Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

King of Zion. f49 So far as the use of the testimony of these writers is
concerned, it matters not, if these writers believed the churches of the New
Testament are Romish or Mormon churches. They agree that whatever the
churches of the New Testament are, they are promised Church Perpetuity. And
I have proved them all organizations.
I will close this argument with the testimony of one Methodist and two
Presbyterian scholars.
Adam Clarke:
“The church of the living God. The assembly in which God lives and works,
each number of which is a living stone, all of whom, properly united among
themselves,” — this is organization, — “grow up into a holy temple in the
Lord.” f50
Barnes, Presbyterian:
“Thus it is with the church. It is intrusted with the business of maintaining the
truth, of defending it from the assaults of error, and of transmitting it to future
times. The truth is, in fact, upheld in the world by the church. The people of
the world feel no interest in defending it, and it is to the Church of Christ that
it is owing that it is preserved and transmitted from age to age. … The
stability of the truth on earth is dependent on the church. … Other systems of
religion are swept away; other opinions change; other forms of doctrine
vanish; but the knowledge of the great system of redemption is preserved on
earth unshaken, because the church is preserved and its foundations can not
be moved. As certainly as the church continues to live, so certain will it be
that the truth of God will be perpetuated in the world.” f51
Again, says Bannerman:
“The visible church is Christ’s kingdom; and the administration of
government, ordinance, and discipline within it, is but a part of that
administration by which He rules over His people. That kingdom may at
different times be more or less manifest to the outward eye and more or less
conspicuous in the view of men. But He has left us a promise that the powers
of evil shall never finally prevail against it or sweep it entirely away; and, as
belonging essentially to a due administration of that kingdom, and forming a
part of it, the outward dispensation of ordinances and worship in the Church
shall never fail. *** There are express announcements in Scripture,
warranting us to assert that the various institutions and rites that make up the
outward provision of government, worship, ordinance, and discipline in the
Church of Christ, should be continued to the end of the world.” f52
“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