[53] Jac. Laurentio de lib. Gentil. p. 40, 41.
XV. The Waldenses[54] were a people so called from one Peter Waldo, a citizen of Lyons in France, in the year 1160, who inhabited Piedmont, elsewhere called Albigenses, from Albi, a city of Languedoc in France; Lollards in England, from one Reynard Lollard, who some time after came into these parts, and preached boldly against the idolatries, superstitions, and vain conversation of the inhabitants of this island. They had many other names, as Arnoldists, Esperonists, Henricians, Siccars, Insabaches, Paterenians, Turlupins, Lyonists, Fraticelli, Hussites, Bohemians (still the same;) but finally, by their enemies, damnable heretics, though by the Protestants, the true church of Christ. And to omit many testimonies, I will instance only in Bishop Usher, who in his discourse of the succession of the Christian church, defends them not only as true reformers, but makes the succession of the Protestant church to be mainly evincible from their antiquity. I shall forbear all the circumstances and principles they held, or in which he strongly defends them against the cruelty and ignorance of their adversaries, particularly Rainerius, Rubis, Capetaneis, &c. only what they held concerning our present subject of apparel and recreations, I cannot be so injurious to the truth, their self-denial, the good of others, at whose reformation I aim, and my own discourse, as to omit it. And therefore I shall proceed to allege their faith and practice in these matters, however esteemed but of a trifling importance, by the loose, wanton, and carnal minded of this generation, whose feeling is lost by the enjoyment of their inordinate desires, and that think it a high state of Christianity to be no better than the beasts that perish, namely, in not being excessive in Newgate and mere kennel enormities. That these ancient reformers had another sense of these things, and that they made the conversation of the gospel of a crucified Jesus to intend and require another sort of life, than what is used by almost all those who account themselves members of his church, I shall show out of their own doctrines, as found in their most authentic histories.