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THE
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, from the birth of Christ to the
18th Century: including the very interesting account of the
Waldenses and Albigenses
By William Jones
First Edition 1812
Fourth Edition 1819
Fifth Edition 1826
London: Printed for the Author by W. Myers, 7, Took’s Court,
Castle Street, Holborn
[Note from the publisher. This valuable out-of-print book was carefully formatted for electronic publication by Way of Life Literature. For a catalog of other books, both current and old, in print and electronic format, contact us at P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail), http://www.wayoflife.org (web site).]
[Table of Contents for "A History of the Christian Church" by William Jones]
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The history of the Christian Church, when prosecuted in minute detail, and in all its ramifications, is an ample theme, and has occupied the pens of many learned men, both of our own and other countries. The elaborate treatises of Eusebius, Du Pin, Fleury, Mosheim, Priestley, Milner, and others of inferior consideration, have most of them been long before the public, and are all well known. To discuss the subject at large, or to enter into any competition with those works, as it is not to be expected in the compass of a single volume [the first edition of Jones’ history was comprised of one volume], so it must not be considered as having at all entered into the views of the present writer. The following pages, whatever may be their merits or defects, were not designed to instruct persons of general reading; for the author is fully aware that they contain little which is not familiar to that class of men. They were compiled with the view of communicating some interesting information to a few friends whose views of the gospel of Christ, and of the nature of his kingdom in this world, happen to coincide pretty much with his own, but who have been debarred the opportunity of exploring the voluminous productions in which that information lay scattered.
Those who have bestowed any considerable degree of attention upon the article of Ecclesiastical History, will readily admit, that no period of it stands so much in need of elucidation, as that which intervened from the beginning of the ninth century to the days of Luther. The original sources of our information are, almost exclusively, the Catholic writers--a race of men who, while they had an interest in disguising the truth, appear to have delighted themselves in calumniating all that dissented from their communion. And even since the time of the Reformation, while the light of divine truth has been shining around us with increasing splendor, and thus contributing to expose in all its deformity that "mystery of iniquity," the Roman hierarchy, our Protestant historians have been but too implicitly led by those false guides. There is scarcely any History of the Christian Church extant in our language from which it would not be easy to exemplify the truth of this representation; but in no case could it more strikingly be done, than in that which respects the leading object of the present work. Not to multiply proof of this, where proofs are so abundant, an instance in point may be adduced from a contemporary writer of our own country, who, a few years ago, published, in our own language, the "History of France," in five vols. 4to. The following is the account there given of the Albigenses, a class of Christians who, as the reader will see from the subsequent part of this volume, were only a branch of the Waldenses, inhabiting a particular district in France.
"The Albigenses," says this historian, "believed in two Gods; one a beneficent being, author of the New Testament, who had two wives, Collant and Collibant, and was father of several Children, and among others, of Christ and the devil. The other God was a malevolent being, a liar, and a destroyer of men, author of the ancient law, who, not content with having persecuted the patriarchs during their lives, had consigned them all to damnation after death. They also acknowledge two Christs; one wicked, who was born at Bethlehem and crucified at Jerusalem, and who kept as his concubine Mary Magdalene, the woman so well known for having been caught in the act of adultery; the other Christ, all virtuous and invisible, who never inhabited the world, but spiritually in the body of Paul. They represented the Church of Rome as the scarlet whore mentioned in the Revelation. They regarded the sacraments as frivolous things; considered marriage as a state of prostitution; the Lord’s supper as a chimera; the resurrection of the flesh as a ridiculous fable; and the worship of images as detestable idolatry. Had all their tenets been equally rational with the last, they would not have been obnoxious to much censure. They were divided into two classes; the perfects and the believers. They all openly professed great purity of manners, and secretly practiced the most infamous voluptuousness, on the principle, that from the waist downwards, man is incapable of sin."[History of France, Vol. 1, p. 412, London, 1791. I am not insensible that there is a grossness in this quotation which renders it almost unfit to be transplanted into any other soil; and I am anxious to apologize to my readers for laying it before them; but the truth is, that it is not worse than may be found on the same subject in many other writers; while the recency of its publication, and the high ground which its author has lately taken among us, seemed to entitle him to the right of preference. As to the statement itself, it cannot but remind us of the words of Jesus, "Blessed are ye when men shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my name’s sake."]
