what Melancthon said, after reading Wicklilf. He would have said more, and not spared this author, as well deciding against free will, as making God the author of sin, had he not feared, in reproving him for these excesses, he should defame his master, Luther, under Wickliff's name.

THE HISTORY OF JOHN HUSS AND HIS DISCIPLES. 162. — John Huss imitates Wichliff in his hatred of the Pope.

M^hat raised WicklifF to so high a station among the predecessors of our Reformed, was his teaching that the Pope was antichrist, and that ever since the year of our Lord one thousand, when Satan was to be let loose, according to St. John's prophesy, the church of Rome was become the whore of Babylon. John Huss, the disciple of AVickliff f, has merited the same honours, in having so closely followed his master in this doctrine.

163 — John Huss says Mass, and has no other sentiments in respect of the Eucharist than those of the Church of Rome.

In other points he forsook him. Heretofore there was a dispute concerning his sentiments on the Eucharist. 13 ut the question is adjudged by our adversaries' consent ; M. la Roque having shewn, in his history of the Eucharist;};, from the authors of those times, from the testimony of Huss's first disciples, from his own writings, still extant, that he believed transubstantiation, and all the other articles of the Roman faith, not one excepted, unless communion under both kinds; and that he persisted in these sentiments even unto death.

♦ Praef. ad Mycon. Hosp. p. ii. ad An. 1.350. f. Ho. Wick. lib. iv. c 1., &c. J Part ii. ch. xix. p. 484.

The same minister demonstrates the same thing in relation to Jerome of Prague, the disciple of John Huss, and the fact admits of no doubt.

]64. — 7Fhy Hnss^s Doctrine came to be doubted of.

What gave occasion to doubt of John Huss, were som.e words he had uttered inconsiderately, and which were misunderstood, or retracted by him. But what more than all the rest caused him to be suspected in this matter was, the excessive praises he gave WicklifF, the enemy of transubstantiation. WicklifF, in reality, was the great doctor of John Huss and all the Hussite party : but certain it is, they did not follow his doctrine, crude as it was, but strove to explain it, as did John Huss, whom Rudiger⁹³ praises for having explained artfully, and courageously defended the sentiments of WicklifF. It was, therefore, agreed on in the party, that Wickliff, who, to speak the truth, was the head thereof, had carried matters much too far, and stood greatly in need of explanation. But however that may be, it is very certain John Huss gloried in his priesthood to the very last, and never intermitted saying mass when able.

165. — John Huss a Catholic in all the controverted points, except Communion under both kinds, and the Pope's authority.

M. la Roque, junior, upholds strenuously his father's sentiments ; and is even sincere enough to own, that "they are displeasing to several of the party, and especially to the famous

Mr. — , who generally did not relish truths which had escaped his notice f." Every body knows it was Mr. Claude whose name he suppressed. But this young author carries his researches much farther than any Protestant had done before. None can any longer doubt, after the proofs which he alleges, that John Huss prayed to saints, honoured their images, acknowledged the merit of works, the seven sacraments, sacramental confession, and purgatory J. The dispute chiefly turned on communion under both kinds ; and, what was of the most importance, on that damnable doctrine of Wickliff, that authority, and especially ecclesiastical authority, was lost by sin ; for John Huss maintained, on this head, things as extravagant as those advanced by WicklifF, and thence it was he drew his pernicious consequences.

X lb. p. 150, et seq. Couc. Const. Sess. xv. iirop. 11, 12, 13, &c.

XI. 1 THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 141

166. — All goes down loUh Protestants, provided you inveigh against the Pope.

If, with such a doctrine, and saying mass besides, every day to the end of his hfe, a man may not only be a true behever, but also a saint and martyr (as all Protestants proclaim John Huss, no less than Jerome of Prague, his disciple), there is no need of more disputing about fundamental articles: the only fundamental article is, to cry out amain against the Pope and Church of Rome ; but if with WicklifF and John Huss you stretch so far as to call that church the Church of Antichrist, this doctrine is the remission of whatever sins, and covers all kind of errors.

167. — The Tahorites.

Let us return to the Brethren of Bohemia, and see how they are the disciples of John Huss. Immediately after his condemnation and execution, two sects were seen to arise under his name, the sect of Calixtins and the sect of Taborites : the Calixtins under Roquesane, who by the joint consent of all, as well Catholic as Protestant authors, was, under the pretext of reformation, the most ambitious of all mankind : the Taborites under Zisca, whose sanguinary actions are not less known than his valour and success. AA^ithout inquiring into the doctrine of the Taborites, their rebellions and cruelty have made them odious to the greatest part of Protestants. Men that carried fire and sword into the bowels of their country for twenty years together, and whose marches may be traced by the blood and ashes they left behind, are not o\erqualified to be held for the principal defenders of the truth, nor to give an origin to Christian Churches*. Rudiger, who alone of the sect, for want of better knowledge, would have the Bohemian brethren descended from the Taborites f, acknowledges "that Zisca, pushed on by his particular enmities, carried the hatred he had against the monks and priests so far, that he not only set lire to chiu"ches and monasteries, wherein they served God, but also, in order to leave them no dwelling-place on earth, caused all the inhabitants of those places they possessed to be {)ut to the sword." This is w-hat RudigerJ says, an unsuspected author; to which he adds, that the brethren, whom he makes to descend from these barbarous Taborites, were ashamed of this parentage. Accordingly, they renounce it in all their Con-

■* De Frat. Narrat. p. 108. f ^^' 1^5. % Ilji*!' fessions of Faith and Apologies, and she^y even it is impossible they should have sprung from the Taborites⁹⁴, because at the time they began to appear, this sect, in a manner crushed by tiie death of its generals and the universal pacification of the Catholics and Calixtins (who united the whole powers of the state in order to demolish them), " held but in a lingering state till Pogiebrac and Roquesane entirely brought their iniserable remains to destruction; insomuch," say they, "that no more Taborites, were left on earth," which is confirmed by Camerarius in his history y.

1G8. — The Calixtins.

The other sect, that prided itself in the name of John Huss, was that of the Calixtins, so called, because they believed the Chalice was absolutely necessary for the people. And it is undoubtedly from this sect that the Brethren proceeded in 1457, as they themselves declared in the preface to their Confession of Faith of 1558, and again, in that of 1572, so frequently cited by us, where they speak in these terms |, " Those who founded our Churches, separated themselves at that time from the Calixtins by a new separation ;" their meaning was, as by them explained in their apology of 1532, that as the Calixtins had separated themselves from Rome, so the Brethren separated from the Calixtins ; so that this was a schism and division, in another division and schism. But what were the causes for this separation ? there is no comprehending them arioht without knowing both the belief and condition the Calixtins were in at that time.

169. — The Compactatum or Articles agreed to by the Council of Basil.

Their doctrine at first consisted in four articles. The first concerned the cup ; the other three regarded the correction of public and particular sins, which they carried to some excess ; the free preaching of the word of God, which, they maintained, none could be precluded from ; and Church-revenues. Herein was a smack of the Vaudois errors. These four articles were regulated in the council of Basil, after such a manner as the Calixtins were contented with, and the cup granted them on certain terms which they agreed to. This agreement was

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 143 called Compactatum, a name famous in the history of Bohemia. But one part of the Hussites, not resting contented with these articles, began, under the name of Taborites, those bloody wars just mentioned ; and the Calixtins, the other part of the Hussites, which had accepted the agreement, stood not to it ; for instead of declaring, as they had agreed at Basil, that the cup was neither necessary nor commanded by Jesus Christ, they pressed the necessity thereof, even in regard to new-baptized children⁹⁵. This point excepted, it is allowed the Calixtins agreed in all dogmata Avith the church of Rome, and their disputes with the Taborites prove as much. Lydius, a minister of Dort, has collected the acts thereof, which are not called in question by Protestants.

170. — The Calixtins disposed to own the Pope.

In them therefore it may be seen, that the Calixtins not only allow transubstantiation, but also with relation to the Eucharist, all and every part of the doctrine and usages received in the church of Rome, communion only under both kinds excepted ; and should that be granted by the Pope, they were ready to acknowledge his authority |.

171. — Wherefore then did they so much respect the memory of

Wickliff?

Here the queiy might be put, their sentiments being such, how they could retain so great a respect for Wickliff as to call him by excellence, as the Taborites did, the evangelical doctor ? the reason in short was, because we find nothing regular in these separated sects. Although Wicklitt" had inveighed with all the passion imaginable against the church of Rome, and in particular against transubstantiation, the Calixtins excused him J;, by answering, what he had said against this dogma was not spoken decisively but scholastically, by way of dispute ; whereby we may judge how easy a matter they found it to justify, say what you would, an author with whom they were mfatuated.

172. — The ambition of Roquesane and the Calixtins hinders their reunion with the Church,

For all that, they were not the less disposed to submit to the Pope's authority, and Roquesane's interests alone prevented

X Ibid. p. 472.⁹⁶

their reunion. This doctor himself had been contriving the reconciUation, in hopes, after so great a service, that the Pope wouhl be easily inclined to confer on him the archbishopric of Prague, which he much ambitioned *. But the Pope, unwilling to trust the care of souls and depositum of faith to so factious a person, invested Budvix with this prelacy, as much Roquesane's superior in merit as in birth. This ruined all. Bohemia saw herself reinvolved in more bloody wars than ever. Roquesane, in spite of the Pope, set himself up for archbishop of Prague, or rather for Pope in Bohemia ; nor could Pogiebrac, whom he had raised to the throne by his intrigues, refuse him any thing.

173. — Origin of the Bohemian Brethren, who separate from Roquesane and the Calixtins.

During these disturbances, the tradesmen who had begun to grumble in the precedent reign, set themselves more than ever to confer among themselves concerning the Reformation of the Church. The mass, transubstantiation, prayer for the dead, the veneration of saints, but especially the power of the Pope, were offensive to them. In fine, they complained that the " Calixtins romanized in every thing except the cup |," They undertook to correct them. Roquesane, incensed against the holy see, seemed to them a proper instrument to manage this affair '];. Shocked with his haughty answer, Avhich savoured of nothing but love of this world, they reproached him with his ambition ; that he was a mere worldling, who Avould sooner abandon them than his honours. At the same time they placed at their head one Kelesiski, a master shoemaker, who drew up for them a body of Doctrine called the Forms of Kelesiski. Afterwards they chose themselves a pastor named Matthias Convalde, a lay and ignorant person ; and in 1467, divided openly from the Calixtins, as the Calixtins had done from Rome. Such was the birth of the Bohemian brethren ; and this is what Camerarius and they themselves, as well in their Annals as in their Apologies and Prefaces to their Confessions of Faith, relate of their origin, except that they date their separation from the year 1457 ; and it seems to me more proper to fix it ten years after, in 1467, at the time they themselves date the creation of their new pastors.

X Cainer. cle Eccl. Frat. pp. G4, 84, &c. Apol. Frat. 1532. part 1.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 145

174. — Weak beginnings of this Sect.

I find here some little contradiction betwixt what they relate of their history in their Apology of" 1532, and what they say in the Preface of 1572 *. For they say in this preface that in 1457, at the time they separated from the Calixtins, they were a people collected from all manner of degrees: and in their Apology of 1532, wherein they were somewhat less assuming, they own frankly-]-, they were made up " of the meaner sort, and of some Bohemian priests in small number, all put together but a handful of men, a small remnant, and the despicable refuse," or, translate it as you please, " Miserahilis quisquilifs, left in the world by John Huss." Thus did they separate from the Calixtins, that is, from the only Hussites then in being. Thus it is that they are the disciples of John Huss; a piece broken from a piece ; a schism cut off from a schism ; Hussites divided from Hussites, and retaining scarce any thing of them but their disobedience and rupture from the church of Rome.

175. — They onJij took the name of John Huss, and followed not his Doctrine.

Should it be asked, how they could own John Huss, as they every where do, for an Evangelical doctor, for a holy martyr, for their master, and the apostle of the Bohemians, and at the same time reject, as sacrilegious, the Mass, which their apostle constantly said to the last, Transubstantiation, and the other dogmata he had always adhered so closely to : their answer is J, " that John Huss had but begun the re-establishment of the gospel," and they believed, " had time been given him, he would have changed a great deal more." Still he failed not to be a martyr and apostle, though he persevered, according to them, in such damnable practices, and the Brethren celebrated his martyrdom in their Churches the eighth of July, as we are informed by Rudiger §.

17G. — Their extreme ignorance, and their lyrcsumption in pre' tending to re-baptize the whole world.

Camerarius || acknowledges their extreme ignorance, but says Avhat he can in excuse thereof. This we may hold for certain,

• De orig. Eccl. Boh. post. Hist. Camer. p. 2C7. part i.

X Apo. lo32, i)art i'. ap. Lyd. t. ii. i>p. 1 IC, 117, 11«, &c.

II Cam. Hist. Narr. p. 102. Prief. Apol. 1538. apud Lyd. t. ii. p. 105.

VOL. II. L

146 THE HISTORY OP [boOK that God wrought no miracles to enlighten them. So many ages after the question of rebaptizing heretics had been determined by the unanimous consent of the whole Church, they were so ignorant as to re-baptize " all those that came to them from other Churches." They persisted in this error for the space of a hundred years, as they own in all their writings, and confess in the preface of 1558, that it v/as but a little while since they were undeceived *. This error ought not to be deemed of trivial importance, since it amounted to this, that Baptism was lost in the Universal Church, and remained only amongst them. Thus presumptuous in their notions were two or three thousand men, who had more or less equally revolted against the Galixtins, amongst whom they had lived, and against the church of Rome, from which both of them had divided thirty or forty years before. So small a parcel of another parcel, dismembered so few years ago from the Catholic Church, dared to re-baptize the remainder of the universe, and reduce the inheritance of Jesus Christ to a corner of Bohemia ! They believed themselves therefore the only Christians, since they believed that they only were baptized ; and whatever they might allege in their own vindication, their re-baptization condemned them. All they had to answer was, if they re-baptized the Catholics, the Catholics also re-baptized them. But it is well enough known, that the church of Rome never re-baptized any that had been baptized by any person whatsoever, " in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ;" and supposing there had been, in Bohemia, such very ignorant Catholics as not to know so notorious a thing, ought not they, who called themselves their Reformers, to know better ? After all, how came it to pass that these new re-baptizers did not cause themselves to iDe re-baptized? If, at their coming into the world, Baptism had ceased throughout all Christendom, that which they had received was no higher in value than that of their neighbours, and by invalidating the Baptism of those by whom they were baptized, what became of their own ? They were then obliged no less to cause themselves to be rebaptized, than to re-baptize the rest of the universe : and in this there was but one inconveniency ; namely, that, according to their principles, there was not a man on earth that could do them this good turn. Baptism being equally null whatever side it came from. Thus it is when a shoemaker commences Reformer, one, as themselves acknowledge in a Preface to

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 147 their Confession of Faith "⁹⁷, that knew not a word of Latin, and was no less presumptuous than ignorant. These are the men whom Protestants admire.' Does the question turn on condemning the church of Rome? — they never cease to upbraid her with the ignorance of her priests and monks. Is the question regarchng the ignorant individuals of these latter ages, who have set up for reforming the Church by schism ? — they are fishermen turned apostles : although their ignorance stand eternally on record, from the first step they took. No matter; if we believe the Lutherans in the Preface they placed before the Brethren's Apology, and printed at ^Vittemberg in Luther's time ; if, I say, we believe them, it was in this ignorant society, in this handful of men, that " The Church of God was preserved when she was thought entirely lostf ."

177. — Their fruitless search over all the universe after a Church of their Belief.

Nevertheless, these remains of the Church, these depositaries of the ancient Christianity, were themselves ashamed that they could not discover in the whole universe a Church of their belief. Camerarius informs us J, that it entered into their thoughts at the beginning of their separation, to make inquiry if (hey could find, in some place of the earth, and chiefly in Greece or Armenia, or some other part of the east, that Christianity, of which the west was utterly bereft according to their sentiments. At that time, many Grecian priests, who had fled to Bohemia from the sacking of Constantinople, and to whom Roquesane gave reception in his own house, had leave to celebrate the iioly mysteries according to the rites of their Church. Therein the Brethren beheld their own condemnation, and beheld it still more in conversing with those priests. But notwithstanding these Grecians assured them it was in vain for them to travel into Greece in quest of Christians formed to their mode, whom they never would find ; yet they appointed three deputations of able and discreet persons, whereof some traversed all the east, others went northwards into ^luscovy, and others tinned their course towards Palestine and Egypt; whence all meeting at Constantinople, according to the project concerted by them, they returned at last to Bohemia, and all the answer they brought to their brethren was, that they might depend upon it there were none of their profession in the whole universe.^9899100101

148 THE HTSTORY OV [bOOK

178. — Hoiv they sought Orders in the Catholic Church.

