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The Change of the Sabbath - Contents
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    The Waldenses

    There has been no class of dissenters from the Catholic Church more worthy of regard than the Waldenses, or Vaudois, whose principal settlement was in the valleys of the Alps in Piedmont, though at times there were companies of them scattered in many of the countries of Europe. Their locating in these valleys occurred between the time of Constantine and the full development of the Roman Catholic Church. There is some confusion among the various authorities as to the exact time. It seems to be a settled fact among historians that the cause of their seeking these retired valleys was their desire to maintain the purity of their religion, and to escape the corrupting influences so prevalent in the more thickly populated portions of the country. So they retired from public view.ChSa 141.2

    They had a translation of the Bible in their own tongue, and taught it with great diligence to their children. Catholic writers declare that some of them could repeat nearly the whole of the Holy Scriptures. They sent out missionaries to all parts of Europe during the darkest days of the papacy, many of whom witnessed for the truth with their lives. Multitudes of them died in the various persecutions by the Catholics. Time after time they were driven from their homes into the mountains and caves, and many thousands of men, women, and children were put to death, and their property and homes confiscated and destroyed.ChSa 141.3

    There is conclusive evidence that a portion, at least, of the Waldenses observed the ancient Sabbath in the days of their greatest purity. A considerable portion of this people were called by the significant designation of Sabbati, Sabbatati, or Insabbatati. Mr. Robinson, the historian, quotes out of Gretser the words of Goldastus, a learned Swiss historian and jurist, born in 1576, and a Calvinist writer of note, as follows:ChSa 142.1

    “Insabbatati [they were called] not because they were circumcised, but because they kept the Jewish Sabbath.”-Ecclesiastical Researches, chap. 10, p. 303.ChSa 142.2

    Archbishop Usher acknowledges that many understood they were called by these names because they kept the Jewish Sabbath, though he thought it was for another reason.ChSa 142.3

    Just before the great Protestant Reformation,ChSa 142.4

    “Louis XII, king of France, being informed by the enemies of the Waldenses inhabiting a part of the province of Provence, that several heinous crimes were laid to their account, sent the Master of Requests a certain doctor of the Sorbonne, who was confessor to His Majesty, to make inquiry into the matter. On their return they reported that they had visited all the parishes where they dwelt, had inspected their places of worship, but they had found there no images nor signs of the ornaments belonging to the mass nor any of the ceremonies of the Roman Church. Much less could they discover any traces of those crimes with which they were charged. On the contrary, they kept the Sabbath day, observed the ordinance of baptism according to the primitive church, instructed their children in the articles of the Christian faith and the commandments of God. The king, having read the report of his commissioners, said with an oath that they were better men than himself or his people!”-Jones’s Church History, Vol. II, chap. 5, sec. 4.ChSa 142.5

    “The respectable French historian De Thou says that the Vaudois keep the commandments of the decalogue, and allow among them of no wickedness, detesting perjuries, imprecations, quarrels, seditions, etc.”-History of the Vaudois, by Bresse, p. 126.ChSa 142.6

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