other times persecuted by the reigning powers. Even to the end of the seventeenth century they still existed about the valleys of Mount Hæmus. Of their religious history, during this period I can find nothing: and, in our days, they seem to have nothing more of the paulician sect than the name. I cannot follow the author, to whom I owe much for this account,* in his conjectures concerning this people's dispersion through the European provinces. Nor does there seem any good evidence of the waldenses owing their origin to the paulicians. Such speculations are too doubtful to satisfy the minds of those, who prefer solid evidence of facts to the conjectural ebullitions of a warm imagination.

On the whole, we have seen, in general, satisfactory proof of the work of divine grace in Asia Minor, commencing in the latter end of the seventh century, and extended to the former part of the ninth century. But, where secular politics begin, there the life and simplicity of vital godliness end. When the paulicians began to rebel against the established government; to return evil for evil; to † MINGLE AMONG THE HEATHEN, the mahometans; and to defend their own religion by arms, negotiations, and alliances, they ceased to become the LIGHT OF THE WORLD, and the salt of the earth. Such they had been for more than a hundred and eighty years, adorning and exemplifying the real gospel, by a life of faith, hope, and charity, and by the preservation of the truth in a patient course of suffering. They looked for true riches and honour in the world to come; and, no doubt, they are not frustrated of their hope. But, when secular maxims began to prevail among them, they shone, for a time, as heroes, and patriots in the false glare of human praise; but they lost the solidity of true honour, as all have done in all ages, who have descended from the grandeur of the passive spirit of conformity to Christ,

and have preferred to that spirit the low ambition of earthly greatness.*

CHAP. III.

The Opposition made to the Corruptions of Popery in this Century, particularly by Claudius, Bishop of Turin.

WE have seen the light of divine truth shedding its kindly influence in the east: let us now behold the reviving power of its beams in the west. We must not expect to observe it generally illuminating either of those two great divisions of the christian world, but only shining in some particular districts. The absolute power of the pope, the worship of images, and the invocation of saints and angels were opposed, as in the last century, by several princes and ecclesiastics. A council at Paris, held in the year 824, agreed with the council of Frankfort in the rejection of the decrees of the second council of Nice, and in the prohibition of image worship. Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, wrote a book against the abuse of pictures and images; in which he maintained, that we ought not to worship any image of God, except that, which is God himself, his eternal Son; and, that there is no other mediator between God and man, except Jesus Christ, both God and man. I have already observed, that the novel notion of transubstantiation was vigorously opposed by Rabanus and Scotus Erigena, the two most learned men of the west in this century; nor was that

Natalis Alexander, a voluminous French historian, and more vehemently attached to the popedom, than Frenchmen commonly are, couples the paulicians and also Claudius of Turin, of whom the reader will hear in the next chapter, with wickliffites, lutherans, and calvinists. He brands them as enemies to the adoration of the cross of Christ, which, he says, the true church always adored, "not only the genuine cross, but an effigy of it, as soon as the church obtained liberty under christian princes." Tom. v. p. 636-638. This deserves to be considered as the testimony of a learned adversary to the evangelical character of the paulicians, and of Claudius of Turin.

doctrine, as yet, established in the kingdom of antichrist. Radanus treats it as an upstart opinion: it may be proper to add, that Bertram, a monk of Corbie, being asked whether the same body, which was crucified, was received in the mouth of the faithful in the sacrament, answered, that "the difference is as great as between the pledge, and the thing for which the pledge is delivered; as great as between the representation and the reality." No protestant, at this day, could speak more explicitly the sense of the primitive church. In Italy itself, Angilbertus, bishop of Milan, refused to own the pope's supremacy, nor did the church of Milan submit to the Roman see till two hundred years afterwards.*

But these are only distant and remote evidences, that God had not forsaken his church in Europe. There want not, however, more evident demonstrations of the same thing in the life and writings of Claudius, bishop of Turin, a character worthy to be held in high estimation by all, who fear God: but so little justice, in our times, is done to godliness, that while the names of statesmen, heroes, and philosophers are in every one's mouth, the name of this great reformer has, probably, been not so much as heard of, by the generality of my readers. To me he seems to stand the first in the order of time among the reformers. Let us collect the little information concerning him, which we have been able to obtain.

