Isaac Backus was a Baptist pastor and prominent advocate of religious liberty during the era of the American Revolution. Also famous for championing the separation of Church and State, he served as a delegate to the 1788 Massachusetts convention that ratified the United States Constitution.
This selection, taken from his work A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists, argues that one of the legacies of the Judeo-Christian tradition is Western democracy’s recognition of the free consent of the governed. Absolute monarchy is alien to God’s pattern for Israel. Tyranny occurs when authorities unreasonably seize power against the will of the people, according to Backus.
Now the word of God plainly shows, that this way of mutual compact or covenant, is the only righteous foundation for civil government. For when Israel must needs have a king like the rest of the nations, and he indulged them in that request, yet neither Saul nor David, who were anointed by his immediate direction, ever assumed the regal power over the people, but by their free consent. And though the family of David had the clearest claim to hereditary succession that any family on earth ever had, yet, when ten of the twelve tribes revolted from his grandson, because he refused to comply with what they esteemed a reasonable proposal, and he had collected an army to bring them back by force, God warned him not to do it, and he obeyed him therein. Had these plain precedents been regarded in later times, what woes and miseries would they have prevented! But the history of all ages and nations shows, that when men have got the power into their hands, they often use it to gratify their own lusts, and recur to nature, religion or the constitution (as they think it will best serve) to carry, and yet cover, their wretched designs.[1]
[1] Isaac Backus, A History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists (Newton, MA: Backus Historical Society, 1871), 530.