Episcopacy by Divine Right Asserted, Part 2 · Section 21
§. 21.
The practice of the Waldenſes and Albigenſes in allowance of Epiſcopall government.
SHortly then, all times, all hiſtories, all Authors, all places are for us: yea (which is moſt remarkable) even thoſe factions, which divided themſelves from the Church, as the Arrians, Novatians, Donatiſts, yet ſtill held themſelves to the government of their Biſhops; It was their queſtion, whether this or that man ſhould be their Biſhop, it was never queſtioned whether they ſhould have any Biſhops at all. Yea in theſe latter times the very Waldenſes and Albigenſes when in ſome things they juſtly flew off from the Romiſh ſuperſtition, yet ſtill would have a Biſhop of their own; It was one of the Articles that was objected againſt them, the Supremacy of the Pope, Artic Vvald. Ann… . 1170 and 1216,uſurping above all Churches, is by them denied; Neither that any degree is to be received in the Church, but only Prieſts, Deacons, and Biſhops; And Aeneas Silvius in his Bohemian hiſtory reporting the Tenets of the Waldenſes hath thus,Foxe p. 209. de dogmat. Waldenſ Romanum pontificem, &c. That the Biſhop of Rome is but equall to other Biſhops, that among Prieſts there is no difference; that not dignity but merit of life makes one Presbyter better then another. Thoſe of Merindol and Cabrieres (a people which about two hundred yeers ago came out of the Country of Piemont, to inhabite in the waſte parts of Provence) being there planted, and hearing of the Goſpell p…eached in Germany, and Switzerland, ſent in the yeer 1530. George Maurellus, and Petrus Latomus to conferre with the learned men of thoſe parts; they met with Oecolampadius, Bucer, Capito; Maurellus eſcaping home alone, told his Compatriots how much they had erred, and how their old Miniſters, whom they called their Barbes, that is their Uncles, had miſled them. But before this, their complices the good Chriſtians, who were termed Albigenſes, did ſet up to themſelves a Biſhop of their own one Bartolomaeus remaining about the coaſts of Croatia and Dalmatia; Epiſt Legati Papae Card. Portinenſ. vide Fox. Acts &c.of whom the Cardinall Portinenſis (the Popes Legat) writes thus to the Archbiſhop of Roan about the yeere 1146. Etenim de Carcaſona or…undus, &c. For one Bartolomaeus the Biſhop of the Hereticks, borne in Carcaſona, taking upon him the Deputation of that Anti-pope, yeelded unto him a wicked and abhominable reverence, and gave him a place of reſidence in the Town of Porlos, and removed himſelfe to the parts of Tholoſe. This Bartolomaeus in the tenour of his letters, which run every where in the firſt ſtile of his ſalutation, entitles himſelfe on this manner, Bartolomaeus, the ſervant of the ſervants of God to. N. the ſalutations of the holy faith. This man, amongſt all his other enormities, makes Biſhops, and takes upon him perfidiouſly, to govern and order the Churches. Thus that Cardinall. And thoſe Angragnians, who are commonly ſaid for ſome hundred of yeers to have caſt off all relation to the Church of Rome, yet in their Confeſſion of faith, and anſwers exhibited to the Preſident (appointed Commiſſioner for their examination) confeſſed and acknowledged (upon mention made of ancient Councells) That the Councels had made divers notable Decrees concerning the Election of Biſhops and Miniſters of the Church, concerning Eccleſiaſticall Diſcipline, as well of the Clergy as the people. Theſe Chriſians were far from that peeviſh humour, wherewith divers miſzealots are now-a-dayes tranſported. What ſpeak I of theſe? The very late Chriſtians who within the Ken of memory,H…drian. Sarav. Praelat. ad tractat. de gradibus miniſter. came into this Kingdome for Protection had the noble Johannes a Laſco for their Biſhop. Thus it was with all Chriſtian men and aſſemblies all the world over, till (within the age of ſome (who might be yet living) the waters of the Cantons, and the Lake of Lemanus began to be troubled: And now, when the groſſe errors of Doctrine came to be both diſcovered by one ſide, and impetuouſly defended by the other, and the impugners cruelly perſecuted to bonds and death, thoſe who could not enjoy the freedome of the true Religion, under their Popiſh Biſhops, thought themſelves driven to ſet up Church-governors and Paſtors of their own: And theſe once eſtbliſhed, now muſt belike, be defended. They might not be under thoſe they had; they could not have thoſe they ſhould; they reſted under thoſe they could get. And hence is all this Diſtraction.