I am also indebted to him for guidance and wise advice during the research period and in the early stages of writing. Growth and influence of Baptists • • • • Church a free voluntary association Freedom of individual conscience • • Free voluntary support of churches • • • Freedom from state domination or control IV.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Separation of church and state in Virginia.3 He was particularly concerned with the history of legal provisions. F~ James' Documentary History of the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia,5 a collection of most of the important documents in the struggle and interpreted with a Baptist slant.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
The meaning of the state as a people in a certain territory organized politically under one government is the intended use in the phrase "church and state." Separation of church and state has to do with the implementation of the principle of religious freedom in legal matters and in social and religious thought.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
As a result of the research, certain central ideas at work in the development of the . This religious factor of the free church's influence was perhaps the most important factor in the secession's eventual triumph over the state church.
THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE CONCEPT
Natural law is the implementation of natural law into positive law or the law of the state. In his excellent treatment of Natural Rights, David Richie lists several meanings of the word "natural":5.
NATURAL RIGHTS IN POLITICAL LEADERS
It was he who was responsible for the significant changes in Article XVI in the adoption of the Virginia Bill of Rights by the Virginia Convention of 1776. Although liberal on the issue of colonial rights, Mason was by no means a radical.
THE PRESBYTERIANS AND NATURAL RIGHTS
Their claim to tolerance and subsequently to complete freedom and separation rested mainly on their teachings about the church. Here an investigation will be made of the idea of natural rights beginning with The most famous of the Presbyterian petitions is the memorial presented to the House on October 24, 1776, in which Hanover Presbytery strongly opposed establishment.
In the language of the Bill of Rights, they urged the legislature to secure to them the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of our conscience.,104 They enumerated the burdens which the establishment imposed upon them, such as buying glebes, building churches, support. - to establish the clergy of the church and pay taxes for its support. That Wallace must have acquired something of his teacher's spirit is reflected in his letters and in the Presbyterian petitions he helped to draft. John Blair Smith was such an appointee in the autumn of 1785 and spoke three consecutive days against assessment before the whole House committee,125 thereby having a clear part in killing the bill in committee.
THE BAPTISTS AND NATURAL RIGHTS
At a meeting of the General Association in August, 1775, held at Dupuy's meeting house in Powhatan County, it was decided to circulate petitions with prayer to the General Assembly,. He had about the same attitude toward the General Committee as Isaac Backus had toward the Warren Association in New England in 1772. Leland's advocacy of conscience rights led him to oppose the ratification of the Federal Constitution because it lacked a Bill of Rights.
It is reasonable to assume that Leland kept Backus informed of the progress of separation in Virginia. It was part of the thought pattern known as the Enlightenment with its accompanying rationalism and Deism. This is seen in the petitions and writings of the Presbyterians and Baptists who were the two largest groups of dissenters in Virginia.
GROWING RESISTANCE TO GREAT BRITAIN
In the latter part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the English colonial policy known as the "mercantile" system was developed. Andrews, The Colonial Background of the American Revolution (revised-eQitionj New Haven: Yale---- University Press, 1948), p. By far the best treatment of the background of the Revolution from the perspective of Great Britain and the colonies.
While it cannot be said that this growing opposition to Britain was directly caused by religious factors, it is true that the growing opposition manifested itself in the religious life of the period. After 1660, the pattern of government of the church closely resembled that of the state. The Great Awakening in the mid-century was responsible for much of this growth.
INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL CONTRACT
Henry regarded the body of the people as the basis of society and instituted governments as only for the good of the people. Madison invoked the rights of individual conscience as early as 1776 when he revised Article XVI of the Virginia Bill of Rights to read that all men are. The people have an indisputable right to change the government if it should be insufficient to preserve the liberty and property of the people.
Richard Bland, ten years before the Revolution, argued that although Virginia was part of the British Empire, "Virginia was no part of the. In even bolder language, Jefferson endorsed this "wonderful innovation" in his "Summary View of the Rights of the British Colonies" in 1774. 34; voluntary agreement between contracting parties of various inherent rights."26 These ideas were repugnant to the mindset of the British ruling class.
