number appears to signify fulness in Scripture. The thrice repeated invocation also "Holy, holy, holy." In the Gospel we find the Holy Spirit spoken of as a divine and omnipresent person.— Also the divinity and omnipresence of our Lord is insisted on"The Son of Man who is in Heaven," though at the time he was speaking to Nicodemus upon earth.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

The Epistle, 1 John iv. 7. The Gospel, St. Luke xvi. 19.

The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, like other parables of our Lord, appears to admit of a double application. The circumstance that led to it is recorded by St. Luke in his xvi. chap. at the 14th ver. There we read that the Pharisees were offended at the parable of the unjust steward, and at those deductions which our Lord drew from it as to the proper application of riches. In answer to their derision, our blessed Lord points out that what they valued themselves on, that is the ceremonial law, had now passed away with the coming of John Baptist, (the moral law, however, remaining stedfast, of which he cites a particular example,) and says that "every man presseth into" the kingdom. This he further illustrates by a parable-in this view the Rich Man and Lazarus serve to contrast the advantages of the Jews in spiritual instructions, with the destitute condition of the Gentiles. Purple and fine linen were distinguished parts of ancient dress, and used in the construction of the tabernacle. The desire of the Gentiles for knowledge is also intimated in the character of Lazarus, "desiring to be fed, &c." Death changes the scene-the Jew is found in torments, the Gentile in Abraham's bosom-(an allusion to the attitude of lying at table); our Lord elsewhere says, "ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, &c. in the kingdom, and you yourselves thrust out." This also seems to be levelled at an absurd tradition of the Jews, that Abraham prevented any circumcised person from going to hell. The concern of the Rich Man for his surviving brethren, is not easily reconciled with the hopelessness of his own condition, but may be perhaps explained by the commencement of the following Chapter, "woe unto him by whom the offence cometh," if we may suppose the Rich Man to have set his brethren a bad example, and to be now aware that their coming will render his condemnation greater. It may be observed, that this parable gives no countenance to prayer to deceased Saints, both the characters had passed into the unchangeable state, neither could Abraham grant the request made, but on the contrary, points out the Holy Scriptures as the way to obtain knowledge of Salvation.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

A VINDICATION OF THE FAITH AND ANTIQUITY OF THE VALLENSIC AND ALBIGENSIC CHURCHES.

IN REPLY TO

The Bishop of Meaux's Argument against Protestantism, on the score of its alleged defectiveness in visible Perpetuity.

BY G. S. FABER, B. D.

SECTION V.

Respecting the Antiquity of the Vallensic and Albigensic Churches. BUT it may be said: However, in all the grand essentials of Christianity, the doctrines of the Reformation fully agreed with the doctrines taught in the ALREADY existing visible church of the united Vallenses and Albigenses; still this accordance will be of little real moment, since the Vallensic church itself was of comparatively late origin, having in truth been founded by Peter Valdo of Lyons, who flourished no earlier than the twelfth century. Hence, it is evident, that Protestants can derive but small advantage from establishing their doctrinal accordance with the Vallensic church, unless they can also establish the doctrinal accordance of the Vallensic church, at its rise in the twelfth century, with some other visible church then ALREADY existing. Now, if Protestants be unable to establish this second as well as the first point, they will, in reality, by the simple establishment of the first point, merely throw back the difficulty about some four hundred years, that is to say, from the sixteenth to the twelfth century.

This difficulty, which is obviously involved in the argument propounded by the Bishop of Meaux, I shall now proceed to consider.

I. Misled, partly by an inversion of etymology, and partly by the circumstance of the expatriated Albigenses, having taken refuge in the Alpine valleys of Piedmont, Thuanus has supposed, that the church of the Vallenses or (as the word was sometimes expressed) Valdenses, was founded by Peter Valdo of Lyons, who, as I have already observed, flourished in the twelfth century.*

• Thuanus does not absolutely say, that Valdo founded the church of the Valdenses; he only says, that he communicated his name to them, which does not of necessity import that he was their founder. But his language seems to intimate, that such was his opinion; and, so far as I can understand him, he supposes, like the anonymous inquisitor cited above, that the name was first borne by Valdo's disciples at Lyons, and that by them it was carried into Piedmont.

A supposition of this description too much favoured the cause, espoused by the Bishop of Meaux, to be lightly pretermitted by him. With much eagerness, he embraces it as an undoubted verity and, by many very ingenious abstract arguments, labours to settle it upon what may be deemed a solid foundation.† The whole discussion, as conducted by the acute and learned prelate, deserves the praise of no ordinary polemical dexterity.