Such is the disgusting caricature which this writer has exhibited to the world of the Albigenses. But that any man with his eyes open, and capable of exercising two grains of discrimination, should have first of all permitted himself to be so far imposed upon by the Catholic writers, as to give credit to such a tissue of absurd and ridiculous fooleries, and then gravely to detail them to his readers for the truth of history, is at once a striking instance of weakness in the author, and of the necessity of exercising continual vigilance on the part of the reader, if he would neither become the dupe of Papal slander, nor of Protestant credulity. The reader cannot fail to be surprised when he is told that the author of this wretched ribaldry is no other than John Gifford, Esq. the biographer of the late Right Honourable William Pitt, whose work, recently published in 3 vols. 4to. and 6 vols. 8vo. is held up as a kind of national undertaking! Of the merits of this last publication it would, no doubt, be presumptuous in the present writer to offer any opinion; but if the biographer of our great statesman have been as regardless of the truth of history in the latter instance as in the former, posterity will owe him but few obligations for his labors.
Mr. Hume had a much more correct view of the character of the Albigenses; and it is singular that Mr. Gifford should have overlooked it. The following is the passage to which I refer. "The Pope (Innocent III) published a crusade against the Albigenses, a species of enthusiasts in the south of France, whom he denominated heretics, because, like other enthusiasts, they neglected the rights of the [Catholic] church, and opposed the power and influence of the clergy. The people from all parts of Europe, moved by their superstition and their passion for wars and adventures, flocked to his standard. Simon de Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to himself a sovereignty in these provinces. The Count of Toulouse, who protected, or perhaps only tolerated the Albigenses, was stripped of his dominions. And these sectaries themselves, though THE MOST INNOCENT AND INOFFENSIVE OF MANKIND, were exterminated with all the circumstances of extreme violence and barbarity." History of England, Vol. 2. ch. 11. Nothing can be more just than this account of the Albigenses, provided we allow Mr. Hume his own definition of the term "enthusiasts"--a term which he uniformly employs to denote all those who believe the Bible to be the word of God, and who receive it as the rule of their faith and practice. I may further add, that the reader will find his account of the Albigenses to be perfectly consonant to all that is related of them in the following pages.
I shall here take the liberty to introduce, as expressive of my own sentiments, the language of an author, who more than a century ago, was engaged in the same pursuit with myself, and to whose learned pen the following pages are much indebted. "I conceived that it was well becoming a Christian to undertake the defense of innocence, oppressed and overborne by the blackest calumnies the devil could ever invent. That we should be ungrateful towards those whose sufferings for Christ have been so beneficial to his church, should we not take care to justify their memory, when we see it so maliciously bespattered and torn. That to justify the Waldenses and Albigenses, is indeed to defend the Reformation and Reformers, they having so long before us, with an exemplary courage, labored to preserve the Christian religion in its ancient purity, which the Church of Rome all this while has endeavored to abolish, by substituting an illegitimate and supposititious Christianity in its stead. So long as the ministers of the Church of Rome think fit to follow his conduct who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, innocence should not be deprived of the privilege of defending herself against their calumnies, while she willingly resigns to God the exercise of vengeance for the injustice and violence of those who have oppressed her." [Dr. Allix’s Remarks on the Churches of Piedmont, preface, p. 6]
It may possibly occur to some of my readers that "the Portraiture of Popery," would have been a title every way as appropriate to the ensuing pages as that which I have given it. And it certainly must be admitted, that the odious features of superstition and intolerance do but too prominently obtrude upon us, wherever the proceedings of that apostate church interpose themselves. The picture which invariably presents itself to the mind, is that of a power "speaking great words against the Most High, and wearing out the saints of the Most High," [History of the Council of Trent, translated by Brent, p. 2] or, of a woman "drunken with the blood of the saints, and of the martyrs of Jesus." It should, however, be remarked, that if the outlines of this hideous picture have been sketched in the following work, and in colors more sombre than may be pleasing to its friends, the circumstance is wholly accidental, since it is an object that was entirely foreign to the intention of the writer, further than a faithful record of well-authenticated facts might necessarily lead him to it. In sketching the History of the Christian Church previous to the times of the Waldenses, I have gone considerably more into detail than was my original intention; but in that particular I have been actuated solely by the desire of rendering the work more generally useful to that class of readers for whom it was principally designed. After all, it pretends to nothing more than a sketch of a vast subject, and no one can be more sensible than the writer himself is of its numerous deficiencies. Whether he may hereafter be induced to resume the subject, and fill up the outline more correctly, must depend partly upon the reception which the present attempt meets with from his contemporaries, and partly upon other circumstances which are beyond the reach of human control. For the rest he would gladly offer his apology in the words of Father Paul the Venetian. "He that shall observe that I speak more of some times, and more sparingly of others, let him remember, that all fields are not equally fruitful, nor all grains deserve to be kept; and that of those which the reaper would preserve, some ears escape the hand, or the edge of the sickle: it being the condition of every harvest, that some part remains to be afterwards gleaned."
