one general name called Waldenses. But the more exact accounts, and particularly Mr. Limburch's History of the Inquisition, do distinguish the Waldenses from the Albigenses, both as to their tenets and their places of abode; and it is, I think, only among the latter that any Antipædobaptists were found. As France was the first country in Christendom where dipping of children in baptism was left off, so there first Antipædobaptism began.

"

But of these Waldenses so taken in a lump, the Pædobaptist and Antipædobaptist writers do at this time hotly dispute whether they held for, or against infant baptism.

The Antipædobaptists produce the evidence of the Popish writers of that time who wrote against them; some of which do plainly and fully charge some of them with denying it.

The Protestant Pædobaptists say this was one slander of many with which those their adversaries endeavoured to blacken them, because they condemned the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome: and produce for evidence several confessions of the Waldenses themselves, wherein they own infant baptism. Now, such confessions were doubtless more to be relied on than the accusations of their adversaries, if they were as ancient as they.

The present Waldenses or Vaudois in Piedmont, who are the posterity of those old, do practise infant baptism; and they were also found in the practice of it when the Protestants of Luther's Reformation sent to know their state and doctrine, and to confer with them and they themselves do say, that their fathers never practised otherwise. And they give proof of it from an old book of theirs called the Spiritual Almanack, * where infant baptism is owned; and Perin their historian gives the reason of the report that had been to the contrary, viz. That their ancestors, "being con

* Perin's Hist. of Waldenses, lib. 1, c. 4.

strained for some hundred years to suffer their children to be baptized by the priests of the Church of Rome, they deferred the doing thereof as long as they could, because they held in detestation those human inventions that were added to the sacrament, which they held to be the pollution thereof. And forasmuch as their own pastors were many times abroad, employed in the service of their churches, they could not have baptism administered to their infants by their own ministers. For this cause they kept them long from baptism; which the priests perceiving and taking notice of, charged them with this slander." There are many other confessions of theirs of like import, produced by Perin, Baxter, Wills, &c. This is the account the Waldenses give of themselves in those confessions; some of which seem to have been published about 200 years ago. One of the Bohemian Waldenses is dated 1508. [1408]

But the Antipædobaptists (some of them) say, this was by a corrupt compliance; for that "about this time they made a great defection from their former principles and integrities, and have too much gendered since into the formalities of the Hugonots." As if they had done it in compliance with Luther, who did not begin till 1517.

Yet they can produce no other, or elder confession of theirs [1417] that speaks contrary to these. There are extant several of their elder confessions, which express particularly the points in which they protested against what they held to be corrupt in the Romish doctrine and way; as against Transubstantiation, Chrism, Extreme Unction, &c. but do mention nothing, one way or other, about infant baptism; which is a sign that that was none of the things they disowned. They do in several of their old books, copied in Perin's history of them, speak of baptism and the other sacrament (for they owned but two); and in them they oppose themselves against the Popish doctrine of the sacraments; and particularly they blame the Papists for relying too much on the outward or visible part of them, as the

Protestants do now to the same purpose blame that tenet of theirs, that sacraments do confer grace (er opere operato) by the outward work done. And there is one of them also, that does mention the baptizing of children, but so as to leave the main question still ambiguous. It is their Treatise concerning Antichrist, written, as is pretended, anno 1120. [1020] But I do not believe that; not having any other account of this people so early. In it they say (as Perin recites it at the end of his history) He [Antichrist] "attributes the reformation of the Holy Spirit to a dead outward faith, and baptizes children into that faith, that thereby baptism and regeneration must be had; and gives and receives orders and other sacraments by that, grounding therein all his Christianity, which is against the Holy Spirit." One party say, they do hereby condemn all baptizing of children, as a dead outward work. The other say, they ought by these words to be understood to own baptizing of children, and to except only against the foresaid Popish tenet; for whether it be in children or grown persons, it is an Antichristian or Popish abuse, to ascribe the regeneration to the dead outward work, or mere outward act; which ought especially to be ascribed to the grace or mercy of God, sealing and confirming the covenant to them. Perin himself, who produces it, understands it so. And there

is a catechism of theirs which Perin says, is composed out of their old books, that does expressly mention and own infant baptism. But of what date that catechism is, I know not.