Their solitude, thus destitute of all succession and lawful ordination, raised such a horror in them, that even in Luther's time they sent some of their people, who surreptitiously stole Ordination from the Church of Rome ; we learn this from one of Luther's treatises, which is quoted in another place. A poor church indeed, which, void of the principle of fecundity left by Jesus Christ to the apostles and their legitimate successors, were forced to intrude themselves amongst us to beg, or rather to purloin, saci-ed orders.

179. — Reproaches made them by Luther,

Besides, they were upbraided by Luther¹⁰² that they knew nothing, no more than John Huss, of Justification, the very principal point of the Gospel ; for they '^placed it," he proceeds, " in faith and works together, as many fathers had done ; and John Huss was wedded to this opinion." He was in the right ; for neither the Fathers, nor John Huss, nor his master WicklifF, neither orthodox, nor heretics, nor Albigenses, nor Vaudois, had ever, before him, dreamed of his " imputed justice." Wherefore he despised the Brethren of Bohemiaf, '• as men serious, rigid, of an austere countenance, that martyred themselves with the law and works, and never enjoyed a cheerful conscience," Thus did Luther treat the most regular, to all appearance, of all the schismatic Reformers, and, as was said, the sole remnant of the true Church. But he had soon reason to be satisfied with them : the Brethren carried Lutheran Justification so far, as to run blindly into the excesses of Calvinists, and even into such as the Calvinists now-a-days strive to clear themselves from. The Lutherans would have us justified without our co-operation, and without our having part therein. The Brethren added J, it was even " without our knowledge and feeling it, as an embryo is quickened in its mother's womb."" After our regeneration, God begins to make himself felt; and if Luther would have us know with certainty our Justification, the brethren still further would have us entirely and indubitably assured of our perseverance and salvation. They went so far with the imputation of justice as to say, that " sins, how enormous so ever, were but venial," provided you committed them *' with repugnance," and that it was of these sins St. Paul said,

X Apol. part iv. ap. Lyd. t. ii. p. 244, 248. Ibid, part ii. 172, 173. part iv. p. 282. Ibid, part ii. p. 108.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 149

" there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus¹⁰³."

180. — Their DQclrine concerning the Seven Sacraments.

The l^rethren had, hke us, Seven Sacraments in the Confession of l.'504<, which was presented to King Ladislaus. They j)roved them from tlie Scri])tures, and ackno\Yledged them " established for the accomi)lishment of the promises God had made to the faithful." They must have preserved this doctrine of the Seven Sacraments even in Luther's days, since he blamed them for it. The Confession of Faith was therefore reformed, and the Sacraments reduced to two : Baptism and the Supper, as Luther had ordained. Absolution was acknowledged, but not in quality of a Sacrament. In 1504, they spoke of the confession of sins as a thing of obligation. This obligation does no longer appear so express in the reformed Confession, where it is merely said, " You ought to demand of the priest absolution of your sins by the keys of the Church, and obtain the forgiveness of them by this ministry ordained for that end by Jesus Christf."

181. — Concerning the Real Presence.

As for the Real Presence, the defenders of the literal and the figurative sense have equally striven to turn to their advantage the Bohemian Confessions of Faith^.. For my part, the thing being indifferent to me, I shall only report their words, and here is what at first they wrote to Roquesane, as they themselves set forth in their Apology : " We believe that we receive the body and blood of our Lord under the species of bread and wine." And a little further on : " We are none of those who, ill understanding the words of our Lord, say, he has given us consecrated bread as a memorial of his body, which he jjointed at with his finger, saying, ' This is my body.' Others say, this bread is the body of our Lord who is in heaven, but significatively. All these expositions appear to us far remote from Jesus Christ's intention, and are very displeasing to us."

182. — Sequel.

In their Confession of Faith of the year 1504, they speak f ('.oiif. lid. iipiid I^yd. t. iii. p. 8. et scq. cltat. in Apol. 1531. .np. eund. Lyd. 2!)(>. t. ii. Ilu'ti. Germ. liv. de I'ador. p. 229, 230. Ibid. Art. xi. xii. xiii. lb. Art. V. xiv. I'ref. fid. ad Lad.c. dc poMiitcut. lajJS. ap. Lyd. t. ii. p. 15.¹⁰⁴

thus : " As often as a worthy priest, with a faithful people, pronounces these words, ' This is my body, this is my blood,' the bread present is the body of Jesus Christ which was offered for us to death, and the wine his blood shed for us ; and this body and this blood are present under the species of bread and wine in memory of his death."" And to shew the firmness of their faith, they add, they v/ould believe as much of a stone, had Jesus Christ said it was his body¹⁰⁵.

183. — They make the Sacrament depend on the merit of the

Minister.

Hitherto we see the same language as is used by Catholics ; we see the body and blood " under the species'" immediately after the words, and we see them there, not in figure, but in truth. What they have peculiar to them, is their requiring these words should be pronounced by a worthy priest. This is what they add to the Catholic doctrine. To accomplish the work of God in the Eucharistic bread, Jesus Christ's words did not suffice, but the minister's merit was also necessary ; this is what they had learnt from John Wicldiff and John Huss.

184. — Strong expression in favour of the Reality.

They repeat the same thing in another placef : " When," say they, " a worthy priest prays with iiis faithful people, and says, ' This is my body, this is my blood,' immediately the bread present is the same body which was given up to death, and the wine present is his blood which was shed for our redemption."" It is therefore plain they change nothing in the Catholic doctrine as to the real presence ; on the contrary, they seem to make choice of the strongest terms to confirm it, by saying, " that immediately after the words, the bread is the true body of Jesus Christ, the same that Avas born of the Virgin, and whs to be given up to crucifixion ; and the wine his true natural blood, the same which was to be shed for our sins, and all this without delay, at the very instant, with a presence most real and true, jjrcesentissime, as they speak." And the figurative sense appeared to them, say they, " so odious in one of their synods, that a certain person called John Czizco, one of theirs who had dared to maintain it, was expelled out of their communion." They add that divers writings have been published by them against this presence in sign, and those that defend it f Apol. ad Lad. Ibid. 42. Prof. fid. ad Lad. Ibid, p. 27. Apol. p. 66, etc.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 151 hold them for their adversaries, call them Papists, Antichrists, and Idolaters¹⁰⁶.

185. — The same thing confirmed.

Another proof of their sentiment is a saying of theirs, '^ that Jesus Ciirist is present in the bread and wine by his body and blood ; otherwise," proceed they, ^^ neither those that are worthy would receive any thing but bread and wine, nor those that are unworthy would be gtiilty of the body and blood, it being impossible they should be guilty of what is not therey." Whence it follows that they are there, not only for the worthy, but also for the unworthy.

186. — Their manner of refusing Adoration confirms their Belief of the Reality ^ even out of the Reception.

True it is, they are against our adoring Jesus Christ in the Eucharist for two reasons: first, because he has not commanded it; secondly, because there are two {)resences of Jesus Christ, his personal, corporeal, and sensible presence, which ought to attract our adoration ; and his spiritual or sacramental presence, which ought not to attract it. But for all this, they nevertheless acknowledge the substance of the body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament: "we are not commanded/' say they, ^' to honour this substance of the body of Jesus Christ consecrated, but the substance of Jesus Christ which is at the right hand of the Father^;." Here, then, have you, in the Sacrament and in heaven, the substance of Jesus Christ's body, but adorable in heaven and not so in the sacrament. And, lest you should wonder at this, they add, " that Jesus Christ would not even oblige men to adore him on eartii when he was there present, because he waited the time of his glory § ;" which shews their intention was not to exclude the substantial presence, when they exclude adoration ; on the contrary, they supposed it, since, had they not believed it, they would have had no manner of occasion to excuse themselves for not adoring in the Sacrament what, in reality, was not there.

Let us not incpiire of them now, whence they learnt this rare doctrine ; that, to adore Jesus Christ, it is not sulliciciit we know him present, and that it was not his intention we should adore him on earth, but only in his glory : I am satisfied with

• Ap. ad Lad. ).. (;7,et alil.i passim, ll.id. p.;i01,:50«, .'lO?, 309, 311, etc. ^S Ibid. p. 07. Trol". lid. ad Lad. p. 29. Apol. ad euud, p. 08.

relating what they say of the Real Presence, nay, of the Real Presence not after the manner of the Melancthonists, in the sole use, but immediately after the Consecration.