It may possibly strike some readers with surprise that no notice is taken, in the following pages, of a multiplicity of sects which arose, from time to time, in what is called the Christian world, and whose history occupies so very large a space in the volumes of most of our modern writers on this subject. But to speak the truth, my opinion of these in general is, that they have nothing to do with the history of the church or kingdom of Christ; and that to connect them with it, as Dr. Mosheim and others have done, is scarcely more unwise than the conduct of Mr. Hume would have been, had he incorporated the Tyburn Chronicle into his valuable History of England.
In tracing the kingdom of Christ in the world, I have paid no regard whatever to the long disputed subject of apostolical succession. I have, indeed, read much that has been written upon it by the Catholic writers on one side, and by Dr. Allix, Sir Samuel Morland, and several Protestants on the other; and I regret the labor that has been so fruitlessly expended by the latter, persuaded as I am that the postulatum is a mere fiction, and that the ground on which the Protestant writers have proceeded in contending for it, is altogether untenable. It is admitted, that the Most High has had his churches and people in every age, since the decease of the Apostles; but to attempt to trace a regular succession of ordained bishops in the Vallies of Piedmont, or any other country, is "laboring in the fire for very vanity," and seems to me to proceed upon mistaken views of the nature of the kingdom of Christ, and of the sovereignty of God, in his operations in the earth, as they have respect unto it. Jesus himself, in reply to an inquiry put to him by the Pharisees, (Luke 17:20-24) compares his kingdom to the lightning, darting its rays in the most sovereign and uncontrolled manner from one extremity of the heavens to the other. And this view of it corresponds with matter of fact. Wherever the blessed God has his elect, there, in his own proper time, he sends his gospel to save them. One while we see it diffusing its heavenly light on a particular region, and leaving another in darkness. Then it takes up its residence in the latter, and forsakes the former. Thus, when Paul and his companions attempted to go into Bithynia, the Spirit permitted them not; but they were instructed by a vision to proceed to Macedonia, where the word of the Lord had free course and was glorified. When Paul first came to Corinth, he met with great opposition, but he was encouraged to persevere by Him who said, "I have much people in this city." When the first churches began to swerve from the form of sound words, to corrupt the discipline of the house of God, and to commit fornication with the kings of the earth, by forming an alliance with the state, we cease to trace the kingdom of Christ among them, but we shall find it successively among the churches of the Novatians, the followers of Aerius, the Paulicians, the Cathari, or Puritans in Germany, the Patetines, and the Waldenses, until the times of reformation.
If the present work contain any thing of sufficient interest to give it a temporary buoyancy upon the ocean of public opinion, and prevent its rapid transition into the gulf of oblivion--that insatiable vortex which has already swallowed up myriads of much more important publications, the author would persuade himself it must be those excellent letters of our great poet Milton, which, in the capacity of Latin Secretary to Cromwell, he wrote to the Protestant princes upon the Continent, pleaded the cause of the poor, afflicted, and grossly injured Waldenses. It is a mortifying reflection, that these interesting letters should now be almost forgotten as the compositions of our great poet. Whence comes it to pass, that while Milton’s Defence of the People of England is so generally known, no one ever speaks of his Defence of the Waldenses? It will be difficult to assign a more plausible reason for this, than the unpopularity of the subject. The Waldenses were "a poor and afflicted people," the subjects of a kingdom that is not of this world, and they were treated by their adversaries as "the filth of the world and offscouring of all things." But Milton understood their character, and duly appreciated it. He recognized in them his Christian brethren; their distress not only reached his ears, but roused all the sensibilities of his soul; he participated in their sorrows, and his letters in their behalf do as much honor to the benevolence of his heart as his immortal poem of Paradise Lost does to the sublimity of his genius. It has been too much the fashion amongst a certain class of writers to inveigh against the malignity and moral character of Milton; but surely we have a right to ask his revilers, before they take such freedoms with his fair fame, at least not to be unjust to his virtues.
