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expiation that their tranfgreffions required ; the confeflioii 

 made to priefts was by no means neceflary, fince the humble 

 offender might acknowledge his fins, and teilify his repent- 

 ance to any true believer, and might expeft from fuch the 

 counfel and admonition whicli his cafe demanded. They main- 

 tained, that the power of delivering finners from the guUt 

 and punilhment of their offences belonged to God alone ; and 

 that indulgences, of confequence, were the criminal inven- 

 tions of fordid avarice. They looked upon the prayers and 

 other ceremonies that were inftituted in behalf of the dead, 

 as vain, ufelefs, and abfurd, and denied the exiftence of de- 

 parted fouls in an intermediate ftate of purification ; affirm- 

 ing, that they were immediately upon their feparation from 

 the body, received into heaven, or thrull down to hell. 

 Thefe, and other tenets of a hke nature, compofed the 

 fyftem of doftrine propagated by the Waldenfes. It is 

 alfo faid, that feveral of the Waldenfes denied the obliga- 

 tion of infant-baptifm, and that others rejecled water- 

 baptifm entirely ; but Wall has laboured to prove, that 

 infant-baptifm was generally praftifed among them. Hiil. 

 of Infant-Baptifm, p. 387, &c. 



Their rules of praftice were extremely auftere ; for they 

 adopted, as the model of their moral difcipline, the fermon 

 of Chrift in the mount, which they interpreted and explained 

 in the moft rigorous and literal manner, and, confequently, 

 prohibited and condemned in their fociety all wars, and fuits 

 of law, and all attempts towards the acquifition of wealth, 

 the inflicting of capital punilhments, felf -defence againft un- 

 juft violence, and oaths of all kinds. 



The governrfSent of the church was committed by the 

 Waldenfes to bifhops, called alfo majorales or elders, pref- 

 byters, and deacons ; for they acknowledged that thefe 

 three ecclefiaftical orders were inftituted by Chrift himfelf. 

 But they thought it abfolutely neceftary that thefe orders 

 fhould refemble the apoftles of Chrift, and be, like them, 

 unlearned, poor, and furniftied with fome laborious trade or 

 vocation, in order to gain by conftant induftry their daily 

 fubfiftence ; and indeed moft of the Waldenfes gained their 

 livelihood by weaving ; whence in fome places the whole 

 feft was called thefefi of the 'weavers. The laity were di- 

 vided into two claffes, viz. the perfeft and the imperfeft 

 Chriftians : the former diverted themfelves of all worldly 

 poftellions, manifefted in the wretchednefs of their apparel, 

 their extreme poverty, and emaciated their bodies by fre- 

 quent fafting : the latter were lefs auftere, and approached 

 nearer to the method of living generally received, though 

 they abftained from all appearance of pomp and luxury. 



The Waldenfes were not without inteftine divifions ; for 

 fuch of them as lived in Italy differed confiderably in opi- 

 nion from thofe who dwelt in France, and the other Euro- 

 pean nations. The former confidered the church of Rome 

 as the church of Chrift, though much corrupted ; they ac- 

 knowledged, moreover, the vahdity of its feven facraments, 

 and folemnly declared they would continue always in com- 

 munion with it, provided that they might be allowed to live 

 as they thought proper, without moleftation or reftraint. 

 The latter affirmed, on the contrary, that the church of 

 Rome had apoftatized from Chrift, was deprived of the 

 Holy Spirit, and was in reality, that whore of Babylon men- 

 tioned in the Revelation of St. John. They were alfo di- 

 vided in their fentiments concerning the poffeffion of worldlv 

 goods. In the fourteenth century, the Waldenfes, though 

 they were every where expofed to the fury of the inquifitors 

 and monks, baffled all the attempts that were made to ex- 

 tirpate them. Many of them fted out of Italy, France, 

 and Germany, into Bohemia, and other adjacent countries, 

 where they afterwards aflbciated with the HufTites, and 



lO 



other feparatifts from the church of Rome. In the fifteenth 

 century they fubfifted in feveral European provinces, more 

 efpecially in Pomerania, Brandenburg, the diftrift of Mag- 

 deburg, and Thuringia, where they had a confiderable num- 

 ber of friends and followers ; though, it is faid, that many 

 adherents of this feft, in the countries now mentioned, were 

 difcovered by the inquifitors, and delivered over by them to 

 the civil magiftrates, who committed them to the flames. 

