(Heb. 11:32-38) "Of whom the world was not worthy..."

VIII. The Paulicians.

A. The Paulicians

1. About the year 653 A. D., a body of religious dissenters came into notice in Armenia, under the name of Paulicians.

> A man by the name of Constantine resided in the city of Mananalis, in Armenia.

> A prisoner among the Saracens, in Syria, having obtained his release, was returning home through this city, and stopped several days at the home of Constantine.

2. He had with him the manuscripts of the four gospels, and the epistles of Paul, which he gave to Constantine to requite his hospitality.

> It appears that this strange visitor was a member and deacon of a Christian church.

> From the time that Constantine became acquainted with these sacred writings he would study no other books, and soon became a teacher of the doctrine of Christ and his apostles.

3. He became very attached to the writings of Paul, and advocated the doctrine of that inspired apostle with burning zeal.

> Those who gathered about him, and were formed into churches, obtained the name of Paulicians from the doctrine advocated by this influential preacher.

4. The distinctive character of the doctrine of the Paulicians:

<1> The rejection of the worship of the Virgin Mary, the saints, and the cross.

<2> The denial of the material presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

<3> The assertion of a right freely to search the scriptures.

5. The writings and lives of their eminent ministers were totally lost, having been destroyed by their enemies, the Catholics, who persecuted them as heretics.

> The body of Christians in Armenia joined in with the Paulicians, and their influence spread with remarkable success.

> It is said that their principles were propagated even in Rome.

> Churches were formed by them upon the plan and model of the apostolic churches.

6. The Catholic party became alarmed at their progress, and tried by bitter and virulent arguments to get them to abandon their principles.

> Failing in this, the Greek Emperor began to persecute them with great severity.

7. Simeon, a Greek officer, placed Sylvanus (Constantine) before a line of his followers, and commanded them to stone him to death.

> All that would stone him would be pardoned.

> Only one among the number could be found who would sling a stone at their spiritual instructor.

> All the rest turned away while the stones dropped from their hands.

8. This same Simeon was struck with astonishment at the readiness with which the Paulicians could die for their religion.

> This led him to examine their arguments, and he became convinced that they were right.

> He renounced his honors and fortune, and in the year 692 became a zealous preacher, the successor of Constantine Sylvanus.

> He too became a martyr, and sealed his testimony with his own blood.

B. During the greater part of the eighth century the Paulicians were severely persecuted by Rome.

1. Capital punishment was inflicted upon such as refused to return to the bosom of the "church."

> The sentence for disobedience to the catholic party (as it was called) was death.

> But, most were first tortured to try to get them to renounce their faith.

2. In 845, the Empress Theodora passed severe decrees against them, which were executed with unsurpassed cruelty.

> It is said that one hundred thousand of them were put to death during her reign.

3. It is very strange that Protestant historians, who denounce the Roman Catholic Church as being manifestly anti-christ...

> And who teach that there have always been those who dissented from her evil practices SINCE THE SECOND CENTURY...

> Still trace the history of the church of Christ through her line of descent. ???

> They admit the existence of these dissenters, but still teach that all current faiths came out of the Roman church!

4. By this claim, they proclaim her to be the church of Christ from the time of the first division down to the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

> The question arises at once, Why do they thus plunge into the absurdity of self-contradiction?

> The answer is that they themselves came out of the very evil they speak of, while the dissenting party is none other than the Ana-Baptists.

> If this is true then the Baptists are the true successors of the apostolic church.

> Therefore, they choose to contradict themselves, rather than admit the just claims of the Baptist Historians.

 

IX. Peter de Bruys, Henry of Toulouse, and Arnold of Brescia.

A. PETER DE BRUYS.

1. The darkness of the preceding centuries became still deeper in the twelfth.

> The Catholic church continued going farther and farther away from the faith of the apostles.

> In the twelfth century they were plunging into the grossest errors in doctrine and practice.

2. Prominent among those who protested against the corruptions of the Catholics was Peter de Bruys, who made his appearance about 1110.

> His followers, who became quite numerous during the twenty years of his ministry, were called Petrobrussians.

3. Peter de Bruys first raised his voice in the Province of Dauphine in southwestern France.

> The Catholic clergy becoming aroused and alarmed at his success.

> By their influence he and his followers were expelled from that province.

4. He visited other provinces and kingdoms, and was readily received by the mountaineers.

> The country people and the inhabitants of towns, especially Toulouse, rallied about the standard upheld by him.

> His sentiments are not fully known, but historians agree that he taught that the "ordinance of baptism was to be administered to adults only.

> SOMETHING THAT I AM LOOKING INTO!

5. He taught that the crucifixes are objects of superstition, and ought to be destroyed.

> That, in the Lord's supper, the elements only represented in the way of symbol the real body and blood of Christ.

> And that the oblations, prayers, and good works of the living, can in no way be beneficial to the dead.

