Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

As Dr. Grimmell remarks on this:
“When it is remembered that is a confession of a woman — Jaqueta Textrix
de Cumba Rotgir — the suspicion of a studied invention fails; but if it be
taken into account that a like tradition is repeated throughout the different
countries of Europe, wherever Waldenses were found, the pristine root of the
same will appear unmistakably.” f664
Dr. Grimmell farther says:
“That Peter Waldo was not the founder of the sect is clear from the records of
the synod held at Bergamo, 1218, where the ‘Poor men of Italy’ claimed a
history independent of Waldus, who flourished about the year 1170. The
‘Italian Brethren’ are doubtless identical with the Arnoldists of Lombardy,
named after Arnold of Brescia in 1155.”
Dr. Newman observes:
“We can hardly escape the conviction that the Italian Brethren arose
independently of Waldo. They do not recognize his authority and they have
no special reverence for his name.” f665
Says Dr. Newman:
“During the early years of the twelfth century, sixty years before Waldo began
to teach, Southern France and Northwestern Italy were permeated with a far
more evangelical teachings of Peter de Bruis and Henry of Lausanne. The
views of these teachers are well known to have been substantially Baptists. It
is not possible that the influence of this teaching should have become
completely extinct by Waldo’s time. There is much evidence of the
persistence of evangelical teaching in Italy from the earliest time. The
Humilati of the twelfth century and the followers of Arnold of Brescia may
well have been the proudest of early evangelical influences. They probably
were … Herzog and Dieckhoff attached far more importance to the proof that
Waldo was the founder of the Waldenses than it deserved. To be sure it was
worth while to know the facts. But these when arrived at prove very little with
regard to the great evangelical party of the Middle Ages — commonly known
by the name Waldenses. This name was undoubtedly derived from Waldo of
Lyons. The immediate followers of Waldo were known by various names,
‘Waldenses’ and ‘Poor men of Lyons’ being among the most common. … But
to say that the whole evangelical movement originated with Waldo, because
the term Waldenses is applied to them by Roman Catholic writers, is a very
different thing, and is al variance with the facts of history. … It is Dr. Ludwig
Keller’s great merit to have traced the history of the old evangelical party
through the dark ages of persecution, and to have exhibited, in a masterly
manner, the relations of this party to the great religious, industrial, social and
scientific movements of the Middle Ages. … These results are in the highest
degree gratifying to evangelical Christians in general and especially to