Imatges de pàgina
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And in this last-mentioned sense Cassander* speaks of the Petrobrusians as a sect that, together with the salvation of infants, denied their baptism; but of the Waldenses, as practising it.

The Petrobrusians could not properly be called Waldenses, because they set up their party before Waldus did his; for Peter Bruis [1026] had preached 20 years when Cluniacensis wrote, as I shewed before, which was 1146 [1046]; and Waldus began, by the earliest account, in the time of Pope Innocent the Second, whose first year was 1130 [1030].

So if we take the name Waldenses strictly, for one sort of men, as those old writers generally do, then there is no account that any of them were Antipædobaptists; but if we take it in that large sense, as many late writers do, to include all the sorts that I have rehearsed, then there is probable evidence that one sort of them, viz. the Petrobrusians were so, but not that the general body of the Waldenses were. And that opinion of the Petrobrusians seems to have been in a short time extinguished and forgotten.

Now, because I take this Peter Bruis (or Brace perhaps his name was) and Henry to be the first Antipadobaptist preachers that ever set up a church or society of men holding that opinion against infant baptism, and rebaptizing such as had been baptized in infancy, I will, for the sake of the Antipædobaptists, give the history of them so far as it is upon record; and the same thing may gratify the Quakers; for I believe they were the first likewise of all that have owned the Scriptures (for I see no reason to conclude but this people did, though there was a report that they rejected some books of them) that ever taught that the use of receiving the Lord's Supper is not to be continued.

They were both Frenchmen; both of mean rank or quality, for Peter of Clugny bespeaks † them thus:-"Because the darkness of a mean condition kept you obscure, had you therefore a mind, by some very wicked exploit,

* De Baptismo Infantium.

+ Answer to their 4th Article

to make yourselves to be taken notice of?" Yet they had been in priests orders, and had had each of them a place or employment in that office; but the benefices belonging to them were it seems but small, because he says, If the places wherein you ministered as presbyters afforded you but little gain, would you therefore resolve to turn all into confusion and profaneness?" Peter had had a church or parish, but was turned out of it, and, as this writer insinuates, for some misdemeanor. Henry had been a monk, and had deserted the monastery; for so he adds:-"Because one of you was for a reason (he knows why) turned out of the church which he had, &c.; the other throwing off the monk's habit, turning an apostate," &c.

The places where Bruis first made a party and gained proselytes, were in that country which is since called Dauphine; for the book which Peter of Clugny writes against them, is, by way of a letter to three bishops, within whose dioceses this had happened; and the bishops were Eberdunensis, Diensis, and Wapiensis; the bishops of Embrun, Die, and Gap. In the preface (which was written some time after the book, and after Bruis was dead) there is added the Archbishop of Arles, in Provence. But it is said in the book, that the city of Arles itself was free from the infection, only some parts of his province had been drawn into this persuasion. It was in the mountainous and wild parts of the said diocese that it first took footing, for so Cluniacensis writes, "I should have thought that it had been those craggy Alps, and rocks covered with continual snow, that had bred that savage temper in the inhabitants; and that your land, being unlike to all other lands, had yielded a sort of people unlike to all others but that I now perceive," &c.

*

The time that it began he mentions to have been 20 years before [1026]; and at the time when the book was written (which was 1146) 1046] those aforesaid dioceses were, he says, clear of it. By the care of the

* Prope Initium Epistolæ.

said bishops it had been rooted out there; but that the preachers, when expelled thence, had planted it in the plain countries of Provincia Narbonensis. And there, says he," the heresy which among you was but timnorously whispered or buzzed about in deserts and little villages, does now boldly vent itself in great crowds of people, and in populous towns." And the places specified in the book are, -The places about the mouth of the Rhone, the plain country about Toulouse, and particularly that city itself; and many places in the province of Gascony. About the year 1144, [1044] Bruis being then in the territory of St. Giles, where he had made many proselytes, he was "by the zeal of the faithful people" (so Cluniacensis calls it) taken, and in that city, according to the laws then, burnt to death. The time I compute thus: Cluniacensis had wrote that letter to the bishops aforesaid; but understanding that Bruis was put to death, and the doctrine expelled out of their dioceses, he suppressed the publishing of his letter; but hearing that Henry, whom he calls "the heir of Bruis's wickedness," did still propagate it in several places, and that there was danger of its reviving where it seemed to be extinct, he put a new preface to his work and published it, which was in the 1146 [1046].

