Doesn’t the word chassid used in the Sh”A refer to people who are mekayeim the mitzvos with a measure of chassidus, meaning EXTRA-devotion and are machmirim (as opposed to the way in which we use the term “chassidus” today to refer to people who follow a rebbie such as Bobov, Lubavitch, Satmar, etc.? If so, then it has nothing to do with the latter at all.
Considering the fact that the S”A was written in the late 1500s and the Ba’al Shem Tov lived in the 1700s… 🙂
The Wolf