 After the Reformation, in the fixteenth century, the de- 

 fcendants of the Waldenfes, who lived ftiut up in the valleys 

 of Piedmont, were naturally led, by their iituation in the 

 neighbourhood of the French, and of the republic of Ge- 

 neva, to embrace the doftrines and rites of the reformed 

 church. So far down, however, as the year 1630, they re- 

 tained a confiderable part of their ancient difciphne and 

 tenets ; but being much reduced by the plague in that year, 

 and deprived of many of their clergy, they applied to the 

 French churches for fpiritual fuccour ; and the new teachers, 

 fent from tlience, introduced feveral changes into the difci- 

 phne and doftrine of the Waldenfes, and rendered them 

 conformable, in every refpedl, to thofe of the Proteftant 

 churches in France. In this century they fuffered much 

 from the perfecution of Philibert Emanuel, duke of Savoy, 

 who at the folicitation of the pope refolved to force his 

 fubjedls to return to the communion of the church of Rome ; 

 and in 1561 fent a Dominican friar, as an inquifitor, with 

 forces to effeft his purpofe. After ineffeftual fupplications, 

 they took up arms, and fo far prevailed, after enduring very 

 fevere diftrefs, as to obtain fome degree of liberty and 

 peace. 



During the greateft part of the feventeenth century, thofe 

 of them who lived in the valleys of Piedmont, and who had 

 embraced the doftrine, difcipline, and worftiip of the church 

 of Geneva, were oppreffed and perfecuted, in the moft bar- 

 barous and inhuman manner, by the minifters of Rome. 

 This perfecution was carried on with peculiar marks of 

 rage and enormity in the years 1655, 1656, and 1696, and 

 feemed to portend nothing lefs than the total extinction of 

 that unhappy nation. The moft horrid fcenes of violence 

 and bloodlhed were exhibited in this theatre of papal ty- 

 ranny ; and the few Waldenfes that furvived, were indebted 

 for their exiftence and fupport to the interceffion made for 

 them by the Englilh and Dutch governments, and alfo by 

 the Swifs cantons, who folicited the clemency of the duke 

 of Savoy in their behalf. Moflieim's Eccl. Hift. vol. ii. 

 iii. iv. Eng. ed. 8vo. Dupin's Eccl. Hift. of the Six- 

 teenth Century, vol. ii. p. 414. 



VAUDREVANGE, in Geography, a town of France, 

 in the department of the Meurte, on the Sarre ; formerly 

 a confiderable town, but ruined by the wars in Lorraine ; 

 3 miles N. of Sar-Louis. 



VAUDREUIL, a town of France,' in the department 

 of the Eure. In 1 195, the king of France befieged it, 

 and Richard I. king of England, advancing to its relief, a 

 battle enfued, in which the latter had the viftory. Vau- 

 dreuil had formerly a royal palace ; 4 miles N. of Louv.ers. 



VAUGELAS, in Biography. See C/aude Favre. 



VAUGIRARD, in Geography, a town of France, in 

 the department of Paris ; 2 miles S.W. of Paris. 



VAUGNERAY, a town of France, in the department 

 of the Rhone and Loire ; 8 miles W.S.W. of I^yOHS. 



VAULT, Fornix, in jlrchiteSure, an arched roof, fo 

 contrived, as that the feveral ftones of which it confifts, do, 

 by their difpofition, fuftain each other. 



Vaults are to be preferred, on many occafions, to foffits, 

 or flat ceihngs, as they give a greater rife and elevation ; 

 and, befides, are more firm and durable. 



The 