6. At this time the Catholics were expending much labor and money in erecting fine church temples and gorgeously decorating them, supposing such sacrifices of time and means would be rewarded by the gift of paradise.

> Peter zealously protested against this extravagant folly, contending that God was to be worshiped from a pure heart, and not by mere outward display.

7. The worship of crosses or crucifixes was denounced by him in the most emphatic terms.

> He taught that they were objects of superstition.

> So great was his hatred of such practices, that one day he made a great bonfire of all the crosses he could collect.

> On another day, he cooked meat on "Good Friday," distributing it to the congregation, in defiance of the Catholic custom to eat no meat on that day.

8. He was burned to death at St. Giles in France, about the year 1130, "by an enraged populace, instigated by the clergy of the Catholic church."

> And thus sealed his testimony in his own blood.

 

B. HENRY OF TOULOUSE.

1. About the year 1125 Peter de Bruys was joined by an eloquent fellow-laborer, Henry of Toulouse.

> This zealous preacher had lived the life of a hermit.

> In the beautiful city of Lusanne he had learned the simple truths of the gospel.

2. He gave up his idleness as a hermit, and put on the armor and toil of an ambassador of Christ.

> To the dwellers in the valleys of the Alps he expounded the word of God with burning zeal.

> Passing across the mountains he carried the glad tidings to beautiful, yet darkened France.

> He was banished from several cities of France, including Mans, Poictiers, and Bordeaux.

> He left with the utmost acceptance of the people.

3. In the quaint old city of Toulouse, where four thousand martyrs were burned in a century, the hermit hero, Henry, raised his voice against the corrupt practices of the Catholic church.

> The clergy woke to the danger of their craft, and Henry was driven from Toulouse.

> He fled to the mountains, was pursued, captured, and brought before a council at Rheims, which was presided over by the Pope.

4. This was in 1158. Henry was condemned, sent to a dungeon, and left there to die.

> His followers were called Henricians.

> Amid the darkness of those times this great man preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, and against the corruption of the catholic party.

C. ARNOLD OF BRESCIA.

1. A contemporary of Peter de Bruys and Henry of Toulouse was the Italian, Arnold of Brescia, Italy.

> In early life he traveled from Italy into France, and there became a pupil of the celebrated Abelard.

> Here he first heard, understood, and received into his heart the light of the gospel.

2. Returning to his native city he began preaching the gospel with great power.

> The people were melted and roused beneath his fiery appeals.

> The Catholic clergy became alarmed at his success, and condemned him to perpetual silence in the year 1139.

3. He at once fled to the wilderness, and in the valley of the Alps found shelter among people of like views.

> He finally planted himself in the midst of his foes and entered Rome itself.

> His appeals for freedom and liberty of conscience were for a time successful.

> Rome seemed to waken from the slumber and slavery of ages.

4. But, before long, the united power of the clergy was again brought against the preacher.

> He was charged with preaching that the church was a distinct spiritual assembly of baptized believers.

> For advocating just what Baptists now teach, he was arrested, condemned, crucified, and then burned, and his ashes thrown into the Tiber river.

C. These three heroes of truth - Henry, Peter de Bruys, and Arnold of Brescia...

1. They stand as way-marks in the wilderness by which we are able to trace the true church of Christ through the darkest period of the past.

> Their followers were known by their enemies as Henricians, Petrobrussians, and Arnoldists.

2. They were numbered by thousands, and were what would now be termed Baptists.

> There have been a succession of churches in regular order from the apostles: this cannot be reasonably denied.

3. There is only two possible answers to church history:

> Either the Baptist church is the true church...

> Or the Roman Catholic church is.

3. To evade the force of this argument, representatives of other churches assert that there is nothing in the question of church succession...

> That all denominations are descendants of Rome.

> By thus saying, they readily admit that they can establish no claim to be churches of Jesus Christ.

 

X. The Anabaptists of Bohemia.

A. A region embracing a territory of 60,000 square miles, lying in the valley of the Danube.

1. Here were settled in the days of Roman triumph by a tribe of Celts known as Boii, who fled from Roman oppression to the shelter of this secluded retreat.

> from the name Boii came the word Bohemia, by which that region is still known.

2. It seems evident that the gospel was preached in this country in the first century of the Christian era.

> Paul informs us that he preached the gospel of Christ in Illyricum, and adjoining regions (Romans 15:19).

> And that Titus visited Dalmatia (II. Tim. 4:10).

3. It is related in Robinson's Researches, that Jerome, who was a native of Illyricum, and presbyter of the church at Dalmatia, translated the Scriptures in his native tongue, in the year 378.

> That the Bohemians and others used this translation for many centuries.

 

B. Here Peter Waldo sought an asylum in the year 1176.

1. He and others, introduced more extensively among the Bohemians, the knowledge of the Christian faith in its purity, according to the word of God.

> Waldo's labors in Bohemia were crowned with remarkable success.

2. He spent his concluding years in this area, promoting the cause of Christ in every commendable way.

> In 1179, when he was rewarded with a crown that fadeth not away.

3. His followers baptized and rebaptized those who joined their churches.

> In the 14th century they are said to have numbered 80,000.

4. Among the defenders of the principles of the Anabaptists was the gifted John Huss, born in 1373, and burned at the stake in July 1415.

> Like Wickliffe, though he espoused the doctrine of the Baptists of Bohemia, yet he remained in the Catholic establishment.

> While lamenting its corruptions, he strove to effect a reformation.

5. An intimate friend and faithful companion of Huss, was Jerome of Prague, who died a martyr at the hands of the Catholics in 1416.

> As he was expiring in the flames he cried out:

> "This soul of mine, in flames of fire, O Christ, I offer thee."

C. Ford, in his History of the Origin of the Baptists, gives a letter written from Bohemia to Erasmus, in the year 1519.

1, This was six years before Luther took his bold stand and appeared before the Diet of Worms.

> This letter, written by those opposed to the Ana-Baptists, is so significant that we insert it here:

4. This letter shows that Baptists existing in the kingdom of Bohemia, before the rise of the reformation of the sixteenth century.

> Both the protestant "reformers," as well as by the Catholics, reproached this group and called them Ana-Baptists.

> They acknowledged the charge, and thus owned themselves to be Baptists.

5. Their concealment, their principles, and their numbers being known, efforts were made to influence and intimidate them to abandon their faith.

> But, when they could not be influenced to renounce their faith, their destruction was planned and brutally executed.

> CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS ALIKE JOINING IN THE SHAMEFUL OUTRAGE.

6. An edict for their banishment from Bohemia, was signed by the ruler, and they packed up and departed.

> To Hungary, Transylvania, and others to Poland.

7. While some of them had combined with Luther and accepted his proposed change in the practices of their church...

> Which included leaving off re-baptism, which Luther never abdicated...

> Yet vast numbers chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than taste the pleasures of sin for a season.

 

XI. John Wickliffe and the Lollards.

A. John Wickliffe was born in 1324, in Yorkshire on the Tee, in the northern part of England.

1. He was educated at Oxford University, where he passed his early childhood.

> Entering the clerical order, he beheld the highest honors in the "church" before him.

> He struggled into the light of Bible truth, until he, too, took a sublime and defiant stand on the Bible alone.

2. His anti-Romish views first appeared in a series of lectures on Divinity, delivered at Oxford in 1363.

> In 1374 he became rector of the parish of Lutterworth, where he remained a priest until his death.

> Here he labored with great zeal, preaching against the corrupt practices of the papacy of Rome.

3. Despising the catholic injunction that the common people NOT HAVE THE BIBLE, John Wickliffe entered upon the work of translating the Scriptures and circulating them among the common people.

> This great work was prosecuted with unabating zeal.

> A group of preachers of the Waldenses assisted by going from village to village bearing copies of parts of his translations.

4. He opposed and challenged the Romish heresy of transubstantiation, and advocated that the church consisted of believers only.

> That baptism was a "sign of grace received before."

> While he did not come out of Rome (Babylon), he denounced her abominations.

> Through his work the poor people who had been denied the luxury of a Bible, had access to its truth.

> This intrepid author and translator died in 1384, being struck with paralysis while conducting public worship, and expiring two days later.

5. The followers of Wickliffe in England were designated by the name of Lollards.

> Many of the true followers of Christ in England, came to be known by the name Lollards, in the fourteenth century.

> That many of them were Baptists cannot be disputed.

> Many of them had come to England from the Waldenses, and the principles advocated by them were in direct line with their predecessors.

6. Among these, Walter Reynard, known as Reynard the Lollard, a Dutchman, was apprehended and burned at Cologne.

> The name of William Sawter is found in that illustrious roll of martyrs who died for the cause of soul freedom in Britain.

> Not long after the king and a troop of his courtiers tracked and murdered one hundred of these, who had assembled at the hour of midnight to worship God among the bushes of St. Giles, near London.

7. Sir John Oldcastle, Earl of Cobham, was apprehended, brought before the Bishops for trial, and promised honor and preferment if he would but recant.

> He refused to do so, preferring to die rather than to deny his Lord and Master.

> This noble man was dragged to Tyburn, where he was hung up by his waist and burned to death.

> In his agonies of suffering he prayed for his enemies and exclaimed, "I die in triumph."

8. But the point is, that at this time some of the true followers joined the reformers.

> John Wyckliffe's translation was a great blessing to the true church.

> That their succession goes back to the second century and are directly descended of the Apostles, should not be tainted by the fact that they joined those who became believers out of the catholic church.

> Many of the true church that were saved and re-baptized, came out of the catholic church.

> But, there has always been a remnant of those that never went in, no ever came out of its corruptions.