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The Origins and History of Universalist Societies in Britain, 1750–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Geoffrey Rowell
Geoffrey Rowell
Affiliation:
Assistant Chaplain, New College, Oxford
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Extract

Universalism, the belief that all men will eventually be saved, is a suspect doctrine in the history of Christian theology. Although there are undoubtedly a number of passages in the New Testament which seem to present this as the final goal of the Divine intention in creation, and as having been brought about at great cost through the redemption effected by Christ, the Church as a whole has always been suspicious of a belief which seems subversive of morality and appears to undercut all evangelistic motives. Nevertheless, the vision of all things returning into unity with God, the ⋯ποκατ⋯στασις τ⋯ν παντ⋯ν, has contnually haunted Christian theologians, and has been espoused by some of the greatest names in the history of Christianity. The Greek Fathers, in particular Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, were, despite some discordant voices, advocates of it, and they have numerous successors. In the West the concern with the boundaries and limits of the Church, which marked the theologies of Cyprian and Augustine, meant that the universalist vision was regarded with greater suspicion, and in the Middle Ages it became the preserve of sectarian groups, opposed to the official Church, and hoping for a new and juster social order, initiated by God, in which all men would share.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 1971 , pp. 35 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

page 35 note 1 Williams, G. H., The Radical Reformation, Philadelphia 1962, 202–3Google Scholar, 252, cf. also on Denck, ibid., 155, 157, and on sectarian ecumenicity, 832–45.

page 36 note 1 The Decline of Hell, 1964, 262–3 and passim. Dr. G. W. MacGregor-Reid, in a statement headed ‘The contact between Winstanley, the Druids, and Toland’ made in 1943, maintains that there are direct links between Gerard Winstanley and the ‘Digger’ movement, which professed a chiliastic universalism, and the later universalist societies, but as much of the evidence he cites is oral it is impossible to evaluate. It is certainly true, however, that as far as socialist doctrine is concerned, a link can be traced from Winstanley to Richard Owen (cf. Troeltsch, E., The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, 1931, 712Google Scholar). I am indebted to Mrs. Elsie Peacock for the loan of Dr. MacGregor-Reid's statement.

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page 36 note 3 N. Thun, The Behmenists and Philadelphians, Uppsala 1948. Walker rightly points out that Boehme himself was not a universalist, op. cit., 223–5.

page 36 note 4 Walker, op. cit., 226.

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page 36 note 6 Cf. E. Benz, Ecclesia Spiritualis, Stuttgart 1934, 298, 360, 436.

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page 39 note 1 Winchester, E., The Seed of the Woman bruising the Serpent's Head, Philadelphia 1781, 5–6Google Scholar.

page 39 note 2 Stone, op. tit., 51–2.

page 39 note 3 The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, ed. G. W. Corner, Princeton 1948, 163–4; Stone, op. cit., 105.

page 39 note 4 Whittemore, T., The Modern History of Universalism, Boston 1830, 276Google Scholar ff.; Conway, M. D., Centenary History of the South Place Society (1894), 1–10Google Scholar; Wilson, Walter, The History and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches of London, iv (1814), 256Google Scholar, 319, 430.

page 40 note 1 The Philadelphian Magazine, i (1778), 403–4. For the ecumenical import of the original Philadelphians, cf. A History of the Ecumenical Movement, ed. R. Rouse and S. G. Neill, 2nd ed. London 1967, 105. The original Philadelphian society in London had ceased with the death of Richard Roach in 1730, cf. Walker, op. cit., 220.

page 40 note 2 Winchester, E., The Reigning Abominations, especially the Slave Trade, considered as causes of lamentation (1788Google Scholar); The Process and Empire of Christ from his birth to the end of the mediatorial kingdom (1793), Preface.

page 40 note 3 For Clarke, cf. Hirst, op. cit., 246–63, 271–6, where his relation to William Blake is discussed.

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page 40 note 5 Walton MSS. (Dr. Williams's Library), 1. i. 43 fols. 261–2: Richard Clarke to Henry Brooke, 24 April 1772.

page 40 note 6 Walton, C., Notes and Materials for an Adequate Biography of the Celebrated Divine and Theosopher, William Law (1854), 500Google Scholar, 604.

page 40 note 7 Walton MSS. 1. i. 43. fol. 194: Thomas Langcake to Henry Brooke, 1 August 1790; fols. 261–2: Richard Clarke to Henry Brooke, 24 April 1772; fol. 296: Clarke to Brooke, May 1790, state that Clarke and Winchester were only agreed on the doctrines of the millennium and the restoration.

page 41 note 1 Appendix to Winchester, E., The Outcasts Comforted (1783Google Scholar).

page 42 note 2 E. Winchester to B. Rush, 15 February 1790, cited Stone, op. cit., 185. An entry in The Universalist's Miscellany, ii (1798), 383–6, states that universalism was at that time ‘pretty generally embraced’ amongst the General Baptists in Wales, which were expanding at that time.

page 42 note 3 Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society, i (1908), 46.

page 42 note 4 Monthly Repository, xii (1817), 131–2.

page 42 note 1 W. Huntington, Advocatesfor Devils Refuted (1794), vii, x, 51, 70, 80.

page 42 note 2 R. Clarke, A Collection of Poems and Letters (1794), 38.

page 42 note 3 Stone, op. cit., 224.

page 42 note 4 Later bought by the Unitarian, Robert Aspland, when it was renamed The Monthly Repository.

page 42 note 5 Cf. R. Wright, Review of Missionary Life and Labours (1824).

page 42 note 6 This event led to the final secession of Dan Taylor and the Baptist New Connexion from the Assembly of General Baptists. Cf. Underwood, A. C., A History of the English Baptists, London 1947, 150–7Google Scholar.

page 42 note 7 At Battle he had been a stone-mason: Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society, i (1908), 46.

page 42 note 8 Robert Millar MSS. (Dr. Williams's Library), 12: 46: 46.

page 43 note 1 The Memoirs and a Selection from the Letters of the late Charles Jerram, ed. J. Jerram (1855), 226.

page 43 note 2 A Brief Account of the Church of God known as Free-thinking Christians, 2nd ed. (1841)

page 43 note 3 The Free-thinking Christians Quarterly Register [FCQR.], i (1823), 305 refers to an associated congregation at Cranbrook. The church book of the Battle congregation is preserved in Dr. Williams's Library. For Wright's visit, cf. Missionary Life and Labours (1824), 233–5. In 1800–1 Wright had visited Vidler's congregations in Battle, Northiam and Rolvenden and found them all ‘zealous for the doctrine of the restoration’: ibid., 69–70.

page 43 note 4 FCQR., i (1823), 115, 194n.; cf. Free-thinking Christians Magazine, ii (1812), 49–61; T. Williams, Dictionary of all Religions and Religious Denominations, 3rd ed., n.d., 115–16.

page 44 note 1 Wilson, History and Antiquities, ii (1808), 523.

page 44 note 2 FCQR., i (1823), 112.

page 44 note 3 Prospectus for FCQR., 1822. The Times (17 December 1824) prints a petition from the Free-thinking Christians, signed by the elder, J. Dillon, and four deacons. Cf. Hansard, N. S. xiii (1825), col. 1031.

page 44 note 4 A Brief Account, 8.

page 44 note 5 The Gospel Communicator, Glasgow 1824, i. 239–41.

page 44 note 6 N. Scarlett, A Translation of the New Testament from the original Greek (1798), ii J. H. Allen and R. Eddy, A History of the Unitarians and Universalists in the United States of America, New York 1894, 354. The Gospel Communicator, ii (1826), 118, states that Scarlett had been educated at Kingswood and the Merchant Taylors’ school, had devised the Commercial Almanac, and had hoped to publish a poem in twelve books on the millennial age.

page 45 note 1 Cf. Conway, M. D., Centenary History of the South Place Society (1894Google Scholar).

page 45 note 2 G. M. Roberts, Selected Trevecka Letters (1742–1747), Caernarvon 1956, 210: Harris to Whitefield, 30 August 1746.