1. Arguments, like those of the bishop, are best answered by the naked adduction of stubborn FACTS. Having therefore the evidence of FACTS to produce, I shall not trouble myself with the superfluous task of unravelling his lordship's ingenious train of reasoning.

On the evidence then of FACTS, I assert, that the church of the Vallenses or Valdenses, could not have been founded by Peter Valdo, who flourished in the twelfth century.

(1.) The first testimony which I shall adduce, is the official testimony of an inquisitor, now or lately preserved in the public library of the University of Cambridge.

To this document I have already had occasion to refer, for the purpose of establishing the circumstance, that the remnant of the expatriated Albigenses, united themselves in the thirteenth century to their brethren the Vallenses of Piedmont: I now again refer to it for the purpose of demonstrating, that the church of the Vallenses existed long before the time of Peter Valdo, and consequently that he could not possibly have been its founder.

Valdo flourished in the twelfth century; and the junction of the two churches took place in the thirteenth century, about seventy or eighty years after the time of Valdo. Now the inquisitor, who states the circumstance of the emigration of the Albigenses from France to Savoy, describes the community to which they joined themselves, as having existed in the Piedmontese

Petrus Valdus, locuples civis Lugdunensis, anno Christi circiter MCLXX, Valdensibus nomen dedit, Is (ut monumentis testatum reliquit Vidus Perpinianus præsul Elnensis, qui quæsitoris in Valdenses munus exercuit), domo ac bonis relictis, totum se evangelicæ professioni devoverat, et prophetarum atque apostolorum scripta populari lingua vertenda curaverat-Cum jam multos sectatores exiguo tempore circa se haberet, eos tanquam discipulos, ad evangelium promulgandum, in omnes partes ablegat-Armis victi, in Provinciam apud nos et Gallicæ ditionis Alpes vicinas confugerunt, latebrasque vitæ ac doctrinæ suæ iis in locis repererunt. Thuan. Hist. lib. vi. §16. vol. i. p. 221. Thuan. Præfat. ad Henric. iv. p. 7.

Himself enlightened by the perusal of Holy Scripture, and clearly perceiving that the Bible and the church of Rome were utterly at variance, Valdo, as Thuanus remarks, was anxious that the people should have the writings of the Prophets and the Apostles in their own tongue. This attempt to circulate the Bible, that most irreconcileable enemy of Popery, seems to have produced the fourteenth canon of the council of Thoulouse, in the year 1229, which canon strictly inhibits the laity from possessing or reading the Scriptures.

Prohibemus etiam, ne libros veteris testamenti aut novi laici permittantur habere: nisi forte psalterium, vel breviarium pro divinis officiis, aut horas beatæ Mariæ, aliquis ex devotione habere velit. Labb. Concil. vol. xi. par. 1. p. 430.

I need scarcely remark, that the church of Rome is still equally characterized by a polite jealousy of the Bible.

† Hist. des Variut. Livr. xi.

valleys of the diocese of Turin, FROM A PERIOD FAR BEYOND THE MEMORY OF MAN. But, if this community had been founded by Valdo, only about seventy or eighty years before the junction of the two churches, it is clear, that the inquisitor could not have described it as reaching back to a period of deep and unknown antiquity. The testimony, therefore, of the inquisitor fully establishes the FACT, that the Vallenses had existed as a church long before the time of Peter Valdo, and consequently, that he could not have been their founder.

(2.) My next collection of testimonies respects the church of the Albigenses, prior to its juuction with that of the Vallenses; and goes distinctly to prove the FACT, that Valdo was no more the founder of the one church than he was of the other.

Valdo is said to have flourished, as an active opponent to the doctrines of Rome, from about the year 1160, to the year 1179, in which latter year he is thought to have been removed from this sublunary stage of his labours and troubles.§

Now the fourth canon of the council of Tours, which was holden in the year 1163, or precisely at the time when Valdo's exertions were commencing, expressly declares, the THEN well-known high antiquity of the Albigenses. In the parts of Thoulouse, says this canon, a damnable heresy LONG SINCE sprang up, which, gradually spreading itself like a cancer to the neighbouring places, has now infected very many persons through Gascony and other provinces.* From this declaration it inevitably follows, that the church of the Albigenses could not have been founded by Valdo; for, since the career of Valdo commenced, about the year 1160, and since the council of Tours sat in the year 1163, it was manifest, that the council could not have described the Albigenses as having sprung up LONG AGO, if their own contemporary Valdo, had himself been the acknowledged and recognized founder of that church.

