Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

Peter de Bruis and Henry —
“But this one tenet was not the soul characteristic of the Anabaptists in which
we find the continuance or reproduction of former ideas and tendencies.” f687
Of the Waldenses, says Kurtz:
“They were most numerous in the south of France, in the east of Spain and in
the north of Italy; but many of their converts were also found in Germany, in
Switzerland, and in Bohemia. … They gradually retired from France, Spain
and Italy into the remote valleys of Piedmont and Savoy.” f688
The Anabaptists being consequently, few in Italy and France, these countries
did not have the Reformation; while Germany, Switzerland and Bohemia,
being the seats of the Anabaptists, were its origin — the Anabaptists the
continuance of the Waldenses.
“Universal Knowledge” — Chamber’s Encyclopedia — of the Waldenses,
says:
“They were subject to persecutions in 1332, 1400 and 1478 and driven into
many parts of Europe, where their industry and integrity were universally
remarked. So widely had the sect been scattered that it was said a traveler
from Antwerp to Rome could sleep every night in the house of one of their
brethren. In Bohemia many of them had settled, and they, without forsaking
their own community, had joined the Hussites, Taborites and Bohemian
brethren.” f689
The reader will please read this quotation in connection with the first part of
this article, where he will see how the Waldensians, the Bohemians, Hussites
and the Taborites were thus united.
Again, of the Anabaptists and infant baptism:
“Opposition to this doctrine was kept alive in the various so-called heretical
sects that went by the general name, Cathari (i. e., purists) such as the
Waldenses, Albigenses, etc. Shortly after the beginning of the reformation the
opposition to infant baptism appeared anew among the Anabaptists.” f690
Lemme, in his review of Keller’s: “Van Stanpitz,” discussing in a judicial way
the character of the Waldenses, says:
“In calling the pre-reformatory Waldensian churches evangelical Keller
necessarily raises the question as to their evangelical standpoint; because in
recent times it has been maintained that the Waldenses were essentially
medieval and monkish. … The classing of the apostolic life as the Waldenses
cherished it with the monkish life ideal is, as a matter of fact, not a result of
scientific investigation, but is dogmatic prepossession. … They are
evangelical … in making the Scriptures the sole authority, and with respect to