By JAKE STONE
Isaac Backus (1724-1806) recognized the Baptist cause during the American Revolution as a two-front war involving civil and religious liberties. This influenced him to be both a radical and a pragmatist at the same time. At the same time as Baptists were siding with Congregationalists and others in the civil cause for independence, they also argued for full religious liberty in opposition to the practices of Congregationalists in Massachusetts. The American Revolution forced Baptists to link arms in the civil cause with those who were opposed to them in the religious cause. This balanced path that Backus, as well as other Baptists, trod forced him to be both a radical and a pragmatist during the 1770s and 1780s. As a Baptist, his posture of disestablishment and freedom made him a radical to the Congregationalist establishment. He also proved to be a pragmatist in supporting the American cause even in the face of ongoing persecution due to his belief that American independence would secure true liberty for Baptists. Therefore, Backus’ approach to civil and religious matters during the American Revolution provides insights into how complex and difficult these days were for the Baptist movement.
Brief Biography of Isaac Backus
While he would become a prominent leader among the Baptists, Isaac Backus’ family constituted part of the Congregationalist ruling class in Connecticut. His ancestors served in various offices since the founding of Norwich, Connecticut in 1660. Backus’ own father was a farmer who later was elected to the Assembly during Backus’ youth. Hence, Backus was sprinkled as an infant into the local Congregational church.[1] In 1740, Backus’ father died leaving his mother a widow with ten children and a six-week-old infant. The ministry of George Whitefield (1714-1770) impacted the life of Backus’ mother as well as himself. At the age of seventeen, following Whitefield’s first preaching tour of New England, Backus experienced the new birth and was converted to Christ.[2] Backus’ conversion put him, his mother, and other family members as part of those known as “New Lights.” His views brought the young Backus into conflict with the Standing Order of the established church.[3] Backus’ attempts to purify the membership and limit admission to only those converted failed. This forced him and other likeminded believers to leave. This new group formed in 1748 a New Light or “Separate” Church that met in Titicut, Massachusetts with Backus serving as their preacher.[4]
The subsequent years saw changes in Backus’ theology as well as those in this congregation. In 1751, Backus personally rejected infant baptism and submitted to immersion as a believer. By 1756, the Separate Church dissolved, and Backus led in the formation of the First Baptist Church of Middleborough, Massachusetts.[5] From his connection to the Warren Baptist Association, Backus became one of the chief spokesmen among Baptists during the 1770s and 1780s in their fight for American independence and full religious liberty.[6] As Tom Nettles summarizes, the aim of Backus’ ministry was “To remove the legal entanglements of church and state that justified the persecution, while arguing for the theology of the Puritans, occupied the ingenuity of Backus for the rest of his days.”[7] For Backus, the fight for religious liberty was not merely based upon an appeal to natural rights but contained a robust theological foundation.
As Backus led the charge among New England Baptists in their fight for both civil and religious liberty, Backus held firmly to a Calvinistic theology that he saw as the heritage of the Puritans. McLoughlin notes that “Backus’ theocentric and pietistic assumptions are in stark contrast to the anthropocentric and rationalistic assumptions of George Mason, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson.[8] As a Baptist, Backus would be labeled as a radical due to his rejection of infant baptism and an established church. The Congregationalists labeled the Baptists as “Tories” and “traitors” in the leadup to the Revolution.[9] Such a disposition towards the Baptists required Backus and his Baptist brethren to thread the needle in their pursuit for civil and religious liberty.
A Two-Front War
Writing in 1784, Isaac Backus reflected upon the Baptists and how they navigated the turbulent waters of the American Revolution. Backus wrote, “And while the defence of the civil rights of America appeared a matter of great importance, our religious liberties were by no means to be neglected; and the context concerning each kept a pretty even pace through the war.”[10] Such an assessment of the Baptist strategy during the war reveals that the Baptists understood that their battle was not merely for civil freedom as Americans but for religious liberty as Baptists. One important factor to remember is that for the Baptists, the civil and religious liberty issues were bound together throughout the contest with Great Britain. To understand how Baptists addressed both the civil and the religious aspects, it is important to consider how Backus, as one of the leading Baptists of the period, viewed these issues before the American Revolution and how they then fought a two-front war during the Revolutionary War.
Backus and the Baptist Cause Pre-American Revolution
Debate existed about whether the Baptists would side with the Patriot cause or remain loyal to the British crown. Bryan Thomas Ross writes that “Many observers of the Baptist prior to 1776 felt that they were, if not Loyalists, at least non-patriots.”[11] It is not surprising that the Baptists would have been hesitant to side with the Congregationalist Establishment of New England in their quest to break away from Great Britain. As McLoughlin points out, the Congregationalists for over a century had been “considering the Baptists dangerous to civil order…equating them with fanatical Anabaptists who took over the city of Munster in 1535.”[12] The Baptists endured severe persecution in New England for their beliefs. The greatest point of contention was their refusal to submit to the blending of church and state and their rejection of infant baptism. The cost had often been great for them in the form of imprisonment, confiscation of property, public scourging, and mob violence.[13]
Even of the precipice of the Revolutionary War, Baptists in Ashfield, Massachusetts experienced the harsh reality of living as exiles in the Congregationalist land. In 1771, the property of the Baptists living in Ashfield was confiscated due to their refusal to pay for the construction of a new Congregationalist church.[14] The harsh treatment levied on them by the colonial government in Massachusetts forced the Baptists to appeal to King George III (1738-1820) for relief. The king granted their appeal and in 1771 revoked the law that had been passed to force the Baptists to contribute tax money for the Congregationalist church building.[15] The events in Ashfield were just a continuation of the policies that had inflicted much harm upon the Baptists and fueled their desire for religious liberty. Their appeal to the crown and the relief they had gained from the royal throne caused the Congregationalists in Massachusetts to look upon the Baptists with suspicion. As Ross points out, “A certain irony was evident in the Baptist position. While they were a minority group protesting the constraints of local authority—and thus developing ideals that could be transferred to the larger revolutionary issues—they were aligning themselves with the very king that the revolution sought to topple.”[16] The decades following the Great Awakening had brought renewed persecution for the Baptists. McLoughlin captures the situation well in that “It was in this context of dissent and the resulting persecution that Massachusetts Baptist would face the dilemma of the American Revolution. They would ask themselves whether the Revolution really was their war or the war of their oppressors.”[17] For the Baptists, this was a time of choosing and the choice did not seem so obvious at the outset.
Isaac Backus spoke for many Baptists when he considered the opposition Baptists had endured from the Establishment Church in Massachusetts. Writing in 1773, Backus said that it was a struggle to know whether the English Episcopacy or the New England Presbytery (Congregationalists) would be the harsher master. Backus wrote, “For my part, I am not able to get a pair of scales sufficient to weigh those two great bodies in, the Episcopal hierarchy and the New England Presbyterians, so as to find out exactly which is heaviest.”[18] From the time Backus had become a Baptist, he had wrestled and fought against the laws that Massachusetts enforced when it came to taxation and the support of the Standing Order clergy. Previously, Baptist churches had been given an out from the forced taxation to support the establishment religious order. However, there were few Baptist churches in Massachusetts. During the Great Awakening, many New Lights (Separates) left the Standing Order, became Separates, and finally Separate Baptists. As Baptists they were now appealing to the exemption. To crack down on these new dissenting churches, the Massachusetts legislature had adopted a law requiring an exemption certificate for each church that “must be validated by three other ‘Anabaptist’ churches in the region.”[19] The move proved to be a mechanism to bring unity to the older Baptist churches and the new Separate Baptists in New England. Fighting against the certificate law in Massachusetts gave Isaac Backus a platform to develop his views on church and state.
Backus’ church joined the Warren Baptist Association and the association organized a grievance committee that was chaired by Backus. This committee helped to gather information and issue petitions for the rights of the Baptists against the certificate laws and other unjust practices being carried out by the Massachusetts colonial government.[20] In a twist, Backus began to employ the arguments and sentiments of colonists clamoring for independence from Britain for his own purposes. As Stanley J. Grenz notes, Backus began “Drawing from slogans of the independence-minded colonists…condemned the certificate system as ‘taxation without representation’ and claimed that liberty of conscience was a natural right.”[21]
This controversy over the certificate system contributed to Isaac Backus’ penning his first work dealing with the matter of religious liberty and the error of a state church. In 1773, Backus penned An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty. McLoughlin describes this work as “the Declaration of the Independence for the Separate-Baptist against the tyranny of the Standing Order.”[22] Grenz sees this as when “Backus developed his theory of the two governments. God had appointed two kinds of government, the civil and the ecclesiastical, which ought never to be confounded.”[23]Backus opens this tract with a definition of liberty stating that “The true liberty of man is to know, obey, and enjoy his Creator and to do all good unto, and enjoy all the happiness with and in, his fellow creatures that he is capable of.”[24]Backus rejects the notion that those who desired liberty were insinuating that there was no need of a civil government. While not directly stating it, Backus understood the smear of being an anarchist and Anabaptist was never far away for the Baptist cause.[25] These opening remarks lead to Backus to begin to lay out his cause which centered on the rotten fruit that comes about when the civil and ecclesiastical government are “confounded together.”[26] Backus appeals to the Scriptures as being the guide that defines the ecclesiastical sphere and the civil sphere. The church is “armed with light and truth to pull down the strongholds of iniquity and to gain souls to Christ” while the civil 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.”[27]Backus joins together the issues of civil and religious liberties together in his appeal to the public. He emphasizes that when the civil and the ecclesiastical spheres are distinguished, the effects are positive. However, Backus warns that “where they have been confounded together no tongue or pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued of which the Holy Ghost gave early and plain warnings.”[28] For Backus, the effects of Constantine and the following years in the history of the church showed the failure of properly distinguishing between the role of Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church. That failure leads to Backus advocating for civil disobedience when it comes to “some laws about religious affairs that are laid upon us.”[29] Drawing upon the centrality of the New Testament in matters governing the church and state, Backus asks, “Now who can hear Christ declare that his kingdom is NOT OF THIS WORLD, and yet believe that this blending of church and state together can be pleasing to him?”[30] In Backus’ estimation, as was the Baptist point of view in these matters, the Standing Order had violated the constitution of the church as formed by Christ when they blended the civil and the church together.
Backus’ employs Roger Williams’ (1603-1683) responses to John Cotton (1585-1652) several times in this tract showing his indebtedness to the seventeenth-century Baptist leader of Providence. While Ross points out that John Locke’s (1632-1704) Treatise on Government was published in Boston the same year as this pamphlet, Backus’ draws more explicitly from Williams than Locke in this treatise.[31] Another key document that Backus appeals to is the charter of the colony. Backus writes, “Our charter, as before observed, gives us equal religious liberty with other Christians. Yet the pedobaptists, being the greatest party, they soon made a perpetual law to support their own way….”[32] Backus narrates a series of incidents that the Baptists experienced at the hands of the Standing Order including the Ashfield incident in 1771. In setting forth the Baptist defense of liberty of conscience, Backus declares:
But in religion each one has an equal right to judge for himself, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ…And we freely confess that we can find no more warrant from divine truth for any people on earth to constitute any men their representatives to make laws, to impose religious taxes than they have to appoint Peter or the Virgin Mary to represent them before the throne above.[33]
Backus systematically rebutted arguments from his opponents that the Baptist views would lead to a downgrade morally countering that they had made the same arguments against Roger Williams a century earlier.[34] Coming to his conclusion, Backus then musters all his fire upon the hypocrisy of the Standing Order. Backus points out that the New England Congregationalists, clamoring for independence from Great Britain, “have lately been accused with being disorderly and rebellious by men in power who profess a great regard for order and the public good.”[35] The colonists in Massachusetts demonstrated their anger at unjust tax laws levied upon them by the British Parliament. Turning their own arguments against them about Parliament stepping over their boundaries, Backus replies:
And have we not as good right to say you do the same thing? And so that wherein you judge others you condemn yourselves? Can three thousand miles possibly fix such limits to taxing power as the difference between civil and sacred matters has already done? One is only a difference of space, the other is so great a difference in nature of things as there is between sacrifices to God and the ordinances of man.[36]
From Backus’ viewpoint, the anger of the colonists towards the British Parliament aligned itself with the protests from himself and his fellow Baptists. For Backus, it was not the “greatness of the taxes already laid” as it was about the “taxing power in ecclesiastical affairs.[37] Backus and his fellow Baptists joined the colonists in decrying those authorities who overstepped their bounds.
These arguments presented by Backus in exposing the hypocrisy of the Standing Order situated Baptists in an interesting place leading up to the American Revolution. As Ross explains, “Although Backus’ argument stemmed from his desire to promote religious liberty, it tended to validate the colonial cause, for if, turning his argument on its head, the Baptists had the right to rebel against local taxes, were not the colonists similarly justified resisting taxes from abroad?”[38] In his biography of Backus, the Northern Baptist theologian Alvah Hovey surmised that “Whatever may be said of others, the head and heart of Mr. Backus was fully enlisted for the cause of soul liberty.[39]” However, that argument for soul liberty contained overtones that would be utilized in the fight coming against the British.
Support for the American Revolution
Backus’ appeal to the public fell on deaf ears. By 1774, the Continental Congress met for the first time in Philadelphia. Baptists seized this an opportunity to air their grievances to a body higher than the Massachusetts legislature and demonstrate that they were loyal citizens.[40] The Philadelphia Baptist Association and the Warren Baptist Association recognized this gathering in Philadelphia as legitimate and appointed representatives to attend on behalf of the Baptists in New England. William Cathcart summarizes that “In seeking relief from the Continental Congress, the two most influential Baptist organizations in the land gave that Assembly their formal approval.”[41] The meeting though went badly for the Baptists. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Backus joined with a group that had been formed by Baptists and Quakers. As Grenz points out, “The meeting turned out to be a mistake. Not only did the Baptists fail to accomplish their goal of focusing national attention on their plight, their association with Tory Quakers…added to the suspicion in New England that they too were unpatriotic.”[42] The First Continental Congress did not aid but damaged the Baptist cause on the eve of the American Revolution. When the shots were fired in Lexington and Concord, the time of choosing came for Backus and his fellow Baptists. Whatever their misgivings about the Standing Order, McLoughlin writes, “Evidence that the Baptists, though ambivalent and torn in their feelings, were far too committed to the American cause to ever have sided with the Loyalists in New England, can be found in Isaac Backus’s reaction to the battles of Lexington and Concord.”[43] Twelve days after those first battles, preaching a sermon “which breathed as much fire and patriotism as any sermon preached from a Congregational pulpit,” Backus charged that George III violated his royal oath by his allowance of Catholicism in Quebec as well as the confiscation of people’s property due to the actions of parliament. All of these were legitimate reasons to rebel against the crown.[44] Along with the Warren Baptist Association, Backus, and other Baptists “urged full cooperation with the American government though it in no way decreased its effort for local religious liberty.”[45] For Backus, “the word of God plainly shows, that this way of mutual compact or covenant, is the only righteous foundation for civil government.”[46] Hence, the American Revolution was justified in the sight of Backus and his fellow Baptists for George III had broken the bond and the colonists desired a new arrangement.
Backus was aware of the questions that many had regarding why the Baptists decided to support the Patriot cause. Writing in 1784, he addresses the issue by stating that “Since the Baptists have often been oppressed in this land, and would have suffered more than they did, had it not been for restraints from Great Britain, how came they to join in a war against her?”[47] Backus provides five reasons for why the Baptists decided to fight the British in the American Revolution. First, the Episcopal establishment “have never allowed others so much liberty as we enjoy here…In Virginia they cruelly imprisoned Baptist minsters, only for preaching the gospel to perishing souls without license from their courts, until this war compelled them to desist therefrom.”[48] Second, Backus points out that “The worst treatment we here met with came from the same principles, and much of it from the same persons, as the American war did.”[49] Ross views this as a weak argument because not only did the Standing Order oppose the Baptists in harsh ways but even Patriot leaders like John Adams (1735-1826) and Robert Paine (1731-1814) were hostile towards the Baptists during the lead up to and during the American Revolution.[50] Third, Backus declares that the leaders of the American Revolution embraced the views of Roger Williams. Backus writes, “The first Baptist minister in America publicly held forth, that all righteous government is founded in compact, expressed or implied…When therefore our countrymen adopted these principles, and founded their opposition to arbitrary claims wholly thereon, how could we avoid joining with them?”[51] This insight demonstrates how Backus saw the American Revolution as a fight that Baptists would wage for their civil and religious liberties. Fourth, Backus sees the claims of the British government as “absolutely unjust, and a direction violation of the immutable rules of truth and equity; so that a concurrence of them would have brought such guilt our conscience, as is infinitely worse than all the frowns of men.”[52] Fifth, Backus argues that “…a strong hope was begotten of final deliverance to this land; the good effects whereof might hereafter return to the people who now invaded our rights.”[53]Backus hoped that the cause of American Baptists would become a means by which their British counterparts would know full liberty and freedom. His reasons for why Baptists fought for the Patriotic cause reveal how much the fight continued both for civil liberty and religious liberty.
During the American Revolution, Backus pens his next major work entitled Government and Liberty Described; And Ecclesiastical Tyranny Exposed in 1778. The contents and timing of this treatise reflect how Backus said that the war for civil and religious liberty kept a pretty-even pace throughout the war. As McLoughlin notes, “The Baptists believed that their golden opportunity for obtaining religious liberty had arrived when Massachusetts started to devise a state constitution to replace its royal charter.”[54] In this work, Backus joins together his Baptist heritage in the form of Roger Williams as well as quoting directly from “the great Mr. Locke.”[55] The nature of how civil and religious liberty correspond is found in Backus’ definition of religion. Backus defines it as “True religion is a voluntary obedience unto God. And the great design of all ordinances and acts of worship towards him is that thereby we may obtain pardon and cleansing with direction and assistance to behave as we ought towards our fellowmen.”[56] Backus lauds Roger Williams as the one who “founded the first civil government that ever established equal religious liberty since the rise of Antichrist.”[57] Recounting the opposition that Williams faced, Backus turns to the state of war taking place between America and Britain. He links civil and religious liberty together when he writes, “I need not inform you that all Americans are in arms against being taxed where they are not represented. But it is not more certain that we are not represented in the British Parliament than it is, that our civil rulers are not our representatives in religious affairs.”[58]Backus wonders how true liberty of conscience can ever be enjoyed in America until the blending of church and state ceases to be. He asks, “And how can justice and righteousness ever have their free course among us while men thus assume power to govern religion instead of being governed by it?”[59] Countering the notion that this is mainly about the Baptists keeping their money, Backus charges that, “It is not the PENCE but the POWER that alarms us.”[60] Backus is aware that some “can hardly believe that a religious establishment by human laws is so evil and dangerous as it really is.”[61] Backus proceeds to recount the persecution that had been inflicted upon a group of Baptists in Pepperell, Massachusetts in 1778. In fact, it is remarkable to consider that Baptists remained loyal to the Patriot cause even amid continued persecution at the hands of the Standing Order from 1778-1782.[62]
How could Backus and Baptists continue to fight this two-front war? Nettles reminds that the theological beliefs and convictions of Backus drove him and his fellow Baptists to persevere in the face of the British and the Standing Order. Nettles writes:
A free church founded on principles of regenerate church membership (as defined by the doctrines of grace) most thoroughly protects the freedom, virtue, and stability necessary for civil government. Such a relation allows men to have the same liberty concerning their souls and eternity as they have concerning their bodies and temporal estates.[63]
While Backus cited Locke at times, his theological commitments forged by his belief in the Bible and standing in the tradition of Roger Williams demonstrate that this was not a war based solely on philosophical or abstract concepts. Backus and his fellow Baptists were engaged in a spiritual battle while a temporal one waged on the Atlantic Seaboard. Backus continued to labor for the security of civil and religious liberty as seen in his service in 1788 as a delegate to the Massachusetts convention to ratify the new United States Constitution. Becoming convinced of the need for ratification, Backus voted against the consensus of his constituents and supported ratification. He lived to see a federal republic known as the United States of America. However, he would not live to see full disestablishment of the state church in Massachusetts. Backus died in 1806 and it would not be until 1833 that the Congregationalist Church ceased to be a state-supported denomination.[64] Finally, the two-front war came to an end that Backus and his fellow Baptists had waged for over half a century.
Conclusion
The American Revolution presented complex challenges to all the parties involved in the great conflict. However, for the Baptists in New England, the challenges for them involved both civil and ecclesiastical rights. Baptists were fighting the British to gain civil freedom while contending against the Standing Order in hopes of securing their religious liberty. Isaac Backus represents the struggle that Baptists endured in choosing to fight with the Patriots politically and against the Patriots ecclesiastically. Backus championed the Baptist impulse of those days which was “pietism and patriotism.”[65] In maintaining this balance, Backus and his fellow Baptists demonstrated that “they were seedbearers of the Revolution, who scattered the seed in every direction and cultivated it under the sun.”[66] At the end of the day, the Baptist vision of Backus triumphed in the American experiment.
[1] William G. McLoughlin, ed. Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 2.
[2] James Leo Garrett, Baptist Theology: A Four Century Study (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2009), 154-155.
[3] McLoughlin, Backus, 3.
[4] Garrett, Baptist Theology, 155.
[5] Garrett, Baptist Theology, 155.
[6] Garrett, Baptist Theology, 155-156.
[7] Tom Nettles, The Baptists: Key People in Forming Baptist Identity, vol. 2, Beginnings in America (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005,) 53.
[8] McLoughlin, Backus, 47.
[9] William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833, vol. 1, The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 569.
[10] Isaac Backus, A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists, vol. 2 (1871; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 2001), 199.
[11] Bryan Thomas Ross, “‘Rouse! Stand! And Take the Alarm!’: Baptist Justifications for the American Revolution,” Baptist History and Heritage 26, no. 4 (October 1991), 31.
[12] William G. McLoughlin, Soul Liberty: The Baptists’ Struggle in New England, 1630-1833 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1991), 179.
[13] McLoughlin, Soul Liberty, 179.
[14] Ross, “‘Rouse! Stand! And Take the Alarm!’: Baptist Justifications for the American Revolution,” 31.
[15] McLoughlin, Soul Liberty, 134.
[16] Ross, “‘Rouse! Stand! And Take the Alarm!’: Baptist Justifications for the American Revolution,” 31.
[17] McLoughlin, Soul Liberty, 134.
[18] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 179.
[19] Stanley J. Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” in Baptist Theologians, ed. David Dockery and Timothy George (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1990), 105.
[20] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 106.
[21] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 106.
[22] McLoughlin, Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism, 305.
[23] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 106.
[24] Isaac Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789, ed. William G. McLoughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 308.
[25] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 312.
[26] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 312.
[27] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 315.
[28] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 315.
[29] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 317.
[30] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 318.
[31] Ross, “‘Rouse! Stand! And Take the Alarm!’: Baptist Justifications for the American Revolution,” 34.
[32] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 326.
[33] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 332-333.
[34] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 334-338.
[35] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 339.
[36] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 339.
[37] Backus, “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 340.
[38] “‘Rouse! Stand! And Take the Alarm!’: Baptist Justifications for the American Revolution,” 35.
[39] Alvah Hovey, A Memoir of the Life and Times of the Rev. Isaac Backus, A.M. (1858; repr., Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1991), 185.
[40] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 106.
[41] William Cathcart, Baptist Patriots and the American Revolution (Grand Rapids, MI: Guardian Press, 1976), 31.
[42] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 106.
[43] McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833, vol. 1, 586.
[44] McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833, vol. 1, 586-587.
[45] McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833, vol. 1, 585.
[46] Isaac Backus, A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists, vol. 1 (1871; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 2001), 530.
[47] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 197.
[48] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 197.
[49] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 197.
[50] Ross, “‘Rouse! Stand! And Take the Alarm!’: Baptist Justifications for the American Revolution,” 36.
[51] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 198.
[52] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 198.
[53] Backus, A History of New England, vol. 2, 198.
[54] McLoughlin, Backus, 346.
[55] Isaac Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” in Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism: Pamphlets, 1754-1789, ed. William G. McLoughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), 357.
[56] Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” 351.
[57] Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” 355.
[58] Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” 357.
[59] Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” 358.
[60] Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” 359.
[61] Backus, “Government and Liberty Described; and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Opposed,” 361.
[62] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 107.
[63] Nettles, The Baptists, vol. 2, 55.
[64] Grenz, “Isaac Backus,” 107-108.
[65] McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833, vol. 1, 569.
[66] Cathcart, Baptist Patriots and the American Revolution, 114.