Church Identity and Perpetuity Part 9

 Sylvester Hassell wrote a comprehensive history of the Primitive Baptists. Published in 1886, it is still the definitive church history for us today. Chapter IX of that work is called the Characteristics of the Apostolic Church. The first eight chapters of the history covers the time from creation to the end of the first century or the death of the apostle John. The story over these years is told by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The Apostles were eyewitnesses of Christ, and were endued with unique and special powers sealing their authority to teach and write scripture by the Holy Ghost.

Elder Hassell wrote this ninth chapter because it is the whole key to the argument for Primitive Baptist succession of baptism and identity as the Lord’s church. He states very clearly that the standard for who is the true church is the apostolic church. The church described by the Apostles in scripture is true and correct. Nothing that is opposed to the apostolic doctrine and practice is correct. He gives twelve identifying marks, or characteristics, that are taught in scripture and are useful for identifying the true church in every successive generation.

Based on the promises of God, principally given in Dan 2:44 and Mat 16:18, we believe that the kingdom identified by the teaching of Christ and his apostles is still in existence today, has always been in existence since the day of John the Baptist (Luke 16:16), and will be preserved by God for those exercising biblical teaching for the discipline of the church. We can not go to history to prove the continued existence of the church if we don’t already believe it by the promise of God. Uninspired, extra-biblical history is valuable and interesting, but it is secondary to scripture.

The data from history is woefully incomplete compared to all the people and events that took place over time. This makes tracing the identity of the church through history comparable to watching a train. We may see it start off from the station and then it may enter a tunnel and be hid from our sight for long stretches of time. But when it emerges out of the tunnel here or there, we wouldn’t doubt that it survived in an uninterrupted succession from trestle to trestle, even though we couldn’t prove it by our sight. In other words, we don’t get our belief in church perpetuity from reading history, rather we bring it into our reading of history.

By taking a clear stand that we aren’t protestants, we are making a statement that the church is of a nature where it never needed to be reformed. The fact is that the protestant reformers were excluded by the church they were trying to reform. History records pre-reformational traditions that influenced some of what Luther and Calvin believed such as Ana-baptists, Waldenses, and others; but those reformers did not leave the catholic church and join them. They started their own tradition when they were excommunicated from their church. Whether we can or cannot identify which ancient groups carried the torch we have, we surely believe that our church wasn’t started by some man in protest to the tradition he was handed.

Going forward, I want to summarize and defend each of the twelve marks that Hassell has so ably laid out in his history to show us how we relate to the apostolic church.