Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives – Waldenses held to the Biblical Repentance, Faith, Baptism, Lord’s Table Order – Baptist Peculiarity Three – Part 5

Thomas E Kresal Admin · 2 hrs February 20, 2020

Baptist History, Heritage & Distinctives – Waldenses held to the Biblical Repentance, Faith, Baptism, Lord’s Table Order – Baptist Peculiarity Three – Part 5

Third: It is evident, also, that the Waldenses preserved the Bible order of the commandments which now characterize the Baptists; they taught repentance, faith, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. That they held the Bible order of repentance and faith, has never been called in question. In fact, they were compelled to observe this order as the result of following the Scriptures as their only guide. Their views of human depravity, which they regarded as hereditary and total, and the operation of the Holy Spirit in conversion, forced them upon the Bible order of holding repentance before the faith with the heart. In their Confession, of 1365, Article XVIII stands thus: “That this faith comes from the gracious and efficacious operations of the Holy Spirit, which illuminates our souls, and enables them to rely upon the mercy of God, to be applied by the merits of Jesus Christ.” (Perrin’s History of Vaudois, p. 295)

Every one must know that this faith, which is produced by the influence of the Holy Spirit upon the heart, must follow, in point of order, repentance ; but, as the order of repentance and faith has never been a matter of dispute in the history of the Waldenses, we pass to the next point, which is their teaching that faith precedes baptism.

This point is fully settled in chapter sixth of this book, where the charge that the Waldenses baptized infants, is fully met. I will, however, introduce some proofs in regard to the teaching of the Paterines, who were the same with the ancient Waldenses. Dr. Allix says: “We find the Berengarians exposed to the same calumnies which were afterward reputed to the Paterines and Waldenses. This is evident from the discourse of Guimondus, Bishop of Aversa, lib. I, contra Bereng.; where he accuseth them of over- throwing, as much as in them lay, lawful marriages, and the baptism of infants.” (Allix’s Churches of Piedmont, p. 135)

It is true that Dr. Allix, the Pedobaptist historian, calls this charge against the Paterines a calumny. But it is certain that the Catholic writers who lived at the same time and in the same countries with the Paterines, knew more about their practice than Dr. Allix, who lived in the present century. And as to the other charge—that these Paterines rejected lawful marriage—they did reject what Catholics call lawful marriage, viz : marriage by Catholic priests. Historians are agreed that the Catholics did charge the ancient Waldenses and Paterines—who were, really, the same class of people religiously—with the rejection of infant baptism.

Peculiarity THREE will be Continued Tomorrow

Presented by Thomas E. Kresal from: “Baptist Succession” by D.B. Ray, 1871 Edition, pg. 353-54