A. D. 1465.-Nicholas Casanus now vehemently attacked the pope with the Word of God; he called him antichrist, rejected human institutions, etc. InPage 339 His book on the Peace of the Faith, compared with P. J. Tzedsck, Chron. page 841, col. 1. A. D. 1467.-Anthony Rosellus, an Italian doctor, writes that the pope is not to be regarded as the lord of the world; that he neither can nor ought to command the Emperor; that he neither may nor ought to wield the secular sword. P. J. Tzedsck, Chron. page 845, from Joh. Munst., fol. 295. A. D. 1470.-At this time a book was issued, entitled Spiegel des heiligen kercken-Regements, without the name of the author, in which particularly, the mendicant monks and the pope were censured. The author adduces Anthony the Hermit, and says that the monks have departed from the Word of God, and, from hypocrisy, have adopted all sorts of human institutions. Catal. Test. herit., fol. 884, compared with P. 1. Twisck, page 847, col. 2. A. D. 1471.-At this time, says a celebrated author, there were not very many Waldenses in Bohemia, on account of the violent persecution; but in Austria there were still some, who had also been dispersed for the most part, through the cruelty of the torments, and the terror of persecution. But how they were afterwards united, as it is alleged, by one Peter Textor, or (as Mellinus explains), Peter the Weaver, in the city of Landskron, in Bohemia, with the Moravian and Bohemian brethren; so that they subsequently held no separate church meetings, save only with the Bohemian and Moravian brethren, is described by Mellinus, in the second book of the Persecutions, fol. 592, col. 4, and fol. 593, col. 1. NOTE.-The Bohemian brethren must here not be understood to mean the Hussites, to whom the name of Bohemian brethren was also given; unless it be said that the Waldenses had separated from them. But that notwithstanding this opinion of Mellinus, many Waldenses still remained scattered and persecuted in Germany and France, as well as elsewhere, who, unchanged in faith and worship, endeavored steadfastly to serve their Saviour according to the rule of Christ and His holy apostles, appears from various other authors. Yea, Mellinus, as though he had forgotten himself, writes that A. D. 1475, in the bishopric of Eichstaedt, in Germany, a great number of Christians were discovered and apprehended, who professed the doctrine of the Waldenses. Second book, fol. 590, col. 4. Yea, that even sixty-nine years afterwards, namely A. D. 1544, the Waldenses of Merindol and Cabriere delivered a confession of faith, at Paris in the parliament, to the King of France, in defence of their innocence. Same book, fol. 446, col. 1, 2, etc.
|
