Scattered over the face of the earth, we find almost every where these primitive Christians under the various denominations given to them-of Cathari, or "the Pure," Paulicians, Petrobusians, Puritans, Leonists, Lollards, Henricians, Josephists, Patarines, Fraticelli, Insabati, Piphles, Toulousians, Albigenses, Lombardists, Bulgarians, Bohemian brethren, Barbets, Walloons, &c.
We not only find many colonies of these people in the eastern and western parts of Europe, but even in Africa and America, whither they emigrated to escape from oppression and massacre.
After the most cruel and wanton persecutions, we observe this oppressed people reduced in number by barbarous massacres, and at length driven out of their own purchased territories, because they would not submit to innovations and changes in their established religion; but in a few years we again find a remnant of them under their pastor, Henri Arnaud, led back into their native country almost in a miraculous manner to expel their savage oppressors, thousands of whom fled before this reduced but noble band of self-taught warriors.
Many refugees took up their abode in the Rhetian Alps, and a great number, after various edicts, were allowed to settle in the Duchy of Wirtemberg, where some of them were visited by the writer of these pages, for the express purpose of inquiring into their wants and privileges.
Before the days of Wickliffe, and other reformers, we can trace the Vaudois by their sufferings; they were branded and burnt as heretics, because they would not conform to the doctrines of men, and the edicts of the Roman pontiffs: their steady adherence to the principles of their own faith, and obedience to the will of their Creator, rendered them instrumental to the reformation, which afterwards took place, and by which, in this country, the pure religion of our ancestors was restored. It is even probable that this separated flock of true worshippers are to be the means, under heavenly guidance, of not only preserving, but also diffusing, the light of the gospel and its healing beams over the most remote parts of the earth.
251 It would appear that the title of Cathari, or "_the Pure_," was first given to the followers of Novation, a Romish pastor, who set the example of resisting the early corruptions of the Papal dominion, and that Puritan churches existed in Italy upwards of 200 years.
