Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

“All investigation concurs with ‘unequivocal uses of the term in pronouncing
the actual church to be a local society and never anything but a local
society.’” f11
“The real Church of Christ is a local body, of a definite, doctrinal constitution
such as is indispensable to the unity of the Spirit.” f12
Alluding to its application to all professors, of all creeds, scattered everywhere,
as an “invisible,” “universal church,” Dr. Fish well says:
“Not a single case can be adduced where the loose and extended use of the
collective can be adopted without a forced and unnatural interpretation. The
New Testament is utterly innocent of the inward conflict of those theories
which adopt both the invisible, or universal, as it is now more commonly
called, and the local ideas.” f13
H. M. Dexter, a Congregationalist, was forced to say:
“The weight of New Testament authority, then, seems clearly to decide that
the ordinary and natural meaning of ekklhsi>a (ekklesia, rendered church,) is
that of a local body of believers.” f14
Says Ralph Wardlaw, D.D., a Congregationalist:
“Unauthorized uses of the word church. Under this head, I have first to notice
the designations, of which the use is so common, but so vague — of the
church visible and the church mystical, or invisible. Were these designations
to be found in the New Testament, we should feel ourselves under obligation
to examine and ascertain the sense in which the inspired writers use them.
This, however, not being the case, we are under no such obligation.” f15
A. Campbell:
“The communities collected and set in order by the Apostles were called the
congregation of Christ, and all these taken together are sometimes called the
kingdom of God.” f16
Moses E. Lard, of the difference between the kingdom and the church: “My
brethern make none.” f17 On the same page: “God has not one thing on this
earth called his kingdom and another called his church.” That church refers to
a local body, any one can see by such as Matthew 18:17; Acts 8:1;
9:31; 11:26, 32; 13:1; 14:23, 27; 15:3, 4, 22, 41; 16:5; 18:22; Romans 16:1,
5; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 4:17; 7:17; 11:16; 2 Corinthians 8:1,18, 19, 23, 24;
11:8, 28; 12:13; Galatians 1:2, 22; Revelation 1:4; 2:1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 17,
18, 23, 29; 3:1, 6, 7, 13, 14, 22; 2,2:16. A careful comparison of these
references will prove that the church is a local body, administering the
ordinances, discipline, etc., known as church when but one in any locality, and
churches when several of them are spoken of. Kingdom, in the New