Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

themselves to the reading of the Scriptures and holy services. All were
maintained out of a common fund, and yet a large surplus was distributed in
the shape of food and clothing.” f846
Here Goadby follows with an account, substantially that of Bede and Evans,
quoted in the foregoing.
Crosby says:
“It was in the year 469 that the Saxons invaded England. They made a
complete conquest, overthrew Christianity and set up the heathen idolatry.
But those Christians which escaped fled into Cornwall and Wales, where they
secured themselves and maintained the true Christian faith and worship,
Jeffrey, of Monmouth, in his book, De Brittanorum Gestis, Lib. IV, cap. 4, as
cited by Mr. Danvers, tells us that in the country of the Britains Christianity
flourished, which never decayed, even from the Apostles’ time. Amongst
whom, he says, was the preaching of the gospel, sincere doctrine and living
faith, and such form of worship as was delivered to the churches by the
Apostles themselves; and that they, even to death itself, withstood the Romish
rites and ceremonies.” f847
Crosby strengthens this statement with the testimony of other authorities, too
numerous and lengthy to here cite. Crosby, here, also repeats the fore-going
account of Austin’s attempt to convert the Welsh Baptists, of his bringing on
them persecution, because they continued in the faith and of fifty of their
ministers escaping from the massacre to continue the pure gospel.
Benedict says:
“The Welsh Baptists have the fullest confidence that their sentiments always
have lived in the mountainous retreats, from the apostolic age to the present
time, although the people were not always congregated in churches. Their
country, in their estimation, was another Piedmont, where the witnesses for
the truth found shelter and concealment in times of universal darkness and
superstition. … My impressions are very strong in favor of a high antiquity of
the Baptist order in Wales. With the first dawn of returning light, long before
the ecclesiastical changes on the continent, or England, we see the Welsh
Baptists among the first reformers; and they did not appear to be novices in
the business, but entered into the defence of their sentiments, and the carrying
out of the usual operations of the denomination, as to churches and
associations, like those who had been familiar with their principles.” f848
In this connection Benedict mentions the churches which are so mentioned by
Armitage as to be used by Baptist opponents to prove they were the first
Baptist churches in Wales, he having mentioned them as “the oldest in Wales
of whose origin any DISTINCT information has come down to us.” f849
Speaking of Wales as a refuge of ancient Welsh Baptists, Armitage says: