Backus Defends His Ecclesiology

       In my last post, we saw Isaac Backus had to defend his position on baptism but that wasn’t all this minister had to contend with.  There were also many from the “established” churches who had different views on the qualifications for ministers, for example, and these had great disdain for those they derisively called the “New Lights.”  Backus was not one to back down from any position he found to be entirely supported by Scripture.  In this post we see where he defends his position that the Church of Jesus Christ is comprised of those persons who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God.

       In 1764 he [Backus] published a letter to his former pastor, Mr. Benjamin Lord, of Norwich, who had put in print "some harsh things… against those who have dissented from his sentiments about the ministry, the church, and baptism."  Mr. Lord had declared, for example, that no just cause of withdrawment from the standing order could be produced by the New-Lights.  He had charged "those that imagine the fulness of the Spirit (or singular gifts which they think they possess) doth warrant their assuming the character and entering on the work of ministers of Christ," with coveting to be "above their Master."  And he had joined with six neighboring ministers in saying: "Do not the late separations, and one separation from another, already discover their nature by their fruits? In that some have by this time apostatized even from all religion; while some others are renouncing infant baptism, and going fast to the like dreadful apostasy.  It is hid from them that ‘evil men and seducers wax worse and worse'; it is hid from them, or rather they will not see, that they have fell into the way of Cain, and are in danger of perishing in the gainsaying of Core."

       In reply to these charges, Mr. Backus explained and vindicated his belief, and that of the New-Lights generally, respecting an internal call to preach the gospel.  He then proceeded to show that the right to ordain ministers is vested in the church and not in the clergy alone.  Finally, he defends the doctrine of believers' baptism as scriptural, and repudiates that of infant baptism as unscriptural.  We cite the following recapitulation of his argument:

       "Now, sir, since Christ's forerunner warned the Jews against thinking to come to baptism in Abraham's right, and told them they must bring forth fruits meet for repentance; since Christ himself called little children to come to him, but says not a word of their being brought to baptism before they do come to him; yea, instead of that, he, in the commission, orders that all nations be taught and believe before they are baptized; and since his ministers, in obedience thereto, baptized those that gladly received the Word at Jerusalem, those that believed Philip's preaching in Samaria, and such as heard and believed at Corinth, etc., but there is no account of their baptizing any but such; — and, on the other hand, since God declares that the new covenant is not according to that which he made with Israel when he brought them out of Egypt, and that one special difference is, that all who are in this covenant know him and have his law written in their hearts; and since no custom like circumcising children on their parents' account was to be observed among the believing Gentiles; — I dare not follow the multitude in bringing children to the initiating ordinance of the gospel church on their parents' faith, let there be as great or good men as there will that do it, knowing that I have but one Master in all these things, to whom I must give account.  And I believe his orders are, that none should be admitted into the ministry but "faithful men," or "men full of faith and the Holy Ghost;" and that none ought to be received into the church but real believers, that is, those that give credible evidence of saving faith."  ¹

       Lord willing in my next post we’ll begin to look at Backus’ efforts in defense of religious liberty.

Christ, not man, is King!

Dale

1)      Alvah Hovey, A Memoir of the Life and Times of the Rev. Isaac Backus, A.M. (Boston, MA: Gould and Lincoln, 1859), p. 146-7.