DON'T BELIEVE THE PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE MONTANIST FROM PROTESTANTS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCHES.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST CORRUPTION. Incorruptible Churches_The Testimony of Bunsen_The Montanist Churches_The Anabaptism_The Spread of the Movement_The Novatian Churches_Robinson Traces Them to the Reformation_They Were Called Anabaptists_The Donatist Churches_Their Origin_Rejected Infant Baptism_Benedict_Lincoln_Augustine_Liberty of Conscience_Neander_Their Attitude Toward Liberty_Their Protest.
The first protest in the way of separation from the growing corruptions of the times was the movement of the Montanist churches. This Montanus, the leader, was a Phrygian, who arose about the year A. D. 156.
The most distinguished advocate of Montanism was Tertullian who espoused and defended their views.
They held that science and art, all worldly education or gay form of life, should be avoided, because such things belonged to paganism. The crown of life was martyrdom. Religious life they held to be austere.
Against a mortal sin the church should defend itself by rightly excluding him who committed it, for the holiness of the church was simply the holiness of the members. With such principles they could not fail to come in conflict with the popular Christianity of the day. The substance of the contentions of these churches was for a life of the Spirit. It was not a new form of Christianity; it was a recovery of the old, the primitive church set over against the obvious corruptions of the current Christianity. The old church demanded purity; the new church had struck a bargain with the world, and had arranged itself comfortably with it, and they would, therefore, break with it (Moeller, Montanism in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, 111.1562). Their contention was not so much one of doctrine as of discipline. They insisted that those who had "lapsed" from the true faith should be rebaptized, because they had denied Christ and ought to be baptized anew. On this account they were termed "Anabaptists," and some of their principles reappeared in Anabaptism (Schaff, History of the Christian Church, II. 427). Infant baptism was not yet a dogma, and we know that it was rejected by the Montanists. Tertullian thought only adults ought to be immersed. The Montanists were deeply rooted in the faith, and their opponents admitted that they received the entire Scriptures of the Old and the New Te taments, and they were sound in their views of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Epiphanius, Hoer, XLVJII. 1). They rejected episcopacy and the right of the bishop_s claim to exercise the power of the keys.
CTTO John T. Christian A.M, D.D., LL.D.
