of the Pope. His Holiness, he said, ought to be a prelate only, not a prince. He exhorted the people to demand their ancient liberties, and restore the old form of government. They adopted his policy. The Pope was required to resign his temporal power. Insurrection followed. Rome was in a state of disturbance during the reigns of four successive Popes, from 1143 to 1154. Arnold was there all the time. But Pope Adrian IV. quelled the storm. He laid Rome under an interdict. The terrified inhabitants promised to expel Arnold if the Pontiff would remove it. Arnold fled. But he was taken prisoner in Tuscany, and conveyed back to Rome, where he was hanged, or, as some say, crucified. His body was burned, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber. This was in the year 1155.

The only authority for the ascription of Baptist sentiments to Arnold is Otto of Frisingen, who states in his Chronicle that Arnold was "said (dicitur) to be unsound in his views respecting the sacrament of the altar and the baptism of children."* The common histories give no support to this affirmation. Indeed, unless there has been an enormous suppression of facts, Arnold's attention was mostly confined to the points above mentioned. Bernard styles him "a flagrant schismatic." Baronius designates him "the patriarch of political heretics." But Neander . observes, "The inspiring idea of his movements was that of a holy and pure church, a renovation of the spiritual order, after the pattern of the Apostolical Church. . . . The corrupt bishops and priests were no longer bishops and priests-the secularized church was no longer the house of God. It does not appear that his opposition to the corrupt church had ever led him to advance aný such remarks as could be interpreted into heresy; for, had he done so, men would, from the first, have proceeded against him more sharply, and his opponents • Labbe and Cossart, vi, 1012.

I

who spared no pains in hunting up everything which could serve to place him in an unfavourable light, would certainly never have allowed such heretical statements of Arnold to pass unnoticed. But we must allow that the way in which Arnold stood forth against the corruptions of the Church, and especially his inclination to make the objective in the instituted order, and in the transactions of the Church, to depend on the subjective character of the men, might easily lead to still greater aberrations."*

We cannot but acknowledge the correctness of these remarks, and are disposed to think that either Arnold's opposition originally extended to other particulars besides those specified, or that his followers separated from the Church after his death. The "Arnoldists" were proscribed, with others, by Pope Lucius, A.D. 1183, and by the Emperor Frederic II., in a sanguinary edict against the various classes of heretics, issued in 1224.

We have not the means of knowing how the societies established by Peter and Henry prospered after their death. None of the names of their successors have reached us. It can only be affirmed, generally, that the work continued to advance, as may be sufficiently gathered from the proceedings of sundry Councils.

The heretics, as they were called, were very numerous at Cologne. Evervinus, Provost of Steinfeld, wrote against them in 1146, and applied to Bernard for aid, who discoursed virulently on the points in debate, and made up in railing for the lack of sound argument.

Eckbert, Abbot of St. Florin, published thirteen sermons in 1163, in which he laboured hard to fix the charge of heresy on the Cathari, who, as usual, were accused of

* History of the Church, iv. 149. See also the Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Art. “Arnold of Brescia."

Manichæism. While both he and Evervinus affirm that the Cathari generally rejected baptism altogether, substituting for it the "Consolamentum," they agree in stating that a portion of them differed from the others in that respect. They rejected infant-baptism only, on the ground that infants could not believe, and they taught that baptism should be administered to none but adults.*

The thirty "Waldenses," as they are called, who appeared in England about the year 1159, probably belonged to the same party. William of Newbury, the chronicler, charges them with "detesting holy baptism," which may be fairly understood as implying the rejection of baptism as then practised by Rome.†

In 1165 a Council was held at Lombers, for the purpose of dealing with some persons who were known by the appellation of boni homines or "good men " (whether imposed on them by others or assumed by themselves, does not appear), and who were manifestly Baptists. When asked what they thought about baptism, they answered, that they would not say, but that they would reply "from the Gospel and the Epistles," meaning that they would adduce the Scripture testimony on the subject, and maintain the necessity of abiding by the Word of God. The bishops failed to convince them of their error.

In a Bull issued by Pope Lucius III., he denounced all who held or taught any sentiments differing from those professed by the Church of Rome; and he particularly refers to baptism.§ The Baptists gave a great deal of trouble to the Papists in those days.

The terrible storm which fell upon Southern France in the Crusade against the Albigenses, doubtless swept away many of the Baptist churches, and scattered their surviving

* Biblioth. Maxima, xxiii. 601. † Labbe and Cossart, x. 1405. ‡ Ibid, 1470 1479.

Gieseler, iii. 397. See Appendix.

§ Ibid. x. 1737.

members. Notwithstanding the vigilance of the persecutors, great numbers escaped. Italy, Germany, and the Eastern countries of Europe received them.

SECTION V.

Heretics of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries-Wycliffe's Senti on Baptism -The Bohemians — Baptism among the Walden Church Government-Immersion.

HE references to heretics in the proceedings of

THE

Councils during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are comparatively few in number and very general in their character. The particular opinions held are not specified, but directions are given to exercise constant vigilance, lest heresies should creep in unawares, and magistrates are specially charged to apprehend all suspected persons, and to put in execution the laws against them, if convicted. There was no lack of zeal in that respect. The civil powers were completely under the control of the clergy, who, while they indulged their own savage propensities, and sought by such means to perpetuate the reign of ignorance and delusion, continued to evade the responsibility. They did not torture and burn the heretics! How could it be supposed that ministers of mercy would have anything to do with deeds of blood? Oh no! They only delivered them up to the secular power! The base hypocrites would have hurled the thunders of excommunication against the secular power if the heretics had been spared. They did not burn them-but they delivered them up for the purpose of being burnt! Were they not more than accessaries to the murders?

Many of the Reformers of this period inculcated truths, the legitimate consequences of which involved all, or nearly all, for which we now contend. When they argued that a Christian church should be a society of the pious, and that

Christian ordinances belonged to believers only, they had but another step to take in order to appear as full Baptists. Take Dr. Vaughan's statement of John de Wycliffe's views:

"On baptism his expressions are at times obscure; but, according to his general language, the value of a sacrament must depend wholly on the mind of the recipient, not at all on the external act performed by the priest; and, contrary to the received doctrine, he would not allow that infantsalvation was dependent on infant-baptism."* Connect with this the charge brought against him by the Council of London, in 1391, as contained in one of the "articles" extracted from his "6 Trialogus," and which was to this effect, that those who held that infants dying without baptism could not be saved, were presumptuous and foolish." Now, if Wycliffe believed that the ordinances of Christianity require faith in those who observe them, he would necessarily see the futility of infant-baptism, and the expression of even a doubt respecting the connection between infant-baptism and salvation, would be regarded in that age as equivalent to a denial of the Divine authority of the rite. That great man, however, lived and died a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. But, as we before hinted, the light he had received would have guided him into Baptist paths had he followed it fully. Probably, if he had lived in France or Germany, he would have been at the head of one of the seceding parties. His writings perpetuated the beneficial influence exerted in his life-time. It may be safely concluded that many of his immediate followers, and others who obtained possession of those writings, were induced thereby to extend their religious inquiries, and thus became more completely New-Testament Christians than he was himself. That they laboured *John de Wycliffe, D.D., A Monograph, p. 461. + Labbe and Cossart, xi. 2080.