PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR; AND SOLD AT NO. 84, HATTON-GARDEN, AND BY 1825. INTRODUCTION. ABOUT the middle of the fifteenth century, there arose in Bohemia and Moravia, a religious society, which assumed the name of UNITAS FRATRUM, (i. e. the Unity of the Brethren,) separated from the established church of those countries, and formed an ecclesiastical constitution, more consonant, both in doctrine and discipline, to the pattern of the church of Christ, as exhibited in the New Testament, and during the first and purest ages of Christianity, than the one which then universally prevailed in Christendom. This religious Society, though subject to many and great vicissitudes, has never become totally extinct, and still exists in the Renewed Church of the Brethren. The history of this church will form the subject of the following sheets. But before the author enters upon the principal part of his work, he deems it necessary to present his readers with a brief account of the Rise and subsequent History of the Waldenses the Propagation of the Gospel in Bohemia-the Labours and Martyrdom of John Huss, and their consequences. A knowledge of these facts will tend to throw considerable light on many subjects, to which the attention of the reader will be directed in the prosecution of the narrative. It will disclose the main spring which originated, matured, and still preserves to the Church of the Brethren much of primitive Christianity, both in doctrine and practice, in government and discipline, and gives to it, in no inconsiderable degree, its peculiar cha In order to keep these subjects distinct from the work itself, the author designs to treat of them, in separate sections, in the Introduction. SECTION I. WALDENSES-Their origin—their labours and sufferings—and their present condition. THE origin of the Waldenses and their first appearance as a regularly organized society, distinct from the great mass of professing Christians, are points involved in much uncertainty, on account of the total absence of early records on these subjects. They themselves date their origin from the age of the Apostles, asserting that they derived episcopacy from them in an uninterrupted line of succession. It appears most probable, that they had existed for a considerable time, and become pretty numerous, before they were regularly organized as a religious society, and publicly avowed their secession from the established church. At a very early period of the Christian era, when the leaven of unrighteousness began to work, by corrupting the doctrine, and introducing laxity of discipline in the church, its more pious members, both in the East and West, by degrees formed associations among themselves, for the maintenance of sound doctrine and scriptural practice. Being branded by those in power as schismatics, they were necessitated, in order to avoid persecution, to seek retirement and court obscurity. The names by which they are mentioned, in the works of ecclesiastical historians, are generally either epithets of opprobrium, given them by their enemies, or appellations derived from their real or supposed leaders. Hence it has happened, that religious sects, whose doctrinal tenets and views of church government were exactly or very nearly the same, were designated by different names in different countries, or their respective names were changed and confounded in the lapse of time. Thus the Cathari (or Puritans) in the West, who arose about the year 250, and the Paulicians in the East, who flourished in the |