Caleb Rich and the Founding of the Universalist Church in America
Universalism is a theological doctrine whose principal tenet is a belief in the final salvation of all souls, usually called the doctrine of universal salvation. Universalism taught that the death of Christ had atoned for all human sin and that therefore no punishment was necessary after death. Universalist doctrines had been in existence from the earliest days of Christianity, though known prior to the establishment of the denomination as apocatastasis, from the Greek apokatastasis and the Latin restitutio in pristinum statum, meaning restoration to the original condition. In America, the doctrine of universal salvation was a denial of the Calvinist doctrine of eternal damnation.
The Universalist denomination had its origins in America during a period of religious revival called the New Light Stir which took place in New England during the revolutionary period. The Universalist movement was a result of evangelicalism and a revolt against Calvinism. The early history of the movement was marked by a struggle for religious tolerance and political rights. The Universalist doctrines provoked strong reactions from the Calvinists who saw them as an invitation to moral decay and eternal damnation as well as a challenge to the established order.
Because of its diverse origins, it is difficult to pinpoint a starting point for the denomination, however its complex origins can be summarized into urban and rural movements. Universalism in the coastal urban centers of New England appealed to sophisticated liberal-minded citizens. Its teachings and influence did not penetrate far into the interior.
James Relly, a former Whitefieldian Calvinist was an English Universalist who never came to America. He began teaching Universalism in 1768 and taught that Christ's death united the entire human race to him physically and spiritually, therefore the promises of mercy and salvation in the gospel must apply to all of humanity.
John Murray, another British Calvinist and Whitefieldian has traditionally been considered the founding father of American Universalism. He had heard and embraced Relly's ideas by about 1770. After the death of his wife and son in 1770 and a prison term for debt, he turned to America. His ship was wrecked off the coast of New Jersey, and he was rescued by Thomas Potter, an eccentric radical evangelical who had been influenced by dissenting Baptist sects in Rhode Island and New Jersey. Potter was a Universalist sympathizer who aided Murray. He had believed that God would send him a prophet, and had built a church in anticipation. He convinced Murray to begin preaching again and his first American sermon was given in Potter's church in September 1770.
Murray was popular and successful and was considered a second Whitefield. He moved to Philadelphia, then to Boston, and to Newport in 1772. In 1775 he went to Gloucester where he first publicly avowed Universalism. In 1779, he formed the first independent Universalist church there and built the first Universalist meeting house in 1780. Despite his success, he was unable to expand his influence beyond the urban centers. He also divided the Universalist movement by his refusal to compromise or to modify the theological views that he had originally obtained from Relly.
Elhanan Winchester, a former New England Baptist elder was another traditional founder of the Universalist movement. He was considered a significant figure in post-Revolutionary urban Universalism. He taught at Philadelphia and in England.
Despite the popularity and success of Murray and Winchester, the numerical and cultural center of New England Universalism was in the hill country of western Massachusetts. Isaac Davis, a Separate lay preacher began to teach universal salvation and denied the existence of hell or devils in the early 1770's. He preached in the Connecticut River Valley towns of Oxford and Douglas. Not much is known about him or his theology.
Adams Streeter, a New England Baptist elder continued Davis' work, converting to Universalism about 1777. He preached in Milford and Oxford, Massachusetts and in Providence, Rhode Island. Little is known of his theology, also.
Caleb Rich, a rural radical evangelical prophet, has been called "the most important native New England Universalist leader." (Marini, 1982) He was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, in August 1750. Both of his parents were members of the Congregational Church and their thirteen children were brought up in a strict religious manner. Caleb Rich was continually told by his father, his minister and his school teacher that "Christ would have few, the devil countless millions". He considered his situation "more precarious than a ticket in a lottery" and he looked at insects and reptiles, thinking how much better off they were.
In 1768, his father converted to the Baptist church and doubled his efforts to warn the children of the threat of endless damnation. His mother remained a Congregationalist and the children were required to alternate between Baptist and Congregationalist meetings. One Sunday after a church meeting, they debated which was the true religion. They were in agreement that if they did not choose the right way, there would be no chance at all for salvation. Someone pointed out that their odds of choosing the right way were not good because the religions they knew were only two out of a hundred that took their beliefs from the bible. This idea had a major impact on Caleb Rich and he marked this point as the beginning of his journey to Universalism. He resolved not to believe anyone else but to find which way was right by careful study of the scriptures.
In 1771, when he turned 21, he left home for Warwick, Massachusetts sixty miles away near the New Hampshire border. During the journey, he had a conversion experience through the impression of a saving scriptural text which convinced him to join the Baptist congregation which began holding meetings nearby soon after his arrival. He boarded with his brother Nathaniel who was also a member of the Baptist Church and the two of them had many religious discussions. During one of these discussions, something Nathaniel said caused Caleb to doubt his motives for seeking truth through his study of the scriptures so he went to a secret place to pray. Here he heard a voice and saw a vision, "...a great calm overspread my mind and my passions all subsided. Instantly I saw a vision, as it appeared to me. I was walking a straight road with a celestial guide at my right hand. The sun appeared to be about two hours high in the morning, shining through a hazy cloud, [and] cast a beautiful red and yellow color on the ground. I saw a stone wall on the right hand not quite finished; and I saw a stone lying on the ground near the wall suitable to help finish the wall, here we stopt; my guide said to me, 'by what means will this stone ever get placed into this wall?' I answered, 'if the owner of the premises judges the stone fit for the building and is self-moved to put it into the wall, it will be done; otherwise it never will.' My guide said that I had answered discreetly, and then said to me, 'thou art as that stone and you can do no more toward influencing God to put you into his building, than this stone can the owner to lay it into this wall; and you were placed by unerring wisdom into God's building before the foundation of the world.'"