page 45 note 3 Tyerman, L., Life of Wesley (1870), i. 536–7Google Scholar. Relly also preache d at Bath, Gloucester, Wednesbury, Birmingham and Bromsgrove.

page 45 note 4 Wilson, History and Antiquities, i (1808), 360; iv (1814), 385.

page 45 note 5 The Letters of the Revd. John Wesley, A.M., ed. John Telford (1931), ii. 178: Wesley to Thomas Church, 2 February 1745; G. M. Roberts, ‘The Moravians and John Relly and his people’, Cylchgrawm Cymdeithas Hanes Eglywys Methodistiaid Calfnaidd Cymru, xxxviii, Cardiff 1953, 3–7; Jenkins, R. T., ‘The Moravian Brethren in North Wales’, Y Cymmrodor, xlv (1938), 40Google Scholar.

page 46 note 1 J. Relly, Union (1759), xviii–xix.

page 46 note 2 J. Relly, Salvation compleated and secured in Christ as the Covenant of the People (1760 [written 1753]), 39.

page 46 note 3 Union, 55. There are parallels here with the theology of Erskine of Linlathen and F. D. Maurice.

page 46 note 4 Wilson, History and Antiquities, i (1808), 360–1.

page 46 note 5 Records of the Life of John Murray, Boston 1816, 97.

page 46 note 6 Ibid., 99.

page 46 note 7 London Magazine (1764), 654.

page 47 note 1 Records of the Life of John Murray, 12, 15.

page 47 note 2 Ibid., 198.

page 47 note 3 Ibid., 178, 248.

page 47 note 4 F. H. Foster has shown how the characteristic New England ‘governmental’ theory of the Atonement was developed in opposition to Rellyan universalism. John Smalley argued, for instance, that, although the merits of Christ were sufficient to save all men from sin, God was not in justice bound to save all as far as the merits of Christ extended: ‘The Eschatology of the New England Divines’, Bibliotheca Sacra, xlv, Oberlin 1888Google Scholar.

page 48 note 1 T. Whittemore, The Modem History of Universalim, 299; T. Williams, Diet, of all Religions, art. ‘Rellyans’; The Gospel Communicator, ii (1826), 391.

page 48 note 2 Evans, J., Sketch of all the Denominations of the Christian World (1803 ed.), 194Google Scholar, identifies the Plymouth congregation with the Rellyans. Cf. C. E. Welch, ‘Dissenters’ Meetings House in Plymouth to 1852’, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, xcviii, Torquay 1962, 588; G. M. Roberts, Selected Trevecka Letters, 193.

page 48 note 3 Allen and Eddy, op. cit., 349.

page 48 note 4 Welch, loc. cit. The leader of the Plymouth congregation, a Mr. Duforte, was a volatile character whose discourses were described as ‘more like spouting than lecturing’. ‘The most infamous characters’ were said to attend.

page 49 note 1 The Universalist, ii, Liverpool 1851, 217, 266–7, 364. Upjohn emigrated to America in 1830, where he died in 1847. William Worrall of the Glasgow universalists met two sympathisers from Shaftesbury when he visited London in 1826: Gospel Communicator, ii. 393.

page 49 note 2 G. D. Henderson, Chevalier Ramsay (1952), 222. A note appende d to the end of Ramsay’s Philosophical Principles, Glasgow 1749, supports Origen against the condemnation of the Fifth General Council.

page 49 note 3 G. D. Henderson, Mystics of the North-East, Aberdeen 1934, 52, 59, 102n., 107n.

page 50 note 1 Monthly Repository, xv (1820), 77–80. According to a letter in The Universalist’s Miscellany, v (1801), 6–7, Purves was not a good speaker, and the society remained very small—eight or nine families in all.

page 50 note 2 Palmer, a Unitarian minister in Dundee, was transported to New South Wales in 1794, after being tried for sedition following a meeting of the ‘Friends of Liberty’, which he organised at the Berean Meeting House in Dundee. The severity of the sentence caused considerable comment. Cf. The Trial of the Revd. Thomas Fyshe Palmer, Edinburgh 1793; Stanhope, Earl, The Life of the Rt. Hon. William Pitt, ii (1861), 214Google Scholar.

