Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

community of saints could not fail to end in either miserable delusions, or in
bursting asunder the whole existing Christendom.”
Says Hase:
“Novatian was a prudent advocate of the faith generally embraced in the
church. … The Novatians excluded from the church all who had been guilty
of deadly sins f145 and taught, that while such should be exhorted to
repentance and hope of divine mercy, no prospect should be held out to them
that they should ever be re-admitted to a church f146 which should consist of
saints and purified persons (kaqaroi>)” f149
Much of the trouble was to avoid persecution. Thousands of unregenerate
church members in time of persecution denied Christ; then, when persecution
was over, to get back into the church, would come up with a whining
confession. Thus the church was greatly scandalized, as this led on to greater
disregard of church obligations. Hence, says Socrates:
“Those who took pleasure in sin, encouraged by the license thus granted
them, took occasion from it to revel in every species of criminality.” f151
Robinson says:
“The case is briefly this: Novatian was an elder in the Church of Rome. He
was a man of extensive learning, and held the same doctrine f150 as the church
did, and published several treatise in defence of what he believed. His address
was eloquent and insinuating, and his morals were irreproachable. He saw
with extreme pain the intolerable depravity of the church, Christians within
the space of a very few years were caressed by one emperor and persecuted
by another. In seasons of prosperity many rushed into the church for base
purposes. In times of adversity they denied the faith and ran back to idolatry
again. When the squall was over, away they came again to the church, with all
their vices, to deprave others by their example. The bishops, fond of
proselytes, encouraged all this, and transferred the attention of Christians
from the old confederacy for virtue, to vain shows at Easter, and a thousand
other Jewish ceremonies, adulterated, too, with paganism. On the death of
Bishop Fabian, Cornelius, a brother elder, and a vehement partisan for taking
in the multitude, was put in nomination. Novatian opposed him; but as
Cornelius carried his election and he saw no prospect of reformation, but, on
the contrary, a tide of immorality pouring into the church, he withdrew and a
great many with him. … Great numbers followed his example, and all over
the empire Puritan churches were constituted, and flourished through the
succeeding two hundred years. Afterward, when penal laws obliged them to
lurk in corners and in private, they were distinguished by a variety of names
and a succession of them continued until the Reformation.” f152
Neander says: