Jarrel - Baptist Church Perpetuity - Landmark Baptist

Jortin:
the Manichaean tenets. We find nothing at all, however, in the doctrines of
the Paulicians which would lead us to presume that they were an offshoot
from Manichaeism; on the other hand we find much which contradicts such a
supposition.” f221
“Though charged with the Manichaean errors they have been honorably freed
from this reproach by respectable writers.” f225
Notice, secondly, the charge that the Paulicians rejected parts of the Bible.
Cramp does not so much as regard the charge worthy of notice. He mentions
their leader as having had given him by a deacon, “a copy of the gospels and of
the Epistles of Paul.” That he “read, believed and obeyed.” Manichaeism, by
which he had been deluded, was immediately renounced. His Manichean
books were thrown aside and the sacred writings exclusively studied. f226 This
is pretty conclusive evidence that so far as the Paulicians had knowledge of the
Bible they fully accepted it as inspired. Gibbon says of Constantine, the
Paulician leader:
“The four gospels and the epistles” (it is not certain they were able to possess
the whole Bible) “became the measure of his studies and the rule of his faith;
and the Catholics who dispute his interpretation acknowledge that his text was
genuine and sincere. But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to the
writings and character of St. Paul. The name of the Paulicians is derived by
their enemies from some unknown teacher; but I am confident that they
gloried in their affinity to the Apostles to the Gentiles. … In the gospels and
the epistles of St. Paul his faithful follower investigated the creed of
Christianity; and whatever may be the success a Protestant reader will applaud
the spirit of the inquiry.” f227
This does not harmonize with Gibbon’s and some others’ statement that they
rejected the old Testament and the Epistles of Peter. No man can be a
consistent follower of the gospels and Paul’s Epistles and at the same time
reject the Old Testament — their very root, so much preached from in these
books. As this charge is, therefore, self-evidently false as to the Old
Testament, there is no reason for believing the rest of it, especially as the
Epistles of Peter in no way are discordant with the gospels and Paul’s Epistles.
Hase says:
“Their principal attention was directed to a revival of apostolic and spiritual
Christianity. On every subject they appealed to the New Testament as a sacred
book for the people in the text used by the church, but with the exclusion of
the Epistles of Peter.” f228
Mosheim: