An Historical Examination of the Doctrine of the Church Among Baptists With Special Reference to Southern Baptists and Church Purity - Chapter 4.4

Influences and Changes in the Baptist Doctrine of the Church
in the Eighteenth Century

Part Four
The Influence of the Separates on New England

Having noted the Separate influence on Baptists, with particular reference to the south, we now turn to illustrate the same pattern of thought existing in New England. We shall use as our illustration two Baptist leaders of that era, namely Isaac Backus (1724-1806) and John Leland (1754-1841). We present these two men as typical of Baptists in the New England area, and Backus also as an illustration of the struggle of a soul from salvation to separatism to Separate Baptist. One can expect some points of repetition and similarity with the preceding section of the paper, but this will surely emphasize the Separate viewpoint and its influence on Baptist thought. We begin with a biographical sketch of each man.

Isaac Backus

Isaac Backus was born in Connecticut on January 9, 1724.165 Converted in 1741 during the Great Awakening, he joined the Congregational Church in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1742.166 In 1745 thirty persons, including Backus, split from this church and formed a Separate church over the use of the Lord's Supper as a means of evangelizing the unconverted members. In the newly formed church only the regenerate were admitted to the membership, and the Lord's Supper was restricted to these members, and strict discipline was administered.

In 1748 Backus became pastor of a Separate church at Middleboro and began to struggle with the possibility of becoming a Baptist. At one point he did take a stand for Baptist principles, especially believer's baptism, but then retracted that stand very shortly thereafter. Then began an extended period of agonizing of soul, coupled with careful and laborious study, a period that extended about two years. Goen summarizes this study and its results as follows:

After months of painstaking examination of every Biblical passage bearing on the covenants and of every argument advanced to justify the baptizing of infants, Backus communicated to the church his conviction that there was no Scriptural warrant for that practice.167

Thus on July 26, 1751, Backus was immersed, but it was not until 1756 that he and a half dozen others withdrew to form a Baptist church.168 Backus went on to write, defend, and preach Baptist principles until his death on November 20, 1806.169 McLoughlin says concerning him that " . . . the twentieth century admires Backus chiefly for his defense of religious liberty . . . "170 His importance is also noted by Sweet, as he informs us that the whole story of New England Baptists in the Revolution centered around Isaac Backus.171

John Leland

John Leland was born at Grafton, Massachusetts, on May 14, 1754. He was converted and baptized into a Baptist church in 1774, and immediately began to preach. After his marriage on September 30, 1776, he migrated to Virginia.172 Leland is best known for convincing his fellow Virginian, James Madison, of the need for Congress to adopt a bill of rights to guarantee religious freedom. So, though the eventual Bill of Rights was presented by Madison, they bear the strong influence of John Leland.173 Leland's life did extend into the nineteenth century, as he lived until January 14, 1841.174

The point that we seek to make in presenting this biographical material is that Backus and Leland were not just unknown Baptist preachers of their day. Rather, both were highly influential in their denominations and in the politics of the nation. We now turn to something of their religious thinking, as leaders among the Separate Baptists. We shall find their thought quite similar to the Separate groups that we have already discussed, and also to one another.

a. Both Backus and Leland were strongly pietistic with the doctrinal

aspect of Christianity secondary.

Backus readily admitted that he had known much of his theology experientially before he knew it doctrinally, and that only later did he examine the Scriptures to discover the proof of what he already believed.175 Therefore, it is clear that his dependence on divine revelation took a back seat to his own experiential illumination by the Holy Spirit, whereby he sought to perceive the truth. Leland was convinced theoretic principles were of little value unless they had some effect on men's lives. Furthermore, he was positive that " . . . the disposition of the heart will prevail over the system of the head."176

Torbet notes concerning Backus and Leland:

They typified the Separate or revivalistic Baptists' stress upon the religion of the heart and the immediacy of the Holy Spirit in personal experience and in the life of the congregation. The emphasis on personal experience led to a disregard for theological understanding.177

b. Both Backus and Leland were extremely individualistic in their thinking

in regards to the doctrine of the church.

Torbet again helps us here noting that Baptists, though they had grown and expanded rapidly through the repeated waves of revivals which swept over them in this early period of American history, had also suffered from these revivals in that they disrupted the older patterns and thinking about the church.178 He states they were being pressed into an individualism, which weakened the early connections Baptists had known in their associations, and the idea of the universal church began to fade in favor of a local church view. He says this thinking was evident to an extent in the position of Backus, but even more so in that of John Leland. But worse than ever, they then accepted this distorted viewpoint as traditional, even though it was in sharp contrast to the Philadelphia Confession.179

c. Both Backus and Leland were strongly opposed to confessions of faith.

