Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

this independence. Thus everything contributed to its maintainence; and it
may be supposed that satisfied with the first successes obtained in the towns,
Rome thereafter paid less regard to the relics of independence which might
still subsist in the mountains. We know, however, that ancient manners and
ancient liberties have at all times been less easily eradicated from such
situations. However we are not reduced to the necessity of supporting this
idea by mere inferences, and the eighth century still presents us examples of
resistance to the pretentions of the Papal See in Upper Italy. As these
pretentions are more strongly urged we find the resistance becoming all the
more vigorous in the following centuries, and we can follow its traces quite
on to the twelfth century, when the existence of the Vaudois is no longer
doubted by any one. … But the grasping ambition of the church of Rome,
overcoming by degrees the resistance made in quarters nearest to its center of
action, forced back toward the chain of the Alps, the limits, still becoming
narrower, of that independence inherited from past ages, which had at first
opposed it over the whole of Upper Italy. This independence was defended in
the ninth century by Claude of Turin, in whom, at the same time, we behold
the most distinguished advocate of evangelical doctrines whom the age
produced. Whilst the bishop of Milan contented himself with the deploring
condition of the Roman church, by which he had been reduced to subjection,
but in whose iniquities he did not take part, the bishop Turin boldly declared
against the innovations which she had sought to long introduce into the sphere
of his influence and power. The numerous works of this prelate on different
books of the Bible, had prepared him for defending it against the attacks of
popery; and strong in the might of truth, Claude of Turin owned Jesus Christ
as the sole Head of the church, attached no value to pre-tended meritorious
works, rejected human traditions, acknowledged faith f651 alone as securing
salvation, ascribed no power to prayers made for the dead, maintained the
symbolical character of the Eucharist, and, above all, opposed with great
energy the worship of images, which he, like his predecessors, regarded as
absolute idolatry. Thus the doctrines which characterized the primitive church
and which still characterize the Vaudois church at the present day have never
remained without a witness in the countries inhabited by the Vaudois. …
Rendered distinct by her isolation their church found her own pale a separate
one for this reason only, that she herself had never changed. But as they did
not form a new church; they could not receive a new name; because they
inhabited the valleys they were called Vaudois.” f652 In his work on the
Vaudois, Bert in 1849 — a good authority — from pp. 386, 390, throws “light
upon the autonomy of the diocese of Milan, to which the Vaudois valleys at
an early period belonged,” remaining “completely independent of the Romish
church so-called.” f653
Wadington: In “the valleys of Piedmont” Waldo
“found a people of congenial spirits. They were called Vaudois or Waldenses
— (men of the valleys); and, as the preaching of Peter may probably have
confirmed their opinions and cemented their discipline, he acquired and