"A rose by any other name still smells as sweet." Baptists may not have always been referred to by their enemies as Baptists. They have been called Montanists, Novations, Paulicians, Henricans, Waldenses, Anabaptists, heretics and schismatics. Whatever name they have been persecuted under; they have continued to smell a sweet savour unto God.We submit that modern day sovereign grace, landmark, missionary Baptist Churches are identical in doctrine, baptism, and polity with those churches of Christ which existed long before the Reformation, which never adopted the heresies of Rome, indeed which were originally organized and authorized by Jesus Christ.
It is strange that when you speak with many so-called fundamental Baptist preachers today you discover that their knowledge of church history extends back to Billy Sunday, D. L. Moody, and Sam Jones. Mentioning the names of J. R. Graves, J. M. Pendleton, John Gill, or Dr. John Clarke will draw a blank stare. Even worse would be some of the names mentioned in this book such as Montanus, Novation, and Donatus the Great. The great Baptist preachers of the past have been all but forgotten by those who wear their name. The greater pity is that the doctrines which those preachers preached have been forgotten also. Today one may call himself a Baptist and yet be against every doctrine that our Baptist forefathers lived and died for.
We hope that "The Church in the Wilderness" will find a good circulation not only among Baptist preachers but among those many members of Baptist churches who know not their glorious ancestry. We hope that the republication of this book will awaken many to the fact that Baptists are not protestants, but rather have a history that antedates both the reformation and the heresy of Catholicism.
Medford Caudill, Goshen, Indiana, January 1986
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The Church in the Wilderness
By W. W. Everts,
A 52 page book.=============