Gaustad notes concerning Leland, "Even a creed, Leland feared, could come between the sinner and his Redeemer. Clearly it dulled the edges of individuality."180 Gaustad then quotes Leland as stating that often confessions of faith hindered the pursuit after truth, confining one's mind to a certain mold of thinking.181

The writer would raise the point here, that if as Leland feared, confessions dulled the edges of individuality, then also the lack of a confession or statement of faith would sharpen the edge of individuality, which could prove to be dangerous in a pietistic and experiential setting. Thus the individualism of these men may very well have militated against confessions, and there was the possibility that because they were ignorant of the confessions, they may have drifted further into individualism. Thus it was a vicious circle. Torbet speaking of Baptists of this era states the problem in this manner:

Thus many Baptists were in danger of a similarly exaggerated individualism at a time of rapid expansion because they were disregarding or rejecting the restraining influence of authoritative confessions and statements of church order which their forbears had relied upon to maintain a balance between freedom and authority. 182

The point we are stressing in this section, as in the preceding section, is that here through the Separates and Separate Baptists there came to bear influences and thought patterns widely divergent from those of their Baptist forefathers. Here in New England, as in the south, was an emphasis which minimized the importance of doctrinal depth, questioned and denied the helpfulness of confessions, magnified the pietistic element of the Christian life, elevated the individual to the overbalancing of the universal and connectional aspect of the doctrine of the church, and planted seeds which would grow wildly for years to come. Certainly, this false or wrong emphasis bears upon the subject of this paper, for when doctrine is minimized, confessions ignored, the pietistic and experiential exalted, then the individual will be elevated, then the universal aspect of the church will be neglected, and the covenantal concept of the church will crumble, as it did under the Separates.

This is not to say that Baptists had totally fled their Calvinistic heritage at this point of history. In one source the writer found a clear article by Backus in the defense of the various points of Calvinism. One was written in 1773 and was titled, "The Sovereign Decrees of God,"183 and another was titled, "The Doctrine of Particular Election and Final Perseverance Explained and Vindicated."184 McLoughlin speaks of Backus' Calvinism and also its modification, when he says Backus:

. . . devoted a large part of his life to a futile attempt to defend the dying doctrines of Calvinism. Unlike Edwards, he nevertheless spoke with the accents of the new America that was being born in the latter half of the eighteenth century.185

It would be the judgment of this writer that when Backus made his extended and prolonged study of infant baptism and the covenants of the Scriptures, that he concluded, unlike his Baptist forefathers, that covenant theology and infant baptism stood or fell as a unit. So when he rejected infant baptism, he also rejected covenant theology and a covenantal concept of the church. The basis for such a conclusion is another article titled, "A Short Description of the Differences between the Bond-woman and the Free."186 In this article he seems to place the Old Testament and the New Testament in an antithetical relationship to one another. He sees God's covenant with Abraham as just a national covenant in which God agreed to save Abraham and his descendants, if they would obey the law. But the Jews failed to live up to the covenant, were blinded to the Messiah, so God established a new covenant between Himself and those who would accept Christ as their Saviour. In this explanation there is not a word about the everlasting covenant nor the relation of the Abrahamic covenant to it. The covenant of salvation by grace through Christ is strictly a New Covenant, according to Backus, replacing the Old Testament covenant of works. Thus there is not only an antithesis between the testaments, but also between their views of salvation. This could in no way lead to nor coincide with a covenantal concept of the church. Backus could not and did not, therefore, hold such a concept of the church, as we saw in the English Baptists and the Philadelphia Confession.

Concerning the theological stance of Leland, Armitage says of him:

He was a Calvinist, but would not be bound by the methods of Gill; neither did Wesley or Andrew Fuller suit him; and for practical purposes he thought that two grains of Arminian with three of Calvinism made a good proportion in preaching.187

Goen quotes Leland in this regard as follows:

I conclude that the eternal purposes of God and the freedom of the human soul are both truth; and it is a matter of fact, that the preaching that has been most blessed of God, and most profitable to man, is the doctrine of sovereign grace in the salvation of souls, mixed with a little of what is called Arminianism.188

Note the highly pragmatic standard of judging preaching and its success. Goen says of this statement, "This is virtually to say that whatever makes for good preaching is ipso facto right doctrine."189 He notes also these sentiments became quite typical of Baptists in that whole section of New England.

