Sola Scriptura

Good question! Rome destroyed all that they could not use to condemn their theological adversaries. They preserved what they thought was useful to justify their actions. However, it is in these very limited materials preserved we find the greatest contradictions. The only writings preserved of the Donatists are those preserved by Augustine in order to justify himself in regard to their debates. And even in what he preserved it is from his memory rather than from their pen.

In regard to the Waldenses, the earliest writings we have are those from the twelveth century and only because they hid them with themselves in their mountain refuge. In those writings we have it confirmed by their own pen that Rome slandered them and accused them wrongly in order to condemn them. The same thing is charged against Rome by Anabaptists in the 16th century. We have similar short statements preserved from the Paulicians who accused Rome of falsely condemning them for Manichaeism when in fact they condemned him and his teachings.

There is sufficient evidence from what Rome preserved of their enemies that they commonly attributed one name to several different types of people with different types of beleifs and this is evident because they record testimonies that are completely different and yet assign the same names to describe them.

What you are missing is that the Bible itself provides an interpretative guide to post-apostolic secular history of the Lord's Churches. It makes certain predictions concerning how they will be viewed by future generations and the arise of a greater apostate form of Christianity especially in relationship with the governments of the world. In other portions of scripture it is predicted they would be treated with the same scorn and ridicule and distortion that Jesus Christ was treated by the professed people of God of his own day.

Most professed Christians ignore the predictive element of the scriptures in regard to the future presentation of the true churches of God by the religious apostate world.

The evidence does exist and the surprising thing is that such evidence is produced by NON-Baptist historians. Historians like Mosheim, Neander, and even by high Roman Catholic officials and Reformers like Zwingli and others like Ridpath - all of which are non-Baptists and therefore cannot be accused of denominational bias. These historians note the discrepancies between the reports about the same people by Roman inquisitors and source materials and in addition to some preserved statements by the very people in question who denied they were guilty of what Rome charged them but declared they were being framed to merely be legally condemned.

Non-believers like Edward Gibbons who wrote one of the most comprehensive histories on the Roman Empire confirm how the Roman Catholic Church slandered others in order to condemn them, burning their records and even abusing the scriptures and the mass of immorality and ungodiliness that characterized the Vatican many times over.

Roman Catholics simply brush all these non-Baptist historians aside by accusing them as unqualified historians. Of course that is the Roman bias in response to anyone who opposes them on an intellectual and historical level.

You need to do further research and go beyond the Romish bias.

 

Why? Even when your are shown you still do not believe. On a recently closed thread this evidence was presented. You can read the links for yourself:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1748877&postcount=22

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1748879&postcount=23

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1748897&postcount=24

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1748806&postcount=18

 

The Biblicist has probably not read a single primary historical source to substantiate this claim of "Baptist successionism." Instead, he has probably gotten a hold of the booklet Trail of Blood by J.M. Carroll, which puts forth the ideas he passed on to you.

Let’s examine his claims about the sects that he mentions. He claims descent from the Anabaptists, Montanists, and Novations, but was their theology of a Baptist slant?

The Anabaptists baptized babies, and so can in no way be considered the spiritual ancestors to the present-day Baptists. Novations taught that those who had fallen from the faith should never be allowed to repent and return to the fold, since God cannot forgive their sin. The same council that defined the divinity of Christ (Nicea in A.D. 325) condemned the Novations. Montanists were a movement centering around the false prophet Montanus, who taught that the heavenly Jerusalem would soon descend upon his home town, the Phrygian village of Pepuza, and that, to prepare for the imminent coming of Christ, one must practice severe asceticism.

For a person to reject the Baptist successionist view is actually a compliment to the Baptists. In fact, years after having written Trail of Blood, Carroll wrote of himself,

Extensive graduate study and independent investigation of church history has, however, convinced [the author] that the view he once held so dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the contrary, surviving primary documents render the successionist view untenable. . . . Although free church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the 17th century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the reformers. (Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History [1994], 1–2)

Baptist professor and historian James Edward McGoldrick adds, "Perhaps no other body of professing Christians has had as much difficulty in discerning its historical roots as have the Baptists. A survey of conflicting opinions might lead a perceptive observer to conclude that Baptists suffer from an identity crisis" (Baptist Successionism, 1).

As Newman said in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant."

 

Wrong!

Examine them by whose history and standard????

Only someone who is completely and utterly ignorant of history would make such a claim. I suppose you also believe the group at Munster Germany were "Anabaptists? In spite of the fact that the general Anabaptist population in Europe denied it? In spite that modern historians have denied it?

Quite a simplistic and incomplete explanation even by the sources provided by Rome. They certainly did not deny the divinity of Christ as you infer by joining their name with that action by the council.

Another distortion as Tertullian was a Montanists and he certainly did not believe any of these things.

This is an absolute outright slanderous lie! Carrol did not say or write the above statement. It was said by McGoldrick not Carrol.

However, this shows how Rome handles it sources!!!

Moreover, the author (McGoldrick) of the work cited is not a Baptist but is a professor at a Presbyterian Seminary.

 

Now that the thread has been derailed, and it is well over 30 pages it is time for it to be closed.