Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

“The authority of the dates assigned to the Vaudois documents by Leger, he
has of course little difficulty in overthrowing; and when he censures Leger’s
use of manuscript documents as uncritical, his judgment may be admitted as
in all probability as quite just; but when he imputes to the persecuted Vaudois
minister the tricks of a literary imposter, it is not easy to repress a feeling of
indignation that such a charge should be advanced and sustained as it is by
proofs so ridiculously slender. …
… So anxious is he to make out a dishonest intention that he forgets the
possibility of honest quotation with reference to a particular point, whilst what
has no immediate bearing on that point is omitted. … The object of all this
labor to make out charges of dishonesty is to throw discredit upon every
quotation made by Vaudois historians from old Vaudois documents, and to
create a suspicion of forgery concerning the existing documents themselves.”
f647
As but one illustration of Dieckhoff’s reckless criticisms, Dr. Gilly says and
proves it true of one Vaudois writer whom he attempts to impeach:
“I think it right to re-mark that I have found proof of his credibility in several
points where his veracity has been doubted.” f648
As another illustration:
“And here it may be incidentally noticed as somewhat strange, that with
Morels’ letter before him, Dieckhoff should have represented the opinion of
the existence of the Vaudois as anterior to Valdo as a post-Reformation
tradition; for, in that letter, their high antiquity is twice asserted.”
Morels’ letter was written to Bucer and OEcolampadius in 1530. f649
But the antiquity of the Waldenses does not essentially depend — as Herzog,
Dieckhoff and some others think — on the question of literary criticism or
upon the Waldenses having been called Waldenses before Waldo’s day. Far
from it. We can omit all the argument from literary criticism in the foregoing
and concede Dieckhoff’s, Herzog’s and Todd’s criticisms and conclusions on
and from Waldensian manuscripts and yet prove the existence of Waldenses
long before the time of Waldo
(1.) The testimony of Romish writers of and near Waldo’s time clearly proves
the Waldenses existent long before that.
(2.) The testimony of Waldensian tradition proves that Waldenses existed long
before Waldo’s day. That they taught long before the Reformation period, they
had a continuous existence to or near the time of the Apostles, we have seen.
All the Romish attempts to make this out a claim which originated since the
Reformation is certainly baseless. As well deny that the traditions of such
Biblical events as the flood are of value as testimony to the facts of those