Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

Dr. Curry says: “Things will follow tendencies.” f103 (My italics.)
If believers thus came together in apostolic times, into New Testament
churches, and “things follow their tendencies,” as reasonably affirm that while
the “tendency” of the gospel in apostolic times was to make churches, yet, in
the dark ages, it was the reverse. Only by imagining ourselves in Hafed’s
chance world “can we imagine that the “principles and practices” and their
Christ, which produced gospel churches in the first century, have not produced
them ever since.
The Campbellite boasts of great faith in the power of the gospel. Yet, to make
room for Mr. Campbell’s church, he denies that the gospel produced New
Testament churches during the dark ages. Who really believes in the power of
the gospel — the Baptist who boldly affirms that so great is the power of the
gospel that from the first to the present century it has perpetuated gospel
churches, or the Campbellite who denies this? Talk about Perpetuity of Baptist
“principles and practices” or of Baptists without Perpetuity of Baptist churches
— without Baptists to observe and propagate them! As well talk about
Christian principles and practices perpetuated by Jews, Masonic principles and
practices by non-Masons, or life without corresponding form or appearance, as
to talk about the Perpetuity of “Baptist principles and practices” without
Baptist churches to observe these “practices and principles.” Or, as well speak
of Masons, Oddfellows, Republicans, Democrats or Romanists continuing
without organization, as to speak of Baptists continuing during the dark ages
without churches. Or, as the principles and the practices of physicians
inevitably imply physicians; of lawyers, lawyers; of engineers, engineers; of
Buddhists, Buddhists; of Mohammedans, Mohammedans; of Mormons,
Mormons; of Lutherans, Lutherans; of Episcopalians, Episcopalians; of
Methodists, Methodists; of Campbellites,Campbellites; of Presbyterians,
Presbyterians; so, “the principles and the practices of Baptists from the time of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the year 1886,” inevitably demand the
existence of Baptist churches during the same period. Consequently, in
response to a complimentary copy of Bro. Armitage’s Baptist History which
the publishers presented me as soon as it was published, soliciting a
recommendation, I gave L a recommendation, commending it for “much
valuable material and as also a refutation of the erroneous theory of its author,”
viz.; that there has not been a Perpetuity of Baptist churches with a perpetuity
of their “principles and practices.”
In the name of all reason and experience, what are people thinking about when
they say: “I believe in the Perpetuity of Baptist principles and practices from
the apostolic age to the present, but I am not so certain as to the same
Perpetuity of Baptist churches!” Fray, do stop and answer the question: Whom
do we now find believing and practicing the Baptist principles but Baptists? —