William Jones
Islington, July I812
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
An interval of somewhat more than a dozen years has now elapsed, since I first called the attention of my friends and the public to the interesting history of "The meek confessors of Piedmont, and of the south of France." To detail the circumstances which originally prompted me to prosecute the study of their history, would have so much the appearance of vanity and parade that I decline entering upon it; but I may be allowed to say that, after having possessed myself of such materials as the leadings of Providence had thrown in my way, I was chiefly determined to pursue the subject and lay the result before the world, by finding, that in whatever circle the mention of these extraordinary people was introduced, scarcely an individual could be met with who knew anything more about them than the name. Whether it were owing to the political state of Europe during the greater part of the past century, and of the last thirty years in particular; or to whatever other cause it is to be attributed, the fact is undeniable, that the memory of this noble army of martyrs was rapidly sinking into oblivion, and in a fair way of speedily becoming extinct.
Concise, and consequently imperfect, however, as was the narrative of the Waldenses comprised in the first edition of this work, the author was gratified on perceiving that it had excited an unusual degree of interest among the friends of Primitive Christianity, who expressed themselves anxious to know whatever more could be told them concerning this remarkable people. He therefore kept the subject constantly in view, and in the beginning of the year 1816, presented them with a greatly enlarged edition of the work, comprised in 2 vols. 8vo. Two years afterwards a third edition was called for, and since then a fourth, all of which the public have been pleased to receive with marked testimonies of approbation. Though additions and improvements were introduced into each succeeding impression of the work, the author was far from supposing that he had brought it to any thing like a perfect state. He was, nevertheless, disposed to take credit to himself for having embodied into one succinct narrative a more copious and digested history of the Waldenses, and of those who maintained the same faith and order with them, than had hitherto appeared in our language, or indeed in any other, and he had the satisfaction to find the public voice unequivocally admitting this fact. It cannot reasonably, therefore, as he thinks, be expected from him that he should sit down quiet and unmoved while he sees others rising up, and by means that are scarcely compatible with the strict rules of literary warfare, endeavoring to push him to the wall. Of this unfair mode of proceeding, he has witnessed many attempts since he first brought the subject of this history before the public, but of which he did not think it worth his while to take any particular notice.
That a topic which has every year been rising in popularity, should find writers ready to take it up, was so naturally to be expected, that it could not reasonably excite surprise in any one. Since the first edition of this work made its appearance, several of our countrymen have been induced to visit the regions of Piedmont; and two of them, clergymen of the Church of England, who on their return laid before the public the result of their observations and enquiries, have shewn no little zeal to identify the ancient Waldenses with our national establishment. This is no way wonderful--there is scarcely a sect in Christendom, which, during the last dozen years has not laid claim to them as their rightful kindred, in one way or other; but as this is a case of fact which involves in it the truth of history, it deserves more than a bare mention in this place.
Before we enter on the discussion of it, however, and indeed to lay a proper foundation for the remarks which I have to offer, I must be permitted to premise, that I have now before me a "Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains of Piedmont, in the year 1823, and Researches among the Vaudois or Waldenses, Protestant inhabitants of the Cottian Alps, etc. etc. By William Stephen Gilly, M.A. Rector of North Fambridge, Essex. Second edition, with considerable additions and corrections, 1825."
In an Appendix to the volume, Mr. Gilly presents his readers with a "Notice of Publications relating to the Vaudois (Waldenses) during the three last centuries;" and having given the titles of several, and remarked upon most of them with some degree of minuteness, he at last announces my book in the following terms, which I quote verbatim.
8. "History of the Waldenses, connected with a Sketch of the Christian Church, from the birth of Christ to the eighteenth century. By William Jones, London, 1812. Octavo. pp. 676." "This volume does not enter upon the subject of the Vaudois till the 319th page, and carries their history no farther than the year, 1686."
This is the only mention that is made of my publication, so far as I can perceive, in all Mr. Gilly’s book; and there are two or three circumstances connected with it of sufficient moment to entitle them to regard. Some may probably think that I ought to be well satisfied, and consider it an act of condescension in a clergyman of the Church of England, that he had noticed, even thus briefly, a publication issuing from the pen of a dissenter! Be this as it may, I cannot help remarking it as somewhat singular, that he should refer his readers to the first edition of my book, which, at the time of his writing, had been ten years sold off, and consequently must have cost him no little pains to procure. In the year 1828, when he commenced his excursion to Piedmont, there had been a second, third, and fourth edition published, in an enlarged and improved state; but probably it better suited his purpose to refer to the first and most imperfect edition of the work than to any other.
