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LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
ISAAC BACKUS
A PAPER
SUBMITTED TO DR. BRUCE SNAVELY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE
AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY
CHHI 692
BY
BRIAN DOUGLAS AUNKST
MORRISON, COLORADO
MAY 10, 2013
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ii
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ISAAC BACKUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Early Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
The New Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Itinerant Preacher and Pastor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Baptism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Theologian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Religious Liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Warren Baptist Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Revolutionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Massachusetts Delegate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Historian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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INTRODUCTION
No issue in contemporary America is as emotionally intense and politically controversial
as the separation of Church and State. Conservatives argue that America was founded as a
Christian nation and that Christianity should be its exclusive religion, freely practiced publically
and privately. Liberals argue that religion is a personal and private matter and that Christian
doctrine and morality cannot and should not be legislated and do not belong anywhere in the
public sector. Anger, confusion, and ignorance dominate both sides of the debate.
The celebrated authors of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison, are hailed as the founders of America’s first freedoms. However,
before them, the fervent belief in religious liberty of a colonial New England preacher named
Isaac Backus and his relentless struggle to see it become a reality secured the freedom of religion
and the Church-State separation that are so firmly entrenched in modern America. As this paper
will demonstrate, Backus was much more than a well-traveled itinerant preacher, a prolific writer
and theologian, and a copious historian of the colonial Baptists; he was also a determined
political activist—the man most responsible for freedom of religion in America.
BACKGROUND
In 1620, a small group of Anglican Separatists who had been enjoying relative religious
toleration in Holland left the economic difficulties in Europe and settled in America, establishing
the first English colony in New England: Plymouth Colony.1 A decade later, another group of
Anglican dissenters established the nearby Massachusetts Bay Colony, situated near present-day
1 John Corrigan and Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson,
2004), 53.
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Boston.2 Unlike the Separatist Pilgrims of Plymouth who believed the Church of England was
beyond repair, these Puritans sought to restore or ‘purify’ the Church.3 They too had fled the
persecution dissenters suffered in England, and under the leadership of John Winthrop, their
purpose was to establish a wholly Puritan state in the New World: “a city upon a hill” and a
model community for others to follow.4 Greatly outnumbering their Separatist neighbors to the
south, by 1691 when the colonies were merged, Massachusetts and much of New England was
under the domination of the theocratic Puritans.5
Governed by the Cambridge Platform, a statement of polity largely composed by Mather
patriarch, Richard, the Puritans were congregational, and that method of administration came to
be applied to the civil government as well as to the church; in fact, the two were practically
inseparable.6 One could not be a free, voting member of society unless one became a confirmed
member of the church. This “Puritan Way” became the standard throughout much of New
England.7 Outsiders and religious dissenters were not tolerated, much less welcomed; in most
instances they were persecuted by the church and prosecuted by the civil authority.8 “Baptists
were banished from the colony by statute in 1644, and four Quakers, who insisted on returning
after being expelled, were hanged.”9 This 1644 act decreed banishment for all persons who
2 Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1992), 40.
3 Edwin S. Gaustad, “Quest for Pure Christianity,” Christian History Magazine-Issue 41: The American
Puritans, 1994, under “Purifying the Church.” Logos ebook.
4 Ibid., under “City Upon a Hill.” Logos ebook.
5
Corrigan and Hudson, Religion in America, 59-60.6 George W. Harper, “New England Dynasty,” Christian History Magazine-Issue 41: The American
Puritans, 1994, under “Richard: Titan in Exile.” Logos ebook.
7 Noll, A History of Christianity, 41.
8 Ibid., 55-58.
9 Michael W. McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,”
Harvard Law Review 103 no. 7 (May 1990), 1423. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1341281 (accessed January 31,
2013).
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“openly or secretly seduced others from baptizing infants.”10
Expelled from Massachusetts,
Roger Williams and fellow dissenters Anne Hutchinson and John Clarke eventually formed the
Rhode Island colony on the basis of religious freedom.11
For the rest of New England, the
Church and the State remained inextricably intertwined into the nineteenth century.12
Several events occurred that began eating away at the roots of this seemingly monolithic
society. First, the 1689 Act of Toleration brought some measure of religious liberty to the
England and her colonies, allowing Baptists and other dissenters to worship without fear.13
Second was the Enlightenment, which shifted man’s view of the world from God toward
himself; faith in human reasoning supplanted faith in God.
