ing of women, strangers, holy places and persons, vestments, salt and water. They look upon the church built of stone to be no better than a common barn, neither do they believe that God dwells there, quoting Acts vii. 48. "God doth not dwell in temples made with hands”—and that prayers offered up in them are of no more efficacy than those which we offer up in our closets, according to Matt. vi. 6. "But thou when thou prayest, enter into thy closet." They set no value on the dedication of churches, and call the ornaments of the altar" the sin of the church," saying, that it would be much better to clothe the poor than to decorate walls. Of the altar they say, that it is wastefulness to let so much cloth lie rotting upon the stones; and that Christ never gave to his disciples vests, or rockets, or mitres. They celebrate the eucharist in their household cups, and say that the corporal, or cloth on which the host is laid, is no holier than the cloth of their breeches. Concerning lights used in the church, they say that God, who is the true light, stands in no need of light, and that it can have no further use than to hinder the priests from stumbling in the dark. They reject all censings; estimating holy water no better than common water. The images and pictures in the church they pronounce to be idolatrous. They mock at the singing [chanting] in churches, saying that the efficacy is in the words and not in the music. They deride the cries of the laymen, and reject all festival processions, as those of Easter, as well as mournful processions at Rogation week and at funerals. They laugh at the custom of bringing sick persons on a bench before the altar.. They dissuade people from going on a pilgrimage to Rome, and other places beyond sea, though they themselves pretend to go on pilgrimage, whereas it is only with a design to visit their bishops who live in Lombardy. They express no value for the Lord's sepulchre, nor for those of the saints, and condemn the burying in churches, which they found on Matth. xxiii. 29. "Woe unto you scribes and phari sees, because ye build the tombs," &c. and would prefer burying in the field to the church-yard, were they not afraid of the church. They maintain that the offices for the dead, masses for the deceased, offerings, funeral pomps, last wills, legacies, visiting of graves, the reading of vigils, anniversary masses, and similar suffrages, are of no avail, to departed souls. They condemn watching with the dead by night, because of the folly and wickedness which are practised on those occasions. They hold all these errors because they deny purgatory, saying that there are only two ways, the one of the elect to heaven, the other of the damned to hell, according to Eccles. xi. 3. "Which way soever the tree falleth, there it must lie." They contend that a good man stands in no need of any intercessions, and that they cannot profit those that are wicked-That all sins are mortal, and none of them venial-That once praying in the words of the Lord's prayer is of more efficacy than the ringing of ten bells, yea, than the mass itself. They think that all swearing is sinful, because Christ says, Matt. v. 34. "Swear not at all, but let your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay." They are against punishing malefactors with death, which they found on Rom. xii. 19. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay it, saith the Lord."*-Thus far the testimony of this inquisitor; to which I shall now subjoin the short account which the celebrated Æneas Sylvius gives of the Waldenses of Bohemia, in his history of that Kingdom. They hold, says he, that the Pope of Rome is not superior to bishops, and that there is no difference (as to rank or dignity) among priests-That priesthood itself is not a dignity, for that grace and virtue only give the preference That the souls of the deceased are either immediately * Hist. Script. Bohem. p. 222. et seq. in Dr. Allix's Remarks, p. 211 -219. plunged into hell, or advanced to eternal joys [in heaven.] -That there is no purgatory fire-that it is a vain thing to pray for the dead, and merely an invention of priestly covetousness-That the images of God and of the saints ought to be destroyed That the blessing of water and palm branches is ridiculous-That the religion of the Mendicants [begging Friars] was invented by evil spirits-That priests ought to be poor, and content themselves with alms -That every one has liberty to preach [or instruct.]