After this vision, he still did not fully see universal salvation, but no longer believed in fear of death or torments of hell as motives for people to be religious. A second "vision of the night" convinced him to avoid the tracks of the Baptists and further explore his own religious beliefs so he could lead the Baptists out of the wilderness.
Caleb Rich was usually called upon to lead the Baptist meetings when no preacher was available. He took these opportunities to express his difficulties in reconciling the Calvinist doctrines being preached with the simple language of the bible. As a result of these discussions, he and several others came to believe that sin "originated in the flesh, and ended with the same," and that all men had been saved by Jesus Christ.
Rich and his followers were surprised at the unfavorable reaction their new views received from the elders and leaders of the Baptist church in Warwick. They thought it more logical that opposition would come from unbelievers and wicked men and that good men and Christians would welcome a hope of universal salvation and happiness. As soon as they began to attract attention with their new doctrine, steps were taken to prevent its spread. Caleb Rich, his brother Nathaniel and Joseph Goodell were brought before a church meeting where they were disowned as heretics and forbidden to have contact with believers. His brother Thomas was refused baptism when he said that although he did not hold their beliefs himself, he still considered them to be Christians. Their request for exemption from taxation to support the established church was rejected.
In 1773, they organized legally as a new religious society under a colonial law which allowed dissenters to avoid being taxed to support a church in which they did not believe. It took the entire society membership of three to form a committee that was legally allowed to grant certificates of membership in the new society. During 1774, seven new members were added. They held meetings in private homes on Sundays until the start of the Revolutionary War.
In 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord, Caleb Rich and some neighbors marched to Cambridge where they participated in the siege of Boston. While on furlough, he went to visit friends in Oxford and Sutton where he was persuaded to explain his ideas. He then traded places with his brother-in-law's hired man who wanted to join the army, and stayed in Sutton until the expiration of his term of service when he returned to Warwick. At this time, his followers in Sutton and Oxford numbered forty or fifty.
After the Revolution, he began preaching in the nearby towns of Winchester, Jaffry, Swansey, Chesterfield, and Royalton as well as in Warwick. A "General Society" was formed composed of members from all the towns and articles were adopted outlining their faith and the personal and social duties of the members.
About this time, he developed an attachment for a young woman who came from a respectable Baptist family. She, her parents and her older siblings were opposed to him as a heretic who had been thrown out of the church. He converted the entire family and married in January, 1778.
In a further mystical vision in 1778 a messenger from God convinced him that his annihilationist ideas were in error and from this point he preached divine benevolence and universal salvation. When Rich first preached, "the doctrine of universal salvation excited horror, disgust, and was pronounced the most dangerous heresy ever."
By 1780, Universalism had become a viable sectarian movement in rural New England. It was separated geographically and theologically from the influence of the urban Universalists and Rich had laid the theological and institutional foundation for the growth of the denomination in the New England interior.
Rich now functioned as a regular preacher and at this time, questions arose as to his right to solemnize marriages because he had not been ordained. In 1781, Adams Streeter, another preacher of similar faith, was asked to come to Richmond and perform the ordination. Over three hundred people were present at the service.
The 1780's and 1790's were a period of unification and organization for the Universalists. In 1784, a convention was held at Oxford, conducted by Adams Streeter and Caleb Rich. At a second meeting in 1785 also attended by John Murray and Elhanan Winchester, the Richite and Murrayite branches, which had been autonomous, were called together as a result of legal action against Murray and his congregation. At this meeting the name Universalist was adopted. The effectiveness of this unification was temporary, however, and ended with court victory in 1786. In 1790, the Philadelphia convention opened with a Winchesterite majority and a Murrayite minority and no Richite delegates at all. The Philadelphia Articles which were adopted at this meeting were not adopted by most hill country congregations. In 1794, the First New England General Convention was held at Oxford with 71 ministers including 50 from Richite churches. At this meeting, Rich supported the Philadelphia Articles. Annual meetings were held through 1800 by which time the various factions had been united.
After more than thirty years of preaching, Caleb Rich followed his children and other relatives who had moved to central Vermont. He settled in New Haven, where he lived until his death in 1821. Although he had been ordained in Richmond, it was thought safer to have a re-ordination to prevent any trouble from the "Standing Order." This took place in New Haven in January, 1803. He died in New Haven in 1821, by which time he had lived to see Universalism become a small American denomination with an extensive geographical organization and a growing clerical bureaucracy.
Caleb Rich and his family were part of a large group of families who lived in proximity to one another, many of whom were influenced by his Universalist ideas. These families inter-married and migrated together over several generations in a large chain migration which eventually spread out across the country. From northern and central Massachusetts, they moved up the Connecticut River Valley into Vermont, where they founded the towns of Richville and Shoreham, both Universalist strongholds in Addison County. Later they began moving into northern New York. Some settled in and around Ticonderoga in Essex County, while most went across northern New York to St. Lawrence County where they were among the founders the towns of Canton and Potsdam and another Richville. St. Lawrence University in Canton was founded in 1856 as a Universalist institution. From St. Lawrence County, they spread out across Western New York State and to other states across the country, bringing the Universalist denomination with them.