Protestant Baptists of Boston

Click on this Protestant photograph to enlarge

Calvinistic Baptist preacher and historian, Isaac Backus certainly didn't go down the old (or is it new?) "We're-not-Protestants-we're-Baptists" line. The fact is that Backus and other Baptists did not hesitate to take both titles. My last blog post shows how he carried a letter from John Gano (Moderator) and the Warren Baptist Association of New England freely describing themselves as "a distinct Protestant denomination." 

This was not a unique occasion. In his "History of the Baptists of New England" as reproduced above, Backus shows how the Baptists in Boston quite happily referred to themselves as "other Protestants" Personally, I don't get hung up about labels at all. (I usually say this in relation to the Calvinist label.) I know some (mostly converted RC's) who hesitate to take the name Protestant for reasons that are more political than religious. However, they worship and pray with the Protestants, read their Protestant translation of God's word, sing Protestant hymns sitting on Protestant pews in Protestant churches, listen to Protestant preachers and thank God for the Protestant Reformation and Protestants like Luther, Calvin and Knox etc. At this stage, nobody cares (in the right sense of the word) what misgivings about a mere title they may have. They're in. 

Many other Baptist/Baptist Historians made use of the Protestant title in relation to themselves and their Baptist denomination. I am in the process, in my spare time, of digging a few of them out and sharing them here on this blog and on Twitter. Once BH Carroll saw Baptists as "only technically Protestants" - but hey! Cut the man some slack. In a more positive frame of mind, he quoted Froude, without terms and conditions, that the Baptists were the "most thorough going of all the Protestant sects." FB Meyer certainly didn't get queasy on the matter and neither did CH Spurgeon who bluntly declared that he hoped that he was the "most ardent Protestant as any man living". 

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Gano and Backus - Protestants

Click on Protestant Photograph to Enlarge

Note: JT Christian actually records this basic historical fact in both  his Christian History volumes: 

http://ourbaptistheritage.org/userfiles/file/John_T_Christian_Baptist_History_Volume_One.pdf

http://ourbaptistheritage.org/userfiles/file/John_T_Christian_Baptist_History_Volume_Two.pdf

Isaac Backus and John Gano arguing that their status as “A DISTINCT DENOMINATION OF PROTESTANTS” entitled them to an equal claim to charter-rights as reported by JT Christian, “arguably the most important Baptist historian who ever lived.”

(A History of the Baptists Vol. 1)

The Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, and in eight days there was a Committee of Baptists, headed by Rev. Isaac Backus, who solemnly recognized its authority. They bore the following memorial from the Warren Association of the Baptist churches of New England: 

Honorable Gentlemen: As the Antipedobaptist churches of New England are most heartily concerned for the preservation and defence of the rights and privileges of the country, and are deeply affected by the encroachments upon the same, which have lately been made by the British parliament, and aft willing to unite with our dear countrymen, vigorously to pursue every prudent measure for relief, so we would beg leave to say that, as a distinct denomination of Protestants, we conceive that we have an equal claim to charter-rights with the rest of our fellow subjects; and yet have long been denied the free and full enjoyment of those rights, as to the support of religious worship. Therefore we, the elders and brethren of twenty Baptist churches met in Association at Medfield, twenty miles from Boston, September 14, 1774, have unanimously chosen and sent unto you the reverend and beloved Isaac Backus as our agent, to lay our case, in these respects, before you, or otherwise to use all the prudent means he can for our relief.  

John Gano, Moderator. Hezekiah Smith, Clerk.

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Isaac Backus and Calvinism

I see my #BaptistHeritage friend, #NeedRevivalTed has been visiting and eulogising over the grave of Isaac Backus, as seen in photgraphs  here, here, here and here (where he thanks God for Backus' courage.) Unfortunately for #NRT, his great hero is one of those whom he describes here as a Catholic theologian (abundantly clearly so) because the said Isaac Backus was a Calvinist. I have written before about how embarrassing it must be for those anti Calvinist Baptist Historian types when they really delve into their history. 

Click on Picture to enlarge

You can read the full article here where Backus refutes the anti Calvinist attack of John Wesley. 



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