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After the late interesting publications of Allix, Jones, Gilly, Acland, and other writers, it may appear at the present time somewhat presumptuous, as well as unnecessary, to lay before the public any further details connected with the history of these excellent and primitive Christians; but as some of the Vaudois manuscripts and works are very scarce, and but little known in England, more particularly those of Peyran, Henri Arnaud, and Bresse, it may be desirable (even under the certainty of many repetitions) to give some short extracts from these curious documents, if only with the view and under the hope of keeping alive in the breasts of the people of this favoured isle that charitable zeal, which has again manifested itself, and is of such vital importance to the political and religious welfare of our noble though impoverished protestant brethren.

As the Valdenses most evidently are a part of the dispersed flock of the original Church of Christ, it becomes a matter of the highest interest to trace out their history from the earliest periods, and to observe how sedulously under the severest persecutions they have not only upheld their faith in its own purity and truth, but how gloriously they have continued to resist the growing corruptions of the Romish faith.

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.

251 A.D. 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.

604 On the death of Pope Gregory, Boniface III. styled himself "universal Bishop," and the worship of images became general; but long before this period, in the fourth century, Socrates the historian speaks of the Novations having churches at Constantinople, Nice, Nicomedia, and Coticæus in Phrygia, &c. as well as a church at Carthage, the doctrines and discipline of which, we find that Dionysius, Bishop of' Alexandria, and Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, approved of.

660 Some persons have supposed that the Valdenses have derived their name from Petro Valdo, but Reinerius Sacco, an inquisitor who lived 80 years after Valdo of Lyons, admits that they flourished 500 years before the time of this celebrated reformer, i.e. about the year 660. Some of these Valdenses, like the Novations, we find called Puritans, or Gathari; when Paulinus, Bishop of Aquilæia, and other Italian Bishops, condemned the decrees of the second Council of Nice, which had confirmed image worship.

817 Claude, Bishop of Turin, (and of the Vallies of Piedmont inhabited by the Valdenses,) was zealous against this idolatrous practice, and bears witness that the gospel was preserved amongst these mountaineers in its native purity and glorious light. Genebrand and Rorenco (Roman Catholic writers) have owned that the Patarines* and inhabitants of Piedmont preserved the opinions of Claude during the ninth and tenth centuries.

* Patarines, so called from Pataria, a place near Milan,

where those Vaudois who took part with the Bishop of Milan

against the Roman Pontiff, Nicholas II., held communion

together. See the Sermon of Archbishop Wake, preached for

the relief of the Vaudois, A.D. 1669, at St. James's

Westminster.

1026 Thus before 1026, and 500 years previous to our own reformation, says Dr. Allix, we discover a body of men called Patarines, Valdenses, or Cathari, whose belief was contrary to the doctrines of the See of Rome. In 1040, the Patarines were very numerous at Milan, (Voltaire speaks of them in his General History, 1100 chap. 69.) In 1100, the Valdenses became well known by the "Noble Leycon," and another work, entitled "Qual Cosa Sia l'Antichrist."

1140 A little before this year, Everrinus (of Stamfield, diocese of Cologne) addressed a letter to the famous St. Bernard, in which is the following passage:—"There have lately been some heretics amongst us, but they were seized by the people in their zeal and burnt to death, these people in Germany are called Cathari; in Flanders, Piphles; and in France, Tisserands." Towards the middle of the twelfth century, a small body of these Valdenses, called Puritans and Paulicians, came from Germany, and 1159 were persecuted in England. Some being burnt at Oxford, Gerard their teacher answered for them, that they were Christians, but Henry the Second ordered them in 1166 to be branded with an hot iron, and whipped through the streets. Thirteen Valdensian families had certainly emigrated to England about this period.

1178 Gretzer the Jesuit (who published the book of Reinerius) admits that the Toulousians and Albigenses condemned in 1178 were no other 1181 than the Valdenses. In the decree of Pope Lucius III. against them, they are called Catharists, Josephists, and Heretics. Another decree was made against them in 1194, by Ildefonsus, King of Arragon: and Bale, in his old Chronicle of London, mentions "one 1210 burnt to death tainted with the faith of the Valdenses."

1215 Council of Lateran against Heretics.

1230 to 1350 Supressio in France

1240 Some further territory in Piedmont was about this time purchased and paid for by the Valdenses, to the amount of 6000 ducatoons.

1259 The Patarine Church of Albi (in France) whence these Vaudois were called Albigenses, consisted of 500 members, that of Concorezzo more than 1500, and of Bagnolo 200. The Bishop of Vercelli complained much of these people, whom he denominated Cathari and Patarines. The English, at the time they had possession of Guienne (in 1210), began to help the Valdenses, who stood forth to defend their faith, headed by Walter and Raymond Lollard.

1322 According to Clark's Martyrology (page 111), we find Walter was burnt at Cologne in 1322: which was two years before the birth of Wickliffe. A cotemporary historian says, that "in a few years half the people of England became Lollards." And Newton, in his Dissertation on the Prophecies, (1 vol. 4to. page 631,) says, "part of the Wal-denses took refuge in Britain." Even Theo. Beza says, "as for the Valdenses, I may be permitted to call them the seed of the primitive and pure Christian church."

1400 In 1400 began the first severe persecution against the Vaudois, on account of their faith, which may be found related by Bresse, together with their subsequent misfortunes, down to the era of the treaty of Pignerolo in 1655, the most interesting details of which history are translated and abridged in another part of this work.

1685 The Duke of Savoy, at the instigation of Louis XIVth, revoked his promises, and the following year condemned 14,000 Vaudois to the prisons of Turin, the rest either fled or became Catholics. By the intercessions of the Protestant countries, these miserable prisoners were released, but their numbers by hardships and cruelty were reduced to 3000, who took refuge in Switzerland and 1687 elsewhere, in 1687; from whence a part of them effected that intrepid return into their own Vallies, so well described by their Colonel and Pastor, Henri Arnaud, in "La Rentree Glorieuse" of 1689.

1698 Eight years after they were again exiled to the number of 3000, in consequence of an article in the treaty between France and Savoyin 1698: these were the same who with the veteran Arnaud amongst them, took refuge in Germany, and were solemnly received as subjects to the Duke of Wirtemberg, with the promise of the free exercise of their religion for ever.

1797 The pension from England, which had been granted by Cromwell, and confirmed by Queen Anne, was this year discontinued.

1799 A body of Vaudois from Wirtemberg emigrated to America, and joined those 1600, who, in Arnaud's time, had settled near Philadelphia.

1800 Piedmont fell under the yoke of France.

1814 The King of Sardinia restored to his throne, refused to grant any privileges to the Vaudois beyond those they enjoyed before the French revolution.

1825 Present state of the Vaudois, as described in the Letters now published, &c.