In November 1774, he was invited to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was delighted to find there a small group already committed to Relly’s ideas (187–88). He was eventually persuaded to relocate to Gloucester as the preacher for the group, using the town and the base for his itinerant ministry. Murray and the Gloucester Rellyan group experienced considerable opposition from the town. In 1782, members of the group had possessions seized in lieu of taxes not paid to the Congregational Church. The next year Universalists initiated a lawsuit against the Congregational Church, and in 1786 won their right to exist as an independent church. The Congregationalists responded the following year by legally challenging Murray’s right to perform marriages (on the grounds that he was not a legitimate ordained minister). The Universalists eventually won that case as well.
In 1788, John married Judith Sargent, one of the Gloucester group, and their marriage was a happy one. Judith was an interesting figure in her own right, being well-educated, having proto-feminist views on the equality of women, and being a prolific author. Her most significant universalist publication was a catechism written to inculcate Rellyan theology in young believers (1782). It provides a succinct overview of this species of universalism in its American incarnation.
In 1793, he was invited to divide his time between the Gloucester and the Boston congregations, but in 1794, he, Judith, and their daughter relocated permanently to First Universalist Church Boston, where he served out the rest of his ministry.
John was incapacitated by a stroke in 1809, and used the next few years editing and publishing his Letters and Sketches of Sermons (1812). He died in 1816, after which Judith published Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.246
Theology
Murray did not publish theological books systematically defending his version of universalism. However, his three-volume Letters and Sketches of Sermons (totaling 1,261 pages) contain numerous extended theological and exegetical reflections—albeit, in the nature of the case, not systematically organized—and give a good flavor of his thought. Murray’s theology was, he always insisted, unadulterated and unflinching Rellyanism. His assessment of mainstream Christian theology—in which Christ died for all, but that many will never be saved—was therefore blunt:
To talk of Jesus as the Saviour of a people who are not saved; to affirm that he taketh away the sins of those, whose sins are not taken away; that he destroyed the works of the Devil, which are not destroyed; that the blood of Jesus cleanseth from all sin, yet we are not cleansed from all sin, but that our iniquities still remain before God, exciting both wrath and indignation; that Jesus came to make peace, yet peace is not made. . . . I say, thus to express ourselves, is more derogatory to the honour of God, than any language that is found in the mouth of the dissolute publican. . . . Our Saviour, was not an equivocal or conditional Saviour. (Letters, 1.191)247
All our redemption is already complete in Christ—what we need is illumination to increasingly see and live into this gracious redemption.
[T]o know more and more of this salvation, is to grow in grace. We first learn we are saved from damnation due to our past sins, by his death, and immediately look for holiness in ourselves; but, being in grace, we soon grow strong enough to know that He who was our death is also our life, by being our holiness. Thus by little and little we grow into him, in all things, until we are enabled to believe we are wise in his wisdom, righteous in his righteousness, holy in his holiness, strong in his strength, suffering all things in his sufferings, doing all things commanded in the law, in his doings; and from hence we proceed to believe, that He who is our head, is the head of every man, that He, who by the grace of God tasted death for us, by the same grace tasted death for every man; that He who is our wisdom, is every man’s wisdom; . . . that He who hath accepted us, hath accepted every man, in the beloved. (Letters 1.98–99)
As we have already articulated Relly’s system of thought, we shall not repeat Murray’s version of it here. Two reflections are, however, in order.
Murray’s interpretations of biblical texts vary from the level-headed and sensible to the contrived and implausible.248 Here are two interesting examples. First, the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus from Luke 16:19–31 (Letters 1.Letter I). Parables, says Murray, ought not to be read as if they were literal history, but as allegories. On his interpretation, the rich man symbolizes the Jewish nation (rich with all the covenant blessings of God). The death of the rich man symbolizes the end of the Jewish dispensation; the time when Israel rejected Jesus, and the apostles turned to the gentiles. The Jewish nation is now in a state of death, of darkness, of loss, of torment. The impassable gulf between the rich man and Abraham shows that God has blinded the eyes of the nation so that they cannot see the truth of the gospel and be saved—for now at least. The poor man is the gentile nations. In the previous age, they were strangers to the covenant blessings of Israel (Eph 2:11–12), and thus profoundly impoverished. But the coming of Christ led to the door closing on Israel (for a time) and opening on the gentiles. Now the poor man is brought into the light at Abraham’s side, sharing in the covenant as a son. But at the end of this age, when the fullness of the gentiles has come in, Israel’s temporary hardness will end and “all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25–26). So, reasons Murray, this parable is not even about the afterlife, let alone eternal torment.
