Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes

Lemuel Haynes was born in Massachusetts in 1753.  A black child, he was abandoned by his parents at about 5 months of age.  He was taken on by a church deacon in a common practice of indentured servitude – he would work for the man until age 21, in return for the deacon’s raising him.  Lemuel became, in all but name, a member of the family.  Lemuel was given the opportunity to attend school, a rare experience for blacks in his day.  He was fascinated especially with the study of theology, especially the contemporary works of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield.  One evening as a boy, while laying outside in a quiet moment, he saw the Aurora Borealis – the Northern Lights – and quietly gave his heart and life to Christ.

In the home in which he was raised, a common Saturday evening practice was to read a sermon out loud.  One evening, when Lemuel was asked to read, he read an especially rousing sermon.  When asked who wrote the sermon, he sheepishly replied that he had written it himself.  From that point on, he was often asked to proofread sermons or preach in a fill-in capacity.

At age 21 he was freed from his servitude and enlisted as a Minuteman in the Continental Army the day after the battles of Lexington and Concord.  He participated in the siege of Boston, and later became one of Ethan Allen’s famed “Green Mountain Boys” and participated in the conquest of Fort Ticonderoga in 1776.  Soon after this, he contracted Typhus, ending his military service.

Lemuel continued his theological studies, was licensed to preach in 1780 and was fully ordained to the ministry in 1785 – the first ordained black minister in the United States.  Over the course of the rest of his life, he pastored churches throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and New York.  Notably, his congregations were either mixed-race or all white, a unique circumstance for that day.  His churches experienced great growth during his tenure.

Lemuel wrote often, on topics theological as well as social.  He was the first African-American published in the United States, and eventually gained an international audience.  Probably his most significant social writing was an essay he wrote as a soldier, inspired by the Declaration of Independence, entitled “Liberty Further Extended.”  In it, he took from Acts 17:26, Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill, “…and He made from one [man], every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation” to demonstrate the equality of all races and point out the shortcoming of the Declaration in not extending that same freedom to existing slaves and indentured servants.  He favored an immediate emancipation rather than the gradual emancipation many of the Founders envisioned.  He pointed out clearly and boldly that slavery was sin, and he pointed out the irony of slaveowners fighting for liberty while denying it to others.

Theologically, he gained great respect when, unknown to him until the last minute, a prominent Universalist preacher was invited to his church to speak.  After a lengthy sermon attempting to demonstrate that salvation was universal (i.e. a loving God wouldn’t condemn anyone to Hell), Lemuel was asked if he wanted to respond.  He stood up and, with no notes or preparation, gave a sermon of his own entitled “Universal Salvation – An Ancient False Doctrine”.  He articulated clearly through the Scriptures and plain logic, without disparaging the previous speaker or even mentioning him by name, the Biblical doctrine of salvation.  Wonderful tact!

Reverend Haynes married a white school teacher named Elizabeth Babbitt.  The couple had ten children, and surviving letters between the siblings speak glowingly of their father and memories of family devotions and prayer.

Lemuel Haynes passed into Glory in 1833, at age 80, in his Congregationalist church in South Granville, New York.  He composed his own epitaph: “Here lies the dust of a poor hell-deserving sinner who ventured into eternity trusting wholly on the merits of Christ for salvation.  In the full belief of the great doctrines he preached while on earth, he invites his children, and all who read this, to trust their eternal interest in the same foundation.”

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuel_Haynes

https://wallbuilders.com/lemuel-haynes/#

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/haynes-lemuel-1753-1833/

https://thefoundingproject.com/lemuel-haynes-african-american-founder/

https://revivedthoughts.com/lemuel-haynes-universal-salvation-an-ancient-false-doctrine/

https://www.facebook.com/museumoftheBible/photos/a.656534441128184/2710890175692590/