Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

Verona; Lorenzo or Lawrence at Sermione. The second are called quaestors,
and by some, elders and younger sons; here they would be named teaching
elders or deacons. The third were messengers, that is, men employed in
traveling to administer to the relief and comfort of the poor and persecuted. In
times of persecution they met in small companies of eight, twenty, thirty, or as
it happened, but never in larger assemblies for fear of consequences. f290 The
different associations held different doctrines but they were all united in
opinion against the whole of popery, and in perfect agreement among
themselves on the great leading points above mentioned. … The Paterines
were decent in their deportment, modest in their dress and discourse, and their
morals were irreproachable. In their conversation there was no levity, no
scurrility, no detraction, no falsehood, no swearing. Their dress was neither
fine nor mean. They were chaste and temperate, never frequenting f291 taverns
or places of public amusement. They were not given to anger and other
violent passions. They were not eager to accumulate wealth, but were content
with a plain plenty of the necessaries of life. They avoided commerce because
they thought it would expose them to the temptation of collusion, falsehood
and oaths; and they chose to live by labor or handicraft. They were always
employed in spare hours in giving as receiving instructions. f292 … About the
year 1040 the Paterines had become very numerous and conspicuous in Milan,
which was their principal residence, and here they flourished at least two
hundred years. They had no connection with the church for they rejected not
only Jerome of Syra, Augustine of Africa, and Gregory of Rome, but
Ambrose of Milan, and they considered them as all other pretended fathers
and corrupters of Christianity. They particularly condemned Pope Sylvester
as the anti-Christ, the son of perdition.” f293
To the report made by Bonacursi, a traitor from their ranks, that they said “the
devil wrote the Old Testament,” Robinson well retorts: “He should have said,
he expounded it, for this was their meaning” — alluding to its use by the
Romish church. f294
Alluding to the Romish church, Robinson says:
“The Paterines let the church alone, constantly affirming the sufficiency of
Scriptures, the competency of each to reform himself, the right of all, even
women, to teach; and openly disclaiming any manner of coercion.”
These three kinds of offices, mentioned, by Robinson in the foregoing account,
corresponded substantially to Baptist church offices, thus: their first, to settled
pastors; their second, to deacons; their third, to various kinds of traveling
ministers — different functions of two offices.
“They maintained church discipline, even on their ministers, as examples are
recorded.” f295