14
Finally, a spiritual revival
movement in the early to mid-eighteenth century known as the Great Awakening not only
brought renewed religious fervor, but also a sense cooperation and toleration among the various
American denominations.15
ISAAC BACKUS
Into this religious turbulence of late colonial New England came one who would do more
for the cause of religious liberty and the Separation of Church and State than perhaps any other.
The freedom to worship according to one’s own conscience and the disestablishment of Church-
State bonds became Isaac Backus’ calling—one that he would spend much of his adult life
10 Conrad Henry Moehlman, “The Baptist View of State,” Church History 6, no. 1 (March 1937): 38,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3160059 (accessed March 13, 2013).
11 Edwin S. Gaustad, “John Clarke: ‘good news from Rhode Island,’” Baptist History and Heritage 24, no.
4 (October 1989), 21.
12 McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 1423.
13 H. Leon McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers,
1990), 79. Logos ebook.
14 Nicholas P. Miller, The Religious Roots of the First Amendment (New York: Oxford University Press,
2012), 1. Kindle ebook.
15 H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1987), 253. Logos ebook.
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pursuing. Because of his fundamental belief in religious liberty, Backus, a Baptist clergyman,
historian, and delegate to the First Continental Congress, was instrumental in bringing freedom
of religion, not only to New England, but also to the entire United States of America.
Early Years
Backus was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on January 9, 1724.16
His family has been
variously described as “well-to-do,”17
“ordinary,”18
“elite,”19
and even “ruling elite.”20
His
great-grandfather, William Backus, Sr., a blacksmith by trade, had come to Saybrook,
Connecticut, in 1638.21
His grandfather, Joseph Backus, also a blacksmith, began an ironworks
along the Yantic River, which would eventually be run by Isaac’s brother, Elijah, and play a
significant role in the production of arms for the American Revolution.22
Joseph was a local
politician and representative to the Connecticut legislature. Joseph had opposed replacing the
Cambridge Platform with the more moderate Saybrook Platform in 1708.23
Joseph’s wife
outlived him by many years and is mentioned by Isaac in his journals. His mother’s father, John
Tracy, whose strong religious influence upon Isaac was through her, died when Isaac was two.24
16 William G. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1968), 2.
17 Ibid.
18 William G. McLoughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition (Boston: Little, Brown, &
Co., 1967), ix.
19 Daniel G. Reid, Robert Dean Linder, Bruce L. Shelley, and Harry S. Stout, Dictionary of Christianity in
America (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), s.v. “Backus, Isaac.” Logos ebook.
20 William G. McLoughlin, ed., The Diary of Isaac Backus, vol. 1 (Providence, RI: Brown University
Press, 1979), xv.
21 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 3.
22 Ibid.
23 Alvah Hovey, Memoir of the Life and Times of Isaac Backus (Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 1858), under
“Character of Backus’s Grandparents.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
24 Ibid.
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Samuel Backus, Isaac’s father, while a prosperous farmer and businessman, had very
little to do with Isaac’s religious upbringing, himself only becoming a communicant of the
church in 1736.25
Samuel’s untimely death in 1740 left his wife with ten children and one six-
week old infant. Isaac’s mother, Elizabeth, was greatly shaken and depressed by Samuel’s
death.26
Most of Isaac’s religious training and convictions came from his mother, as she had
experienced conversion in 1721, an incident she often shared with her children.27
Seventeen-forty also marked the year in which George Whitefield and the Great
Awakening swept through New England. Eager to capitalize on the renewed religious fervor,
Benjamin Lord, the Backus’ pastor, invited revivalist James Davenport to Norwich, where on
August 24, 1741 at the age of seventeen, Isaac Backus was convicted of his sin and born again.28
His mother too experienced “a second religious experience,” and soon Isaac and Elizabeth were
numbered among the “New Lights.”29
The New Lights
The Great Awakening brought with it renewed religious experience and enthusiasm,
much to the chagrin of many of the established clergy. These “socially and theologically
conservative opponents of George Whitefield and the mass revivals he inspired” denied that the
Great Awakening was the work of God.30
Leading these so-called “Old Lights” was Boston
clergyman Charles Chauncy who toured many New England churches speaking against revival
claiming that “religion, rather than pertaining to human emotions, primarily appeals to the
25 Ibid., under “Character of his Parents.” Adobe Digital Editions ebook.
26 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 9.
27 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 2.
28 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 11-12.
29 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 3.
30 Reid, Linder, Shelley, and Stout, Dictionary of Christianity in America, s.v. “Old Lights.” Logos ebook.
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understanding and judgment.”31
Opposing Chauncy was Jonathan Edwards, who argued that the
revival was indeed from God, saying, “‘All acts of the affections of the soul are in some sense
acts of the will, and all acts of the will are acts of the affections.’ As such, true religious
experience involved a new ‘sense of the heart,’ transforming the individual from love of self to
love of God.”32
Further adding to the tension was the “Half-Way Covenant.”33
For some time, the New
England Puritans had been relaxing their requirement for limiting membership to only those who
made a profession of faith and had experienced conversion. As the second-generation New
Englanders turned away from the Standing (Congregational) Church and membership numbers
sank in the mid-1600s, the Puritan leadership desperately sought a way to preserve the church’s
influence on as many people as possible. In 1662, as their numbers of members continued to
dwindle, they had adopted this Half-Way Covenant offering essentially “half-way” membership
and baptism for “individuals of good behavior.”34
This practice brought New Lights like Backus into conflict with Old Lights like his
pastor, Benjamin Lord. The pietism of the New Lights contrasted sharply with many in the
church who had not experienced genuine conversion but were nonetheless admitted as half-way
members. The New Lights began to sense God’s calling to return to the former practice of
limiting church membership to only those who had experienced true conversion and to
excommunicate those who had not.35
The Old Lights strenuously opposed those efforts, so in
31 Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology: Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Academic, 2001), 831. Logos ebook.
32 Ibid., s.v., “New Lights.” Logos ebook.
33 E. Brooks Holifield, “On Toleration in Massachusetts,” Church History 38, no. 2 (June 1969): 199.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3162706 (accessed March 13, 2013).
34 Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 532. Logos ebook.
35 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 21-22.
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1744 Backus and other New Lights, including his mother, left the Norwich parish church and
began to hold meetings by themselves, forming the Separate Church at Bean Hill.36
Itinerant Preacher and Pastor
Feeling an “inward call” to become a minister, Backus preached a ‘test’ sermon to his
brethren at Bean Hill, confirming that he had indeed been given “the gift” of preaching—a fact
that apparently surprised them both.37
Given his preaching license by the Separates, Backus
began to itinerate throughout southeastern New England through 1746-1747. In December 1747,
Backus visited the towns of Bridgewater and Middleborough in Massachusetts in the Titicut
parish—a visit that would change his life forever. Backus noted the people there “appeared to be
really hungering after gospel food.”38
In 1748, the New Lights of the Titicut parish asked
Backus to join the Standing Church and be their pastor; however, Backus instead chose to remain
a Separate, and on February 16, 1748 sixteen New Lights, including Backus, formed “The
Church of Christ in the Joining Borders of Bridgewater and Middleborough.”39
On April 13,
Backus was ordained their minister.40
By the close of 1748, the congregation had grown to
“upwards of sixty members.”41 However, as was characteristic of Separate ministers, Backus
continued to itinerate—a practice he continued to 1789.42
While Massachusetts had begun providing a measure of recognition and tax exemption
for to some dissenting churches (mostly Quakers and Baptists), New Light Separatists were not
36 Timothy Larsen, D. W. Bebbington, and Mark A. Noll, Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals
(Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 27. Logos ebook.
37 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 5.
38 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 1, 12.
39 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 42.
40 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 6.
41 Hovey, Memoir , under “Fruits of Backus’ Labors.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
42 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 208.
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among those exempt from paying taxes to support the official Congregational Church.43
Because his church was not recognized as legitimate, and because Backus was not recognized as
a minister, he and his followers (including his mother) were required to pay the tax just as if they
were still members of the Standing Church. Those who did not pay had their personal property
seized and sold at auction; some were jailed until their taxes were paid.44
To protest having to
support the Standing Church, Backus wrote to the Titicut parish proposing to pay the tax if they
would let the Separatists use their meeting house for worship and recognize Backus as their
minister. The parish rejected both proposals.45
While many of Backus’ followers yielded and
paid the tax, others did not and suffered the consequences.
