L'Histoire Des Vaudois: From Authentic Details of the ValdensesBresse, J.
History
L'Histoire Des Vaudois: From Authentic Details of the Valdenses
Bresse, J.
Waldenses
Scattered over the face of the earth, we find almost every where these
primitive Christians under the various denominations given to them-of
Cathari, or "the Pure," Paulicians, Petrobusians, Puritans, Leonists,
Lollards, Henricians, Josephists, Patarines, Fraticelli, Insabati,
Piphles, Toulousians, Albigenses, Lombardists, Bulgarians, Bohemian
brethren, Barbets, Walloons, &c.
We not only find many colonies of these people in the eastern and
western parts of Europe, but even in Africa and America, whither they
emigrated to escape from oppression and massacre.
After the most cruel and wanton persecutions, we observe this oppressed
people reduced in number by barbarous massacres, and at length driven
out of their own purchased territories, because they would not submit
to innovations and changes in their established religion; but in a few
years we again find a remnant of them under their pastor, Henri Arnaud,
led back into their native country almost in a miraculous manner to
expel their savage oppressors, thousands of whom fled before this
reduced but noble band of self-taught warriors.
Many refugees took up their abode in the Rhetian Alps, and a great
number, after various edicts, were allowed to settle in the Duchy of
Wirtemberg, where some of them were visited by the writer of these
pages, for the express purpose of inquiring into their wants and
privileges.
Before the days of Wickliffe, and other reformers, we can trace the
Vaudois by their sufferings; they were branded and burnt as heretics,
because they would not conform to the doctrines of men, and the edicts
of the Roman pontiffs: their steady adherence to the principles of their
own faith, and obedience to the will of their Creator, rendered them
instrumental to the reformation, which afterwards took place, and by
which, in this country, the pure religion of our ancestors was restored.
It is even probable that this separated flock of true worshippers are to
be the means, under heavenly guidance, of not only preserving, but also
diffusing, the light of the gospel and its healing beams over the most
remote parts of the earth.
A.D.
251 It would appear that the title of Cathari, or "_the Pure_," was
first given to the followers of Novation, a Romish pastor, who set the
example of resisting the early corruptions of the Papal dominion, and
that Puritan churches existed in Italy upwards of 200 years.
590 Nine Bishops rejected the communion of the Pope, as heretical, and
this schism, we are told by another author, began even in the year 553.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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