Introduction
A serious study of what was taught in centuries past will always reveal a greater diversity of thought than is popularly claimed, for the past continually falls victim to generalizations. Sometimes the majority view is innocently mistaken to be the only one, other times minority views are ignored for the purpose of giving an overview, and sometimes we convince ourselves that everyone in the past must have believed what we do. However, there is no good reason to forget something true about the past, especially if it has potential consequences for the present. It is often assumed, for instance, that from the Reformation until the modern age, all Anglicans believed in the eternal conscious torment of the damned. It is commonly assumed that they would have utterly rejected the belief that all people will eventually repent and be saved through Christ, known today as universalism, or the belief that the damned will be destroyed, never to consciously suffer again, known as annihilationism, but that is not the reality. Rather, there was a continuous occurrence of these alternative views, particularly universalism, being taught by prominent clerics of the Church of England, going back as far as the seventeenth century. Because this fact is so seldom discussed or known, in the pursuit of historical truth it is worth detailing the men who held those beliefs and explaining why they did so, starting from the Reformation and ending in the nineteenth century, which will be given particular focus.
The Sixteenth Century
When Thomas Cranmer drew up his Articles of Religion in 1553, there were Forty-Two of them, not the eventual Thirty-Nine, and its final two articles condemned those who sought to restore the doctrines of millennialism and universal restoration. However, when the Articles were revised, they were omitted for reasons not entirely clear.[1] As a result, there is nothing in the Articles of Religion that requires a belief in eternal conscious torment without the hope of repentance, which is something that later universalists would come to point out.
In contrast to Puritanism, conformist Anglicanism in this period was characteristically generous in its pastoral approach. The Puritans, with their emphasis on double predestination, tended to divide even their own congregations into those who appeared to be elect and those who appeared to be reprobates. Anglicans, on the other hand, had a more charitable attitude of assuming one’s election. For instance, the Book of Common Prayer’s Baptism service famously assumed that those being baptized were regenerate and would be saved. Moreover, the Absolution found in the Communion service assumed that all those who heard it would be forgiven of their sins and granted everlasting life. This approach was defended by Richard Hooker in his magisterial ‘Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity,’ when he commented on the Book of Common Prayer’s practice of praying for the salvation of all:
By entreating for mercy towards all, we declare that affection wherewith Christian charity thirsteth after the good of the whole world, we discharge that duty which the Apostle himself doth impose on the Church of Christ as a commendable office, a sacrifice acceptable in God’s sight, a service according to his heart whose desire is “to have all men saved,” a work most suitable with his purpose who gave himself to be the price of redemption for all.[2]
Thus, the Litany asked that God would “bring into the way of truth all such as have erred” and “that it may please [him] to have mercy upon all men.” Meanwhile, the Collect appointed for Good Friday affirmed God’s love of all men and his unwillingness to damn any of them, before then asking him to fetch all those who deny Christ “home” so that they may be saved. The Puritans were most displeased with the prayer book’s universal hope and optimism, and in 1584 they complained to Parliament that it contained “the error of Origen, that all men shall be saved.”[3] Perhaps this more cheerful way of seeing people that was characteristic of Anglican piety contributed to the eventual rise of universalism by acting as the hospitable climate and fertile soil from which it would grow.