187. — Their uncertainty and affected Ambiguities.

With these expressions apparently so distinct and so decisive for the Real Presence, in other places they confound themselves after so strange a manner, that it seems as if they feared nothing so much as leaving a clear and certain testimony of their faith ; for they repeat continually that Jesus Christ is not in the Eucharist in person *. It is true, they call his being there in person, being there sensibly and corporally : expressions which they always link together, and oppose to a spiritual manner of being, acknowledged by them. But what casts them into a new confusion, is that they seem to say f , Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist with this spiritual Presence, as he is in Baptism and in preaching the word, as he Avas eaten by the ancient Hebrews in the desert, as St. John Baptist was Elias. Nor do I comprehend what they mean by this odd expression | : Jesus Christ is not here " with his natural body after an existing and corporeal manner, existenter et corporaliter,'" but is here¹⁰⁷ " spiritually, powerfully, by way of benediction, and in virtue ; spiritiialiter patenter, benedicts, in virtue.''^ What they add is not intelligible, that " Jesus Christ is here in the abode of benediction," to M'it, according to their language, he is in the Eucharist, " as he is at the right hand of God, but not as he is in the heavens." If he be there as he is at the right hand of God, he is there in person. Thus naturally should one conclude : but how shall we distinguish the heavens from the right hand of God? there we are at a loss. The Brethren spoke distinctly when they said || : '' There is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the same in the Sacrament with his natural body, but Avho is after another manner at the right hand of his Father : for it is one thing to say, there is Jesus Christ, this is my body ; and another to say, he is there after such a manner." But no sooner had they expressed themselves in plain terms, than they bewilder themselves in strange subtilized notions, into which they are plunged by the confusion and uncertainty of their minds and thoughts, together with a vain desire of contenting both parties of the Reformation.

« Apol. ad Ladis. Ih. p. 08, C9, &c. 71, 73. Ibid. p. 301, 306, 307, 309, 311, &c. f Ibid. p. 302, 304, 307, 308. % Ibid, 74. § Ibid, || Ibid, p, 71.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 153

188. — The Lutherans and Calvinists both strive to draw them to their side. — They incline to the first.

The more forward they advanced, the more important and mysterious they became ; and as the Lutherans and Calvinists strove each to gain them, so they also, on their side, seemed inclined to content both parties. At length, this is what they said in 1558, and what they appeared resolved to stand by *. They complain, at first, they were accused " of not believing that the presence of the true body and true blood was present." What odd expressions, presence to be present ! thus they speak in the preface : but teach in the body of the Confession, that it ought to be acknowledged that the bread is the true body of Jesus Christ, and the cup his true blood, without adding any thing of your own to his words. But whilst they forbid adding any thing to the words of Jesus Christ, they themselves add to them the word true, which is not there ; and whereas Jesus Christ said, " This is my body," they suppose he said, "This bread is my body;" a very different thing, as elsewhere you may have seen. Now if it were allowable in them to add what they judged necessary to denote a true presence, it was no less allowable in others to add also what was requisite to remove all ambiguity ; and to reject these expressions after disputes had arisen, was opposing light, and leaving the questions undecided. It was for this reason Calvin f wrote to them, that he could not approve of their obscure and captious brevity, and required them to explain how the bread is the body of Jesus Christ ; which, should they fail to do, he maintained their confession of faith could not be subscribed without peril, and would occasion great disputes. But Luther was satisfied with them, as they approximated near to his expressions, and were more inclined towards the confession of Augsburg. For they even continued to complain of those J;, who denied that the bread and wine were the true body and true blood of Jesus Christ, and who called them Papists, Idolaters, and Antichrists, on account of their acknowledging the true presence. Finally, to shew how far they were leaning to the side of the Real Presence, they enjoin their ministers, in distributing this sacrament §, and in reciting the words of our Lord, " to exhort the people to believe that the presence of Jesus Christ is present;" and in tiiis view they enjoin, likewise.

although in other respects little inclined to adoration, *' That the sacrament be received kneeling."

189. — Luther gives them his approbation, and how.

By thus expounding and thus palliating as already seen, they so contented Luther, that he prefixed his approbation to a confession of faith published by them *, declaring, however, " That for this time they not only appeared more adorned, more free, and more polished, but also more considerable and better ;" which sufficiently intimates, he approved their confession only inasmuch as it had been reformed agreeably to his maxims.

190. — Their Festivals, their Churches, their Fasts, the Celibacy of their Priests.

It does not appear that any uneasiness was given them in regard of the stated fasts preserved amongst them, nor in regard of the festivals they celebrated, forbidding all labour : not only in honour of our Lord, but also of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. They were not upbraided that this was observing days contrary to the precept of the Apostle, nor that these holy days in honour of the saints Avere so many acts of idolatry. Neither were they accused of raising churches to saints, under pretext they continued, as we do, to name the Church of the Virgin, in Templo dives Virginis, of St. Peter, of St. Paul, churches consecrated to God in memory of them. They are likewise suffered to enjoin their priests celibacy, and degrade them from priesthood upon marrying, for this unquestionably was their practice no less than that of the Taborites f. All this is harmless in the Brethren; in us only every thing is rank poison.

19 L — The perpetual Virginity of Mary, Mother of God.

I would also have them asked, where they find in Scripture what they say of the blessed Virgin : " That she was a Virgin before and after her delivery ^." It is true, this was the belief of the holy fathers, and the contrary rejected by them for no less than an execrable blasphemy ; yet does it, nevertheless, evince that many things may be accounted blasphemies, the con-

f Art. XV. xvii. Act. Sj'n. Toriu. 1595. Syn. part ii. p. 240, 242. Art. ix.

iEn. Silv. Hist. Boh. ap. Lyd, p. 895, 405.

X Orat. Enc ap. Lyd, p. 30. Art. xvii. p. 201.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 155 trary to which is nowhere in holy writ ; so that, when they boast of speaking nothing but from Scripture, they really mean no more by it than that it serves their turn to talk in this strain : nor is this apparent respect for the Scripture anything in them but a blind to the ignorant and simple.

192. — They fly for shelter info Poland.

It is averred that these Bohemian brethren (whose words were so meek and respectful in regard of higher powers) the more they engaged in the Lutheran sentiments, so likewise the more did they enter into their intrigues and wars. Ferdinand found them mingled in the Elector of Saxony's rebellion against Charles the Fifth, and drove them from Bohemia¹⁰⁸. They took sanctuary in Poland, and it appears, from a letter of Musculus to the Protestants of Poland, in 1556, that it was but a few years since these fugitives from Bohemia were received into that kingdom.

193. — There they unite with the Lutherans and Zidnglians in the Assembly of Sendomir.

Some time after this, the union of the three Protestant sects of Poland was brought about, namely, of the Lutherans, the Bohemians, and the Zuinglians. The act of union was passed in 1570, at the Synod of Sendomir, and bears this title : "The union and mutual agreement made between the Churches of Poland ; to wit, between those of the Augsburg Confession, those of the Confession of the Bohemian Brethren, and those of the Confession of the Helvetic churches, or Zuinglians|." In this act the Bohemians style themselves the Brethren of Bohemia, whom the ignorant call Vaudois. It appears then manifestly that the question here was about those Vaudois who, by mistake, were named so, as we have shewn, and who accordingly disclaim this origin. For, with respect to the ancient Vaudois, we learn from an old author]}], that there were scarce any of them in the kingdom ofCracovia, namely in that of Poland, no more than in England, in the Low Countries, in Denmark, in Sweden, in Norway, and in Prussia; and since this author's .time, this little number is so dwindled away to nothing, that, in all these countries, we hear no more mention of them.

156 THE HISTORY OP [book

194. — Terms of the Sendomir Agreement.

The agreement was made in these terms. In order to explain therein the point concerning the Supper, the whole article of the Saxonic Confession, where this matter is handled, was there transcribed. We have seen that Melancthon drew up this Confession in 1551, in order to have it presented at Trent. In it was said, that *' Jesus Christ is truly and substantially present in the Communion, and is given truly to those who receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ¹⁰⁹." To which they add, in a strange manner of expression, "That the substantial presence of Jesus Christ is not only signified, but truly rendered present, distributed, and given to those who eat ; the signs not being naked, but joined to the thing itself, agreeably to the nature of the sacraments f."