Summary

We have spent considerable time speaking of the events and influences relating to Baptists in the eighteenth century. We have seen how as a small denomination they were uninvolved in the Great Awakening at its inception. We have seen how the events of the Awakening forced the withdrawal of the Separates from the established denominations. We have traced their struggles over the matter of purity, and noted their conclusion that a regenerate membership was a necessity. We have seen how that conviction led them to the rejection of infant baptism, which in turn drove them towards the Baptists.

We have seen their entrance into the Baptist churches. We have noted how their viewpoint influenced and swayed Baptists towards revivalism and the Separate views of doctrine. We have stressed what this emphasis did to the Calvinism of the Baptists, modifying their theology even to the rejection of covenant theology and a covenantal view of the church, while still holding on to the outer shell of election and predestination. We have seen how their strong individualism divorced them from the historical confessions of their Baptist forefathers. Thus we contend that as all of these elements came together, they brought the erosion of the covenantal concept of the church, and the overbalance of the local church against the universal or invisible church. Certainly not all of these above mentioned changes took place in every place in one day's time. Our point is that the eighteenth century saw the seeds of change sown, and some of the changes were beginning to develop. The continuing growth of these seeds will be the subject of our next chapter.

May the reader not assume that the writer is critical of every aspect of Separate Baptists. He has only sought to point out their errors and abuses at certain points, which were in the passing of time, even decades, to threaten basic Baptist principles and doctrines, especially the doctrine of the church. One of their strong points worthy of commendation was their clear perception of the need for purity and a regenerate membership. Backus stated emphatically that only the regenerate should be members of the local church.190 He further contested that the door of the local church should be carefully guarded against all who cannot give Scriptural evidence of their salvation and union to Christ.191 It is the writer's contention that a desire for and an ability to uphold discipline would also in time slip without a covenant concept of the church as its foundation, as we shall see in the following chapters.

Notes:

165 Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptists (New York: Bryan, Taylor and Company, 1887), p. 778.
166 G. Hugh Wamble, "Baptists in America before 1814," Baptist Advance, Edited by Davis C. Wooley, p. 19.
167 Goen, Revivalism, pp. 218-219.
168 Wooley, Baptist Advance, p. 19.
169 Armitage, Baptists, p. 778.
170 McLoughlin, Backus Pamphlets, p. 52.
171 W. W. Sweet, Religion in the Development of American Culture 1765-1840 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952), p. 34. For a good biography of Isaac Backus, we suggest William G. McLaughlin, Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition (Boston: Little, Brown and Company 1967). For an interesting and highly informative account of his part in our early national history, as he fought to procure religious freedom, see O. K. and Marjorie Armstrong, The Indomitable Baptists (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1967), Chapter VII. Also for general biographical material see David Benedict, A General History of the Baptist Denomination in America (Boston: Maning and Loring, 1813), Volume II.
172 L. F. Green, Editor, The Writings of John Leland (New York Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969), pp. 9-40.
173 Armstrong, The Indomitable Baptists, pp. 1-16.
174 Armitage, Baptists, p. 787.
175 McLoughlin, Backus Pamphlets, p. 28.
176 E. S. Gaustad, "The Backus-Leland Tradition," Baptist Concepts of the Church, Edited by Witnthrop S. Hudson (Chicago: The Judson Press, 1959), p. 108, quoting from The Writings of John Leland, Edited by L. F. Green (New York: 1845), p.111.
177 Torbet, Baptists, p. 255.
178 Ibid, p. 255.
179 Ibid., pp. 255-256.
180 Gaustad, "The Backus-Leland Tradition," Baptist Concepts, Edited by Hudson, p. 111.
181 Ibid., p. 112, quoting The Writings of John Leland, Edited by L. F. Green (New York: 1845), p. 114.
182 Torbet, History, pp. 255-256.
183 McLoughlin, Isaac Backus Pamphlets, pp. 289-302.
184 Ibid., pp. 447-471.
185 Ibid., p. 16.
186 Ibid., p. 34f.
187 Armitage, History, p. 788.
188 Goen, Revivalism, p. 285, quoting from "Letters of Valediction on Leaving Virginia, in 1791," The Writings of John Leland, p. 172.
189 Goen, Revivalism, p. 285.
190 E. S. Gaustad, "The Backus-Leland Tradition," Baptist Concepts of the Church, Edited by Winthrop S. Hudson, pp. 121-122, quoting Isaac Backus, A History of New England With Particular References to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (Newton, Massachusetts: 1871), p. 232.
191 Ibid., pp. 121-122, quoting from Alvah Hovey, A Memoir of the Life and Times of Reverent Isaac Backus (Boston: 1859), p. 336.