War with the Saints; By Charlotte Elizabeth (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 edition. Excerpt: ...to some that were brought by the heathen against those who formed the very earliest Church of Christ, were Ud sparingly heaped upon the harmless Albigenses, so completing the picture that in all its parts it was truly theirs. They were "poor in spirit;" humble, unobtrusive people, pursuing in quietness their lowly occupations. They "mourned;" not only the perpetual dishonour brought on the name of Christ by those who assumed to be his followers and his ministers, while living in the open practice of idolatry, and of every moral transgression, but the heavy calamities brought on a friendly people by their sojourn among them, and the certain fate that awaited them and theirs, gave them cause to mourn; always sorrowful, though always rejoicing. They were "meek: " marvellous are the instances of lamb-like resignation, unresisting submission to the hand that brandished the knife, heaped the faggot, or knotted the cord, that should send them by a violent death into the presence of the Lord. We never hear of the Albigenses, as such, taking up arms to defend themselves: the price at which mercy might have been obtained by the citizens of the assailed places, was that of delivering them up to the will of their enemies. Resistance on their part was never pre-supposed, either in the proffer or in the refusal of such terms. That they hungered and thirsted after righteousness, was, in fact, the very groundwork of the charge against them: their anxious search after simple truth, their rejection of all that militated against it; their diligent use of the means of grace, exhorting and confirming one another in the faith; their assemblages for prayer and praise, and breaking of bread; all these things are notorious, as the hold that...