Proposition five: “As a mean in order to men’s being made meet for salvation, God, by Jesus Christ, will, sooner or later, in THIS STATE OR ANOTHER, reduce them all under a WILLING and OBEDIENT SUBJECTION to his moral government” (170–237). Chauncy’s point is that human sinners are not incurable, and his focus is on texts concerning Christ’s destruction of sin. Sin can only be subjected/destroyed by effecting a change in sinners so that they cease to rebel against God—this is their salvation. As long as sin remains in human hearts, even in hell, it remains undefeated: in the lake of fire sinners “will still continue [as] the enemies of God, and as much unsubjected to the government of Christ, as his willing and obedient servants, as ever” (183). A forced and unwilling submission to Christ is a mere display of superior power and does not constitute a defeat of the power of sin over the sinner. It is, at best, “a poor, low kind of submission” in comparison with the more glorious victory over sin represented by the submission of free obedience (192). Chauncy devotes considerable attention to 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 (197–226) in this section, a text he considers “decisive of itself” (197).
The sixth proposition: “The Scripture language, concerning the . . . RESTORED, in consequence of the mediatory interposition of Jesus Christ, is such as to lead us into the thought, that THEY are comprehensive of MANKIND UNIVERSALLY” (237–54). The vision of universal worship in Revelation 5:13 is Chauncy’s springboard here into a discussion of a universalist interpretation of God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12 that “all nations” would be blessed in him, a promise fulfilled through Christ.
Having set forth his positive case, four objections are considered and refuted, the first of which receives the lion’s share of attention. First, that the Bible teaches eternal torment (256–328). Second, that Jesus’ declaration that it would be better for Judas never to have been born excludes his salvation (328–31). Third, that the unforgivable blasphemy against the Spirit suggests that some can never reach final bliss (332–40). Finally, the common fear that the loss of eternal hell will remove a key motivation for moral living (340–59). This last objection was an especially contentious issue in the new United States: “In a republic, fear of the sovereign could be replaced by fear of God, driving inherently depraved people to virtuous behavior in the effort to avoid future punishment.”257 So universalism was feared to be a civic threat to the fragile republic.
It is clearly impossible to give anything other than a brief glimpse at this long and sophisticated work, but a few more details about some parts of the argument are in order.
Paul’s two texts about Adam and Christ (1 Cor 15:12–21; Rom 5:12–21) receive a lot of attention. With regards to Romans 5, in which Adam and Christ are contrasted, Chauncy argues that the “all” who are the recipients of the grace of justification through Christ are the same “all” who find themselves condemned because of the sin of Adam (5:18); i.e., every human being. “The antithesis would otherwise be lost. For mankind universally are the object of condemnation; the same mankind must therefore be the object of the opposite justification. Besides, mankind generally are the many [οἱ πολλοι] in the foregoing 15th verse, who are expressly mentioned as the persons unto whom the gift by grace hath abounded” (60). Furthermore, the text contrasts the damage caused by Adam’s sin with the super-abounding grace brought by Christ that more than resolves the problem (5:20). But if in the end many remain unsaved then “it will demonstrably follow, that Adam has done more hurt than Christ has done good; and consequently, that the race of men have more reason for complaint on behalf of his disobedience, than they have for thankfulness on account of Christ’s obedience” (87–88). And this justification through Christ is spoken of in the text, not merely as an offer of justification or a possible justification, but as a justification that is “certain with respect to . . . actually coming into effect” (83).
1 Corinthians 15:21–28 is a key text for Chauncy. Here, in verses 21–22, Christ and Adam are compared: “the SAME ALL who suffer death though Adam, shall through Christ be made alive. The comparison between the damage by Adam, and the advantage by Christ, lies in this very thing” (201).
Chauncy’s interpretations of parts of this passage were not in the mainstream, though they find many parallels with the way that Pietists like the Petersens, Siegvolck, and Winchester interpreted the text.
According to Chauncy, the sequence of events Paul depicts is as follows:
1.Christ is resurrected (15:23b).
2.Christ returns, and the saints (those who belong to Christ) are resurrected (15:23b).
3.[Next there comes a very long temporal gap, not explicitly mentioned by Paul, as his interest lies elsewhere. Chauncy posits this unmentioned time period on the grounds that “the end” (stages 4–5) cannot come until all things are fully submitted to Christ, and this is not the case at the second coming, but only once death, which he believes has to include the second death (hell), is fully defeated.]
4.Then, all things are subjected to Christ. This event, says Chauncy, marks the end of Christ’s aiōnial kingdom, for the aiōn of his mediatorial rule is over now that all creation is in submission (15:24–27).
5.Finally, Christ delivers his mediatorial kingdom over to the Father, subjecting himself to the Father (15:24). The final state of creation is now achieved: God is all, in all (15:28).