46
Backus himself was “Seazed [sic]
by the officer and he threatened to Carry me to Prison…but just as he was a going to drag me
away there Came a man and Called him out and paid him the money. So that he was forced to
let me go.”47
For Backus, this incident began what would be a life long struggle against
religious taxation and for the separation of Church and State.48
Baptism
Taxation and the marriage of Church and State in New England were not the only issues
troubling Isaac Backus. First, since his conversion, Backus had been trying to work out his own
theology and his position in Christ. Second, the issue of infant baptism was tearing at Backus’
church and at the New Light Separates in general.49
In August 1749 two of Backus’ most
zealous parishioners, in an effort to rectify what they perceived to be an error in the established
43 McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 170-71. Logos ebook.
44 McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 256. Logos ebook.
45 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 475-484.
46 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 53.
47 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 1, 52-53.
48 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 7.
49 Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll, Biographical Dictionary, 27. Logos ebook.
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church practice, raised the matter at a church meeting. Lacking any formal seminary education,
these men simply observed the absence of any definitive direction regarding infant baptism in the
Bible. Their proposal was quite radical—drop the practice of infant baptism entirely.50
Steeped
in historic Puritan, anti-Baptist tradition, Backus initially opposed this view. However, he began
to sense a conflict between the New Light Separate position that only professing believers could
be members of the church and the historic Puritan tradition of baptizing infants, who obviously
could make no such profession. This inner struggle tormented Backus for six years.51
The
struggle within Backus’ church between those holding Baptist views and those maintaining
traditional views virtually destroyed it.
52
In an attempt to diffuse the tensions within his church, Backus turned to the Bible,
finding to his astonishment that the texts that supposedly supported infant baptism were not as
unequivocal as he had supposed. Rather he found neither any decisive evidence to sustain the
practice nor any clear command to establish it. Worse, he could not find a single instance of
infant baptism in the biblical record.53
He concluded, “The Baptist way is certainly right,
because nature fights so against it.”54 Backus’ inner turmoil is expressed in his diary: “I
preached upon [baptism] in the after-noon—that none had any right to baptism but Believers,
and that plunging, Seemed to be the only right mode. But before I had done I felt my mind
entangled…, and my mind was turned back to infant baptism.”55
Afterward, Backus left on a
preaching tour for almost a month; still, his message must have proved influential to his
50
McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 7-8.51 Ibid., 8.
52 Hovey, Memoir , under “Difference About Infant Baptism.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
53 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 61.
54 Isaac Backus, A History of New England: With Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians
Called Baptists (Providence, RI: Providence Press, 1777), 2:119. Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
55 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 1, 68.
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congregation, for when he returned, he found that nine of them had been baptized during his
absence.56
Nevertheless, Backus remained unconvinced, and his soul remained tortured, describing
this strife within him as “a constant load” and “considerable strugglings.” Finally, after much
“agonizing prayer” and “intense study,” throughout the summer of 1751, Backus “slowly
emerge[d] from darkness into light, from painful suspense into assured belief.”57
On August 22,
while attending the baptism of six of his congregants, Backus became convicted that infant
baptism was without merit; he gave his testimony, went down into the water, and was baptized.58
Borrowing much of his argument against pedobaptism from English Particular Baptist theologian
and pastor John Gill, Backus defended his decision in a tract entitled A Short Description of the
Difference Between the Bond-Woman and the Free, in which he rejected the covenant theology
of the Puritans.59
Unfortunately, rather than easing the situation for Backus, he was now faced with trying
to keep his church together. Having rejected infant baptism in his church, Backus was
confronted with refusing the Lord’s Supper to those who had not been baptized as believers; he
even experimented with open communion, which in turn led to bitter debates among his
congregants.60
Unable to effectively achieve a compromise on these issues and with the
religious tax exemption still beyond reach, his Separate church in Titicut parish ceased to exist,
56 Hovey, Memoir , under “Retraction of Baptist Views.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
57 Ibid.
58 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 1, 147-148.
59 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 129-133.
60 Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll, Biographical Dictionary, 27-28. Logos ebook.