195. — In this agreement the Zuingllans, more than all the rest, recede from their particular tenets.

" The substantial presence," it seems, was had very much at heart, when, in order to inculcate it the more forcibly, they said, it was not only signified but truly present ; but I always distrust these strong expressions of the Reformation, which the more she diminishes the truth of the body and blood in the Eucharist, the more rich is she always in words ; as if she could repair by them the loss she sustains in things. Now, when you come to the point, although this declaration abounds with equivocal expressions, and leaves subterfuges to each party whereby to preserve their particular doctrine ; it is, nevertheless, the Zuinglians that take the greatest step, since whereas they said in their confession that the body of our Lord being in heaven absent from us, becomes present to us only by its virtue, the terms of the agreement import, that Jesus Christ is substantially present to us ; and notwithstanding all the rules of human language, a presence in virtue becomes immediately a presence in substance.

196. — Wherein the Lutherans recede, yet may still come off.

There are terms in the agreement which it were difficult for the Lutherans to reconcile to their doctrine, did not men inure themselves, in the new Reformation, to expound every thing to their own sense. For instance, they seem much to depart sup. lib. viii. n. 18. Syn. Coiif. part i. p. 106. part ii. p. 72» f Coiif. p. 14G.

XT.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 157 from the belief they are in, that the body of Jesus Christ is taken by the mouth even by the unworthy, when they say in tliis agreement, " The signs of the Sui)per given by Faith to the BeHevers, what they signify¹¹⁰." But, besides that they may say they spoke in this manner, by reason that the real presence is not known but by faith ; they may also add that, in fact, there are blessings in the Supper which are given to the believers only, as life eternal, and the nourishment of the soul, and it is those they mean when they say, " The signs given by Faith, what they signify."

197. — Disposition of the Bohemian Brethren.

I do not wonder the Bohemians signed this agreement without difficulty. Separated about forty or fifty years before from the Catholic church, and reduced to allow Christianity in no part of the world except a corner of Bohemia, which they inhabited, upon seeing the Protestants appear, all they thought of was to suj)port themselves with their protection. They knew how to gain Luther by their submission ; by equivocating, they had all that could be desired from Bucer ; the Zuinglians suffered themselves to be soothed by the general expressions of the Brethren, who said, yet without practising it, that nothing ought to be added to the words our Saviour used. The most difficult to be pleased was Calvin. We have seen in the letterf he wrote to the Bohemian Brethren, who had taken refuge in Poland, how he blamed the ambiguity of their confession of faith, and declared there was no subscribing it without opening an inlet to dissension or error.

198. — Rejledions on this Union.

Contrary to his judgment, all was subscribed, the Helvetic Confession, the Bohemian, and the Saxonic, the presence of substance together with that of virtue only; namely, tlie two contrary doctrines with their equivocations favouring them both. All wheitever they pleased was added to our Lord's words, even at the time they ratified the Confession of Faith, wherein was laid down for a maxim, that nothing ought to be added to them : all passed, and a peace was concluded by this means. You see how all the sects, divided from Catholic unity, separate and unite among themselves ; separating from the chair of St. Peter, they separate from one another, and bear the just punishment of despising the band of their unity.

When they re-unite in appearance, they are never the more united in the main ; and their union, cemented only by political interests, serves but to evidence, by a new proof, that they have not so much as the idea of Christian unity, since they never do unite in one accord, in one mind, as St. Paul ordains¹¹¹.

199. — General Reflections on the history of all these Sects.

May it be allowed us at present to make a few reflections on this history of the Vaudois, the Albigenses, and the Bohemians. You see whether the Protestants were right in reckoning them among their ancestors ; whether this extraction be to their credit ; and in particular whether they ought to have looked on Bohemia, since the time of John Huss,as the mother of the reformed churchesf. It is clearer than the sun, on one side, that they only bring in these sects from the necessity of finding witnesses in the foregoing ages for what they beheve to be the truth ; and on the other, that nothing is more despicable than to allege such witnesses as are all convicted of falsehood in capital points, and who, in the main, neither agree with Protestants, nor with us, nor with themselves. This is the first reflection Protestants should make.

200. — Another Reflection, that these so contrary Sects all ground themselves on the evidence of Scripture.

The second is of no less importance. They ought to consider that all these sects, so different from one another, and withal so opposite as well to us as to Protestants, agree with them in the common principle of guiding themselves by the Scriptures : not, indeed, as the church in all times has understood and still understands them — for this is a most certain rule ; but as every man of himself is capable of understanding them. This is what has produced all those errors and all those contrarieties which we have observed. Under the pretext of Scripture, every man has followed his own notions ; and the Scripture, taken in this way, so far from uniting minds, has divided them, and made every one worship the delusions of his own brain, under the name of eternal verities.

201. — Last and most important Reflection concerning the accomplishment of St. Raid's prediction.

But there still remains the last and by much the most important reflection to be made on all these things we have just

XT.] THE VARIATIONS, KTC. 159 seen in this contracted history of the Albigenses and Vaudois. There we discover the reason of the Holy Ghost's inspiring St. Paul with this prophecy: " the spirit speal<eth expressly, that, in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, p,iving heed to seducing sj)irits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving ; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer¹¹²." All the holy fathers are agreed that this is meant of the impious sect of Marcionites and Manicheans, who taught two })rinciples, and attributed to the evil one the creation of the universe ; which made them detest the propagation of mankind, and the use of many kinds of food which they believed unclean and bad in their nature, as being produced by a creator who himself was bad and impure. St. Paul points, therefore, at these accursed sects by these two their so noted tenets ; and without previously mentioning the principle whence they drew these two evil consequences, he expresses the two sensible characters whereby we have seen these infamous sects were known in all times.

202. — The Doctrine of two Principles pointed at by St. Paul: ivliy this Doctrine is called the Doctrine of Devils.

But although St. Paul does not immediately express the deep cause why these deceivers forbade the use of two things so natural, he denotes it sufficiently further on, when he says, in opposition to these errors, that " every creatin-e of God is good f," overthrowing by this principle the detestable sentiment of those that descried impurity in the works of God, and making us withal sensible that the root of this hiy in not knowing the creation, and in blaspheming the Creator. Accordingly, it is what St. Paul calls, in particular, more than all other doctrines, " the doctrine of devils ;{:," there being nothing more suitable to the jealousy against God and against men of these seducing spirits, than to attack the creation, condemn God's works, blaspheme against the author of the law and the law itself, and defde human nature with all manner of irn{)urities and illusions. For this is what Manicheism consisted in, and what truly is the very doctrine of devils ; espe- cially if you add these enchantments and impostures, Avhich all authors testify were so frequently made use of in this sect. To wrest now the so plain and so natural sense of St. Paul, against those who, acknowledging both marriage and all sort of meats for the work and institution of God, yet abstain voluntarily from them to mortify the senses and purify the mind, is a too manifest delusion, and one which we have seen long ago exploded by the fathers. It is, then, very perceptible whom St. Paul aimed at, nor is it possible to mistake those he has so accurately described by their proper characters.

203. — Query, ivhy the Holy Ghost, of all heresies, has only in jKirticular foretold Manicheism. — Character of this heresy. — Hypocrisy . — Spirit of Lying. — Conscience cauterized.

Why the Holy Ghost, amongst so many heresies, would only mark this so expressly, was the admiration of the fathers, and what they endeavoured to account for, in the best way they could in their age. But time, the faithful interpreter of prophecies, has discovered to us the deep cause ; nor shall we wonder any more that the Holy Ghost was so particularly careful to forewarn us against this sect, after having seen it was this that infected Christianity the longest and the most dangerously ; the longest, through so many ages as we have seen the world infected by it ; and the most dangerously, not making a glaring breach from the church like the rest, but lurking, as much as was possible, within her precincts, and insinuating herself under the appearances of the same faith, the same worship, and even an astonishing shew of piety. For this reason St. Paul *, the apostle, so expressly points out its hypocrisy. Never has the spirit of lying, remarked by this apostle, been so justly charged on any sect, since besides its teaching, like the rest, a false doctrine, it exceeded all others in dissembling its belief. We have observed, that these wretches allowed every thing you pleased ; they made nothing of lying in the most material points; they stuck not at perjury to conceal their tenets ; their readiness in betraying their consciences shewed in them a certain insensibility which St. Paul admirably Avell expresses by the caustic f which renders the flesh insensible by mortifying it, as the learned Theodoret | hath observed on this place ; nor do I think ever prophecy could have been verified by more sensible characters than this has been.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 161

204. — Sequel of the reason f: ivhy the Holy Ghost has pointed out this heresy more than the rest.

No longer are we to wonder why the Holy Ghost would have the prediction of this heresy to be so particular and distinct. It was more than all other heresies the error " of the latter times," as it is called by St. Paul¹¹³, whether we understand by the latter times, according to the scripture style, all the times of the new law ; or understand by that period of ages when Satan was to be loosed anewf . So long since as the second and third century, the church beheld the rise of Cerdon, of Marcion, of Manes, those enemies to the Creator J, The seeds of this doctrine are every Avhere to be met with ; you find them in Tatian, who condemned wine and marriage ; and in his Concordance of the Bible had erased all the texts that expressed Jesus Christ's genealogy from the blood of David, A hundred other infamous sects had attacked the God of the Jews even before Manes and Marcion ; and we learn from Theodoret, that this last did but give another turn to the impieties of Simon the magician. Thus did this heresy commence from the very beginning of Christianity : it was the true " mystery of iniquity § which fell to work in St. Paul's time ; but the Holy Ghost, who foresaw this pestilence was one day to rage in a more glaring manner, made it be foretold by this apostle with an astonishing evidence and distinctness. Marcion and Manes have set this mystery of iniquity in a more manifest light ; the abominable sect has continued its pestilent succession ever since that time. This we have seen, and never did heresy disturb the church for a longer date, nor spread its branches to a greater distance. Bat after that, by the eminent doctrine of St. Austin, by St. Leo's and St. Galasius's great care and diligence, it was extinguished every where in the West, and even in Rome, where it had strove to establish itself; then was seen to arrive the fatal term of Satan's being loosed " out of his prison !|.¹¹⁴" A thousand years after that this strong armed had been bound by Jesus Christ at his coming into the world, the spirit of error grew up more than ever; the remains of Manicheism, too well sheltered in the East, broke in upon the Latin church. What hinders our looking on those miserable times as one of the periods of Satan's being loosed, without prejudice to the other mere hidden meanings ^ ? If vor.. 11. M

Gog and Magog only be wanting to fulfil this prophecy, we shall find in Armenia, near Samosata, the province named Gogarene, where the Paulicians dwelt, and Magog amongst the Scythians, from whence the Bulgarians took their rise. Thence came those numberless enemies of " the beloved city¹¹⁵," who first assaulted Italy. The contagion flew, in an instant, to the extremity of the north : a spark raises a great combustion ; the flame almost spreads over the whole face of the universe. In all parts of it is discovered this lurking poison ; together with Manicheism, Arianism, with all kind of heresies, shoot up again under unheard of and uncouth names. Scarce could it be compassed to quench this fire in the space of three or four hundred years, and even some of its remains might be seen in the fifteenth century.

205. — How the Vaudois came from the Albigensian Manicheans.

Nor did the evil cease, when nothing seemed left of it but its ashes. Satan had supplied the impious sect wherewith to renew the conflagration, in a manner more dangerous than ever. Church-discipline was relaxed over all the earth ; the disorders and abuses, carried even to the foot of the altar, made the good to sigh, humbled them, urged them on to improve still more in their virtuous courses; but wrought a far different effect on haughty minds. The Roman Church, the mother and bond of churches, became the object of hatred to all indocile tempers ; envenomed satires spirit up the world against the clergy ; the Manichean hypocrite trumpets them over the whole universe, and gives the name of Antichrist to the Church of Rome, for then was that notion broached in the sink of Manicheism, and amidst the precursors of Antichrist himself. These impious men imagine they appear more holy, when they say, holiness is essentially requisite to the administration of the Sacraments. The ignorant Vaudois swallow down this poison. No longer will they receive the sacraments from odious and defamed ministers ; " the net is broken f" on all sides, and schisms multiply. Satan no longer stands in need of Manicheism ; hatred against the church is wide diff"used ; the viperous sect has left a brood like to itself, and a too fruitful principle of schism. No matter, though these heretics have not the same doctrine, they are swayed by hatred and bitterness, and banded against the church ; this is enough. The Vaudois believe not like the Albigenses, but like the Albi-

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 163 genses they hate the church, and proclaim themselves the only saints, the only ministers of the sacraments. WicklifF believes not like the Vaudois, but WicklifF proclaims, like the Vaudois, that the Pope and his whole clergy have forfeited all authority by their loose behaviour. John Huss does not believe like WicklifF, though he admires him ; what he admires in him chiefly, and almost only follows in him is, that crimes annul authority. These despicable Bohemians, as we have seen, succeeded to this spirit, which they particularly made appear, when, amounting to no more than a handful of illiterate men, they presumed to rebaptize the whole world.

206. — How Luther and Calvin sprung from the Albigenses and

Vaudois.

But a still greater apostacy was hatching by means of these sects. The world teeming with animosity, brings forth Luther and Calvin, who canton Christendom. The superstructure is different, but the foundation is the same ; it is still hatred against the clergy and the Church of Rome, and no man of sincerity can deny that this was the visible cause of their surprising progress. A reformation was necessary — who denies it.^ but it was still more necessary to refrain from schism. Were those that promoted this schism by their preaching any better than their neighbours ? They acted as if they were ; this was enough to delude and " spread like a canker," according to St. Paul's expression¹¹⁶. The world was desirous of condemning and rejecting their leaders ; this is called Reformation. A specious name dazzles the people, and, to stir up hatred, calumny is not spared : thus is our doctrine blackened ; men hate it before they know it.

207. — The Protestant Churches seek in vain a succession of Persons in the preceding Sects.

With new doctrines, new bodies of churches are erected. The Lutherans and Calvinists make the two greatest ; but they cannot find in the whole earth so much as one church that believes like them, nor whence they can derive an ordinary and lawful mission. The Vaudois and Albigenses, alleged by some, are not to their purpose. We have but just shewn them to be mere laymen, as much at a loss to make out their own mission and title, as those that seek their aid. We know the Toulousian heretics were never able to delude so much as one priest.

The preachers of the Vaudois were trading or mechanic men, nay women. The Bohemians had no better an original, as is ah-eady proved j and when Protestants name us all these sects, they name not their fathers, but accomplices.

208. — Much less do they find in them a succession of Doctrine.

But, perchance, though they do not find in these sects a succession of persons, they will find in them a succession of doctrines. Much less: in certain respects like to the Hussites; in others, like the Vaudois ] in some like the Albigenses and the other sectaries; in other articles they are quite contrary to them ; in this manner, without lighting upon any thing that is imiform, and laying hold here and there of what seems to suit them ; without succession, without unity, without true predecessors, they climb to what height they can. They are not the first to reject the honour due to Saints, nor the oblations for the dead : they find, before their days, bodies of churches of this same belief in these two points. The Bohemians embraced them, but we have seen these Bohemians seek in vain for associates through the whole earth. Howsoever, here is a church at least before Luther ; this is something to such as have nothing. But, after all, this church before Luther is but fifty years before him ; they must strive to advance higher ; they will find the Vaudois, and, a little more distant, the Manicheans of Toulouse. They will find, in the fourth age, the Manicheans of Africa opposed to the worship of Saints, One only, Vigilantius, follows them in this particular point, but higher than this no certain author can be found ; yet thereon depends the stress of the question. They may go a little further as to oblations for the dead. The priest Aerius will appear, but alone, and without followers ; an Arian into the bargain. This is all can be found that is positive ; whatever is built besides this, will be built manifestly in the air. But let us see what they Avill discover as to the Real Presence, and remember the question is concerning positive and certain facts. Carlostadiusis not the first who maintained that the bread was not made the body ; Berengarius had said as much four hundred years before him, in the eleventh century. Yet neither was Berengarius the first ; these Manicheans of Orleans had just said the same, and the world was still full of the rumour of their evil doctrine, when this scantling of it was picked up by Berengarius. Beyond this, I find many pretensions and actions lodged against us concerning this subject, but no averred and positive facts.

XI.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 165

209. — fVhat is the succession of Heretics.

