Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

Perpetuity is a Bible doctrine, so clearly is it taught in the Bible. Prof.
Bannerman, a Presbyterian, says:
“There are statements in Scripture that seem distinctly to intimate that the
Christian Church shall always continue to exist in the world, notwithstanding
that all is earthly and hostile around her. He has founded it upon a rock; and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. … That Christ will be with His
church ‘alway, even unto the end of the world,’ ministering the needful
support and grace for its permanent existence on earth, we cannot doubt.” f40
“He has left us a promise that the powers of evil shall never finally prevail
against or sweep it entirely away; and as belonging essentially to the due
administration of that kingdom, and forming a part of it, the outward
dispensation of the ordinances and worship in the church shall never fail.” f41
“The ministry, embracing an order of men to discharge its duties, is a standing
institution in the Christian Church since its first establishment until now, and
Leslie, in his Short Method with the Deists, has fairly and justly appealed to
the uninterrupted existence of the office as the standing and permanent
monument of the great primary facts of Christianity, and, therefore, as
demonstrative evidence of its truth.” f42
Eld. J.M. Mathes, a leading Campbellite, adduces the recent origin of the
Methodist church as one evidence that it is not the church of Christ. He says:
“The M.E. church, as an organism is not old enough to be the church of God.”
f43
“In the darkest ages of Popery, God never ‘left Himself without a witness.’ It
is true that from the rise of that anti-christian power till the dawn of the
Reformation, the people of Christ may be emphatically denominated a ‘little
flock,’ yet small as their number may appear to have been to the eye of man,
and unable as historians may be, to trace with accuracy the saints of the Most
High, amidst ‘a world lying in wickedness,’ it cannot be doubted that even
then, there was a remnant, which kept the commandments of God, and the
testimony of Jesus Christ. If God reserved to Himself ‘seven thousand in
Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal,’ in the reign of idolatrous Ahab,
can we suppose, that during any preceding period, His Church has ceased to
exist, or that His cause has utterly perished?” f44
The attempt is made, in two ways, to weaken the force of these Scriptures for
the Perpetuity of Churches.
(1.) By resorting to the loose, assumed meaning, of the word church, as not
including organization. But in reply
(a) I have shown that ekklesia (ekklhsi>a) always indicates organization. f45
(See the first part of this chapter.)
(b) No man can show where it ever excludes organization.