Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

continued from the times of the Apostles, as a Christian society who have kept
the evangelical faith pure through all the ages hitherto.
The constitution, never perverted internally or externally, of the society of the
Baptists, serves them as a proof of that truth, contested by the Romish church,
that the reformation of religion, such as was brought about in the sixteenth
century, was necessary, was indispensable, and serves, too, as the refutation, at
the same time, of the Roman Catholic delusive fancy, that their own is the
oldest church society.” f730 The title of this work in English is: “History of the
Reformed Church of the Netherlands.” It was published 1819, at Breda.
If history can demonstrate anything this chapter has demonstrated that the
Anabaptists of the sixteenth century are the successors of the Waldenses — are
the genuine Waldenses.
We have now seen that through the Montanists, the Novatians, the Donatists,
the Paulicians, the Albigenses, the Cathari, the Arnoldists, the Petrobrussians,
the Henricians and the Waldenses — all essentially identical — the
Anabaptists, or Baptists of the sixteenth century have a Church Perpetuity to
the church of the first century.
In the language of Dr. Armitage, as his noble soul arose above his antipathy to
Church Perpetuity: “Let us at least respect our ancestry enough to join the
latest and best continental writers in calling them Baptists.” f731
In succeeding chapters what little grounds to doubt the Baptists of to-day being
the Anabaptists of Reformation times is removed.