page 50 note 3 Struthers, G., The History of the Rise of the Relief Church (1848), 300Google Scholar.

page 50 note 4 Douglas, N., Journal of a Mission to the Highlands of Scotland in summer and harvest, 1797Google Scholar, Edinburgh 1799.

page 51 note 1 John Fraser, ‘Memoir of Niel Douglas’, The Universalist, ii, Liverpool 1852, 347–55. On the title page of his work Messiah’s proper Deity argued from Scripture, Glasgow 1807, Douglas described himself as a ‘preacher of the Everlasting Gospel’.

page 51 note 2 Cf. Dow, J., The Trial of the Rev. Niel Douglas before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, on the 26th May 1817, for Sedition, Edinburgh 1817Google Scholar.

page 51 note 3 Gospel Communicator, i. 2; ii. 62–3. Vidler was also suspected of radical leanings: cf. Monthly Repository, xii (1817), 133n.

page 51 note 4 The Gospel Communicator, i. 2–8, 77–9.

page 51 note 5 Is there an echo here of the sixteenth-century Anabaptist, and particularly Schwenckfeldian, teaching about the celestial flesh of Christ?

page 51 note 6 The Gospel Communicator, ii. 391–2.

page 51 note 7 Ibid., iii. 283.

page 52 note 1 The Gospel Communicator, iii. 272.

page 52 note 2 Ibid., ii. 62–3.

page 52 note 3 Seaburg, A., ‘Missionary to Scotland: Caroline Augusta Soule’, Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, xiv (1967), 28–41Google Scholar.

page 52 note 4 The Universalist, ii (1851), 71–82, 112–18.

page 52 note 5 Memoir prefixed to D. Thom, Sermons preached in Bold Street and Crown Street Chapels, Liverpool, Liverpool [pr. printed] 1863, iv–v.

page 53 note 1 All the papers laid before the presbytery of Glasgow in the late reference between Mr. Thom and the Trustees of St. Andrew’s Church, Rodney Street, Liverpool, Liveroool 1825, passim.

page 53 note 2 Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), ii. 11–14; The Universalist, i. 135.

page 53 note 3 The Universalist, ii. 6–8. There is a delightful vignette of the eccentric Thom appearing in an ill-fitting ‘old scratch, red Welch wig’.

page 53 note 4 Outline of Thorn’s life from ‘Memoir’ cited above, and D. Thom, ‘Scottish Kirks and Congregations of Liverpool’, Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, proceedings and papers, ii, Liverpool 1849–50, 69–84.

page 53 note 5 D. Thom, Preface to J. Barclay, Without Faith, without God (1836), xi.

page 54 note 1 Alexander, W. L., Memoirs ofthe Life and Writings of Ralph Wardlaw, D.D., Edinburgh 1856, 285Google Scholar.

page 54 note 2 D. Thom, Assurance of Faith, Liverpool 1833, i. 282, 371 ; ii. 5, 154, 288–9.

page 54 note 3 R. Townley, The Second Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ a past event (1845), 162; J. Evans, op. cit., 192; J. Campbell, ‘The Berean Church—especially in Edinburgh’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, vi, Edinburgh 1936–8, 138–46.

page 54 note 4 Vaughan, R. A., Hours with the Mystics (1856), ii. 246Google Scholar.

page 55 note 1 Cf. Basil Willey, The Eighteenth-century Background, London 1940, 136 ff.; C. Vereker, Eighteenth-century Optimism, Liverpool 1967, 66–7. Hartley's universalist views are most accessible in the second volume of his Observations on Man (1749).

page 56 note 1 In view of the linking of universalism with the tradition of a secret revelation, it is interesting to note that many of the founders of spiritualism in America were former universalist ministers. Cf. Podmore, F., Modem Spiritualism, a History and a Criticism (1902), i. 209Google Scholar, 217, 219–20.