The Seventeenth Century
The barbarism of the fifteenth century having ended, and the last instance of burning for heresy occurring in 1612, universalism soon arose in England among independent churchmen who were open to questioning the status quo. Between 1649 and 1653, Gerrad Winstanley, Richard Coppin, and three anonymous authors, had works published which advocated for universalism, eliciting an intellectual conversation and the publication of other works in response.[4] These authors, as well as many of those discussed below, argued partially from the basis that the Greek word ‘aionios’ does not necessarily mean ‘everlasting’ (Matt 12:32; 13:22, 39-40; 24:3) and so the Biblical verses warning of the coming judgment are not saying it will be an eternal one.[5] This point would also be picked up by those advocating for annihilationism. No doubt inspired by these authors, universalism rapidly spread among a highly influential group of theologians, comprised of both conformists and non-conformists, known as the Cambridge Platonists. This group had a special appreciation for the writings of Origen, the retrieval of whom dated back to Erasmus in the previous century, and their universalist ideas were inspired by him.[6] Of this group, we know that at least Peter Sterry, George Rust, and Joseph Glanvill affirmed universalism, and Henry More, John Smith, and Ralph Cudworth likely did as well, though they were more coy about it.[7]
Of this group, the most notable for this survey was George Rust, a fellow of Christ’s College who became Bishop of Dromore in 1667. In 1661, Bishop Rust’s ‘A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen and the Chief of his Opinions,’ was published anonymously with the support of his fellow Cambridge Platonists.[8] This treatise is a bold defence of Origen’s teachings about the pre-existence of souls and the salvation of all God’s rational creatures. In it, Bishop Rust argues that God cannot in his omniscience and omnipotence have created beings he knew would suffer eternally, since he creates out of love.[9] Rust wrote that to claim God damns people to be tormented forever with no chance of recovery, “is to fix so harsh a note upon the mercy and equity of the righteous Judge of all the world, that the same temper in a man we should forever execrate and abominate.”[10] The Bishop was perhaps the first to argue that because the Articles of Religion were revised to not condemn universalism, it is acceptable for Anglicans to hold to that view.[11] Rust’s treatise was short and its arguments were rather unsophisticated, but the influence that it and the Cambridge Platonists had on the flourishing of universalism in the following century was enormous. If the sixteenth century provided the fertile soil, it was the seventeenth century which sowed the seeds.
As for annihilationism, the first Anglican cleric to publicly show an openness to the idea was none other than the illustrious Bishop Jeremy Taylor. In his sermon ‘Christ’s Advent to Judgment,’ Taylor reveals a strong reluctance to accept the eternal conscious torment of the damned, saying it is a “strange consideration,” that such a thing “should be inflicted by God who infinitely loves His creatures.”[12] Taylor says that while “it is certain that God’s mercies are infinite” it is just as “certain that the matter of eternal torments cannot truly be understood; and when the schoolmen go about to reconcile the divine justice to that severity, and consider why God punishes eternally a temporal sin, or a state of evil, they speak variously, and uncertainly, and unsatisfyingly.”[13] Meanwhile, Taylor explains at some length that church fathers like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus believed that God would eventually annihilate the damned, since immortality is not intrinsic to human nature.[14] Taylor explains that Adam’s immortality was conditional and taken away at his expulsion from Eden, that the “second death” of Revelation 20:14 could refer to annihilation, and that ‘aionios’ does not necessarily mean everlasting.[15] Taylor seems most enticed, however, by the fact that annihilation would lessen the incomprehensible “severity” of damnation.[16] Nevertheless, Taylor admits that “the generality of Christians have been taught to believe worse things” about damnation, and thus cannot bring himself to be certain of annihilationism.[17] He settles only for its possibility, saying: “The accursed souls shall suffer torments till they be consumed; who because they are immortal either naturally or by gift, shall be tormented for ever, or till God shall take from them the life that He restored to them,” though his cherished hope is that God will become “weary of striking” and their torment shall indeed cease.[18] No controversy or backlash ever followed Bishop Taylor’s questioning of eternal conscious torment.
In 1690, John Tillotson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, preached before Queen Mary II on the subject of hell where he showed an awareness of annihilationism and the arguments used by its proponents.[19] While Tillotson ultimately defended eternal conscious torment, he left the door open for other possibilities when he admitted that the idea was difficult to comprehend. He said that God’s punishment of sinners “will yet appear more reasonable” when it is understood that God “is not obliged to execute what he hath threatened… and he may without any injury to the party threatened remit and abate as much as he pleaseth of the punishment that he hath threatened.”[20] While Scripture threatens eternal punishment, it is not certain that God will follow through on that threat, which theoretically leaves room for annihilationism or universalism, though Tillotson believed we should not count on those being true. The Archbishop also said that we should “rest assured… if it be any wise inconsistent either with righteousness or goodness, which [God] knows much better than we do, to make sinners miserable for ever, that he will not do it.”[21] It is worth noting that Tillotson was close friends with the Cambridge Platonists, particularly Cudworth and More, who had earlier used Tillotson’s very argument about God not being obliged to carry out his threats to support universalism.[22] Thomas Burnet (see below) was also his pupil, and Tillotson secured his position as tutor to Lord Ossory.[23] Thus, Tillotson’s remarks should not be seen as accidental or insignificant for he knowingly referred to the arguments his friends used in opposition to the traditional view of hell.[24]
The Eighteenth Century