Claudius was born in Spain. In his early years he was a chaplain in the court of Lewis the Meek: he was reputed to have great knowledge in the scriptures; in so much, that Lewis perceiving the ignorance of a great part of Italy, in regard to the doctrines of the gospel, says Fleury, and willing to provide the

* I have thus far, in this chapter, availed myself of the labours of bishop Newton on the prophecies, 3d vol. 151, &c. In the sequel of the chapter, I make use of the remarks of Allix on the churches of Piedmont, of the centuriators, and of Fleury, though a Roman catholic.

† Fleury, vol. v. b. 47. In this and some other matters, the testimony of a Roman catholic to the character of the first protestant reformer, is of great weight.

churches of Piedmont with one, who might stem the growing torrent of image worship, promoted Claudius to the see of Turin, about the year 817. Claudius answered the expectations of the emperor: by his writings, he copiously expounded the scriptures: by his preaching, he laboriously instructed the people; "in truth," says Fleury," he began to preach and instruct with great application." The calumnies, with which his principles were aspersed, are abundantly confuted by his commentaries on various parts of the old and new testament, still extant in manuscripts, in various French libraries. A comment on the epistle to the Galatians, is his only work which was committed to the press. In it he every where asserts the equality of all the apostles with St. Peter. And, indeed, he always owns Jesus Christ to be the only proper head of the church. He is severe against the doctrine of human merits, and of the exaltation of traditions to a height of credibility equal to that of the divine word. He maintains that we are to be saved by faith alone; holds the fallibility of the church, exposes the futility of praying for the dead, and the sinfulness of the idolatrous practices then supported by the Roman see. Such are the sentiments found in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians.

In his commentary on St. Matthew, besides an explication of the sacrament, very different from that of Paschasius, who defended transubstantiation, about sixteen years after, we meet with some pious sentiments worth transcribing. The words, "I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine, till that day that I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom," he paraphrases thus: "No longer will I delight in the carnal ceremonies of the synagogue, among which the paschal lamb was most distinguished; for the time of my resurrection is at hand; that day will come, when, placed in the kingdom of God, exalted to the glory of immortal life, I shall be filled with a new joy, together with you, on account of the salvation of the people born again from the fountain of the same

spiritual grace. What else does he mean by new wine, but the immortality of renewed bodies? By saying "with "with you," he promises them the resurrection of their bodies, that they might put on immortality. The expression, " with you," must not be referred to the same time, but to the same event of the renewal of the body. The apostle declares that we are risen with Christ, that by the expectation of the future he might bring present joy."*

In the end of his commentary on Leviticus, dedicated to the abbot Theodemir, he writes some things, which may exhibit and illustrate his cares and labours in the support of real godliness.

"The beauty of the eternal truth and wisdom, (God grant I may always have a constant will to enjoy her, for the love of whom I have undertaken this work!) doth not exclude those who come to her: she is near to all, who seek her from the ends of the earth: she instructs within, and converts those, who behold her. No man can judge of her; no man can judge well without her. We are not commanded to go to the creature, that we may be happy, but to the Creator, who alone can fill us with bliss. The will fastening itself on the unchangeable good, obtains happiness. But when the will separates itself from the unchangeable good, and seeks her own good exclusively, or directs herself to inferior or external good, she falls from God." These truths, conceived in the very taste of the bishop of Hippo, are followed by a long quotation from that father, which expressly forbids the wor ship of saints; the substance of which is thus expressed, "We must honour them, because they deserve to be imitated, not worship them with an act of religion. We envy not their bliss, because they enjoy God without molestation, but we love them the more, because we hope for something, correspondent to these their excellencies, from him, who is our God as

* This can hardly be allowed to be the whole of St. Paul's meaning, in the expression "risen with Christ;" nevertheless, the ideas of Claudius are good, so far as he goes.