Antoine Monastier
Published: 2015-07-13
Total Pages: 452
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Excerpt from A History the Vaudois Church: From Its Origin and of the Vaudois of Piedmont to the Present Day To demonstrate their close connexion with the primitive church founded by the apostles, to establish their right to call themselves a faithful church, and even to be regarded as forming the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth, the evangelical churches appeal to the conformity of their doctrines, their worship, and their internal life with the picture the New Testament gives us of the primitive church, and with the precepts, rules, and regulations taught by this same word. This internal argument is, in fact, the most important on this question; it has an irresistible force, and is of itself sufficient. Yet there is an external argument, which, without being conclusive, has a certain value; and which, if we are to believe the enemies of the evangelical churches, is altogether wanting to them, namely, antiquity of existence. You are but of yesterday, cries the Romish church in a tone of irony and triumph. You forsook the mother church by a revolution, which you pompously term a Reformation; but if truth be on your side, it must be very modern. An existence of little more than three centuries is a very recent title, when it relates to pretensions of professing eternal truth. To dare a conflict with Rome, you require what she possesses, and what you are destitute of, an ancient and venerable origin. Now, this attribute of the truth is not so completely wanting to the evangelical churches as might at first seem to be the case. The Yaudois church is a link that unites them to the primitive church. By means of it they establish the anterior existence of their constitution, doctrine, and worship, to that of the papistical idolatries and errors. Such is the object of the work we now lay before the public. It is intended to prove by the fact of the uninterrupted existence of the Yaudois church, the perpetuity of the primitive church, represented in the present day not only by the church of the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont, but by all her sister evangelical churches, founded solely on the word of God. In writing this work on an essential part of ecclesiastical history, its author has had in view the glory of his Saviour. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.