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and on January 16, 1756, Backus and his like-minded followers formed the new First Baptist
Church in Middleborough,61
where Backus served as pastor for the rest of his life.62
Backus soon became a leader among the New England Baptists, as the denomination
grew from fewer than six churches outside of Rhode Island in 1730 to nearly 300 in 1790.63
However, his ‘Separate’ Baptist church stood in direct opposition to the more established “Old
Baptists” who had not participated in the Great Awakening and did not fellowship with the
Separate Baptists.64
The Old Baptists held an Arminian doctrine, while the Backus’ Separates
tended to be strictly Calvinistic; a theology which was best crystalized by Jonathan Edwards and
became known as New England theology.
65
Nonetheless, the 1756 tax exemption laws forced
the two groups together along with all other “members of the Anabaptist church.”66
Under
Backus’ leadership this union eventually resulted in Calvinism becoming the predominant
theology for the Baptists, not only in New England, but in America.67
Theologian
Baptist pastor and theologian Stanley J. Grenz observed that Backus’ theology consisted
of three components. First was his Calvinistic emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God as
had been articulated by Jonathan Edwards.68
Backus believed in “one supreme BEING whose
61 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 87-90.
62 Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll, Biographical Dictionary, 27-28. Logos ebook.
63 T. B. Maston, Isaac Backus: Pioneer of Religious Liberty (Rochester, NY: American Baptist Society,
1962), 24-25.64 Hovey, Memoir , under “New and Old Baptists.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
65 Maston, Isaac Backus, 24-28.
66 Hovey, Memoir , under “Assistance in Preaching.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
67 Maston, Isaac Backus, 34.
68 Stanley J. Grenz, “Church and State: The Legacy of Isaac Backus,” Center Journal. 2, no. 2 (Spring
1983): 75.
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kingdom ruleth over all.”69
The second area that influenced Backus’ theology was anthropology.
Influenced by John Locke and the Enlightenment, Backus believed that man’s intellect was his
controlling faculty.70
“The will of man is always determined in its choice by motive or by what
they at present prefer or think the best.”71
Ecclesiology is the third doctrine that formed Backus’
thinking. Differing from his Congregationalist neighbors, Backus believed that the local church
was united by a completely voluntary covenant.72
Quoting Locke, Backus wrote:
Mr. Locke says, “A church is a free and voluntary society. Nobody is born a member ofany church, otherwise the religion of the parents would descend into the children by the
same right of inheritance as their temporal estates, and everyone would hold his faith by
the same tenure he does his lands, than which nothing can be more absurd.”73
From this threefold foundation, Backus’ belief in the separation of Church and State emerged.
This solidification of Backus’ theological and ecclesiastical position is evidenced by a series of
apologetical tracts published from 1754 to 1768. Among these, The Nature and Necessity of an
Internal Call to Preach the Everlasting Gospel (1754) and A Fish Caught in His Own Net (1768)
are the most important.74
Religious Liberty
A Fish Caught in His Own Net was largely a reply to accusations against Backus and the
Separate Baptists by his former pastor Benjamin Lord and Reverend Joseph Fish, a Standing
minister from Stonington, Connecticut.75
Lord and Fish accused the Baptists of inciting “a
69 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 402.
70
Grenz, “Church and State,” 76.71 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 297.
72 Grenz, “Church and State,” 78-9.
73 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 376.
74 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 25.
75 William G. McLoughlin, “Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State,” The American
Historical Review 73, no. 5 (June 1968): 1405.
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rebellion against the STATE.”76
Backus recorded his reflections about Lord, “Mr. Lord, the
minister where I was born, has treated us, and the truths which we hold about the ministry, the
church, and baptism, in so abusive a manner...that I have thought it to be real duty to write some
things to him thereupon; and finished the same to-day.”77
Backus’ reply was a vigorous defense
of the Separatists and the Separate Baptists.78
With the publication of A Fish Caught in His Own
Net , Backus rebutted a series of sermons published by Fish and firmly declared his own position
on Church-State separation, noting that man-made attempts to oversee church matters were
contrary to divine law since Christ’s kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36).79
Backus
argued, “No man can rationally be willing to be deprived of the liberty of hearing and judging for
himself in important matters nor to be condemned by others without a fair hearing.”80
This
polemic would guide Backus’ efforts and much of his writing until his death in 1806.
In 1773, Backus published his major treatise, An Appeal to the Public for Religious
Liberty against the Oppressions of the Present Day, which presented his strongest and most
persuasive argument for Church-State separation.81
Relying heavily on John Locke and Roger
Williams,82 Backus maintained, “All acts of executive power in the civil state are to be
performed in the name of the king or state they belong to, while all our religious acts are to be
76 Ibid., 35.
77 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 1, 558.
78 Ibid.
79 McLoughlin, “Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State,” 1405.
80 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 174.
81 McBeth, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage, 173. Logos ebook.
82 McLoughlin, “Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State,” 1405-6.
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done in the name of the Lord Jesus and so are to be performed heartily as to the Lord and not
unto men.”83
He continued:
And it appears to us that the true difference and exact limits between ecclesiastical and
civil government is this, that the church is armed with light and truth to pull down thestrongholds of iniquity and to gain souls to Christ and into his Church to be governed by
his rules therein, and again to exclude such from their communion, who will not be so
governed, while the state is armed with the sword to guard the peace and the civil rights
of all persons and societies and to punish those who violate the same.84
For the first time, New England Separate Baptists had a voice that expressed their resistance to
“ecclesiastical tyranny” of the Standing Order and that justified their policy of civil
disobedience.85
Warren Baptist Association
In 1763 the Philadelphia Association, the first Baptist association in America,
commissioned a group under the leadership of James Manning and Morgan Edwards to establish
a Baptist college in Rhode Island. Rhode Island was chosen because of its religious toleration
and its large Baptist population.86
Manning became the college’s first president, and in 1765,
Isaac Backus was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Rhode Island College (later Brown
University), a position that he held for the next 34 years.87
Manning also pastored a church in Warren, Rhode Island, which soon became a meeting
center for New England Baptist ministers. On September 8, 1767, the Warren Baptist
Association (also the Warren Association) was formed with Isaac Backus as the association’s
clerk. Eleven churches were represented at the meeting, but only four were willing to unite in
83 Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty Against the Oppression of the Present Day,
1773, in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era: 1730-1805, 2 vols. 2nd ed. Sandoz, Ellis. Indianapolis:
Liberty Fund, 1998. http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/816/69205 (accessed January 24, 2013).
84 Ibid.
85 McLoughlin, “Isaac Backus and the Separation of Church and State,” 1406.
86 McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 237. Logos ebook.
87 Hovey, Memoir , under “Founding of R.I. College.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
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association, the rest expressing reservations about the association’s authority over the individual
churches.88
Backus’ own First Baptist Church of Middleborough waited to join the association
until 1770, wanting to ensure “this association did not assume any jurisdiction over the
churches.”89
By 1772, twenty-one churches were affiliated with the association.90
Two years after its formation, the Warren Association established a Grievance
Committee whose task was to receive cases of alleged persecution of Baptists and to “draft
petitions for redress to be presented to the general courts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.”91
Isaac Backus was appointed a member of the Grievance Committee, and by 1772 he headed the
committee and became the principal spokesman for the cause of religious liberty in New
England.92
The grievance process was time consuming and ineffective; however, under Backus’
leadership that process was redefined. First Backus appealed beyond the local authorities to
London by placing a notice in the Boston Evening Post . Second, in 1773 the Baptist churches
simply stopped paying church taxes and stopped applying for tax exemption certificates. By
their policy of civil disobedience, the Baptists chose to ignore human laws in favor of God’s
higher law.93 In a subsequent letter to the association’s churches, Backus protested, “Liberty of
conscience, the greatest and most important article [of] all liberty is evidently not allowed as it
ought to be in this [cou]ntry,” and he suggested that the origin of these problems rested in “civil
rulers assuming a [power] to make any laws to govern ecclesiastical affairs.”94
88 Ibid., under “Formation of Warren Association.”
89 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 1, 774-5.
90 McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 243. Logos ebook.
91 Hovey, Memoir , under “Petitions for Redress.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
92 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 109.
93 McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 263-4. Logos ebook.
94 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 3, 1595.
