Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

CHAPTER 5. — THE BURDEN OF PROOF ON
OPPONENTS TO BAPTIST CHURCH PERPETUITY.
THE MATERIAL ON WHICH THE HISTORIAN MUST
DEPEND. THE DEGREE OF PROOF NECESSARY.
1. The burden of proof is on opponents of Baptist Church Perpetuity.
Says Greenleaf, the standard authority on Evidence in all our courts of law:
“Presumptions are founded on the experience or permanency, of longer or
shorter duration in human affairs. When, therefore, the existence of a person,
a personal relation, or a state of things, is once established by proof, the law
presumes that the person, relation, or state of things continues to exist as
before, until the contrary is shown, or until a different presumption is raised,
from the nature of the subject in question. Thus, when the issue is upon the
life or death of a person, once shown to have been living, the burden of proof
lies upon him who asserts the death.” f82
Whatley, an eminent authority on logic, in other words, makes the statement
just quoted from Greenleaf:
“There is a presumption in favor of every existing institution. No one is called
on (though he may find it advisable) to defend an existing institution, till
some argument is adduced against it.” f83
Applying this law against infidelity, Whatley says:
“Christianity exists, and those who deny the divine origin attributed to it, are
bound to show some reasons for assigning to it a human origin.” f84
With the law, announced by Greenleaf and Whatley, to govern this
investigation, those who claim the post-apostolic origin of Baptist churches are
bound to show “some reasons for assigning them a human origin.”
Since all modern institutions, whether secular or religious, have a historical
and well-known origin, whoever affirms the modern origin of Baptist churches
must show where, when and by whom they were originated. Since “the law
presumes that the person, relation, or state of things continues to exist as
before, until the contrary is shown, or until a different presumption is raised,
from the nature of the subject in question,” with a Baptist church existing in
the first and the present centuries, in the language of Whatley, “we are not
called upon to defend an existing institution” — Baptist churches — “until
some argument is adduced against it” — against their succession from