Now the Socinians have a more manifest succession; catching II]) a word here and another there, they will name declared enemies of Jesus Christ's divinity in all ages, and at the top of them will find Cerinthus next to the Apostles. Notwithstanding their discovering something concordant among so many, in other respects, discording witnesses, they will be never the better founded, since, when all is said. Succession and Uniformity are wanting to them. To take the thing thus, namely, should each of them, in ])atching up their several churches, collect here and there without bond of union, all that could be found conformable to their sentiments ; there is no difficulty, as might ha\e been observed, to trace the extraction of every sect seen at this day, or ever to be seen^ even up to Simon the Magician, and to that " mystery of iniquity¹¹⁷," which began in the time of St. Paul.

Footnotes

1. Jon. Aui-. praef. cont. Claud. Taur. ↩

2. L. i. p. 35. t Il'id. 31). ↩

3. Epiph. Laer. 7i>. Aug. beer. 8G, 87. TertuU. ↩

4. 1 Tim. iv. 1, 3. ↩

5. L. ii. coiu. Funs. Mau. c. IJ) ; et 1. iv. Conf. c. i. Theod. 1. i. beer. Fab. c. lilt, dti Mauich. Ibid. ↩

6. Leo i. Serm. 45. Qui est iv. de Quadr. c. 5. -|- Gelas. in Dec. Grat. de conf. distinct. 2. c. Comperimns. Yvo. Microl. &c. .•j; De moiib. Ecc. Cath. c. 34. De morib. J>lanich, c. 18. Cent. Ep. fundam. 0.15. ↩

7. Cedr. t. i. p. 432. f Ibid. t. ii. p. 480. Ibid. p. 541 . ↩

8. Cedr. t. ii. p. 434. f Aug. haer. 4C, &c. Lib. xx. Cont. Faus. c 4. I Ibid. c. 21, et seq. Ibid. c. 18. § Peter Sic. ibid. ↩

9. Rev. XX. 2, 3, 7. t Mat. xii. 29. Luke xi. 21, 22. ↩

10. Glab. ibid. Acta Cone. Aurel, ↩

11. De vitA sua, lib, iii. c. 16. f De haer. in hser. Man. % Peter. Sic. lb. ↩

12. Cedr. t. i. p. 434. 1| Ibid. % Cond. de haer. 1. 52. ↩

13. De Ljer. in haer. Mem. f ^t** Hist. 2, p. In the year 1022. p. C72. ↩

14. Bib. Hist. p. 133. f Ren. cont. Wald. c. 6. t. iv. ↩

15. Cone. Tur. ii. c. 3. f Cone. Tol. An. 1 1 19. Can. 3. ↩

16. Herm. cont. ad An. 1062. Par. To. xi. ad eniid. An. CentTiriat. in Cent. xi. c. 5. sub fin. f Eel). Serra.xil. adv. Catli. t. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. ↩

17. Eel). Serm. vi. p. {)!). f SiTin, v. p. 04. ↩

18. Putr. Sic. init. lib. do Hist. JVIiin. ^ Ibid, t'edr. t. i. p. 434. ↩

19. Eel). Serm. I. il. -)- Bern, in Cant. Serm. Ixv. ↩

20. Eiiorvin, Ep. ad S. ISein. Anal. iii. p. -152"; Ibid. pp. 455, 45C, -157. f Iliid. p. 453, Ecb. Scnn. i. ↩

21. Serm. Ixvi. -f- Serm. Ixv. J Serm. Ixvi. § Serm. Ixv. ↩

22. La Roq. Hist, de V Euch., pp. 452, ioli. t Ep. 241 ad Tol. Vit. S. Bern. lil.. iii. c. 5. I Act. (Jonc. Luml). t. x. Coin-. Lai). An. 117G. ↩

23. Roger. Iloved. in Aniial. Argl. f ^^ ^*^^1- '''■ ^''^'■- *■ '^''- •^"- ^^G, p. C74. I Pet. Sic. ibid. § Faust, ap. Aug. lib. xx. cont. ↩

24. Ffiust. ap. Aug. c. 7- f Hcrib. Mon. Ep. Annal. ill. ↩

25. Rodnl. Ard. Serm. in Dom. viil. post Trin, t. ii. t Gul. Nes. Rei-. Ang. lib. ii. c. 13. Cone. Oxon. t. ii. Cone. Ang. Cone. Lab. t. X. An. 1160. X La Roq. Hist, de I'Euch. c. xviii. p. 460. ↩

26. Phil. lili. i. Duel), t. v. Hist. Fnince, p. 102. f La Roque, p. 45j. ↩

27. Ilist, Albi. Pet. Mon. Val-Cern. cap. ii. t. v. Hist. Franc, Ducliesn* t Petr. Sic. ↩

28. Ren. cont. Wald. c. vi. t. iv. part ii. Bib. PP. p. 753. f Ibid. 759. ↩

29. Ibid, c. i. ii. iii. et seq. ↩

30. Cap. 25. t Ren. cont. Wal t. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p. 746. Pref. ↩

31. Ren. Ibid. c. v. p. 749, et seq. Ibid. c. vi. pp. 753, 754, 755, 75G. f Ibid. p. 750. I Ibid. p. 759. ↩

32. T. ix. Cone. Ecb. Ren, c. xiv. t. vi. Bib. PP. part i. p. 1254. Ibid. 759. ↩

33. Ren. c. x!v, pp. 753, 750. f Mat. Paris in Ilenr. III., An. 122.3. p. 317. Ep. Enerv. ad S. Bernard. Anal. Mabill. iii. Ibid. 1234. An. p. 395. VOL. II. G ↩

34. Enervin, An"al. iii. p. 454. f Serm. 65. Serm. 66. L. v. cont. Faust, c. i. ↩

35. Bern. Serm. CG, in Cant. ↩

36. Bern. Seim. 6G, in Cant. Ehrard. c. xiv. xv. Erm. c. xviii. xix. Bib. PP. pp. 1134, 113f], 1260, 1261. } Petr. Ven. con. Petrobr, ↩

37. Petr. Ven. T. xxii. Bib. Max. p. 1034. Sermon Go. in Caut. Peter Veil. Ibid. p. 1037. f Opusc. cout. Seivet. \ Bib. Mex. p. I07. ↩

38. Ep. ad Episcop. Arelat. &c. Ante Epist. contra Petrob. Bib. Max, p. 1034. f Sermon 66. | Sermon Go. ↩

39. Albert. La Ro(i. Otho. Fiis. in Frid. c. 40, 47. ↩

40. Sermon 65, in Cant, Ecbert. Ren. ↩

41. Ebrard. Ibid. c. 25. Conrad. Ursper. Chron. ad An. 1212. ↩

42. c. 1, 2. f 11^' c. 3. t IIj- c. 4. et seq. ↩

43. lb. c. 7. II lb. c. 8. c. 9. ↩

44. Alan, lib ii. p. 175, et seq. Lit), i. p. 118, et seq. I Pet. (le Val.-Cern. Hist. Albig. c. 2. Duch. Hist. Fran. t. v. p. 57."), ↩

45. Com-. Ursperg. ad An. 1212, ↩

46. Pet. de Val. c. 6, p. 5G1. Cone. Lat. iv. Can. 3, de Haeret. I Pet. Pylicid. cont. Wald. c. i. T. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p. 780. + Ibid.^ ↩

47. Pet. Pylicid. cont. Wald, c. i. T. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p. 780. I V. sup. Pet. de Valle-Cern, Refut. Error. Ibid. p. 819. ↩

48. Guid. Car. de Hipr. in Hieresi Wald. init. f H'st. des Vaudois, chap. i. ↩

49. Cone. Tanac. t. xi. Cone, part i. An. 1242. p. 593. } Ren. e. v. T. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p 749. Ibid. 750. + Malach. i. 11. § Ren. Ibid. ↩

50. Ren. p. 751. f Fiagm. PvHcd. Ibid. «17. Ren. Iliid. p. 751. ↩

51. Pvlicd. tout. Wald. T. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. 778. et seq. An. 1395. Ibid. c. XXX. p. 803. Ibid. c. i. Ibid. c. xvi, xviii. ↩

52. Bib. PP. t. iv. part ii. p. 820, 832, 8:jfi. -- f Director, part ii. q. 14. p. 270. Ibid. p. xiii. p. 273. I Rea. c. iv. Ibid, 750. Emeric. Ibid. ↩

