Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

(c) There can be no reason why God — if there is such a church-should care so
much for a general, indefinable, intangible, “invisible” body of men and
women who have no definite places of meeting, no gospel and gospel
ordinances committed to it, no definite and tangible objects before it, as to
promise to preserve it, while He cared so little for a special, definable,
tangible, visible body of men and women, with definite places of meeting,
tangible objects before it, and gospel and gospel ordinances committed to it, as
to give it no promise of preservation!
(d) The preaching, the ordinances, the administration of discipline — all the
work of the gospel — having been committed, not to a general, indefinable,
intangible, invisible, body of men and women, with no places of meeting, no
objects before it, but to organization, it is clear that, what-ever may be
promised to a non-organization, the very mission and the very design of the
church lead us to expect its preservation. When Paul directed Timothy “how
men ought to behave themselves in the house of God, which is the church of
the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth,” — 1 Timothy 3:15 —
he spoke of organization with officers — “bishops” and “deacons” — see the
context, in verses 1-13. The election of officers, the receiving, the discipline
and exclusion of members, the keeping of the ordinances, — everything
necessary for the work of the gospel and the salvation of a lost world was
committed to “organized churches.” Compare Matthew 28:19, 20; Acts
1:26; 6:2, 3, 5; 10:47; 15:22; 16:4; Romans 14:1; 1 Corinthians 5:4, 5;
2 Corinthians 2:6; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thessalonians 3:6;
Revelation 2:14; 3:10, in which it will be seen that the churches elected
their officers, received, excluded members, preached the gospel, kept
everything in order. In preaching, baptizing, receiving, excluding, the churches
are the powers through which the king of Zion governs, extends His empire. A.
Campbell, of the churches, says:
“But as these communities possess the oracles of God. … they are in the
records of the kingdom regarded as the only constitutional citizens of the
kingdom.” f46
Few deny this necessity for the churches, until they come to meet the
impregnable stronghold of Bible promises of Church Perpetuity, when they
disparage the churches for their own general, in-tangible, invisible — I must
say it — nothing; and then they have Church Perpetuity promised to their pet
— nothing. Some of them will say:
“Yes, we admit, that through all ages there were men and women who held
Bible principles, Bible doctrines, Bible ordinances, etc.”
Yet, in the next breath, they deny that these were churches! Just as if the life,
evinced by the maintenance of these “principles,” these “ordinances” and the