Baptist History and Denominational Development — Unit 5: Baptists in America: Roger Williams, Isaac Backus, John Leland and the Fight for Religious Liberty

Key Verse

"But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: 'We ought to obey God rather than men.'" (Acts 5:29, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why the first Baptists in New England met opposition, and describe Roger Williams's part in founding Rhode Island.

2. Name two Baptists who suffered in colonial Massachusetts and describe what happened to them.

3. Describe how the Great Awakening changed Baptist life, and explain the work of Isaac Backus for religious liberty.

4. Describe the work of John Leland in Virginia and his link with James Madison, the Virginia Statute and the First Amendment.

5. State the main objections to the Baptist story of religious liberty and give the Baptist answers.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist students. It is conservative. We hold that the Bible is God's inspired Word and our final authority. When historians disagree, or when others object to what Baptists say about their own history, we state their view fairly and then give the Baptist answer. Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

Why This Story Matters

In the last unit we saw Baptists fined and jailed in England. This unit follows the Baptists across the Atlantic. In America they were first a small and despised group. In time they became one of the largest Christian families in the country. Along the way they made a contribution to the whole nation: the idea that faith must be free, and that no government has the right to command a person's conscience.

For Baptists this idea is not mainly political. It grows from the Bible. A person is saved by repentance and faith, which no ruler can produce by force. The church is a company of believers, so it cannot be made up by law. Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). For these reasons the early Baptists said that the sword belongs to the government for civil order, and the Word belongs to the church for the soul.

Roger Williams and Rhode Island

In the 1600s the colony of Massachusetts Bay was ruled by Puritans. They had left England to build a godly society. But they kept an established church. Everyone had to attend, everyone had to pay for it, and only church members could vote. The leaders believed that the magistrate must protect true religion and punish false teaching.

Roger Williams (about 1603-1683) was a minister who arrived in Boston in 1631. He taught that the civil government had no authority over the first four commandments, that is, over worship. He also taught that the colonists had no right to take land from the native peoples without buying it. The leaders of Massachusetts judged his views dangerous, and in 1635 they ordered him to leave the colony. In 1636 he settled at a place he named Providence, and others joined him. This was the beginning of Rhode Island.

In Providence Williams gave his settlement a rule that was rare in that age: the town would not use the power of the government to enforce religion. He called the idea "soul liberty." In 1644 he published The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, in which he argued from the Bible that the state should not persecute for conscience. He pointed to Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), where the master says to let both grow together until the harvest. The final judgment belongs to God, not to the magistrate.

About 1638 or 1639 a church was formed in Providence, and Williams was baptized by a layman named Ezekiel Holliman. Williams then baptized others. Within a few months he left the church. He came to believe that there was no true church on earth until Christ sent new apostles, and he spent the rest of his life as a "Seeker."

The first Baptist church in America?

Historians do not agree. Some say that the church in Providence was the first Baptist church in America. Others point to the church in Newport, Rhode Island, founded by Dr. John Clarke, a physician and minister, in the 1640s. Both were in Rhode Island, and the exact date of each is debated.

Some historians go further. They say that Williams was never really a Baptist, because he left the church so quickly. The Baptist answer is that this is partly true, and partly beside the point. It is true that Williams moved away from the church. But it is also true that he believed in believer's baptism for a time, and that his arguments for liberty of conscience were the same as those Baptists made and still make. Baptists do not claim that Williams was a Baptist all his life. We honor him as a friend of liberty who helped to start the first Baptist church. John Clarke is another name to remember. He was a Baptist pastor all his life, and in 1663 he obtained from King Charles II a royal charter for Rhode Island that protected freedom of conscience.

Suffering in Massachusetts

Rhode Island was a refuge. Massachusetts was not. The Baptists who lived there suffered.

In 1651 Clarke and two other men from Rhode Island, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall, visited a blind Baptist at Lynn, Massachusetts. The authorities arrested them for holding a meeting. Holmes refused to pay a fine, and he was publicly whipped with thirty lashes. Holmes later became the pastor of the Baptist church in Newport.

