Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

“He placed a high estimate upon that consciousness of God, which he
contended might be found in the depths of every soul, but he was fond of
contrasting with proud irony the foolishness of the gospel with the wordly
wisdom of his contemporaries, and the incredibility of the divine miracles
with ordinary understanding of the world. His writings are partly
controversial … and partly devotional. They are, however, so written that the
devotional element constantly appears in the former, and the polemic in the
latter, in behalf of strict morality and discipline.” f115
Hase says of Tertullian’s writings:
“The Montanistic spirit is perceptible in them all, but in the earliest of them it
holds up the simple, noble nature of Christian morality in opposition merely
to an effeminate form of civilization, gradually it proceeds to severer
demands, and shows an increasing consciousness of its pneumatic nature in
opposition to those who were merely physical Christians; and, finally it was
especially hostile to the Romish Church, in proportion as the latter ceased to
favor Montanism. For it was not so much Tertullian as the Roman bishop who
changed his views with reference to that system … Tertullian, to whom the
Paraclete was rather a restorer of apostolic order than an innovator, and
religious ecstacy was rather a theory than a principle, became so prominent
that he was looked upon as the model for Latin theology. This theology was
rather disinclined to philosophical theories respecting divine things; it spoke
of Athens and the Academy as irreconcilable with Jerusalem and the church
and turned its whole attention to questions respecting the condition of the
church, and things essential to salvation.” f118
Of Tertullian, Moller says:
“To him the very substance of the church was the Holy Spirit and by no
means the Episcopacy whose right to wield the power of the keys he
rejected.” f119
Thus, in Church Government they were Baptists. In the following, we have
this yet more explained: Says Neander:
“Montanism set up a church of the Spirit, consisting of spirateles homines in
opposition to the prevailing outward view of that institution. Tertullian says:
‘The church, in the proper and prominent sense, is the Holy Spirit in which
the Three are One, — and next, the whole community of those who are agreed
in this faith (that God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are One,) is
called after its founder and consecrator, (the Holy Spirit,) the church. f117 The
Catholic point of view, expresses itself in this — viz., that the idea of the
church is put first, and by this very position of it, made outward; next, the
agency of the Holy Spirit is represented as conditioned by it, and hence
derived through this mediation. Montanism, on the other hand, like
Protestantism, places the Holy Spirit first, and considers the Holy Spirit first,
and considers the church as that which is only derived. f116 … The gifts of the