Second, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25:31–46). Murray argues that these don’t represent two groups of people (the saved and the unsaved), but fallen human nature (the sheep) and fallen angelic nature (the goats). Christ died for the lost sheep, not the goats, so on the great day of separation, God will strip away the devil and his angels, casting them into eternal fire, and will redeem human nature, bringing all humans into eternal life (Letters 1.95–96, 134–38, 159–60, 268–69).249 Then, human nature, free at last from the operations of evil spirits, will be liberated. This interpretation is very different from that of other universalists in America. Murray’s Rellyanism could not contemplate any sinners for whom Christ had died being cast into the fire, even if only for an age. His solution was to cast demons, not humans, into the eternal fire.
This flags up what was the main disagreement between Murray and most of the other universalists in America—postmortem punishment. In Murray’s mind, this teaching amounted to a denial of the efficacy of the atonement:
The sufferings of Christ are supposed insufficient, and therefore there are a class, even of Universalists, who suppose that pain and sorrow must be extended to some unknown period, beyond the general judgment, in order that individuals may pay the mighty debt, which our Surety [Christ] left unpaid; while the advocate for eternal misery, pronounces positively that this debt can never be paid. . . . But, says the unbelieving Universalist, they can and will pay to the utmost farthing, and when they do God will be satisfied. Thus it is not the sufferings of the Saviour which are accepted as satisfactory, although never was sorrow like unto his sorrow, and it is therefore that the sorrows and the sufferings of the sinner must be added. (Letters 1.138–39)
Universalism in the eighteenth century was still wrestling with how to integrate its theology of Christ’s death with its theology of global salvation.
Alongside the presence of the distinctive Pietist and Calvinist universalisms, with their European roots, America in the eighteenth century also bred some apparently homegrown versions of universal salvation, which seemingly appeared independently of the influence the imported varieties. We shall consider these in the next chapter.
215. Wilson, History and Antiquities, 359.
216. This phrase is from a poem Relly composed in 1770 upon hearing the news of Whitefield’s death.
217. Wilson, History and Antiquities, 359.
218. The Arminian John Wesley, in a letter to the Rev. Mr. G——— (Letter CCIV, April 2, 1761), spoke of the mutual hostility, and how he had opposed Relly and othe
rs like him “privately and publicly for these twenty years.”
219. A member of Whitefield’s congregation, a Mr. William Mason, published a response to Relly’s book Union (1759) entitled Antinomian Heresy Exploded (1760). Relly responded with his Antichrist Resisted (1761). The titles give a flavor of the tone of the debate.
220. This accusation is a theme running through all Relly’s works.
221. Though Thomas Whittemore claims that a Rellian congregation in the UK was still around when he was writing in 1830.
222. This objection was a common Socinian objection to Evangelical atonement theory in the period.
223. Relly, Union, xvi.
224. In Union, Relly explores multiple biblical images of union in addition to these, including Christ clothed with his people like Aaron clothed in his priestly robes, the church as a building with Christ as the foundation and capstone, and man and wife as one flesh.
225. Relly, Union, 88–89.
226. Relly, Union, 58–67.
227. Relly, Epistles, 44.
228. In Antichrist Resisted, his reply to Mason, Relly denies the accusation that he was a universalist (15). However, in context, Relly’s denial of universalism is clearly not to be understood as a denial that all will be saved, but as a denial of the view that affirms the universalist aspect of truth without also affirming the conditional and particularist aspect. On these two aspects, see the discussion in the main text. He thinks that the charge against him of universalism is false because he also affirms that salvation is, in one sense of the word, limited to believers (16). Relly sees the apparent conflicts between conditional and unconditional salvation, particular and universal salvation, as false conflicts. In his system, each of these perspectives contains an aspect of truth, and all are held together consistently in Christ (15–16; Epistles, Letter II).
229. Relly, Union, 130.
230. Relly, Antichrist Resisted, 17.
231. Relly, Antichrist Resisted, 17.
232. He infers it from various biblical texts, and from the revelation that “God is love” and sent his Son to die for all people. He maintains that for God to create people “with an unavoidable destiny to sin, and endless misery” (Epistles, 33) would conflict with the divine nature and biblical teaching. See Relly, Epistles, Letters IV and V for a consideration of a range of texts that he links to universal salvation.
233. Relly, Epistles, 7, 70.
234. Relly, Union, 163.
235. Relly explores this distinction in Letter II of Epistles, 12–19.
236. Relly, Epistles, 10–11.
237. The language of participation here is not Relly’s, but it captures his meaning (Epistles, 14–15).
238. Relly, Union, 110.
239. Relly, Epistles, 25.
240. Relly, Epistles, 27–28, 30.
241. Relly, Union, 48, 122. In fact, Relly’s view is not so neat. Although speaking in such ways, in Epistles, Letter VII, he has a diatribe against eternal torments as an actual fate for anyone, claiming that such pains “pay no debt . . . cancel no offence . . . have no satisfaction to divine justice . . . are inconsistent with divine purity . . . are an absolute denial of Christ’s dying for our offences” (97). It appears that Relly thinks that while sin is profoundly heinous, God would never inflict eternal torments, for his justice is concerned only with the annihilation of the sin, not the sinner. Torments, unless sent for the good of the sufferer, serve neither God’s justice nor his love. It is unclear how this view is to be integrated with some of the other things he says.