Another case is Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College. In the 1650s he came to doubt the baptism of infants. He taught this view, and in 1654 he was forced to give up his post. Baptists in Massachusetts formed a church in Boston in 1665 and were fined and sometimes imprisoned for years after that.

The Puritan leaders were sincere. They believed that they were protecting the souls of their people. The Baptist answer was always the same: the church cannot be built with the sword, and the state cannot read the heart. Persecution makes hypocrites, not believers.

Growth and the Great Awakening

By the early 1700s there were Baptists in several colonies, especially in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the Carolinas. In 1707 five churches formed the Philadelphia Baptist Association, the first Baptist association in America. In 1742 it adopted the Second London Confession as the Philadelphia Confession (see Unit 4).

The great change came with the Great Awakening, the series of revivals that swept the colonies from about 1740. Many people were converted and left the established churches to form "Separate" churches. Some of these decided that infant baptism was not found in Scripture and became Baptists. Among these Separate Baptists, Shubal Stearns (1706-1771) and his people settled at Sandy Creek, North Carolina in 1755. From there, preachers traveled widely in Virginia and the Carolinas. These Baptists stressed the new birth, simple worship and zeal for evangelism. They grew rapidly.

Isaac Backus and the Appeal for Liberty

Isaac Backus (1724-1806) was born in Connecticut. He was converted during the Awakening. He first joined the Separate Congregationalists, but in 1751 he became a Baptist. From 1756 until his death he was the pastor of a Baptist church at Middleborough, Massachusetts.

The problem he faced was the law. Massachusetts still taxed everyone to support the established church. Baptists could be excused if they brought a certificate from their own church, but the officials often refused or made it difficult. Sometimes Baptists' property was seized, and a few were jailed for refusing to pay.

In 1767 the Baptist churches in the region formed the Warren Association, and it set up a committee to gather the complaints of Baptists, with Backus as a leader. In 1773 he published An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty. In 1774 Backus traveled to Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress was meeting, and brought the grievances of the Baptists before the delegates from Massachusetts.

Backus argued two things. First, he said that the church and the state are different governments with different tasks. The state keeps civil peace, but the church deals with the conscience before God. Second, he pointed out an awkward contradiction. The colonists were complaining that Britain taxed them without their consent. Yet the Massachusetts government taxed Baptists to support a church they did not believe in, and did so without their consent. Backus was not against the American cause. He wanted the revolution's own principles to be applied at home.

The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 still kept support for the established churches. Backus opposed it. The last such system in Massachusetts did not end until 1833, long after Backus died. He also wrote a three-volume History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (1777-1796), which is still a valuable source.

John Leland and Virginia

In Virginia the Church of England was the established church until the Revolution. From about 1768, Baptist preachers there were arrested for preaching without a license from the authorities. Some preached from the jail window. Their steadiness won many to their cause.

John Leland (1754-1841) was a Baptist preacher from Massachusetts who came to Virginia in 1776 and served there for about fifteen years.

During the Revolution, the Virginia Baptists backed independence, but they also asked for freedom of religion in the new state. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson proposed a bill for religious freedom. After years of struggle it was passed in 1786 as the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, with James Madison leading the effort in the legislature. The Baptists helped by sending petitions from their churches and by their steady public support.

Then came the question of the new national Constitution. Many Baptists feared that the document did not protect freedom of conscience. A well-known tradition says that Leland met with Madison, and that Madison promised to work for a bill of rights, and that Leland then supported him for the Virginia convention in 1788. Historians debate how much weight to put on this story. But it is certain that Madison did work for the amendments, and that the First Amendment was ratified in 1791. It says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting its free exercise.

Leland returned to Massachusetts in 1791. In that year he published The Rights of Conscience Inalienable, arguing that a person's religion is a matter between that person and God, and that the government has no right to judge religious opinions. He kept fighting the Massachusetts establishment to the end of his life.