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Backus’ new policies were far more effective in winning tax concessions for the New
England Baptists. His timing could not have been better, as the notion of “taxation without
representation” was quickly becoming a rallying cry throughout colonial America, and Backus
was hasty to compare the English taxation of the colonies with the taxation of Baptists95
by “the
very men who are now making loud [com]plaints of encroachments upon their own liberties.”96
Years later Backus reflected, “The worst treatment we [Baptists] here met with came from the
same principles, and much of it from the same persons, as the American war did.”97
Revolutionary
In September 1774, the Warren Association sent a delegation to the First Continental
Congress in Philadelphia. Isaac Backus was the association’s chosen agent tasked with writing a
defense of religious liberty that the delegation presented to Congressional sub-committee
composed of Massachusetts delegates including John and Samuel Adams.98
James Manning
opened the meeting with a brief memorial noting the Baptist oppression and concluding, “As a
distinct denomination of Protestants, we conceive that we have an equal claim to charter-rights
with the rest of our fellow-subjects; and yet have long been denied the free and full enjoyment of
those rights.”99
Backus noted that both John and Samuel Adams agreed that Massachusetts did
indeed have “an ecclesiastical establishment” but denied that there was any cause for the
Baptists’ complaints despite the evidence presented.100
Samuel Jones, one of Backus’ fellow
lobbyists later noted, “One of them [John Adams] told us that if we meant to effect a change in
95 McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 264. Logos ebook.
96 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 3, 1595.
97 Backus, A History of New England , 2:197. Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
98 Hovey, Memoir , under “Conference with Adams and Others.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
99 Backus, A History of New England , 2:200. Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
100 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 2, 916-7.
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their measures, respecting religion, we might as well attempt to change the course of the sun in
the heavens.”101
Upon returning home in November, Backus discovered that the members of the Warren
Association had been suspected of treasonous motives in their mission. While planning their
rebuttal, shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.102
Backus observed, “Those called minute-
men gathered and marched off next morning.”103
Preaching from 1 Chronicles 12:32 in his
sermon the following Sunday, Backus asserted, “The doctrine of passive obedience and non-
resistance to kings” had brought the nation “upon the brink of popery and slavery.” He accused
King George of being a usurper, noting that God required people to submit to ministers “for
good” and that a foundation “of the English government [was] that the peoples (sic) property
shall not be taken from them without their consent.” He urged opposition to “the British
parliament hav[ing] the right to bind America in all cases whatsoever” and accused “George the
third [of] violat[ing] his coronation oath.” Backus reflected, “On the whole I declared, I fully
believed our cause was just, and do so still.”104
Massachusetts Delegate
In September 1775, on behalf of the Warren Association, Backus presented a memorial to
the Massachusetts General Assembly regarding the taxation of religious dissenters. In it Backus
argued:
Is not all America now appealing to Heaven against the injustice of being taxed where we
are not represented, and against being judged by men who are interested in getting away
our money? And will heaven approve your doing the same thing to your fellow servants?
101 Samuel Jones, A Century Sermon, 1807, Baptist History Homepage.
http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/phila.century.sermon.1.html (accessed March 2, 2013).
102 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 132-4.
103 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 2, 938.
104 Ibid., 938-9.
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No, surely.…Yet, as we are persuaded that an entire freedom from being taxed by civil
rulers to religious worship is not mere favor from any men in the world but a right and
property granted us by God, who commands us to stand fast in it, we have not only thesame reason to refuse an acknowledgement of such a taxing power here, as America has
the above said power, but also, according to our present light, we should wrong our
consciences in allowing that power to men, which we believe belongs only to God.
105
According to one delegate, the matter was tabled, and when it was taken up again a week later, it
was referred to committee. The memorial was considered there four times but never acted
upon.106
Undaunted by this apparent failure, the Warren Association again tasked Isaac Backus
with writing “a letter to all the Baptist societies on this continent stating the true nature and
importance of religious liberty.”107 Backus drafted an “Address to Baptists in America” asking
them to be “as earnest for the removal of oppression from among ourselves, as we are to repel its
encroachments from abroad,” asserting that the “power of levying money for religious ministers
[is] as dangerous to liberty…as ever the British parliament [was] in taxing America.”108
The
letter called for a general meeting of the Baptists “to consult upon the best means and methods
for obtaining and establishing full and equal religious liberty throughout this continent, and to
promote the general welfare of all; so that truth and peace may prevail, and glory dwell in our
land.”109
Most of the replies received were virtually unanimous in expressing that the moment
for such a meeting was not favorably disposed, and the Warren Association abandoned the
proposal.110
105 Backus, A History of New England , 2:203-4. Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
106 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 2, 950.
