entitled to prescribe to the penitent the kind and degree of satisfaction or expiation that their transgressions required; that confession made to priests was by no means necessary, since the humble offender night acknowledge his sins and testify his repentance to any true believer, and might expect from such the counsels and admonitions that his case and circumstances de manded. They maintained, that the power of delivering sinners from the guilt and punishment of their offences, belonged to God alone; and that indulgences, of consequence, were the criminal inventions of sordid avarice. They looked upon the prayers, and other ceremonies that were instituted in behalf of the dead, as vain, useless, and absurd, and denied the existence of departed souls in an intermediate state of purification; affirming that they were immediately upon the separation from the body received into heaven, or thrust down to hell. *Though we believe that the souls of the righteous, immediately upon the separation from the body, are received into heaven, or into a state of happiness, where they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them; (Rev. 14: 13.) yet we do not believe that their happiness and felicity is so consummate and complete as it will be after the reunion of soul and body in the resurrection of the dead at the day of judgment; "For the widowed, lonely spirit, Longs to triumph in the flesh." Then, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be These, and other tenets of a like nature, composed the system of doctrine propagated by the Waldenses. Their rules of practice were extremely austere; for they adopted, as the model of their moral discipline, the sermon of Christ on the Mount, which they interpreted and explained in the most rigorous and literal manner, and of consequence prohibiting and condemnbrought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory: O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 1 Cor. 15: 54, 55-Then, when the Righteous Judge shall say to those on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; and they shall thus go into life eternal; (Matth. 25: 34, 46.) then will they bo crowned with life and immortality, with joys ineffable and full of glory, at God's right hand for ever and ever. And, We also believe, that the souls of the wicked, immediately upon the separation from the body, are thrust down to hell, or into a state of misery, where they are reserved in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day; (Jude 6.) and a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation; (Heb. 10: 27.) vet, notwithstanding, we do not believe that their misery is so great and tormenting as it will be after the re-union of soul and body, in the resurrection at the day of judgment. Then, when the Righteous Judge shall pronounce the just sentence, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his an. gels, (Matth. 25: 41.) what will then be the horror and consternation of those guilty wretches, when they are cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, and be tormented day and night for ever and ever! (Rev. 20: 10.) where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Mark 9:44. "Hark the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches! Stare through their eye-lids, while the living worm lies ing in their society all wars, and suits of law, all attempts to the acquisition of wealth, the inflicting of capital punishments, self-defence against unjust violence, and oaths of all kinds. 13. "The government of the church was committed by the Waldenses to bishops, presbyters and deacons; for they acknowledged that these three ecclesiastical orders were instituted by Christ himself. But they looked upon it as absolutely necessary that all these orders should resemble exactly the Apostles of the divine Saviour, and be, like them, illiterate, poor, destitute of all worldly possessions, and furnished⭑ with some laborious trade or vocation, in order to gain by constant industry their daily subsis; tence. The laity were divided into two classes; one of which contained the perfect, and the other the imperfect Christians. The former spontaneously divested themselves of all worldly possessions, manifested, in the wretchedness of their apparel, their excessive poverty, and emaciated their bodies by frequent fasting. The latter were less austere, and approached nearer to the method of living generally received, though they abstained, like the graver sort of anabaptists in later times, from all appearance of pomp and luxury." Dr. Mosheim's annotation to the 11th paragraph above inserted, in which he farther illustrates the origin of the Waldenses, together with the reply to that note, by his respectable trans.. lator, are very worthy of observation. They are as follows: "Certain writers give different accounts of the origin of the Waldenses, and suppose that they were so called from the valleys in which they had resided for many ages before the birth of Peter Waldus. But these writers have no authority to support this assertion-and besides this, they are refuted amply by the best historians. I do not mean to deny, that there were in the valleys of Piedmont, long before this period, a set of men who differed widely from the opinions adopted and inculcated by the church of Rome, and whose doctrine resembled, in many respects, that of the Waldenses; all that I maintain is, that the inhabitants of the valleys abovementioned are to be carefully distinguished from the Waldenses, who, according to the unanimous voice of history, were origiRally inhabitants of Lions, and derived their name from Peter Waldus, their founder and chief." To this annotation, his translator, Dr. Maclaine, replies in the following words: "We may venture to affirm the contrary with the learned Beza and other writers of note; for it seems evident from the best records, that Valdus derived his name from the Valdenses of Piedmont, whose doctrine he adopted, and who were known by the names of Vaudois and Valdenses, before he or his immediate followers existed. If the Valdenses or Waldenses had derived their name from any eminent teacher, it would probably have been from Valdo,who was remarkable for the purity of his doctrine in the ninth century, and was the contemporary and chief councellor of Berengarius. But the truth is, that they derive their name from their vallies in Piedmont, which in their language are called Vaux-hence Voidois, their true name; hence Peter, or as others call him, John of Lyons, was called in Latin Valdus, because he had adopted their doctrine; and hence the term Valdenses and Waldenses used by those who write in English or Latin, in the place of Vau-dois. The bloody inquisitor Reinerus Sacco, who exerted such a furious zeal for the destruction of the Waldenses, lived but about eighty years after Valdus of Lions, and must therefore be supposed to know whether or not he was the real founder of the Valdenses or Leonists; and. yet it is remarkable that he speaks of the Leonists, mentioned by Dr. Mosheim in the preceding page as synonymous with Waldenses, as a sect that had flourished above five hundred years; nay, mentions authors of note, who make their antiquity remount to the apostolic age.' "I know not upon what principle Dr. Mosheimmaintains, that the inhabitants of the valleys of Piedmont are to be carefully distinguished from the Waldenses. . . . When the Papists ask us where our religion was before Luther, we generally answer, In the Bible; and we answer. well. But, to gratify their taste for tra- |