If we descend a few years later, we shall still find the same unvarying testimony, borne to the high antiquity of the church of the Albigenses.

The archbishop of Narbonne, in his letter to the king of Arragon, written in the year 1213, bitterly laments the prevalence of that heretical pest; but confesses, at the same time, that it had

A tanto tempore quod non est memoria hominum. Script. Inquis. ex cod. manuscript. G. Cantab.

§ Some writers place the ministry of Valdo a little later; but I wish not to avail myself of that circumstance, however favourable it may be to my present argument, which depends upon dates. Though Thuanus makes the ministry of Valdo commence in the year 1170, or seven years after the Council of Tours, which condemns as already existing, the church said to have been founded by Valdo; I am content to adopt as my date the year 1160, which is preferred by the bishop of Meaux. See Hist. des Variat. livr. xi. §73.

• Ut cuncti Albigensium hæreticorum consortium fugiant. In partibus Tolosa, damnanda hæresis DUDUM emersit, quæ paulatim, more cancri, ad vicina loca se * diffundens, per Guasconiam et alias provincias quamplurimos jam infecit. Labb. Concil. vol. x. p. 1419.

been sown FROM REMOTE ANTIQUITY.† This prelate wrote to his royal correspondent, only thirty-four years at the utmost, perhaps less than thirty-four years after the death of Valdo: and, yet we find him ascribing a very high antiquity to a church, which was locally situated in his own immediate province, and with the familiar duration of which he could not but have been well acquainted. If the whole country knew that church to have been founded by Valdo, it is utterly impossible that such language could ever have been employed by the archbishop of Narbonne.

To the same purpose speaks also Lewis IX. of France, or, as the Romanists denominate him, Saint Lewis, in his letter to the citizens of Narbonne, written in the year 1228, or fifteen years after the date of the last cited letter of the archbishop to the king of Arragon. This canonized sovereign promises, that he will do his utmost to punish and to extirpate the heretics, who had greatly multiplied in the southern parts of France; and, in perfect accordance with the council of Tours, and the archbishop of Narbonne, he describes those heretics, as having now poured forth their venom DURING A LONG PERIOD OF TIME.

From such concurrent testimonies, nothing I think, can be more demonstratively certain, than the high antiquity of the Albigensic church, even during the ministry of Peter Valdo himself. Whence, by the very necessity of chronology, it plainly follows, that that holy man, however active and useful in his generation, could not have been its founder.

(3.) My third testimony is that of the unhappy Reinerius Saccho, once a Vallensian, afterwards an apostatic inquisitorial persecutor of his former brethren; and this testimony, which was given in the thirteenth century, subsequently to the union of the two churches in the valleys of Piedmont, relates, I apprehend, to the joint antiquity of them both.

This person, who could not but have been well acquainted with the history of his former associates, and who as an inquisitorgeneral, could have had no possible object in ascribing to them a fictitious antiquity, states expressly, that one of the three causes, which rendered the Leonists more dangerous to the church of Rome than any other sect, was THEIR MUCH HIGHER DEGREE OF ANTIQUITY.§

+ Cum enim, in partibus istis, pestis hæretica, ANTIQUITUS SEMINATA, nostris partibus usque adeo succrevisset, quod cultus divinus ibidem haberetur omnino in opprobrium et derisum ;-sapientissimè destinastis, — ut ecclesia-caput inibi coeperit revelare, et terra, DUDUM a cultoribus horum dogmatum conculta, demum divino cultui assuescat. Labb. Concil. vol. xi. par. 1. p. 86.

Et, quia hæretici LONGO TEMPORE virus suum in vestris partibus effuderunt, ecclesiam matrem nostrem multipliciter maculantes; ad ipsorum extirpationem statuimus, quod hæretici, qui a fide catholica deviant, quocunque nomine, censeantur, postquam fuerint de hæresi per episcopum loci, vel per aliam ecclesiasticam personam quæ potestatem habeat, condemnati, indilatè animadversione debita puniantur. Labb. Concil. vol. xi. par. 1. p. 423.

§ Inter omnes sectas, quæ adhuc sunt vel fuerunt, non est perniciosior ecclesiæ quam Leonistarum. Et hoc tribus de causis. Prima est, quia est Diuturnior.

Rein, adv, hær, c. iv,