Leaving the reader, however, to indulge his own reflections on the correctness of this probability, I proceed to notice the complaint which Mr. Gilly makes, and which, in fact, is applicable to every edition of my work, namely, that "it carries their history no farther than the year 1686." This is certainly true; but my defense is an easy one--my Narrative stops where the Story ends. I professed to give the History of the Churches of Piedmont and other places, commonly designated Waldenses and Albigenses, not of individuals; and as I consider those churches to have been utterly dispersed and scattered by a series of persecutions which terminated in the year 1686, I consider myself to have brought the subject to its legitimate close.
If we are to credit a host of writers belonging to the Church of England, the two witnesses of the Apocalypse, (Revelation 11:3,4, etc.) were the two churches, or to speak more properly, the two classes of churches, which passed under the names of the Waldenses and Albigenses. This was the opinion of Bishops Lloyd, Newton, Hurd, etc. Messrs. Whiston, Faber, Gauntlett and others, and even Mr. Gilly himself admits it (p. 146). Now these two witnesses, after prophesying twelve hundred and sixty years in sackcloth, according to the prophetic testimony, were to be finally overcome and killed by the beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit. (Revelation 11:7) This event I consider to have been consummated in the year 1686, and consequently as terminating the history of the Waldenses. Where, then, is the propriety of complaining of me, as Mr. Gilly and others would seem to do that I have not pursued the subject further? But, it may be asked, does not the page of history record, that in the year 1689 about eight or nine hundred men proceeded from the neighborhood of Geneva, equipped with arms and ammunition, re-entered their own country, drove away the new inhabitants, and after many contests with their enemies, obtained a reinstatement in their former possessions?" Certainly; there is no disposition to deny the fact; but I beg leave to ask Mr. Gilly, and those who dwell upon it, of what description of persons did this new race of the Waldenses consist--and are they prepared to shew us a number of new churches formed by them bearing any resemblance to those of the ancient Waldenses which were dispersed by the armies of Louis XIV and the Duke of Savoy? We are quite content to rest the issue of this enquiry on the testimony which is borne to the present state of the Vaudois, by our author and the other members of the Established Church, compared with the accounts which have been transmitted us by friends and foes concerning their ancestors. Let us try the subject on one or two points; and I begin with their doctrinal sentiments.
"I ventured to ask Mr. Peyrani (says Mr. Gilly) if the Vaudois Clergy urged the doctrine of absolute predestination and election. He replied that these nice points of controversy were not often discussed in their pulpits, and: that for his own part, he had never given his assent to the belief in absolute predestination." "If God infallibly saves some, and as infallibly rejects others, (said Mr. P.) I do not see what is the use of his laws?" He admitted that Calvin was a good man, he desired to be thought a faithful servant of God, "but many of his tenets convey a strange notion of the Almighty’s attributes."
I now request the reader to turn to Vol. 2. of my History, and compare the preceding extract with the numerous testimonies given, pp. 90, et seq. to the doctrinal sentiments of the ancient Waldenses. But what shall we think of Mr. Gilly, who in the face of all this evidence to the contrary, can stand up and tell us, "that the peculiar doctrinal sentiments maintained by Calvin never found any warm advocates in these Vallies," p. 245? This is to falsify the truth of history.
But I proceed to notice the account which Mr. Gilly gives us of the constitution, discipline and worship of the present Vaudois churches. He informs us they are partial to the Episcopal form of church government; and though particular circumstances have induced them to drop the title of bishop in its generally received sense, yet the episcopal functions are retained, p. 75.
"At present," says he, "either the liturgy of Geneva, or Neufchatel is read in the churches, according to the discretion of the pastor; but that of Geneva, which is a beautiful production, is principally followed. The rituals which are adopted, in conformity to their intercourse with Switzerland, have a service for the Communion, and different forms for certain days and seasons." So much for the present race of churches in Piedmont! Let the reader carefully examine the Confessions of Faith, published by their ancestors, and given in my History, vol. 2. ch. 5. sect. 8. and try if he can find any thing that bears a resemblance to this order of things. As regards Episcopacy, we find them saying, "We must not obey the pope and bishops, because they are the wolves of the church of Christ."-"So many orders of the clergy, so many marks of the beast."
