The case of Isaac Backus is one of extraordinary interest and must be narrated at some length. It well illustrates the working out of the principles involved in this movement. Born in 1724, of ancestry that represented what was best in the Congregational life of Connecticut, he was brought to a saving knowledge of the truth in connection with revival meetings held in his native town in 1741. Owing to his excellent religious education he did not experience so great a degree of emotional excitement as did many of his contemporaries. In 1742 he united with the church of his fathers and remained a member for two years. But the decision of the church "to admit communicants by a major vote, without giving the church so much as a written relation of any inward change;" the disposition of the pastor to regard the Supper as a converting ordinance, and his "strong affection for the Saybrook scheme," which embodied some of the most objectionable features of state-church Presbyterianism and which the church had rejected under the influence of Joseph Backus, his grandfather; and the persecution of New Lights in various parts of the country, led him, along with twenty-nine other male members and a large number of females, to withdraw and form a Separate church. Among the Separates were one deacon and a number of the wealthiest and most influential people of the town. They soon came to outnumber the original church, but by a strange perversion of justice they were taxed and distressed for the support of its pastor. During a single year as many as forty persons, including a number of women, were imprisoned. The main points of contention on the part of the Separates were the restriction of the Supper to the regenerate, the application of church discipline so as to secure churches of the regenerate, and the independence of the local church, with the right to call and ordain its own officers.
As a result of a revival in Titicut, near Middleborough, Mass., the New Lights had withdrawn from the established church in December, 1747. Backus, who had shortly before decided to give himself to the gospel ministry, happened a few days afterward to pass that way and was "prevailed with to tarry and preach among them." The "precinct committee" urged him to take steps for becoming the legal pastor of the church, but he had become convinced of the iniquity of any union of church and state. A revival resulted in about twenty conversions. A church was formed in February following, "which increased to threescore in ten months." Backus and his flock were taxed and harassed, but they were resolved, come what might, to adhere to their principles.
Disputes about baptism were introduced into the Titicut church in August, 1749. Backus was brought suddenly to feel "that the Baptist way is certainly right, because nature fights so against it. And he was hurried on to preach it up the next day; which caused confusion among the hearers, and returned with a horrible gloom over his own mind; and he was turned back to his former practice."In September, during his absence in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where he seems to have been seeking confirmation in his pedobaptist views, Elder Moulton had visited his people "and had plunged some of them" -- nine, as Backus elsewhere mentions. These had been offended by Backus's return to the advocacy of infant baptism, and now withdrew from the church and inaugurated a meeting of their own. Backus was no doubt greatly annoyed. He expressed his sorrow for preaching against infant baptism, and declared that he was willing to venture into eternity on that practice. But anxiety soon returned. He was led a few months later to inquire, "Where is it, and in what relation to the church do those stand who are baptized but not converted?" A body of fanatical New Lights in Easton and Norton, Mass., had just adopted believers' baptism, and had proceeded in an unseemly way to baptize one another and had otherwise acted in a disorderly manner. The natural tendency of these facts would have been to deter Backus from reopening the question. But he finally determined to "leave good men and bad men out of the question, and inquire, What saith the Scripture?" Hereby a settlement was granted, and he was baptized August 22, 1751, "along with six members" of his church, by Elder Benjamin Pierce, of Warwick. This step involved deep humiliation; but the voice of conscience had become imperative. Lamentable discord naturally attended these events. A council of New Light churches was called (October, 1751). Sixteen were found, of whom three were Baptists, "willing to renew their covenant and go on together." These were recognized as the church and the rest were censured. Backus was censured and excommunicated, but was restored to fellowship and the pastorate in November following. Two of the sixteen insisted that Backus should baptize infants, and on his refusal broke off communion with the church. They were finally censured and excommunicated. In the meantime five Baptists refused communion and were censured. A council was called (November, 1752) in the interest of the two excommunicated pedobaptists, consisting of three of the churches of the former council. The two brethren were justified, and the majority, including the pastor, censured. A general meeting of New Light churches, in which twenty-seven congregations were represented, was held at Exeter (May, 1753) to adjust the difficulties of the Titicut church and to determine the policy to be pursued in like controversies already imminent elsewhere. It was "unanimously agreed that a turning to or from infant baptism was not a censurable evil; but that each should leave the other with God, according to Philippians 3:15."The meeting arranged for a council to meet at Middleborough in July for the harmonizing of the contending elements in the church. The censures of the pedobaptist and the Baptist members were revoked and the church was again received into fellowship.
Solomon Paine, one of the leading Separate ministers, had refused to take part in the Exeter meeting. This was regarded as a grievance by Stephen Babcock, a leading antipedobaptist Separate minister, who, moreover, criticised Paine's attitude toward the Baptists in the ex-parte council of November, 1752. This irritation led to the calling of a meeting of representatives of all the Separate churches. The meeting was held at Stonington in May, 1754. Forty churches were represented. The result was even less satisfactory to the Baptists, a majority having pronounced in favor of the decision of the ex-parte council of November, 1752. Pedobaptist leaders like Paine began to express the opinion that while those who confessed themselves to be in darkness with reference to infant baptism were to be tolerated, those who had reached the conviction that it was wrong should be censured. It began to be evident to Baptists and pedobaptists alike that a breach was inevitable. So thorough was the agreement of Baptist and pedobaptist Separates in their views of doctrine and life, and so closely had they been united through their common sufferings on behalf of a converted ministry and membership, that they regarded a sundering of communion as a calamity. The fact that it would weaken the cause in the face of bitter opposition was manifest to all.
Backus and his church attempted to follow the policy of mutual toleration of each other's views for or against infant baptism. "But when some pious members manifested a belief of duty to be buried in baptism, others refused to go to the water to see it done, because, in their view, they were already baptized, and to repeat it would be taking the sacred name in vain. And when an elder came and sprinkled some infants, the Baptists felt a like difficulty, though they did not leave the meeting where it was done. Being unwilling to part, attempts were made to convince each other, which led into warm debates.... Thus edification, the great end of Christian society, was marred instead of being promoted, by that which is called large communion. It was so far from answering to that name, that, with their utmost endeavors, the author [Backus] and his brethren could never arrive at communion in the ordinance of the Supper, from September, 1754, to the end of 1755."By the beginning of 1756 Backus and a number of his brethren became convinced "that truth limits church communion to believers, baptized upon a profession of their own faith." On January 16, 1756, with the assistance of representatives of the Boston and Rehoboth churches, a Baptist church was organized at Middleborough, of which Backus was to remain pastor for fifty years.
Backus was abundant in labors. The doctrines of the Separates in general and of the Baptists in particular continued to be bitterly attacked. He was the chief Baptist champion of these principles, and his polemical tracts constitute a noble body of writings. His defense of the peculiar principles of the Baptists was as able as any that the eighteenth century afforded. He wrote much in behalf of liberty of conscience and against the support of the ministry by taxation. He was ever on the alert to protest against anything that savored of persecution, and no man did more during the latter half of the eighteenth century for the promotion of civil and religious liberty in New England. His services in agitating for the abolition of the unjust ecclesiastical laws of Massachusetts will be considered in another chapter. He was among the foremost of the Baptists in seeing the need of an educated ministry, and was a warm friend of Rhode Island College.
A second Baptist church was organized in Middleborough in 1758 and a third in 1761, both at a considerable distance from the first, and Baptist principles were profoundly impressed upon the community. During his entire ministry Backus traveled much in the interest of the cause throughout the New England States, and the rapid growth of the denomination was due, in a considerable measure, to his influence. He spent much time during his later years in collecting and arranging materials for a history of the Baptists in New England, and the denomination is deeply indebted to him for the invaluable service that he rendered in this direction. Wise in counsel, fervent in evangelistic zeal, systematic and industrious in his pastoral and in his literary work, ever on the alert to defend his denomination from unjust attacks, charitable toward his opponents and toward all, he finished his course with joy in November, 1806, having lived eighty-two years and ten months, and having served in the gospel ministry over sixty years. =========== [A. H. Newman, D.D., LL.D., A History of the Baptist Churches in the United States, 1894, pp. 178-182. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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