Now claims 3 and 4 are highly controversial. Chauncy defends at length his unmentioned timespan after Christ’s return and before “the end,” but many will remain unconvinced. His importing of the second death from the book Revelation into the exegesis will also strike many modern interpreters as eisegetical. However, we must remember that at the time interpreting one inspired Scripture in the light of another inspired Scripture was considered perfectly acceptable. And whatever we may think of his exegetical weaknesses now, his theo-logic is suggestive. Moreover, even those who reject his reading as an exposition of what Paul had in mind, may be sympathetic to it as a legitimate extension of Paul’s thought. The second death, Chauncy argues, is as much an enemy to humanity as the first—both result from sin and both thwart the human hope of eternal life with God. Indeed, the second death is a better candidate for “the last enemy” that needs defeating (15:26), for the first death is over and done with by judgment day, while the second death only begins at that point. The Pauline logic that makes death an enemy requiring defeat, arguably makes the second death even more of an enemy that must be vanquished. Furthermore, in a similar theological extension of Paul’s logic, Chauncy argues that the kind of resurrection life Paul speaks of in the chapter is not a bare return to life, but an immortal, imperishable, glorious, spiritual life that comes through union with Christ. It is this life that constitutes the swallowing up of death in victory and until all share in it, death has not been fully vanquished. This, thinks Chauncy, is where Paul’s ideas inexorably lead. Even if Paul did not think through the implications of his teachings here, and Chauncy’s comments “go beyond” what Paul says, perhaps we may still think his insights valid.
The claim that Christ’s “eternal” kingdom will come to an end once all creation is subject and its purpose is fulfilled is also found in millenarian Pietist writings, as we have seen. Indeed, its origins are much earlier, reaching back into the fourth century in the work of Marcellus of Ancyra. The church rejected Marcellus’s interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15, adding the words “of whose kingdom there will be no end” to the Nicene Creed as a result. So strictly speaking, this view, left unqualified, is formal heresy. However, Siegvolk, Stonehouse, and Winchester did qualify it, being committed to orthodox Christology; Chauncy, whose Christology was Arian, did not.258
With regard to human freedom, Chauncy is an Arminian and readily affirms “that men, as they are free agents, have the power of resisting, or opposing, those means, which God, from his desire of their salvation, may see fit to use with them” (166). Nevertheless, he believes that God in his infinit
e wisdom, goodness, and power is capable of devising “a scheme, with reference to all men, which shall, in event, without breaking in upon their liberty, or using any means but such as are moral and rational, and therefore adjusted to their character as moral agents, infallibly issue in their salvation” (166–67). God is capable of soliciting a free response from all in the end, even if the road to this destination be long and twisting. “Now, if God desires the salvation of all, and Christ died that this desire of God might be complied with, is it credible that a small portion of men only should be saved in event?” (168).
Chauncy argues that none of the hell texts say that hell will be endless. It will certainly be painful and of long duration—being aiōnios (i.e., age-long), but the age to which it belongs will come to a completion when all things have been submitted to Christ and God is all in all. The aiōnial life of the righteous is indeed everlasting, but we know this not because it is described as aiōnios (which does not mean everlasting), but because it is life, a participation in Christ’s own indestructible, immortal, resurrection life. The aiōnial punishment and death of the wicked is precisely not this. The wicked in hell are mortal, corruptible, and captive to death (286–88).
Chauncy never associated with the growing universalist movement, which he seemed to regard with some disdain,259 but they were certainly aware of his book and, with the exception of the John Murray, generally appreciated the support it provided for their cause.
Isaac Davis, Adams Streeter, Caleb Rich—Separatist Universalists
Chauncy was something of an oddity. The majority of the homegrown universalists were separatists who had been deeply affected by revivalism and who felt called to pursue their agendas beyond the bounds of Congregationalism.
The Great Awakening (1736–45), America’s first mass revival, generated very diverse responses. Some, the so-called “Old Lights,” like Charles Chauncy, vocally opposed it; others embraced it wholeheartedly, though in different ways. The born-again saints of the revival were divided between those—the so-called “New Lights,” like Jonathan Edwards—who sought to renew New England Congregationalism from within and those individuals and whole congregations who sought a more radical solution, breaking away from Congregationalism (though still deeply influenced by it), and setting up new groups in which they could pursue their own “pure” revivalist faith.
The Great Awakening began to unsettle the Congregationalist hegemony, with dissenting groups like Baptists growing significantly as a result, yet Congregationalism remained resilient well into the 1770s. The crack in the dam came with the dual impact of the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), which took a toll on Congregationalism’s parish system, and the mass migrations of the 1770s and 1780s to the hill country as the northern and western frontier opened up. The established church simply did not have the resources to minister to a population spread so far and so thinly, and this new fluid context created space for frontier folk to develop their Christian faith in “unauthorized” directions. Most of those who migrated to the rural hinterland had been impacted by the Evangelical revival and the conditions were ripe for the rise of radical charismatic sectarian groups led by inspired leaders.
One of these radical revivalist groups, or loose network of groups, was universalist in orientation, beginning in the early 1770s and focused in the rural hill country. Its leaders included Isaac Davis (ca. 1700–1777), Adams Streeter (1735–86), and Caleb Rich (1750–1821). This strand of universalism is often underestimated or completely ignored, with all the attention given to Murray and Winchester. However, “the numerical and cultural center of New England Universalism was in the hill country. There Streeter, Davis, and especially Rich developed an independent form of Universalism that was embraced by thousands of rural folk.”260
Isaac Davis was a physician from Somers, Connecticut, with radical revivalist influences. As an old man, in the 1770s, he published a universalist treatise entitled What Love Jesus Christ Has for Sinners (n.d.), and gathered a small, short-lived community around him, known as Davisonians.