In the "beautiful" liturgy of Geneva, as Mr. Gilly terms it, we have stated prayers for Sundays--morning and evening prayers for Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays; others for Wednesdays and Saturdays--prayers also for particular solemnities, Easter, Ascension-day, and Whitsunday Christmas-day--New-year’s-day--the first of June. etc. etc. Had the ancient churches of the Waldenses anything of this trumpery among them? Far otherwise; for, in alluding to these things, we find them strongly inveighing against them, as marks of Antichrist, and quoting the very words of the apostle Paul to the Galatians, "Ye observe days and months, and times and years; I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on you labor in vain" See pp. 85-90. Vol 2. of this work.
Once more: let us compare the ancient and modern Vaudois on the article of Baptism. On this subject Mr. Gilly thus writes:
"From infant instruction, we came to the discussion of infant baptism, and nothing can be more false than the calumny, that the Vaudois object to infant baptism. One of the arguments used by the petitioners of the commune of San Giovanni, when they implored permission to re-open their new church, was, that in the winter time their poor infants suffered dreadfully from the severity of the cold, in being carried to such a distance as Angrogne to be publicly baptized. They have even a formulary of baptism, very much like that in the Church of England, and the service begins thus: "You present this infant to be baptised;"
This may be done, it seems, either by sprinkling or immersion, at the discretion of the parties!
"In some articles of faith," says Mr. Gilly, "subsequently drawn up by the Waldensian clergy, there are many such strong declarations as these: ‘We maintain that infants must be baptized under salvation, [pray what is meant by that?] and consecrated to Jesus Christ, according to Christ’s command;’ ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’" pp. 168, 169.
Let us now compare with this, the doctrine of their forefathers, as handed down to us in their Confessions of Faith and other writings.
"We believe that in the ordinance of baptism," say they, "the water is the visible and external sign which represents to us that which, by virtue of God’s invisible operation, is within us namely, the renovation of our minds, and the mortification of our members through Jesus Christ. And by this ordinance we are received into the holy congregation of God’s people, previously professing our faith and change of life." And with regard to the baptism of infants, they insist upon it to be one of the leading features of Antichrist. Their words are; "He teaches to baptize children into the faith, and attributes to this, the work of regeneration; thus confounding the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, with the external rite of baptism, and on this foundation bestows orders, and indeed grounds all his Christianity." See pp. 51 and 56
But here I stop--it is needless to pursue the subject farther.
Enough has surely been said, to shew that the present race of Protestant churches in Piedmont, bears little or no affinity to the ancient Waldenses, either in their doctrinal sentiments, their discipline and external order, or their religious practices; and it is an act of justice to the memory of those excellent people to rescue them from this unnatural alliance. Mr. Gilly’s "Narrative" is not destitute of amusement and information, but it is a perfect melange, in which topographical description, biographical anecdote, ecclesiastical history, the ancient and the modern, fact and fiction are strangely jumbled together. So far as his efforts have been exerted to plead the cause of the distressed inhabitants of those Vallies, whose privations and sufferings arising from the invasion of their country by the French armies during the late war, we can easily imagine to be great, he is entitled to our respect and gratitude. But in his attempt to identify the present race of the Vaudois with their predecessors "the meek confessors of Piedmont," he has totally failed. In fact, had he properly understood the character of the ancient Waldensian churches, we can have no conception that he would have entertained any wish to become their advocate. And as it may probably save others from falling into similar blunders, I shall close this Preface with laying before the reader a brief sketch of what they were.
In the first place, they were dissenters--protestant dissenters--dissenters upon principle, not only from the church of Rome, but also from all national establishments of religion,--they existed by mere toleration from the civil government,--they acknowledged no earthly potentate as head of the church; they absolutely protested against every thing of the kind. They had no Book of Common Prayer--no Liturgy, no thirty-nine articles to guard them from error, heresy, or schism. They had no reverend gentlemen--no privileged order of clergymen, paid or pensioned for discharging the duties of the pastoral office among them. They paid particular respect to their Lord’s words; "Be ye not called Rabbi, for one is your Master, even Christ and all ye are brethren: And call no man your father upon earth, for one is your Father which is in heaven: Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master even Christ: but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant." They brought up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; but they neither sprinkled nor immersed them, under the notion of administering Christian baptism -- they were, in a word, so many distinct churches of ANTIPAEDOBAPTISTS.
William Jones
Islington, Sept. 25th, 1825
See also "Were the Waldenses Baptists or Pedo-baptists?" by John L. Waller. This is available in the Electronic Baptist History Library at the Way of Life Literature web site [http://www.wayoflife.org] and in the Fundamental Baptist CD-ROM Library, which can be obtained from Way of Life, 1701 Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277. 360-675-8311 (voice), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).