must wait on their swords. And I hope that his Holinesse, who
absolved many of their vows from Palestine, and commuted
them into a journey into France, will also of his goodnesse dis∣pense
with my veniall digression herein, in prosecuting their
actions. Yea indeed, I need not his dispensation, being still re∣sident
on my own subject, this also being styled, The Holy
War, The warre for the Crucifix, The army of the Church;
the souldiers also bearing the badge of the Crosse on their coat∣armour.
But first let us throughly examine what these Albingenses
were, and what they held: a question that will quit the cost in
studying it.
They were a younger house of the Waldenses, and branched
from them; not different in doctrine, but later in time, and di∣stant
in place: so called from the countrey Albigeois in France,
where they lived.
I find three grand different opinions of Authours concerning
them.
First, Some make them to have been very monsters in life and
doctrine; so that the heaviest punishment was too light for them.
And this is the generall voice of most writers in that age, and all
Romanists in our dayes.
Secondly, Others clean contrary hold, That these Walden∣ses
(for I make them and the Albingenses Synonyma, as others
have done) were onely the true Church of God in that age,
whilest all others being corrupted with abominable superstition,
were no true Church at all. These alone were Gods Virgins, his
Witnesses in sackcloth, his Woman in the wilderness, his sealed
ones, his seven thousand whose knees were not suppled with the
Baalisme of that age. This is the expresse opinion of some strict
Protestants; and of some who speak it not out, yet mutter it to
themselves.
Thirdly, A third sort explode this opinion, as trespassing on
Divine providence; that God who neither slumbereth nor
sleepeth, should be in so long a lethargie as to suffer hell to eat
up his heaven on earth for so many years together, leaving no
true Church but so small a company of such simple people.
They conceive that the maintainers hereof engage themselves
in a labyrinth of difficulties, hanging too great a weight on so
slender a string, in making such an handfull of men the onely
Church for so long continuance. More moderately therefore
they hold, That these Albingenses were a purer part of the
Church; and though guilty of some errours, (as there must be
a dawning before the day) and charged with more, yet they
maintained the same * doctrine in ore, which since Luthers time
was refined: So that the main body of the Church visible at