VII. the Albigenses. But for the main body of Wal- CHAP. denses there is no probability at all. the apo VI. And now, thirdly, that there were several Year after sects or sectaries of them that did not deny the bap-sties tism of infants, is proved from this; that a great many writers against them, diligently reciting the erroneous opinions of those they write against, and that often in smaller matters, yet mention nothing of this. Lucas Tudensis writes largely against the Albi-1136. genses that were then in Spain: but among all the accusations of them, true or false, has nothing of this. Petrus de Pilichdorf (in the year 1395, as 1295. Le himself gives the date, cap. 30.) writes a book of confutation of the several pretended errors of the Waldenses of his time in thirty-six chapters, but Las nothing of baptism; though he descends to speak of many lesser matters, and aggravates all with very railing words, yet he finds nothing to aecuse them of, but such things as the protestants now hold, except one or two, as the unlawfulness of · all oaths,' &c. Eneas Sylvius wrote in 1458 his 1358. Historis Bohemica, in which he reckons up the tenets of the Picards, a sort of these men. But f be mentions no difference they had with the then established church about infant baptism, save that they spoke against chrism, &c. And Foxe, reciting their tenets out of him, mentions only this, that [See his work in four books, in vol. 13 of the Bibliotheca Patrum. Cologne edition, 1618.] See this in the same volume of the above-named eollection] Sect. 15, 16, p. Sc. f Ussher de Success. Eccles. cap. 6. edit. 1687 Baxter, More Proofs, &c. p. 380. CHAP. VII. Year after the apostles. 1400. baptism ought to be administered with pure water, ' without any hallowed oil.' Nauclerus also in his Chronicon, written 1500, recites their doctrines particularly, and mentions no such thing as the denial of infant-baptism; yet he also takes notice of so small a matter, as that they affirmed water to be sufficient without oil. There are in Gretzer's Collection of pieces written against the Waldenses, six treatises in all (beside Reinerius and Pilichdorf mentioned already) reckoning up their heretodox opinions; but not one word of this. One of them is a direction to the inquisitors, in the examining of these men, how to discover and convict them; for it seems they kept their opinions very close; whereas if they had not baptized their children, nothing would have been a more ready conviction. The Magdeburgenses i have a catalogue of their opinions, taken as they say out of a very old manuscript; and 1360. nothing of this. Bishop Ussher quotes also Jacob 1395. Picolominæus, Antonius Bonfinius, Bernardus Lutzenburgensis, and several others treating of these sorts of men, who object nothing of this. VII. I have, more than ever I meant to do, troubled myself in inquiring into the history of these men; and all that I can make of the inquiry is this: First, there were a great many among them that really held the impious opinion of the Manichees : 8 [See Johannis Naucleri Chronica, fol. Coloniæ, 1579. vol. ii. Generat. 47. p. 1033.] Vol. ii. part ii. p. 265. Bibl. Patrum, tom. xiii. edit. Colon. 1618. i Cent. 12. cap. 8. p. 12c6. [tom. vii. edit. Basil. 1569.] k De Success. Eccles. cap. 6. p. 155. Item, p. 306, &c. [p. 80. et 149, edit. fol. 1687.] VIL Year after the apo some of this sect were in these countries before the CHAP. Waldenses, whom the protestants own for predecessors, arose or were taken notice of; which was after the year 1100. These, all of them, denied all stles." water baptism. So the Quakers may claim kindred of them if they please; but no baptist, whether pædobaptist or antipædobaptist, can. They had an invention of their own, which they used instead of the Christian baptism, and which they called spiritual baptism: and they said', 'by it forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit was given. It con*tained in it imposition of their hands, and the say'ing of the Lord's Prayer. Only one sect of them, the Albanenses, said the hand did no good; being, as all other flesh is, created by the Devil. So they used the prayer only.' These men were thus far on the antipædobaptists' side, that this mock-baptism of theirs they gave to the adult only. And they derided the Christians for two things: one, that they used baptism with water at all; and the other, that they gave it to persons that had no sense of it, viz. infants. And this, for ought I know, might be all the ground of the Waldenses (who by the first writers are not well distinguished from these men) being accused of denying infant-baptism. This sort of men continued a considerable time. Reinerius says, in his time there was not above 11544000 in all the world that were Cathari, quite pure or perfect of both sexes; but of Credentes (so they called their disciples that were not yet per'fect) an innumerable multitude.' CHAP. VII. Though the authors do not well distinguish the names, yet most generally this sort, that denied all Year after baptism, and held the other vile opinions, are denoted by these names, Cathari, Apostolici, Luciferians, Runcarians, Popelicans, alias Publicans. the apo stles. 2. There were another sort that held none of those impious tenets of the Manichees, concerning two Gods, &c. But they joined with the other in inveighing against the church of Rome, which in these times began to be very corrupt. And the papists do sometimes confound these with the other, and affix to these some of the opinions of the other. If any of these that owned water-baptism denied it to infants, and if Petrus Cluniacensis did not mistake their opinion upon the occasion aforesaid, it was the Petrobrusians, otherwise called Henricians. What Reinerius says of the Lyonists is very general and obscure: and of the others no such thing is said. Especially this is constant; that no one author that calls the people he writes of Waldenses, does impute to them the denial of infantbaptism. 3. If there were any such, they seem not to have continued long, but to have dwindled away or come over to those that practised infant-baptism; for none of the later writers concerning these men do charge them with any thing of this. This the reader will observe, if he mind the date of the year which I have affixed to each writer. And it is a manifest sign that either none of those whom we now denote by the name Waldenses, that owned water-baptism, held any thing against infant-baptism; but that the elder writers imputed it to them VII. the apo upon the mistake aforesaid of taking the Mani- CHAP. chees' opinions for theirs; or upon vulgar reports, which by this time appeared to be false: or else, year after that if there had been formerly any such sects in stles. that great variety, they were by this time extinguished. Pilichdorf writes against them under the name of Waldenses. Reinerius does but once just mention that name, as denoting one sect: one cannot tell which. But Pilichdorf entitles his book Against the Sect of the Waldenses, and calls them at every word Waldensian heretics; but ascribes no opinion to them that deserves that name, nor any error at all about baptism. He is the only man of their adversaries, who though he give them ill language, yet charges them with no particular opinion (or no material one) but what they themselves own in their confessions. He wrote, as I said, anno 1395, 1295. by which time their opinions must be justly and distinctly known. If they had formerly been mistaken to be of the same opinion with those Manichean sects, they had now had time to clear themselves from that imputation. And so we find by his words they did; for he says", the Waldenses 'do 'dislike and even loathe the Runcarians, Beghards, and Luciferians.' And they seem by his description to have been in the same state of religion that they were found in 130 years after by the pro-1425. testants. And he also supposes that from their beginning they had been free from any false doctrine about the sacraments; for in his first chapter he speaks of their original: that it was from one Peter Wal n Cap. 12. |