The first notable universalist work of the eighteenth century was ‘The Restoration of all Things,’ posthumously published in 1712 and written by Jeremiah White, a nonconformist minister and chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. While White was not a conformist Anglican, his work was highly influential on later Anglicans who would espouse universalism by exegeting Scriptural passages that would become the standard texts for any Biblical defence of the doctrine. White pointed out that the Scriptures say that Jesus is the “Savior of all men” (1 Tim 4:10 cf. Tit 2:11; 1 John 4:14) and “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2; cf. John 1:29). He “gave himself as a ransom for all” because God “intends all people to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4-6). Because “in Christ all things hold together,” it was through him that God will eventually “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Col 1:20). At “the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11). Therefore, “as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom 5:18). White argued that these and other texts explicitly taught universal reconciliation, and it is only in their light that the texts which seem to speak of eternal damnation should be interpreted.[25]
Also inspired by the Cambridge Platonists, and being well acquainted with More and Cudworth, was Thomas Burnet. Burnet was a Priest, a fellow of Christ’s College, and an influential thinker with many friends in high places, which is how he became the Chaplain to King William III and Clerk of the Closet. Burnet wrote ‘A Treatise Concerning the State of Departed Souls,’ where he argued for universal reconciliation and strongly repudiated the traditional view of eternal damnation. He intended his Treatise to be read only by friends and acquaintances, as he held the opinion of many covert universalists that the doctrine should only be taught to those who are more educated, believing that the common masses “are inclined to vice and can be deterred from evil only by the fear of punishment.”[26] However, against his wishes, Burnet’s Treatise was published posthumously in 1720. Like Bishop Rust, Burnet wrote that it cannot be that the “most merciful Father,” would in his providence allow an outcome where “the greatest part of humankind will be damned to eternal punishments.”[27] In fact, Burnet says that only “the evil God of the Manichees” or “the cruelty of some evil Demon” could bring about such a reality.[28] Burnet did not deny that there would be a judgment for those who reject Christ or fail to repent of their sins, but he did not believe this judgment would last forever. In fact, Burnet advanced an argument against eternal judgment which would be repeated by most universalists after him: If the damned are unable to repent in hell, then they have no free will or moral responsibility, and so cannot be justly punished, but if they can repent, then their punishment cannot be eternal, because they inevitably will repent.[29]
As White and Burnet’s works grew in influence, and the Methodist minister James Relly began preaching universalism in London, two key Anglicans came to publicly and boldly teach the universal salvation of all.[30] The first of these was William Law, a Priest and theologian who was well known and loved in his day, and whose writings had a major influence on John Wesley, George Whitfield, and William Wilberforce. Published in the final year of his life in 1761, Law’s ‘Affectionate and Earnest Address to the Clergy’ claimed that it is a truth as certain that God’s Name is “I am that I am” that “not one single sinner” will ultimately be lost.[31] Law believed that it was because of the invincible and restorative power of God’s love that he would inevitably lead all his creatures to salvation:
The love that brought forth the existence of all things, changes not through the fall of its creatures, but is continually at work, to bring back all fallen nature and creature to their first state of goodness. All that passes for a time between God and his fallen creature, is but one and the same thing, working for one and the same end; and though this is called wrath, that called punishment, curse, and death, it is all from the beginning to the end, nothing but the work of the first creating love, and means nothing else, does nothing else, but those works of purifying fire, which must, and alone can burn away all that dark evil, which separates the creature from its first created union with God… And every number of destroyed sinners, whether thrown by Noah’s flood, or Sodom’s brimstone, into the terrible furnace of a life, insensible of anything but new forms of raging misery till judgment’s day, must through the all-working, all-redeeming love of God, which never ceases, come at last to know that they had lost, and have found again such a God of love as this.[32]
The second key figure in this century to openly espouse universalism was Bishop Thomas Newton, who was the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the Bishop of Bristol from 1761 until his death. In a collection of his works, which was published in 1782 and reprinted five years later, the final work is ‘A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men.’ In this dissertation, Bishop Newton taught that while both sinful humans and angels will go to hell, all will eventually repent and be saved.[33] Newton argued for this on the basis of the Scriptural texts already cited and the teachings of fathers like Gregory of Nyssa, who explicitly taught universalism, saying that eventually: “The complete whole of our race shall have been perfected from the first man to the last — some having at once in this life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary periods been healed by the Fire.”[34] Newton thus believed that his universalism had a Biblical as well as patristic basis. Echoing Burnet, he taught that if God damned people to eternal conscious torment, he would be worse than Moloch and “cannot be conceived without horror.”[35] Newton claimed that while many think or claim they believe that God eternally damns people, they do not in reality, because the idea that people they love would be tormented forever is too “shocking” and “abhorrent” to seriously believe.[36] The Bishop argued that if God is omnipotent, the final state of things must be the ultimate outcome that he intended, and since God is good, he “must have made all his creatures finally to be happy; he could never make any, whose end he foreknew would be misery everlasting.”[37] Newton expanded on Burnet’s argument that if repentance in hell is impossible, then one’s eternal punishment there is unjust. Since repentance “is not impossible even in hell” every creature will eventually repent “because it is impossible for any creature to live in eternal torments.”[38] He believed that “in the end all must be subdued, so that their punishment may more properly be called indefinite than infinite.