242. Relly, Epistles, 59–60.
243. Relly, Epistles, 120.
244. Relly, Epistles, 146.
245. The following in-text citations in this section on Relly are from Life of Christ, unless otherwise stated.
246. John himself had completed the autobiography as far as 1784, but Judith had to complete the work (from 1785 to 1816) on his behalf, using her own knowledge of events as his wife and some of his own letters and writings.
247. The following in-text citations in this section on Murray are from Letters and Sketches, unless otherwise stated.
248. The far-fetched nature of some of his biblical interpretations was not lost on the universalists who came after him.
249. Murray did not believe in the salvation of fallen angels. Judith incorporated this interpretation of the parable into her universalist catechism.
8
Homegrown American Universalism
Chauncy, Davis, Streeter, and Rich
Charles Chauncy (1705–87)—“Old Light” Universalism
In addition to the import of European universalists—both Pietist and Reformed—and their influence, there were various homegrown universalists whose origins appear to be independent of the ministry of the European universalists. Most of these were radical separatists, but one stands apart as being a staunch defender of traditional New England Congregationalism—Charles Chauncy, the minister of the prestigious First Church in Boston for around sixty years.250
It seems that Chauncy discovered universal salvation all on his own through his reflection of Scripture. He tells us that his study of 1 Corinthians 15:21–28 (the text most cited by patristic universalists) opened his eyes to reconsider all of the Scriptures in a new light.251 This he did with meticulous care. He was certainly not influenced by the universalists among the separatists of the Great Awakening (on whom see later discussion), being himself one of the so-called “Old Lights,” a staunch opponent of revivalism. He was also not influenced by John Murray (of whom he was aware, but regarded with some disdain, considering his theology antinomian).252 The theological view he ended up with was similar to that of the Pietists, but he shows no evidence of direct engagement with their work and his arguments are clearly the fruit of his own researches, even if he did draw some inspiration from the insights of others.
The first hint that Chauncy was inclined to universalism came in a sermon in 1762 entitled “All Nations Blessed in Christ.” The issue was apparently one that concerned him throughout much of his ministry, but his mature thoughts were not finally revealed until the publication of a major study on the subject in 1784, when he was well advanced in years. Even then, his book, The Salvation of All Men, appeared without its author’s name. Although accustomed to controversy, Chauncy was not looking for a fight.253
The Salvation of All Men contains two main sections: first, a positive biblical case for the final redemption of all, organized around six key propositions; second, a response to four standard objections. The book is by far the most scholarly of any universalist text published in the eighteenth century, eclipsing even Stonehouse’s impressive work.
The text opens with a vision of God as the infinitely benevolent First Cause of all things, who intends his creatures to be finally happy and who has the wisdom and power to make it so (1–3).254 Creation is moving toward the “happiness of all mankind,” but it does not take a straight and short path to that goal. It is not hard to see the Enlightenment influence on Chauncy’s articulation of this vision in terms of human happiness.255 While Chauncy clearly defers to the authority of Scripture, he does think that this universalist vision is a priori “more honorable to the Father of mercies, and comfortable to the creatures whom his hands have formed” (14), “a design eminently worthy of God’s contriving, and of Christ’s executing” (15), and we should all at least “be disposed to wish it might be well supported from Scripture” (13). Having set the scene, he moves to lay out his positive case—the six propositions, along with biblical defenses of them.
Proposition one: “From the time that sin entered into the world by the first man Adam, Jesus Christ is the person through whom,
and upon whose account, happiness is attainable by any of the human race” (17–19).
Proposition two: “The obedience of Christ, and eminently his obedience to death, when he had assumed our flesh, in the fullness of time, is the ground or reason upon which it hath pleased God to make happiness attainable by any of the race of Adam” (19–20).
Proposition three: “Christ did not die for a select number of men only, but for mankind universally, and without exception or limitation” (20–22).
Proposition four: “It is the purpose of God, according to his good pleasure, that mankind universally, in consequence of the death of his Son Jesus Christ, shall certainly and finally be saved” (22–170). Here we find extensive exegetical analyses of universal justification in Romans 5:12–21 (22–91), universal liberation in Romans 8:19–24 (91–123),256 universal reconciliation in Colossians 1:19–20 and related texts (123–46), plus the final unification of all things under Christ’s headship in Ephesians and other texts (142–63). There is also a defense of the claim that if God desires to save all (1 Tim 2:4) then all will be saved, even though, according to Chauncy, people have libertarian freewill (163–70).
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