Davis maintained that Adam’s sin had brought eternal death for all humans—we all deserve to suffer in hell forever. However, Christ became sin for us and his death paid the full price for our sin, thereby providing full pardon for all the children of Adam. The Calvinist background to this system is clear. We do not know how he moved to his new theological position. It has similarities to that of John Murray, but it seems likely that he arrived at it independently of Murray.
Adams Streeter, a fellow Separatist and later a Baptist elder, was converted to universalism in 1777, perhaps under Isaac Davis. Streeter was an important preacher and shaper of the early movement, ministering in Milford and Oxford, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island, also making connections with John Murray in Boston.
More important, however, was Caleb Rich, a Massachusetts man with deep Calvinistic Baptist roots, who was led through a series of visions in 1772 to affirm the annihilation at death (rather than the eternal torment) of those predestined not to be saved. As a result, he was expelled from Warwick Baptist Church for heresy and set up his own “religious society” in 1773. This grew into several flourishing congregations in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. A further charismatic episode—a visitation from a celestial visitor in 1778—corrected the error of Rich’s annihilationism and turned him toward an all-encompassing salvation. From the vision he perceived that
[t]he atonement of Jesus Christ the Second Adam guaranteed that “the first Adam and every individual of his posterity from the beginning of this world to the end” would “truly and positively” pass “from death unto life.” . . . [T]he Second Coming was fast approaching, to “sweep and cleanse . . . sin, death, hell, pain, sorrow, or evil” from the universe. On this apocalyptic note, the visitor assured Rich that he had a call “to proclaim the same gospel” and then he disappeared.261
What would be destroyed at death was not the sinner, but the sinful part of the sinner. The following day, the vision was confirmed to Rich when what felt like electricity charged through his body, causing a trembling that lasted for days. Soon after, Jesus himself appeared in a vision, clinching the authenticity of the experience to Rich.
Rich then began to fearlessly proclaim a universalist gospel, which he considered to have been directly revealed to him by God. He was ordained as minister of the general society of universalists in Richmond, Jaffrey, and Warwick in New Hampshire by Adams Streeter.
Rich was not a great preacher, but his ministry was effective in rural communities. Indeed, it was through Rich’s preaching that the Baptist Hosea Ballou (1771–1852), the most influential theologian and leader in the nineteenth-century Universalist denomination, was led to embrace salvation for all. We shall return to Ballou in the next chapter.
The Rise of Universalism as a Denomination
John Murray and Elhanan Winchester ministered universalism in the towns and cities, but the rural hinterland belonged to the likes of Davis, Streeter, and Rich. However, the three streams—Rellyan, Pietist, and indigenousness—discovered each other and sought to work together from early on.262 There was friction and problems because of some of the large personalities involved,263 because their different versions of the faith were not fully compatible, and because the universalists, especially in the rural hinterland, tended to be fierce individualists, resistant to being told what to think or do, preferring minimalism when it came to doctrinal and ecclesial conformity. There were several abortive attempts to create a more formal coalition, one of which was the historic gathering in 1885 in Oxford, Massachusetts, with which we opened this chapter. However, each of these attempts was a step along the road to union, and by the end of the century a fledgling universalist denomination finally emerged.264
One can gauge the basic shape of American universalist belief at the end of the century in the carefully worded Articles of Faith (Philadelphia, 1790), penned by Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746
–1813), one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.265 The articles attempted to find a way of holding together Rellyan and Winchesterian universalism (notice the absence of any reference to the contentious issue of postmortem punishment). While this creed carried no authority, it does indicate where the movement was theologically located at the time.
Section 1. OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to contain a revelation of the perfections and will of God, and the rule of faith and practice.
Section 2. OF THE SUPREME BEING. We believe in One God, infinite in all his perfections; and that these perfections are all modifications of infinite, adorable, incomprehensible and unchangeable Love.
Section 3. OF THE MEDIATOR. We believe that there is One Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; who, by giving himself a ransom for all, hath redeemed them to God by his blood; and who, by the merit of his death, and the efficacy of his Spirit, will finally restore the whole human race to happiness.
Section 4. OF THE HOLY GHOST. We believe in the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to make known to sinners the truth of this salvation, through the medium of the Holy Scriptures, and to reconcile the hearts of the children of men to God, and thereby dispose them to genuine holiness.
Section 5. OF GOOD WORK. We believe in the obligation of the moral law, as to the rule of life; and we hold that the love of God manifest to man in a Redeemer, is the best means of producing obedience to that law, and promoting a holy, active and useful life.
In light of subsequent developments, the explicit trinitarian shape of the Articles is worth noting.266 The majority of the universalists at this time were (or thought they were) trinitarian, but that had already started to change by the mid-1790s and, as we shall see, the nineteenth century saw a very rapid shift in denominational universalism toward theological unitarianism.
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