In short, if they have any sense or feelings, any reason or understanding, any choice or free will, they must one time or other, sooner or later, be brought to repentance.”[39] Newton thus affirmed that “the devil and his angels will at last be saved” because: “Time and torments, and much more an eternity of torments, must overcome the proudest spirit: and the devil himself must at last be subdued and submit; and in the end there will be a regeneration and restoration of all creatures to the happiness, for which they were originally intended.”[40] Until this point, no Anglican writer had so brazenly and openly espoused not only their belief in universalism, but also their distaste for any of the alternatives, nor had any so deftly utilized patristic and Biblical evidence and logical arguments to that end. Commenting on this work, historian E.H. Plumptre said:
There are, I imagine, few stranger facts in the history of English theology than that such views should have been published in the eighteenth century by a bishop of unimpeached orthodoxy, and that, so far as I have been able to trace, no notice seems to have been taken of their publication. I have not come across any sermons, or pamphlets, or treatises against them. There does not appear to have been any outcry of alarm. And in the [dissertation] itself there is a noticeable absence of any consciousness that what was written was likely to startle or shock men’s minds. He writes calmly, as one unconscious of reproach.[41]
The lack of any backlash against Bishop Newton, and the popularity of White and Burnet’s works, suggests that there were many people in this period who believed in universalism, even if quietly, which is supported by its remarkable rise in popularity in the following century.
Annihilationism was considerably less prevalent in this century, as it was taken for granted by most that the human soul is immortal. However, William Newcome, who became the Archbishop of Armagh in 1795, suggested in one of his works that the damned would be annihilated. After mentioning that God threatens to destroy both body and soul in hell (Matt 10:28) while the elect shall be given the resurrection of life and life everlasting, Newcome said that “thinking men, intimately acquainted with the Scriptures,” may believe that for the damned “after a punishment exactly proportioned to their offences, [God] will annihilate them” and “a privation of being by fire will be the mode of everlasting destruction.”[42] The Archbishop thus believed that annihilationism was a legitimate option, and showed no awareness of that position being controversial.
The Nineteenth Century
While belief in annihilationism was rare before the nineteenth century, it eventually rose exceedingly, although it was still less common than universalism. William Thomson, the Archbishop of York from 1862, in his Bampton Lectures on ‘The Atoning Work of Christ’ said that “life to [the damned] must be the beginning of destruction, since nothing but God and that which pleases him can permanently exist.”[43] Richard Whatley, who became the Archbishop of Dublin in 1831, argued for annihilationism at length in ‘A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State.’ Regarding 1 Corinthians 15:25-26, that Christ “must reign until he has put all things under his feet” and the “last enemy to be destroyed is death,” Whatley said “this certainly does not seem consistent with the continuance for ever of a number of wicked beings, alive, and hating Christ, and odious in his sight.”[44] Whatley then argued that since the Bible consistently offers “life” to the saved and threatens “destruction” to the damned, it would appear even at face value that only the saved will experience eternal conscious life, while the damned will be annihilated.[45] Fire burns up and destroys, worms consume and devour, and chaff, when it is thrown in the oven, is incinerated into nothing, thus the warnings Christ gives of damnation suggest the very opposite of an eternal existence.[46] Everlasting punishment consequently refers to the eternality of death, rather than of conscious torment.[47] The Archbishop believed that for God to be victorious over his enemies, there must be “the ultimate extinction of evil and of suffering, by the total destruction of such as are incapable of good and of happiness.”[48] It is inconceivable that in the world to come, when “all things are subjected to Christ” and God shall be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28), there will yet be countless sinners in the company of the Devil and his angels, eternally rejecting God and suffering torment.[49]
Unlike the previous centuries, the occurrences of universalist teaching by Anglicans in the nineteenth century are well known, as is the fact that universalism was a popular belief among educated Victorians in general, who had become repulsed by the violence of previous generations.[50] In a world without lawful torture, constant public executions, and severed heads on display across London Bridge, people began to question the portrayals of hell as an eternal torture-chamber that were ubiquitous in the Middle Ages.[51] Thus, there were dozens of universalist Anglican thinkers in this period, but only a handful of those who are notable for either their fame or the originality of their thought will be discussed.
