on the part of the Brethren themselves and all objections on the part of their enemies, the anciently established principle and usage must be maintained.” From this point of view, therefore, the Synod resolved to introduce episcopal ordination by securing the apostolical succession. To apply for it to the Calixtines would have been useless. They were reconciled with Rome, and whatever they might have been willing to do ere they had agreed to the Compactata of Basle, they would have spurned such a request now that these were adopted. But, providentially, there lived on the Moravian frontier a colony of Waldenses with two Bishops who had received the legitimate consecration. Of these Bishops the senior was Stephen, the name of the other is not known. To them a deputation was accordingly sent, composed of Michael Bradacius, theretofore the principal minister of the Brethren, and two other of their priests.[1]
That the object of this mission was to seek not fraternal encouragement, or ordinary communion with religionists of like mind, but absolutely episcopul ordination and such episcopal ordination as Romanists and Calixtines would have to acknowledge, is so clearly shown by the extracts we have given from Comenius and Regenvolscius that we need add nothing more upon this head. Hence we go on to inquire whether these Waldenses on the Moravian frontier possessed a valid episcopacy and could confer the succession.
THE VALIDITY OF THE BOHEMIAN WALDENSIAN EPISCOPATE.
In their native valleys of Piedmont, the Waldenses were never an episcopal but always a presbyterian Church. The best authorities prove this, and the most recent discoveries of Waldensian documents in the University Library of Cambridge and elsewhere serve to corroborate it. To teach, as has been frequently done, that the Italian Waldenses had a succession of bishops stretching back to the apostles’ times, and independent of that perpetuated through the Roman Catholic Church, is treading upon most unhistoric ground. In no way can such a position be established. As early as the first quarter of the fifteenth century, however, we find
- ↑ Some of the authorities mention only two deputies.