Bishop Usher † quotes out of Hovenden's Annals in Hen. 2d, fol 319, ed. London, [1070] a confession of faith made by the Boni Homines of Toulouse (this was one name given to one of those sorts of men that have been since called Waldenses) who, being summoned and examined before a meeting of Bishops, Abbots, &c. repeated it before the assembly; but being urged to swear to it, refused. In the body of which con+ De Success. Eccl. c. 8, p. 242.

* Part 3, 1. 1, c. 6.

1

fession they say, Credimus etiam quod non salvatur quis, nisi qui baptizatur; & parvulos salvari per baptismum. 'We believe also that no person is saved 'but what is baptized; and that infants are saved by baptism.' Mr. Baxter having been called upon by Danvers to produce any confession of theirs of any ancient date that owned infant baptism, produces this, *which was about the year 1176, and says [1076] would you have a fuller proof? But the other answers, that this confession was not what they naturally' and usually held, but what the court forced them to say by way of recantation; which proves rather that they usually held the contrary, or were suspected so to do. This latter appears by the story to be the truth of the matter; and it is wonder Mr. Baxter would urge it. But however, it signifies nothing to the purpose; for these men were Manichees (as appears by the other opinions the court made them recant, viz. that there were two Gods, whereof the evil God made the visible world, &c.) and consequently the opinions they held against baptism, were against all baptism of old or young, that it is good for nothing; and so when they denied that infants are saved by baptism, baptism, their meaning was, that no person is ever the more saved for being baptized. This they then recanted. And this is a known tenet of the Manichees; of whom there were many in these parts, whose story is confounded with that of the other Waldenses, as I shall shew by and by.

It is to be noted that they that write against them, do accuse them of abundance of heresies and monstrous doctrines, and that with great variety. One writer of one time and place, accuses those that he writes. against (whom he calls by such or such a name, as Puritans, Apostolics, &c.) of one set of false doctrines; and another writer of another time and country, lays to the charge of those that he writes against, whom he names perhaps by some other name, as Arnoldists, &c.

another catalogue of heterodox opinions. But one general thing that they were all guilty of, is, their renouncing and defying the Church and Pope of Rome.

And for the other opinions (such I mean as are really false ones, and not only by the Papists so accounted) they run for the most part on the vein of the old Manichean heresy; and they do often expressly call them Manichees. The old Manichees held two principles, or Gods; the one good, and the other evil; and that the evil God made the material world; they renounced and blasphemed the Old Testament, and part of the New; they denied the resurrection of the body, believing that a man survives after death only by his soul; they had no use of baptism, nor of marriage; they abhorred the eating of flesh, &c. These same opinions, and other of the old Manichees, are gene. rally the chief ingredients in the heresies imputed to these men.

There is also great variety in the account of their morals. Some give to those they describe, the character of sober, just, and conscientious men, though of heretical opinions. Others paint those they write against as men of lewd lives, as well as doctrines. Most of the books against them are between the year 1140 and the year 1400. [1010] What was done against them afterward, was chiefly by fire and sword. [1400] Several armies were, by the instigation of popes and the forwardness of princes, set against them; which sometimes dispersed them, but could never extirpate them.

The countries that were fullest of them were the south parts of France, for the Albigenses; and the north parts of Italy, and the vallies between the Alps, for the Waldenses; which last place proved so good. a refuge for them, that they have continued and do continue there to this day; save that the French king. has lately driven out those that lived within his limits,; and forced them to seek habitations in Germany, and elsewhere. Yet some say that the inhabitants of the Cevennes, that are now in arms, are also the offspring of this people.