In 1801 the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut wrote to the new President Jefferson about their lack of religious freedom in their state. In his reply in early 1802, Jefferson used the picture of "a wall of separation between church and state." Baptists did not mean that faith should be pushed out of public life. They meant that government should not control the church, and the church should not rule the government.

Objections and the Baptist Answers

Objection 1: Baptists asked for liberty only when they were weak.

Critics say that Baptists wanted freedom for themselves, and would have done as the Puritans did if they had held power. Our answer. The record is against this. Williams asked liberty even for those whose beliefs he opposed, and Baptists like Backus and Leland asked liberty for all, not only for themselves. A principle is shown by whether it is held when it costs something. Baptists held it before they gained power and after.

Objection 2: The credit belongs to Enlightenment thinkers, not Baptists.

Some historians say that Jefferson and Madison were moved by reason and by the new philosophy of their age, and the Baptists only helped them. Our answer. Both are true. Jefferson and Madison brought political skill and arguments from reason. But the Baptists brought the Bible, thousands of petitioners, and the proof of their own suffering. Without that pressure the laws might not have passed. We do not need to say that Baptists did it alone. We say that the Baptist contribution was real, and that its root was Scripture.

Objection 3: Separation of church and state means hostility to religion.

Some think that Baptists wished to keep religion out of the public square. Our answer. Baptists wanted a free church, not a silent one. Backus and Leland were preachers who spoke in public and wrote about public matters. They wanted the church to be free to preach, to teach and to criticize rulers when necessary (Acts 5:29), and they also taught that Christians should pray for rulers and obey the law (Romans 13:1; 1 Timothy 2:1-2). The aim is freedom for the church, and protection for the state from being used by the church.

Objection 4: Some Baptists later forgot this principle.

That is a fair complaint. Baptists, like other Christians, have not always been consistent. This is a reason to hold the principle with care, not to give it up.

Pastoral Application

You are a Baptist pastor in a small town in Latin America. Before a local election, an official comes to your church and asks you to speak for one candidate from the pulpit on Sunday. He also hints that the church's permits may be easier to obtain if you do.

A pastor shaped by this history will respond in several steps. First, he receives the official politely and thanks him for his concern for the town, because Scripture asks us to pray for those in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Second, he explains kindly that the pulpit belongs to the Word of God, and that the church cannot become a tool of any party. Third, he reminds himself and his people of the principle: "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). Fourth, he teaches his church to pray, to vote according to conscience, and to obey the law. Fifth, he keeps a record of the conversation and, if needed, seeks counsel from other pastors in his association. By doing this he protects the freedom of his church, and the conscience of every member.

Summary

Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts in 1635, founded Providence in 1636, and argued for "soul liberty" in The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644). A Baptist church was formed in Providence about 1638 or 1639, and John Clarke founded a church in Newport and obtained the Rhode Island charter of 1663. Baptists suffered in Massachusetts: Obadiah Holmes was whipped in 1651, and Henry Dunster lost his post at Harvard in 1654. The Philadelphia Association began in 1707, and the Great Awakening brought rapid growth, including the Separate Baptists of Shubal Stearns. Isaac Backus led the fight in New England and published his Appeal in 1773. John Leland worked in Virginia, helped win the Virginia Statute (1786), worked with Madison for the First Amendment (1791) and wrote The Rights of Conscience Inalienable. Baptists answer critics by showing that their principle was held for all, grew from the Bible, and is a gift to church and state alike.

Further Reading

• Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (1644), public domain.

• Isaac Backus, An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty (1773), public domain.

• Isaac Backus, A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (1777-1796), public domain.

• John Leland, The Rights of Conscience Inalienable (1791), public domain.

• H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (1987).

• Bill J. Leonard, Baptist Ways (2003).

• Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn and Michael A. G. Haykin, The Baptist Story (2015).

Submit Exam & Check Pass Reset