107 Ibid., 946.
108 Hovey, Memoir , under “A General Meeting Proposed.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
109 Ibid.
110 McLoughlin, Diary, vol. 2, 947.
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The proposed Massachusetts State Constitution contained a provision in Article III that
gave the government some jurisdiction over religion, essentially maintaining the status quo. In
response, in 1779, Backus wrote “A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of
Massachusetts-Bay in New England,” which he proposed as a Bill of Rights to the Massachusetts
State Constitution. In it Backus stated, “Nothing can be true religion but a voluntary obedience
unto His revealed will, of which each rational soul has an equal right to judge for himself, every
person has an unalienable right to act in all religious affairs according to the full persuasion of
his own mind.”111
As a compromise, the provision of the final third article declared that “no
subordination of one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.”
112
It was
not until the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1789 and the subsequent ratification of
the Bill of Rights in 1791 that the Baptists gained a stronger legal foothold for true religious
freedom. Moreover, Backus, a delegate to the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, James
Manning, Morgan Edwards, and their followers are credited with leading the ratification efforts
in Massachusetts and the rest of New England.113
Historian
While lacking the formal education of many of his colleagues, Backus was a prolific
writer, producing thirty-eight tracts on various topics.114
In 1777, Backus published the first
volume of his A History of New England: with Particular Reference to the Denomination of
Christians Called Baptists, which is one of the first historical records of Baptists in the United
States. The second volume was published in 1784, and the third in 1796. A fourth volume
111 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 487-9.
112 Hovey, Memoir , under “Liberty Secured at Last.” Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
113 McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, 266. Logos ebook.
114 Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll, Biographical Dictionary, 28. Logos ebook.
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published in 1804 is an abridgement of the first three and continues on from 1796 until 1804.115
His History is credited with introducing the almost forgotten figure of Roger Williams and with
casting Williams in a leading role in the fight for religious liberty and in establishing the Baptist
Church in America.116
White is quick to point out that Backus was not some “armchair historian
who viewed the past with detached interest and without deep involvement,” and his work was
done with a purpose and therefore is as much propaganda as history.117
As White continues,
“Backus…did not merely tell the story of the persecutions endured by the Baptists in New
England…; his History was deliberately intended as one more weapon in the struggle to reform
attitudes and break the power which made the infliction of persecution possible.”
118
That said,
however, Backus’ History does provide “an invaluable asset for understanding the man and his
times.”119
CONCLUSION
Backus died on November 20, 1806 after a series of stokes, having been preceded in
death by Susanna, his wife of more than fifty years.120
It has been estimated that Backus made
over 900 journeys covering over 67,000 miles and preached over 9,800 sermons.121
Thanks to
his meticulously kept diary and other writings, Backus is one of the most attested persons of his
time. Backus’ strong Baptist beliefs made him instrumental in the passage of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing religious freedom. Although he did
115 Barrington R. White, “Isaac Backus and Baptist History,” Baptist History and Heritage 5, no. 1 (January
1970): 13.
116 Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll, Biographical Dictionary, 29. Logos ebook.
117 White, “Isaac Backus and Baptist History,” 18.
118 Ibid., 15.
119 McLoughlin, Church, State, and Calvinism, 64.
120 McLoughlin, American Pietistic Tradition, 229-30.
121 Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll, Biographical Dictionary, 29. Logos ebook.
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not live to see it come to fruition, in 1833 Massachusetts became the last state church in
Massachusetts was disestablished.122
122 Mark A. Noll, The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity (Grand
Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), 78.
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________. A History of New England: With Particular Reference to the Denomination of
Christians Called Baptists. 4 vols. Providence, RI: Providence Press, 1777, 1784, 1796,1804. Adobe Digital Edition ebook.
Corrigan, John, and Winthrop S. Hudson. Religion in America. 7th
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Baker Academic, 2001. Logos ebook.
Gaustad, Edwin S. “John Clarke: ‘good news from Rhode Island.’” Baptist History and Heritage 24, no. 4 (October 1989): 20-28.
________. “Quest for Pure Christianity.” Christian History Magazine-Issue 41: The American
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Grenz, Stanley J. “Church and State: The Legacy of Isaac Backus.” Center Journal. 2, no. 2(Spring 1983): 73-94.
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