—No capital sin ought to be tolerated under pretence of avoiding a greater evil-That he who is guilty of mortal sin, ought not to enjoy any ecclesiastical dignity-That the confirmation which is celebrated with anointing and extreme unction, is none of the sacraments of the church of Christ That auricular confession is a piece of foppery -that every one ought, in his closet, to confess his sins to God-That baptism ought to be administered without the addition of holy oil-That the use of church yards is vain, and nothing but a covetous invention, and that it signifies nothing in what ground the bodies of the dead are laid— That the temple of the great God is the universe, and that to build churches, monasteries, and oratories to him, under the supposition that the divine goodness could be more favorably found in them than in other places, is a limiting the divine majesty-That the priestly vestments, altar, ornaments palls, corporals, chalices, patins, and other vessels, are of no efficacy-That it is vain to implore the suffrages of the saints reigning with Christ in heaven, because they cannot help us―That it is to no purpose to spend one's time in singing and saying the canonical hours-That we are to cease from working on no day except the Lord's day -That the holidays of saints are to be rejected, and that there is no merit in observing the fasts instituted by the church.* * Hist. Bohem. p. 141. ubi supra. CLAUDIUS SEISSELIUS, was archbishop of Turin, towards the close of the fifteenth century, a little before the time of the reformation, and wrote a treatise against the Waldenses. His residence in the very heart of the vallies of Piedmont must have furnished him with the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with the principles and practices of his non-conformist neighbours, and he has transmitted to posterity a narrative sufficiently circumstantial and explicit to enable any impartial person to form a tolerably correct judgment of them. His testimony is, therefore, of too much importance to be omitted; but I must entreat the reader to bear in mind that it is the testimony of an adversary, whose papal zeal he will perceive to blaze forth against them occasionally with no little fury. Alluding to the churches of the Waldenses in Piedmont, and those scattered throughout the diocese of Italy, he tells us, that the most cruel persecutions had not been able to extirpate them, or hinder them from a constant defence of that doctrine which they had received from their ancestors. "All sorts of people,” says he, “have repeatedly endeavoured, but in vain, to root them out; for even yet, contrary to the opinion of all men, they still remain conquerors, or at least wholly invincible." He then proceeds thus to describe them. "The Pope of Rome, and the rest of the prelates and priests of that church," these Waldenses affirm, "neither follow the life nor the precepts of Christ, but do quite the contrary; and that not only in secret but so openly and manifestly that it can no longer be disguised, because they chiefly value themselves on things that are contrary to religion, and not only contemn but even mock at the precepts of the Apostles. The latter lived in great poverty, humility, chastity, continence as to carnal things, and contempt of the world; whereas we prelates and priests live in great pomp, luxuriousness, and dissoluteness. We think it a brave thing to excel in royal power rather than in sacerdotal sanctity; and all our endeavours and studies tend only to the acquisition of glory amongst men, not by means of virtue, holiness, and learning, but by the abundance of all [temporal] things; by arms and warlike magnificence, and by vast expence in equipage, furniture of horses, gold, and other things of that nature. The apostles would not possess any thing as their own, neither would they receive any into their society who had not forsaken all and laid it in common: whereas we, not contented with what we already possess, fish for other people's goods more greedily and impudently than heathens themselves. Hence it is that we make wars, and incite Christian princes and people to take up arms. The apostles travelling through towns and villages, and sowing the word of God with power, exercised many other offices of charity, according to the several gifts they had received: whereas we, not only do nothing like this, and give no good examples of holy conversation, but on the contrary frequently resist and oppose those that do, thus opening the way to all manner of dissoluteness and avarice. They, as it were, against their wills and with reluctance, by the divine command or inspiration of God, received ordination to promote the salvation of others: whereas we buy benefices and preferments for money, or procure them by force, or through the favor of princes and other indirect means, merely to satiate our lusts, to enrich our relations, and for the sake of worldly glory. Moreover, they spent their lives in manifold fastings, watchings, and labours, terrified neither by trouble nor danger, that they might show to others the way of salvation: whereas we pass our time in idleness, in pleasures, and other earthly or wicked things. They, despising gold and silver, as they had freely received the divine grace, so they freely dispensed it to others; whereas we set all holy things to sale, and barter with the |