A history of the work of redemption. Containing the outlines of a body of…

Some of the Popish writers themselves own, that that people never submitted to the church of Rome. One of the Popish writers, speaking of the Waldenses, says. The heresy of the Waldenses i• the oldest heresy in the world. It is supposed that this people first betook themselves to this desert secret place among the mountains▪ ⟨p. 221⟩to hide themselves from the severity of the Heathen persecutions which were before Constantine the Great. Thus the woman fled into the wilderness from the face of the serpent, Rev. xii.6. And so, vers. 14. "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place: where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." The people being settled there, their posterity continued there from age to age afterwards: and being, as it were, by natural walls, as well as by God's grace, separated from the rest of the world, never partook of the overflowing corruption.

These especially were those virgins who were not defiled with the rest of women, or when other women prostituted themselves and were defiled; but they kept themselves pure for Christ alone: they followed the Lamb, their spiritual husband, whithersoever he went: they followed him into this hideous wilderness, Rev. xiv.4.5.—Their doctrine and their worship, as there still remain accounts of them, appear to be the same with the Protestant doctrine and worship; and by the confession of Popish writers, they were a people remarkable for the strictness of their lives, for charity and other Christian virtues. They lived in external poverty in this hideous country▪ but they chose this rather than to comply with the great corruptions of the rest of the world.