Skip to main content
×
×
Home

The Puritan Roots of American Universalism

  • K. R. Morris (a1)
Abstract

If the Calvinism of America's Puritan forefathers is anything in relation to a belief in universal salvation, it is its opposite. The Calvinist's belief that Christ's atonement is restricted to effecting the salvation of a limited number of preordained saints is about as far as one can go in the opposite direction from universalism and still retain an aspect of grace and redemption for humanity. But in this essay I will argue that there was a direct link between the Puritan Calvinism of 17th century New England and the widespread movement toward universalism within New England churches in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Copyright
References
Hide All

1 Tkeolojp in A merica: The Major Protestant Voices from Puritanism to Neo-Orthodoxy, ed. Ahlstrom Sydney (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1967), p. 27.

2 White Eugene E., Puritan Rhetoric: The Issue of Emotion in Religion (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1972), p. 10.

3 Ibid., p. 12.

4 White, op. cit., pp. 23–24.

5 Kuklick Bruce, Churchmen and Philosophers: From Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 8.

6 Kuklick, op. cit., p. 9.

7 Miller Perry, Errand Into the Wilderness, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 11.

8 Kuklick, op. cit. p. 12.

9 White, op. cit., p. 39.

10 Ibid., p. 37.

11 Ibid., p. 34.

12 Kuklick, op. cit., p. 13.

13 Edwards Jonathan, ‘A Narrative of Surprising Conversions’, The Select Works of Jonathan Edwards (London: Banner of Truth Trusi, 1958), 1, 9.

14 Kuklick, op. cit., pp. 22–23.

15 Edwards Jonathan, The Works of President Edwards (New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1830), 1, 30, as quoted in Edwards Rem B., A Return to Moral and Religious Philosophy in Early America (Washington: University Press of America, Inc., 1982), p. 2.

18 Kuklick, op. cit., p. 17.

17 Edwards Jonathan, ‘The Mind’, Scientific and Philosophical Writings, ed. Anderson Wallace E. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 344.

18 Ibid., p. 375.

19 White, op. cit., p. 177.

20 Edwards Jonathan, ‘Qualifications for Full Communion’, The Works of President Edwards (New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1856), 1, 90.

21 Edwards Jonathan, ‘Distinguishing Marks’, as quoted in White, Puritan Rhetoric, p. 96.

22 Edwards Jonathan, Works, I, p. 15.

24 Edwards Jonathan, ‘Future Punishment’, as quoted in White, Puritan Rhetoric, p. 177.

25 Haroutunian Joseph, Piety Versus Morality: The Passing of the New England Theology (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932), p. xxi.

26 Rudisill Dorus Paul, The Doctrine of the Atonement in Jonathan Edwards and his Successors (New York: Poseidon Books, Inc., 1971), p 20.

27 Ibid., p. 9.

28 Ibid., p. 26.

29 Ibid., p. 130.

30 Kuklick, op. cit., p. 61

31 Rudisill, op. cit., pp. 44–45.

32 May Henry F., The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976), p. 60.

33 Rudisill, op. cit., pp. 118–119.

34 Foster R. H., ‘The Eschatology of the New England Divines’, as quoted in Allen Joseph and Eddy Richard, A History of the Unitarians and the Universalists in the United States (New York: the Christian Literature Co., 1894), p. 397.

35 Park Edwards A., The Atonement Discourses and Treatises by Edwards, Smalley, Maxey, Emmons, Griffin Borge, and Weeks, With an Introductory Essay by Edwards A. Park (Boston: Congregational Board of Publishers, 1859), as quoted in Rudisill, The Doctrine of Atonement, p. 40–41.

36 Frank Douglas, Less Than Conquerors: How Evangelicals Entered the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdman, 1987), pp. 1415.

37 Allen Joseph H. and Eddy Richard, A History of the Unitarians and the Universalists in the United States (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1894), pp. 386387.

38 Eddy Richard, Universalism in America, 1636–1800 (Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1884), 1, 115.

39 Ibid., p. 125.

40 Allen and Eddy , History of Unitarians and Universalists, p. 391.

41 Ibid., pp. 392–93.

42 Ibid., p. 422.

43 Eddy , Universalism in America, p. 223.

44 Eddy and Allen , History of Unitarianism and Universalism, p. 356.

45 Eddy , Universalism in America, p. 223.

46 Eddy and Allen , History of Unilarianism and Universalism, p. 253.

47 Ibid., p. 411.

48 Eddy , Universalism in America, p. 309.

49 Ibid., pp. 353–54.

50 Eddy and Allen , History of Unilarianism and Universalism, p. 436.

Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Scottish Journal of Theology
  • ISSN: 0036-9306
  • EISSN: 1475-3065
  • URL: /core/journals/scottish-journal-of-theology
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *
×

Metrics

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 12 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 119 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 17th December 2017. This data will be updated every 24 hours.