THE REVOLUTION A TIME OF OPPORTUNITY FOR DISSENTERS A most interesting question to consider is why
The history of the Presbyterian movement shows that it was not detrimental to a state church, as the powerful state church in Scotland testifies. Mecklin noted that the Baptists "were quick to realize the effect of the war on the status of the Dissenters" in the matter of demanding chaplains. 34;begin of the Baptist war on the state-church."40 A most obvious example of opportunism is found in the petition of the Baptist Church at Occaquo~,Prince.
The Baptists here thought it was time for a repeal of the marriage law and the law of vice, which guaranteed the Church of England clergy and masters special privileges. When the General Committee petitioned on behalf of the Society on August 5, 1786, against the Act of Incorporation, it was a well-worded letter that recalled Baptist efforts to achieve independence. Thus, the incorporation, religious assessment, and possession of property of the Established Church by the Episcopalians.
THE RELIGIOUS STRUGGLE A PART OF THE LARGER REVOLUTION
49 Thom began his account of the Baptist role in the fight for religious liberty in Virginia - the Baptists by saying that the movement for religious liberty. The struggle for secession was thus part of the larger revolution, because it had largely the same causes in the first place. On the one hand, there was the colonists' objection to taxation without proper representation in the popular assembly which administered the tax;
The struggle for the separation of church and state was part of a larger revolution mainly because of its logic. In summary, one of the factors that contributed to the separation of church and state in Virginia was political freedom. The relationship between church and state, however, becomes part of any discussion about the nature of the church.
DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IN VIRGINIA CHURCHES
Its presence in Virginia was mainly due to the Scots-Irish immigration of the eighteenth century and the work of Samuel Davis at the Hanover Rectory. In the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1643,1 the traditional Presbyterian Confession, the universal Catholic Church is affirmed, but it consists of the elect which is the invisible Church. 2 The government of the church is carried out by presbyteries as elected representatives, who together form the synods.
The Baptists who came to Virginia had their beginnings in the English separatist movement of the seventeenth century. Freedom of individual conscience has been proclaimed from the beginning, and the church must remain separate from all ties to the state. In their institutional organization they would certainly be of the ecclesiastical type, but in matters of the relationship between the individual and the state and the separation of the church and the state, they seem to be of the sect type.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND VIEWS AND SEPARATION
This was to be expected because of the close relationship between church and state in the colonies. The colonial government that supported the Established Church could persecute Baptists as disturbers of the peace. 33 The Christian religion would be the established religion of the Commonwealth and the Church of.
This was based on the perception of the church as the cement of society; The state church was actually called that in the Mecklingburg and Lunenburg petitions. With the end of the war, accounts show that religious life in Virginia reached a low point. In light of this situation, there was a public reaction in favor of the Conservatives.
THE FREE CHURCH VIEW AND SEPARATION
The General Court of the colony through Colonel Thomas Lee appealed to the board of trade in London. In their petitions one can see the concept of the church as a voluntary association. A natural consequence of the church as a voluntary association is the freedom of individual conscience.
On the issue of public financial support for the church, the Presbyterians remained less consistent. Because of this, they were persecuted by the state as disturbers of the peace and were exposed. Baptists objected to general assessment and incorporation because of their view of the church as a voluntary association.
Finally, the concept of a free Baptist church called for freedom from state domination or control. A few words may be in order about the nature and function of the Baptist General Committee in the light of Free Church concepts.
SOCIAL FACTORS
After addressing the philosophical, political, and religious factors in divorce in Virginia, attention now turns to social and economic factors. The colony's social scene at mid-century was a picture of two Virginias, the Tidewater and the hinterland.2. They were much more numerous and, of course, more respectable in the eyes of the world.
Semple, History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond: In.n~7,~10), p. Thom, a trusted source, cited their social appeal as one of the reasons for the spread of Baptist doctrine. Thus, when dissenters spoke about freedom of conscience, free expression of religion, the right o£.
ECONOMIC FACTORS