53. Adv. error. Wald. part. An. 1520. f. i. ct seq. Ibid. f. 10. 11. t Lib. iii. de Sacr. Euch. p. 986. Col. 2. Ibid. 987. ↩

54. Fol. 55, 5G. i F. 13. ↩

55. Pylicd.c. i. T. \v. Bib. PP. part ii. p. 780. Tiid. Eir. Il,id. p. 832. N. 12. Reu. Ibid. 750. Pylicd. Ibid. c. i. p. 780. Ibid. c. viii. p. 782. 820. ↩

56. Ren. Ibid. c. v. p. 752. Itnd. vii. p. 765. ↩

57. Iiid. En-. N, 12, :i. Ibid. p. 832. ↩

58. Pylicd. Ibid. c. ..\iv. p. 7fJU. ↩

59. C. V. pp. 750, 751. + Ibid. 751 . + P. 751. § Ch. v. 14, |1 P. 751 . ↩

60. c. iv. p. 751 , t Ibid, p. 749. Ibid. vii. p. 7G5. ↩

61. Hell .vi. pp. i:j, 1(J, 17; and vii. 21. ↩

62. F, 2. t Hist. Eccl. des Egl. Ref, de Pier. Gilles, c. v. J Ibid. ↩

63. Gilles, c. V. I F. 38. J Gill. Ibi«l. c. v. ↩

64. Aim. Eccl. decad. 2. An. 1530, a p. 294, ad 300. Heidelb. ↩

65. Sleid. 1. ii, n. 4. f Hist, des Mart, in 153(1. f. HI. ↩

66. Liv. 3. p. 23. 15.3C. f Ibid. pp. 35, 36. 1544. ↩

67. Ren. c. iv. v. p. 740. Pylicd, c. iv. p. 779- Frag. Pylicd. pp. 815, 816, &c. ↩

68. Seyss. f. ">. I Hist, des Vaudois, ch. i. ↩

69. Hist, des Vaudois, lib. i. ih. vii. p. 57. Hist, dcs Vaud. et Albig. pai't iii, lib. iii. cb, i, p. 203. ↩

70. Aiib. p. 962. La Roque. Hist, de I'Euchar. pp. 451, 459. ↩

71. Hist, des Vaud. liv. i. ch. 12. p. ^^'>■ Il>id. ↩

72. Esrom. Rudig. de frat. Orth. narrat. Heid. cum Hist. Cam. 1G05, pp. 147, ↩

73. Hist, ties Vaud, et Albig. part iii. 1. iii. ch. i. p. 292. Ibid, part iii. 1. i-j p. 157. Ibid.l, iii.p.2t)7. ↩

74. La Roq. 459, Aub. p. 9G7, ex. Ren. c. iii. p. 5. -|- Ren. c. vi. ↩

75. La Roq. Aub. Ibid. 905. ex. Pet. de Valle-Cern. Hist. Albig. lib. ii. cap. 6. ↩

76. La Roq. p. 458. Rog. de Hoved. An. Angl. Baron, ad 1178. f La Roq. p. 451. Cone. Tolos. An. 1119. Can, iii. v. 8. X p. 457. Direct, part ii. p. 14. ↩

77. Aub. p. OGfl. a. La Ilo.i. p. 400, ex. f C. vi. + Il.id. ↩

78. Ren. c. vi. f Aub. 968. a. La Roq. 460. c. i. 14, 18. p. 780, &c. c. i. p. 747. ↩

79. C. vi. p. 75C. t Serm. C5, iu Cant. ↩

80. 1 John iii. 15. | Matt. xxv. 3. J Ch. v. p. 749 ↩

81. Pylicd. c. X. p. 283. f Apud. Ren. cb. vi, p. Too. ↩

82. Luke xviii. 11. f Analect. lib, iii, p. 454. ↩

83. Sermon 66. in Cant. sub. fin. ↩

84. F. 47. f De Ecd. Frat. in. Boh. et Morr. narr. Hist. Held, 1605. ↩

85. Lib. iii, c. vii. viii. xxiii. pp. 5(i, 82. Edit. 1525. ↩

86. Lib. c. xxvii. lib. i. c. x. p. 15. -f- Ibid. c. xi. p. 18. ↩

87. lb. c. ii. § Ibid. c. iv. Ibid. c. x, p. 16. ↩

88. Lib. i. c. xiv. Lib. iii. c. iv. f Ibid. c. viii. J lb. c. iv. ↩

89. lb. c. vi. viii. lb. civ. H Ibid. c. viii. ↩

90. Lib. iv. c. X. xiv. xxiii. xxv. xxxii. f Ibid. c. xvii. xviii. xix, xxiv. ↩

91. Disput. cum Rokys. apud. Canis. ant. lect. t. iii. p. ii. p. 474. f Ibid. p. 500. I Lib. iii. c. 30. Lib. xi. 14. Lib. iii. 5. iv, <j, 7, 40, 41. Lib. iv. 1, 0. Lib.iv. c. L § Nouv. ace. Coat. M. Vanil. p. 73. ↩

92. Lib. V. c. 36, 37, 38. f La Roque, lb. 70. lb. pp. 81, 85, 88, 89, 90. I La Roque, lb. ↩

93. Rudig. Narr. p. 153. -f- Nouv. ace. cont.'Varr. pp. 148, 150. ↩

94. Praef. Confess. 157'2. seu, de orig. Eccl. Boh. &c. post, •j- Hist. Camer. init. Praef. p. 17C. + lb. p. 267. Prsef Boh. Conf. 1558. Synt. Gen. p. 164. Apol.Frat. 1. part, ap. Lyd. t. ii. p. 129, ↩

95. Lyd. Walii. t. 1. Rotcro. IfilG. ↩

96. Syu. Prague. An. 1431. ap. Lyd. p. 304. et Au. 1434. Ibid. pp. 332, 354, ↩

97. Cam. Hist. Narr. Apol. Frat. p. 115, &c. t Apol. 1532. part 1. ↩

98. Apol. Lv<l. t. ii. 2-21, 222, 2;{2, &c. ↩

99. llud. Narr. post. Camer. Hist. p. ir)l. ↩

100. Cam. Hist. Apol.part iv. p. 274. Conf. iid. 1558. Art. xii. Synt, Gen. p. 195. Ibid. p. 170. ↩

101. Conf. fid. 1558. Synt. Gen. part ii. p. 164. f Joan. Euseb. ill ora. prsefixii Apo. frat. sub hoc tiuilo : (Economia, &c. ap, Lj'd. t. ii. p. 95. J De Eccl. Frat. p. 91. ↩

102. Luth. Coll. p. 28G. Edit, of Franc, an. 1C7G. f Ibid. ↩

103. Rom. viii. 1. ↩

104. Apol. 1032, part iv. ap. Lyd. p. 2'jo. ↩

105. Prof. fid. ad Lad. c. de Euch. ap. Lyd. t. ii. p. 10. citat. Apol. part iv, lb, 296. Ibid. p. xii. ↩

106. Apol. ir.32,part iv. p. 200. Il).i).2n«. Il>i(l. p. 291, 209. f II. id. 309. ↩

107. Apol. ad Ladis. p. Ifi2. f Calv. Kp. ad WalU. p. 312, et scii- X i^'^^- l^^- § ^^'"^- ''^''^*'' ↩

108. Pylic. cout. WaKl. c. 15. t. iv. Bib. PP. part ii. p. 785. ↩

109. v. ↩

110. Conf. p. 164. t ^P' a<i ^^^^- P- 31 7. ↩

111. Philip, ii. 2. -|- Jur. Avis aux Protes. de I'Europe at the beglnuing of his Prejug. legit, p. 9. ↩

112. 1 Tim. iv. 1,2, 3, 4, 5. f Ibid. 4. J Ibid. 1. ↩

113. Ante, 1 Tim. f Ante. % Comra. in hunc locum. ↩

114. 1 Tim. iv. f Rev. xx. 3, 7. + Epip. Ii»r. xlvi. Thend. i. lijer. lab,-2(). Ibid. v. c. 24. § 2 Thess, ii. 7. II Rev. XX. 2, :J, 7. Matt. xii. 29. Ltike xi. 21, 22. ^1 Kev. XX. 7, li. Bodi. Phal. lib. iii. J3. ↩

115. Rev. XX. 7, 8. t I^uke v. 6, ↩

116. 2 Tim.ii. 17. M 2 ↩

117. 2 Thess. ii. 7- ↩