One of the most admired Anglican thinkers of this century was F.D. Maurice, a Priest, Professor, theologian, and political theorist, who was widely known to have denied belief in hell as it was traditionally understood. Maurice’s ‘Theological Essays’ (1853) claimed that hell was not necessarily eternal, and that there was a possibility for post-mortem repentance and salvation for the damned. This was the ostensible reason for Maurice’s dismissal from King’s College that same year, however, he remained beloved and respected by many and would go on to be elected to the Knightbridge Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge University. While in his works Maurice merely asserted the possibility of salvation for all, he held out hope that this would become a reality.[52] Maurice hinted at this in his interpretation of Revelation, as he taught that the Lake of Fire was not “out of [God’s] dominion, beyond the circle of His grace and love,” and that it could be seen as the place where “separation from God” and “atheism” itself are destroyed, rather than people.[53] He asked whether the Lake of Fire was the place one’s “conscience passes through” to be reunited to God as a prodigal son.[54] Maurice’s writings on this subject had a significant impact on the minds of Victorians and on many of the thinkers below.
Maurice also happened to be the rector of the Chapel of St Peter’s in Marylebone, London, which is where one of the most well-known of all universalist thinkers started attending in 1866, after converting to Anglicanism, the great George MacDonald. MacDonald had an enormous influence on C.S. Lewis, who harbored universalist sympathies and called MacDonald his “master,” though his own view was perhaps closer to Farrar’s (see below).[55] In particular, Lewis admired MacDonald’s published collection of ‘Unspoken Sermons,’ saying his “debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another,” and he compiled an anthology of that collection “to spread [MacDonald’s] religious teaching.”[56] In this his Unspoken Sermons, MacDonald frequently, fervently, and forcefully argued for his belief in universal reconciliation. One of his most famous sermons, ‘Justice,’ argued that there is “no opposition” between God’s mercy and justice and “those who say justice means the punishing of sin, and mercy the not punishing of sin, and attribute both to God, would make a schism in the very idea of God.”[57] There are not two Gods, the God of grace and the God of wrath, rather, there is one God: The God who is love. Thus, God’s justice destroys sin but does not destroy the sinner, and his punishments are restorative, not retributive.[58] Uniquely, MacDonald also argued for universalism on the basis of Christian moral teaching, believing that Christ’s command for us to love our neighbors as ourselves is impossible to obey if some of our neighbors are to be damned:
Who, that loves his brother, would not, upheld by the love of Christ, and with a dim hope that in the far off time there might be some help for him, arise from the company of the blessed, and walk down into the dismal regions of despair, to sit with the last, the only unredeemed, the Judas of his race, and be himself more blessed in the pains of hell, than in the glories of heaven? Who, in the midst of the golden harps and the white wings, knowing that one of his kind, one miserable brother in the old-world-time when men were taught to love their neighbour as themselves, was howling unheeded far below in the vaults of the creation, who, I say, would not feel that he must arise, that he had no choice, that, awful as it was, he must gird his loins, and go down into the smoke and the darkness and the fire, travelling the weary and fearful road into the far country to find his brother? — who, I mean, that had the mind of Christ, that had the love of the Father?[59]
MacDonald believed it was inconceivable that in the afterlife we could be joyful at the eternal damnation of others, and believed that Paul’s own anguish at his Jewish brethren’s rejection of Christ was not relieved by their damnation, but by the promise that they would be shown mercy (Rom 11:11-32).[60] In fact, Paul shows us that we should prefer to be damned ourselves than that our loved ones be damned (Rom 9:3).[61] It is because of his powerful descriptions of God’s love and his challenging arguments that MacDonald is still considered by many to be the greatest of all universalist writers in the English language.
