thirteenth century, existed from a period far beyond the memory of man.

It is true, that the Inquisitor imagines the name Valdenses to have been derived from the name of Peter Valdo: but then he ascribes this name, thus derived, not to the ancient Church in Piedmont, but to those of the Albigenses, who joined them→ selves to that Church when they had been expelled from the south of France by the crusaders of Simon de Montfort. In such a derivation, however, he is evinced, by chronology itself, to be mistaken. The constant opposition of the Vallenses to the Church of Rome had made them notorious, under this precise appellation, even in the earliest part of the twelfth century. Hence it is quite clear, that the name could not have been borrowed from Valdo: because, on the most liberal computation, he did not commence his Christian labours anterior to the year 11601.

1 See Arnaud's Glorious Recovery, chap. i. p. 2. edited by Mr. Acland. The truth slips out even in the Inquisitor's own account. He tells us, that the name of Valdenses was borrowed from Valdo: but then he speaks of Valdo himself having taken up his abode in the Val Grant. It was from his occasional sojourn in the Valleys of Piedmont, and from his intercourse with the ancient Vallenses, that he himself borrowed his own name: and, when once the title of le Vaudois had been given to himself, his religious associates at Lyons, who were a branch of the Albigenses, would obviously be called les Vaudois. The name, however, in the first instance, was certainly imported from the Valleys of Piedmont into the town and neighbourhood of Lyons for in those Valleys it had already existed long before the commencement of Valdo's ministry.

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 Louis IX of France, 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 canonised 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

1 Quia hæretici LONGO TEMPORE virus suum in vestris partibus effuderunt, Ecclesiam matrem nostram 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.

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.

My third testimony is that of the InquisitorGeneral Reinerius Saccho, once himself a Vallensian, and afterward an apostatic persecutor of his former brethren: and this testimony, which was given in the middle of the thirteenth century subsequent to the final union of the two Churches in the valleys of Piedmont, relates, I apprehend, to the joint antiquity of them both.

Reinerius, the apostate persecutor in question, who could not but have been well acquainted with the history of his former associates, and who as an Inquisitor-General could have had no possible object in ascribing to them a fictitious diuturnity, states expressly, that one of the three causes, which rendered the Vallenses more dangerous to the Church of Rome than any other sect, was THEIR MUCH HIGHER DEGREE OF ANTIQUITY 1.

Now Reinerius flourished not more than about seventy or eighty years after the time of Peter Valdo. Hence, both from that circumstance and from the circumstance of having been once himself a Vallensian, the renegade must have known to a cer

1 Prima est, quia EST DIUTURNIOR: aliqui enim dicunt, quod duraverit a tempore Sylvestri; aliqui, a tempore Apostolorum.. Reiner. cont. hæret. c. iv. p. 54.

tainty, whether Valdo was, or was not, the founder of the Valdensic Churches. Such being the case, if Valdo were indeed their founder, Reinerius could not possibly have described the Valdenses, as being more dangerous to the Church of Rome than any other sect on the specific ground of their higher antiquity: for it were absurd to talk of the high antiquity of a sect, an antiquity confessedly superior to that of any other known sect; if, all the while, this sect had not been in existence more than about seventy or eighty years, and if every person were fully aware that it had been founded by Peter Valdo of Lyons. Yet this is the language employed by Reinerius. Therefore, I think, it indisputably follows, that Peter Valdo could not have been the founder of the united Churches of the Vallenses and the Albigenses.

The evidence, which I have now adduced, distinctly proves, not only that the Vallenses and the Albigenses existed anterior to Peter of Lyons; but likewise that, at the time of his appearance in the latter end of the twelfth century, they were already considered as two communities of VERY HIGH ANTIQUITY, Hence it follows, that, even in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Vallensic and the Albigensic Churches were so ancient, that their remote commencement was placed, by their inquisitive enemies themselves, far BEYOND THE MEMORY OF MAN, The best-informed Romanists of that period pretended not to affix any certain date to their origination. They were unable to pitch upon any specific

time, when these venerable Churches existed not. All, that they certainly knew, was, that they had flourished long since, that they were far more ancient than any mere modern sects, that they had visibly existed from a time beyond the utmost memory of man.

This, then, is the important fact, which has now been ascertained: and its obvious consequence is, that no account or theory of the rise of the two Churches, which contradicts our well ascertained fact, can for a moment be admitted'.

Archbishop Usher thinks, that the Albigenses of France were originally a scion from the Vallenses of Piedmont: and, in support of his opinion, he adduces the authorities of Popliniere, Pilichdorf, and Thuanus; who state, as an historical fact, that the Albigenses owe their origin to the Vallenses.

This, very possibly, may be true: but, if the Albigenses, in the first instance, were a scion of the Vallenses, they must have branched out from them many ages anterior to the twelfth century; for, even in that century, they are said by the Council of Tours, to have LONG SINCE (dudum) existed in the regions of Thoulouse.

The fact is, the Vallenses and the Albigenses seem, from first to last, if we may so speak, to have been two and yet one: two witnesses bearing their testimony with one mouth (Rev. xi. 5.) and the single golden candlestick of the temple multiplying itself into two candlesticks. If, as Usher thinks, the Albigenses became a distinct Church by branching out from the Vallenses; the two finally became one, when the Albigenses, expelled from France by the crusaders in the thirteenth century, joined and were absorbed by their ancient parent Church in Piedmont. The witnesses are two: but their testimony, whether they be ecclesiastically distinct or ecclesiastically combined, is still one.