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    munion who have directly attacked the doctrine of the Waktenses , do not bring the charges of novelty and innovation against them , but make it a sub- * ject of bitter complaint and a reason for exterminating them , that " there have always been heretics in the valleys / ' Reynerus , the Inquisitor , A . D , 1250 , complains of them that " they ^ are the most pernicious because the most ancient of all heretics , some representing them as the followers of Leon in the time of Constantine , and others representing them as havinsr

    taken their rise in the days of the apostles themselves . " Claude de Seyssel , Catholic Bishop of Turin , in the year 1500 , professes himself unacquainted with their origin , but observes , " there must be some cogent reasons for the existence of this sect of Waldenses for so many centuries" M . Aur . Rorenco was directed by the Propaganda at Turin to inquire into the origin of this sect , in his " Historical Memoirs , " published in 1645 , and in his " Narrative , " published in 1632 ; and he declares , in the latter , that "

    nothing certain could be known respecting the first entrance of heresy inter the valleys ; " and in the former , that " the heresy of the eighth century continued there the whole of the ninth and tenth" By the heresy which prevailed in the valleys in the eighth century , Rorenco intends , no doubt , the opposition made to the introduction of image-worship by the Christians

    of the North of Italy at that period , who sent for Claude , then in Spain , and well known for his zeal against the corruptions of the Church , to be their Archbishop at Turin , A . D . 826 . Of his diocese , the valleys formed a part . The Monk Belvidere sent by the Pope into the valleys in 1630 , writes of them ^ " hanno sernpre e da ogni tempo avuto heretici "—" they have from all times and always had heretics . "

    . But whatever obscurity may hang over the earlier history of this people previously to the year 1100 , from that period they are fortunately their own historians in the manuscript compositions of their pastors , or Barbes as they were called , deposited in the University library of Geneva and that of Cambridge , by Sir Thomas Morland , Ambassador at Turin , from the Protector Oliver , in

    1655 . They are written in that Patois of the Italian which is still , with some alterations , the language of the common people , and display great talent in combating the doctrines of the Romish Church , and great piety in enforcing the grand moral precepts of Christianity . Amongst them are a Catechism dated 1120 , a Confession of Faith of the same period , and the

    Noble Lesson , one of the most cunous monuments which any age presents . It is a poem of considerable length , ( intended , probably , to be sung or chaunted in their assemblies , ) in which , four hundred years before the Reformation , the great principles for which the Reformers wrote and laboured and bled are embodied , and the doctrines of auricular confession , indulgences , absolution and image-worship are exposed . The authenticity of

    this singular production has never been called in question , and the date is embodied in the poem itself , in which it is said , " there are now a thousand one hundred years complete , since it was written that we are in the last times . " The name of the people for whose use it was composed is contained in the following sentence : " If there be found any man who will love God and fear Jesus Christ , who will not speak evil , nor blaspheme , nor

    lie , nor commit adultery , nor kill , nor steal , nor revenge himself of bis enemies , Illi dison quel es Vaudes e degne de mtmr , "— " they say he is a Waldensian , and worthy of death . " It has been supposed by many persons that Peter Valdo of Lyons , who began to propagate the doctrines of reform in the year 1175 , was the founder of the sect of Waldenses . But the pa $ -

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    The fTaldemeil 337

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 337, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/25/