Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

“The origin of these heretics have been the subject of much controversy; for
while some suppose their errors to have been indigenous in Europe, there are
some who derive them in a direct line from the heart of Asia.” f566
Rejecting as groundless and as destructive to each other all the explanations of
the origin of the Paulicians which would make them of human and of postapostolic
origin, the laws of evidence demand that we see the Paulicians but
the perpetuity of Montanists, Novatians and Donatists. Only this interpretation
of the facts of the disappearance from history of the names Montanists,
Novatians and Donatists, when in great numbers and in the same territory f564
where the name Paulicians came into use as designating, at first, a powerful
body of Christians, of like faith and practice to that of the Montanists, the
Novatians and the Donatists, can be made to conform to the facts of history.
With this explanation of the Paulician origin we readily account for the
disappearance of the Montanists, the Novatians and the Donatists and the
appearance of the Paulicians. Thus we have the true explanation of Guericke’s
statement, that this: “remarkable sect” arose “out of old elements of a
preceding time.” f568 Instead of making Constantine the founder of the
Paulicians, Guericke recognizes him as the great leader: “It is historically
certain that some time after the middle of the seventh century the Paulicians
had for an able leader a man named Constantine.” f569
The statement of Robinson — a historian of extensive and original research —
covers the disappearance of the names Montanists, Novatians, Donatists,
Paulicians and other names by which the same churches were known from the
second century to the Reformation. Speaking of the Novatians, he says:
“When penal laws obliged them to lurk in corners and worship God in private,
they were distinguished by a variety of names, and a succession of them
f567 f570
continued until the Reformation.”