One of F.D. Maurice’s students was F.W. Farrar, who was the Archdeacon and Canon of Westminster, Chaplain to Queen Victoria, and later the Dean of Canterbury. Before taking these positions, Farrar had preached five sermons in Westminster Abbey in 1877 which were published as ‘Eternal Hope’ the following year, wherein he rejected both the traditional view of eternal conscious torment in hell and annihilationism.[62] These sermons generated much controversy and discussion. Inspired by Maurice, and arguing from Scriptural texts like Christ preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Pet 3:19), or sinners being “saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:15), Farrar taught that the damned “may still be reached by God’s mercy beyond the grave.” [63] While he believed it was possible for every man to be saved, he stopped short of explicitly affirming that all men surely would be. He did, however, hope that at least “the vast majority” of people would be saved.[64] Farrar laid particular stress on the use of ‘aionios’ in the Bible’s verses about judgment, saying that it has been “ably proved by so many writers that there is no authority whatever for rendering it ‘everlasting’”.[65] Finally, Farrar also mentioned that the removal of Cranmer’s forty-second article “leaves even ‘universalism’ an open question.”[66] Within twenty years, eighteen editions of ‘Eternal Hope’ had been published; it was resoundingly popular.
The silence of the Articles was also pointed out during one of the most famous controversies of this century related to universalism. In 1860, a book entitled ‘Essays and Reviews’ was released, containing an essay by Reverend H.B. Wilson, where he suggested that hell was not eternal and that all men could be saved. After a complaint, in 1862, the Court of Arches condemned Wilson on the grounds that his statements contradicted the Formularies of the Church, since the Athanasian Creed espoused the doctrine of eternal punishment.[67] Wilson appealed the decision, and in 1864 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council acquitted him. The Council believed that to condemn Wilson would be to effectively restore Cranmer’s forty-second article, and Lord Chancellor Westbury said:
We are not required, or at liberty, to express any opinion upon the mysterious question of the eternity of final punishment, further than to say that we do not find in the formularies… any such distinct declaration of our Church upon the subject as to require us to condemn as penal the expression of hope by a clergyman that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked, who are condemned in the Day of Judgment, may be consistent with the will of Almighty God.[68]
This was also the opinion of Bishop James Moorhouse of Melbourne, who in a speech in 1878 said:
The 41st and 42nd Articles (against Millenarians and Universalism) were withdrawn because the Church, knowing that men like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian were Millenarians, and men like Origen, Clemens of Alexandria, and Gregory of Nyssa were Universalists, refused to dogmatise on such questions. From these facts it appears to me that we are entitled to draw three important conclusions: First, we are at liberty to think and teach about the future of the wicked as we believe that Holy Scripture teaches us. Secondly, varying interpretations are not only allowable, but inevitable, upon mere matters of opinion. Thirdly, if perchance we hold ‘the larger hope’ as I will not conceal from you that for twenty years and more I have done, we shall yet be ready to acknowledge the obscurity which surrounds it, and the right of any of our brethren to think and teach differently from ourselves.[69]
In 1886, Moorhouse would go on to become the Bishop of Manchester and never faced controversy for his admission of universalism.
While the other works we have looked at, with the exception of MacDonald’s sermons, have today faded into obscurity, usually only being read out of an historical interest, one final work continues to be read and admired as one of the pinnacles of all English works on the subject of universal salvation: Reverend Thomas Allin’s ‘Universalism Asserted as the Hope of the Gospel,’ which was published in 1885, and by 1905 had been republished nine times. Allin’s work sought vigorously to prove that many of the greatest eastern church fathers were universalists and expanded the arguments of MacDonald. Allin believed that if in heaven we rejoice at the suffering of the damned, we have failed to love them as Christ commands; if we grieve their suffering, we are not perfectly happy; and if we forget about the damned, then that proves the abhorrence of damnation, since the only way for us to be happy in heaven would be for God to construct a lie.[70] One of its most unique arguments was that universalism is the only coherent way of understanding God’s plan of salvation, since Allin believed both the Arminian and Calvinist understandings were unworkable. Allin agreed with Calvinism, and its doctrine of eternal security, that God does not merely issue invitations, rather “He saves all whom He wants to save. His will must prevail. His Son sheds no drop of blood in vain. All for whom He dies are in fact saved.”[71] However, if God saves all he desires, and yet damnation is true, the result must be that God does not love nor want to save most people. Allin thought that this view was impossible to reconcile with God’s love, which must be analogous to ours or else Christianity is unintelligible (Matt 7:9-11; 1 John 4:7-12), or with the Scriptures which explicitly say that God does desire all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:4).
