Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

perversion, or a misunderstanding of their opposition to Romish ecclesiastical
law, which, in the union of church and State, was a part of civil law.
As to the common Romish charge of Manichaeism or Dualism,. Hase
considerately says:
“Their dualistic tendency, however, may have gone no farther than the
popular notion of a devil and his subordinate spirits, f279 and in a portion of
the Catharist church it appears to have been modified in various ways, to have
been full of moral seriousness and religious sincerity, and yet to have laid
great stress upon fastings,” etc. f280
Dr. J.M. Cramp, says:
“But if one accusation is manifestly outrageous and unfounded, may not the
other be? Are we not entitled to the inference that there was, at least, gross
exaggeration if not malicious libel. And finally is it credible that those who
avowed and manifested unlimited deference to the word of God were led
astray by the fantasies of the Manichaean theory.” f281
Library of Universal Knowledge, on this charge, says:
“There is much reason to think that the errors of a few were indiscriminately
charged upon all, and that such charges, indeed, sometimes rested upon
ignorant or willful misconstruction.” f278
Neander concedes that the charge of Manichaeism is not proved. “The marks
of Manichaeism are by no means indisputable,” f282
Of another similarly disreputable charge against them Neander farther
concedes:
“We will not deny that as this account proceeds from the fiercest enemies of
the sect, we might be tempted to consider the whole report as a manufactured
conclusion, or a pure invention of heresy hating spite.” f283
The following account of them, by Neander, is irreconcilable with the reports
against their character and doctrine:
“The feature that so much distinguished the first Christian communities,
seemed to have revived again in this party, more closely bound together as
they were by persecutions. … Their adversaries expatiate on the ample
support which every one who professed their peculiar principles found among
them as a means by which attachment to those principles was especially
promoted. As in the first ages of Christianity, every Christian who brought
with him a letter of recommendation from his community was certain of
meeting a hospitable reception from his brethren in the faith, so any one
belonging to the sect of the Catharists, when recommended by one of their
communities, might expect to meet with a kind reception everywhere among