year

Of the morals of Peter Bruis this writer gives no account, save that he describes in how tumultuous and outrageous a way things were managed by him and his party where they prevailed:-"The people rebaptized, the churches profaned, the altars dug up, the crosses burnt, the priests scourged, monks imprisoned," &c. And he tells how they would, on a Good Friday to choose, get together a great pile of crosses which they had pulled down, and making a fire of them, would roast meat at it, on which they would make a feast, in defiance of the fast kept by Christians on that day.

As for Henry, after he had gone about preaching in many cities and provinces of France, he was, in the

* Prope ab Initio.

year 1146 or 7, found in the said territory of the Earl of St. Giles, when St. Bernard and some bishops came to those parts to confute these new doctrines. And of him Bernard does give a character in his letter to that earl; and it is a very scurvy character for a preacher.

"The man (says he) is a renegado, who, leaving off his habit of religion (for he was a monk) returned, as a dog to his vomit, to the filthiness of the flesh and the world; and being ashamed to stay where he was known, &c. he became a vagabond; and being in beggary, he made the gospel maintain him (for he was a scholar); and setting to sale the word of God, he preached for bread. What he got of the silly people, or of the good women, more than would find him victuals, he spent in gaming at dice, or some worse way; for this celebrated preacher, after the day's applause, was at night often found in bed with whores, and sometimes with married women. Enquire, if you please, noble Sir, how he left the city Lausanne, what sort of departure he made out of Mayne, and also from Poitou and from Bourdeaux; to none of which places he dares return, having left such a stink behind him."—If any one shall think that in the credit one is to give to this description, there ought to be some allowance made for the malice of his enemies, I have nothing to say against that.

He that writes the life of St. Bernard * says, that upon this mission, Henry fled; and lying hid for some time, but "nobody being willing to receive him, was at last taken and delivered chained to the bishop" (the Bishop of Ostia, I suppose, who was a cardinal, and the chief man of the mission); but what was done with him is not said. But of the people it is said, that "those who had erred were reduced, the wavering were satisfied, and the seducers so confuted, that they durst now here appear." [1048] And a little after this, Bernard has a letter to the people of Toulouse †, con

• Gaufrid. lib. 3, c. 5.

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+ Ad Tolosanos, Epist. 241.

gratulating their recovery from the confusion that had been among them, on account of those opinions.

Their way of preaching against the other sacrament of the Lord's Supper is thus represented by Cluniacensis*: "Your words, as near as I can learn them, are these: Oh, good people, do not believe your bishops, presbyters, and clergymen that seduce you. As they deceive you in many other things, so they do in the office of the altar; where they tell you this lie, that they do make the body of Christ, and give it you for the salvation of your souls. They lie notoriously; for the body of Christ was only once made by himself at the supper before his passion; and was once only, viz. at that time, given to his disciples: since that time it was never made by any one, nor given to any one."

As the people of this way were, from Peter Bruis, commonly called Petrobrusians, so they were, from Henry, sometimes called Henricians.

CHAPTER VIII.

ALL NA

PRESENT STATE OF THE CONTROVERSY.
TIONAL CHURCHES ARE PEDOBAPTISTS. OF THE
ANTIPÆDOBAPTISTS IN GERMANY, HOLLAND, ENG-
LAND, &c.

ALL the opinions that had any great number of abettors in the ancient times, though they may have been condemned by general councils, yet have so continued or sprung up afresh, that they have in some country or other become the general opinion. So Nestorianism, Eutychianism, &c. have each of them found some place, in which to this day they do prevail as the national constitution.

*Ad Artic. quartum.

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