Inquisition in Full Force

Through the extraordinary devotion and flaming zeal of Waldo, the Waldenses were aroused to greater missionary activity. Their young men traveled everywhere, making known to the people the truth of the gospel. These sincere, devout people of the Lord continued through centuries of seclusion, suffering, and persecution, to hold up the torch of light and truth to millions in superstition and darkness. They were living and active throughout the years spanned by Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther, thus preparing the way for the great Reformation.AGP 210.4

We include here a somewhat extensive quotation, again from the moving words of that gifted writer, Lawrence:AGP 210.5

“The fable of a united Christendom, obeying with devoted faith a pope at Rome, had no credence in the period to which it is commonly assigned; and from the reign of Innocent III to the Council of Constance (1200-1414) the Roman Church was engaged in a constant and often doubtful contest with the widely diffused fragments of apostolic Christianity.

“The popes had succeeded in subjecting kings and emperors; they now employed them in crushing the people. Innocent III excited Philip of France to a fierce crusade against the Albigenses of the south; amidst a general massacre of men, women, and children, the gentle sect sunk, never to appear again. Dominic invented, or enlarged, the Inquisition; and soon in every land the spectacle of blazing heretics and tortured saints delighted the eyes of the Romish clergy. Over the rebellious kings the popes had held the menace of interdict, excommunication, deposition; to the people they offered only submission or death. The Inquisition was their remedy for the apostolic heresies of Germany, England, Spain—a simple cure for dissent or reform. It seemed effectual. The Albigenses were perfectly extirpated. In the cities of Italy the Waldenses ceased to be known. Lollardism concealed itself in England; the scriptural Christians of every land who refused to worship images or adore the Virgin disappeared from sight; the supremacy of Rome was assured over all Western Europe.”