Allin believed that Arminianism was also unworkable, because if damnation is true, it would mean God’s love for all and his desire to save everyone becomes just a “flabby creed,” since “all that is meant is an attempt at the redemption of all the race, which fails.”[72] But if God really intends to save all people, how, in his omnipotence, can he fail to save any of them? While under Calvinism, God only loves some people and damns the rest, Arminianism is no better, for God’s love is reduced to something “which wholly ceases the moment the last breath leaves the frail body.”[73] Allin thus argued that Calvinists and Arminians were each trying to preserve God’s love, but because of their insistence on eternal damnation were only able to preserve one aspect of it—its universality or its infallibility—whereas universalism allowed one to maintain both. God wants to save everyone and will save everyone. Printed at the start of Allin’s book was a letter from Basil Wilberforce, who was the Canon of Westminster Abbey, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, and later became the Archdeacon of Westminster. His letter praised Allin for his “noble book,” saying that it was “the very best compendium of the glorious truth of modern times.”[74]
Conclusion
Belief in both the annihilation of the damned and in the eventual salvation of all people was present within Anglicanism from the seventeenth century and increased in prevalence as time went on. For most, holding to those beliefs was not motivated by a rejection of the Bible, rather, they—rightly or wrongly—believed these things on the basis of Scripture, tradition, and reason, and often argued for the impossibility of the contrary. In some cases, their writings went unchallenged, as it was thought that those views, while eccentric, were still within the bounds of the Anglican formularies and consistent with their optimistic outlook.
This essay is certainly not intended to be an argument for the truth of universalism or annihilationism. The fact that many men held to those beliefs should not be taken as evidence for things of such cosmic significance. The truth of the final judgment will not be found in early modern England, but in the divinely inspired words of Scripture which have disclosed, as much as we are able to understand it, God’s ultimate plan for the cosmos. The point of this essay, beyond historical curiosity, is to consider whether, with this history in mind, belief in the eternal, conscious torment of the damned should be non-negotiable for Anglicans. Many, I am sure, will still argue that it is. Perhaps they are right. But they will have to contend with the historical reality this essay has presented.
Image: The Harrowing of Hell, Jacob Isaaczs van Swanenburg (1571-1638). Wikimedia Commons.
[1] E.H. Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison and Other Studies on the Life After Death (New York, NY: Thomas Whittaker, 1894), 191.
[2] Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, ed. Christopher Morris (London: Everyman’s Library, 1964), 2:195 (V.XLIX.1).
[3] Albert Peel, ed., The Second Parte of a Register, vol. 1 (London: Cambridge University, 1915), 256, 285.
[4] David M. Kelly, “The Treatment of Universalism in Anglican Thought From George MacDonald to C.S. Lewis” (PhD diss., The School of Graduate Studies of Ottawa University, 1989), 21-22. Thomas Whittemore, The Modern History of Universalism, vol.1 (Boston, MA: Abel Tompkins, 1860), 105, 129-130, 135.
[5] Whittemore, The Modern History of Universalism, vol.1, 105, 130.
[6] Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 190.
[7] D.P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1964), 9, 105-121, 125-127, 131-133.
[8] Walker, The Decline of Hell, 10, 125, 135. C.A. Patrides, ed., The Cambridge Platonists (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1969), 37.
[9] A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen and the Chief of his Opinions (London: C.L. Esquire, 1661), 72-73.
[10] A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen, 76.
[11] A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen, 133.
[12] Jeremy Taylor, “Dooms-day Book; or, Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” pages 7-46 in The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, vol. 4, New Edition, ed. Reginald Heber (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850), 44.
[13] Taylor, “Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” 44.
[14] Taylor, “Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” 43.
[15] Taylor, “Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” 43.
[16] Taylor, “Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” 43.
[17] Taylor, “Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” 44.
[18] Taylor, “Christ’s Advent to Judgment,” 44. Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 318.
[19] John Tillotson, “Sermon XXXV: Of the Eternity of Hell Torments,” pages 4-25 in Sermons on Several Subjects and Occasions, vol. 3 (London: R. Ware, 1742), 15-16
[20] Tillotson, “Sermon XXXV: Of the Eternity of Hell Torments,” 12.
