Fear of God -- Sermons]]> Somers Congregational Church (Somers, Conn.) ]]> Backus, Charles, 1749-1803]]> The Somers Congregational Church was established in1727. Prior to that the people from what is now Somers traveled to the Enfield Congregational Church. Sunday services lasted most of the day, with a two hour sermon in the morning a short break for lunch and an hour long sermon in the afternoon. It seems as though the Enfield folk did not welcome people from “East Enfield” (as Somers was known then) with open arms and considered them to be the mountain folk. The Enfield church did allow for the Somers people to get in out of the weather inside the nearby school house, as long as they cleaned up after themselves.

A committee of men from East Enfield met together and began to discuss the need for a separate church and parish.  In 1727 Samuel Allis was called as the first pastor of the church.
http://www.somerscongregational.org/index.php/about-our-church/our-history/

The author of this work, Dr. Charles E. Backus, a graduate of Yale College, became third pastor of the Congregational Church in Somers, Connecticut in 1773. He opened in Somers one of the most prestigious "schools of the prophets" which were informal institutions of theological training in New England in the late 1700's. These schools not only allowed for the growth and spread of the New Divinity movement, they went on to monopolize theological education for over 50 years.

http://connecticuthistory.org/somers-school-of-the-prophets/
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Backus, Charles, 1749-1803 ]]> Hartford : Hudson & Goodwin, 1802 ]]> Link to record in Primo]]>