Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

CHAPTER 6. — THE NEGATIVE PROOF. BAPTIST
CHURCH PERPETUITY, FROM THE APOSTOLIC
AGE TO THE PRESENT, EVIDENT FROM BAPTIST
OPPONENTS BEING UNABLE TO ASSIGN AND
AGREE ON ANY HUMAN FOUNDER AND POST-
APOSTOLIC ORIGIN FOR BAPTIST CHURCHES.
Answering my questions: When, where and by whom was the first Baptist
church originated? I have the following from Roman Catholic bishops, priests
and Protestant scholars, given me A.D. 1893:
The priest of Shreveport got out of the difficulty by writing: “You have in
Dallas two or three priests with valuable libraries. Interview them.” — J.
Gentille, Shreveport, La. The Archbishop of Cincinnati wrote me:
“I cannot get time to answer all my letters. These questions cannot be
answered without explanations, which I have not time to make. And there is
no reason why you come to me for them. You have men near you — priests
and others — who can do it better than G.H. Elder.” (My italics.)
With more judgment, many other Romanists dropped my letters aside without
so much as acknowledging their being received. With less judgment than any
of the others, the following Romanists attempted to answer:
The bishop of New Orleans, answered: “In Germany, called Anabaptists, by
Nich. Stork, 1522.”
Priest Jno. S. Murphy, of St. Patrick’s Church, Houston, Texas, answered:
“Stork, a short time after Luther proclaimed his heresies.”
It seems that the bishop of New Orleans, the Houston priest, and one or two
Protestant writers, when they answered, must have had the same Romish,
slanderous authority before them. But the Cincinnati arch-bishop, the
Shreveport priest, and other scholars, either knew nothing of that authority, did
not remember it, or did not think it reliable. Here comes the spokesman for
Cardinal Gibbons, who contradicts the New Orleans bishop and the Houston
priest, and, by his attempt to answer, without intending to do so, concedes the
impossibility of assigning the origin of Baptist churches to any man or age
since the first century. He writes:
“Cardinal’s residence, Baltimore, Md., Sept. 4, 1893. Your questions are not
possibly capable of exact and very positive answers. The Baptist church of the
present time seems to be the lineal descendant of the old Anabaptists of