[21] Tillotson, “Sermon XXXV: Of the Eternity of Hell Torments,” 18-19.
[22] Walker, The Decline of Hell, 131. Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 196.
[23] Walker, The Decline of Hell, 156.
[24] Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 196, 200, 319.
[25] Jeremiah White, The Restoration of All Things or a Vindication of the Goodness and Grace of God, Third Edition (London: John Denis & Son, 1779), 95.
[26] Decline of Hell, 158-159.
[27] Burnet, A Treatise Concerning the State of Departed Souls, 344.
[28] Burnet, A Treatise Concerning the State of Departed Souls, 365.
[29] Burnet, A Treatise Concerning the State of Departed Souls, 346-348.
[30] Kelly, “The Treatment of Universalism in Anglican Thought From George MacDonald to C.S. Lewis,” 25-26.
[31] William Law, An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy (Philadelphia, PA: John Townsend, 1856), 69 (Address 198).
[32] Law, An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy, 67 (Address 191).
[33] Thomas Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” pages 702-741 in The Works of the Right Reverend Thomas Newton, D.D., vol. 3 (London: John Francis and Charles Rivington, 1782), 720.
[34] Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection (NPNF2 5:859-866).
[35] Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” 727.
[36] Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” 729.
[37] Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” 729.
[38] Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” 725.
[39] Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” 726-727.
[40] Newton, “A Dissertation on the Final State and Condition of Men,” 730-731.
[41] Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 204-205.
[42] William Newcome, Observations on our Lord’s Conduct as a Divine Instructor: and on the Excellence of His Moral Character, New Edition (Oxford: Oxford University, 1853), 9-10.
[43] William Thomson, The Atoning Work of Christ, Viewed in Relation to Some Current Theories (Oxford: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1853), 56.
[44] Richard Whatley, A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, Fourth Edition (London: B. Fellowes, 1837), 226.
[45] Whatley, A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, 230-231.
[46] Whatley, A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, 234.
[47] Whatley, A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, 233.
[48] Whatley, A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, 235.
[49] Whatley, A View of the Scripture Revelations Concerning a Future State, 235.
[50] David J. Powys, “The Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Debates about Hell and Universalism,” pages 93-139 in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, ed. Nigel M. de S. Cameron (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1992), 125.
[51] Robin A. Parry, “Introduction to Thomas Allin,” pages ix-xxxviii in Christ Triumphant (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015) xxiii. Thomas Allin, Universalism Asserted as the Hope of the Gospel on the Authority of Reason, the Fathers, and Holy Scripture, Sixth Edition (Weston-Super-Mare: Lawrence Bros, 1895), 41, 53.
[52] Geoffrey Rowell, Hell and the Victorians: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Theological Controversies Concerning Eternal Punishment and the Future Life (London: Oxford University, 1974), 83, 88.
[53] Frederick Denison Maurice, Lectures on the Apocalypse (London: Macmillan, 1861), 404-405.
[54] Maurice, Lectures on the Apocalypse, 404-405.
[55] https://northamanglican.com/the-salvation-theology-of-c-s-lewis/
[56] C.S. Lewis, ed., George MacDonald: An Anthology (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1947), vi.
[57] George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Third Series (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1889), 114.
[58] MacDonald, Unspoken sermons, Third Series, 122.
[59] George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, First Series (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1887), 213
[60] MacDonald, Unspoken sermons, 213.
[61] MacDonald, Unspoken sermons, 212-213.
[62] Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, 139.
[63] Frederic W. Farrar, Eternal Hope, Second Edition (London: Macmillan & Co, 1878), xx, 87.
Powys, “The Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Debates about Hell and Universalism,” 100-101. F.W. Farrar, Mercy and Judgment (London: Macmillan & Co, 1881), 13.
[64] Farrar, Eternal hope, 88.
[65] Farrar, Eternal Hope, 196
[66] Farrar, Eternal Hope, 85.
[67] Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, 118.
[68] Plumptre, The Spirits in Prison, 225. Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, 119.
[69] Farrar, Mercy and Judgment, 35-36.
[70] Allin, Universalism Asserted, 43, 55.
[71] Allin, Universalism Asserted, 69.
[72] Allin, Universalism Asserted, 69, emphasis mine.
[73] Allin, Universalism Asserted, 70.
[74] Allin, Universalism Asserted, viii.
