UNIVERSALISM. Universalism claims " that all souls will finally be saved, that evil is temporary, that good is permanent, and will achieve a complete and per fect triumph in the divine economy " (Schaff-Herzog). It claims to be based on the two fundamental principles of Christianity : (1) the parental love of God; (2) the solidarity of mankind, a mankind which is to be con formed to the image of the Son of God. God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; and man, the child of God, was made in His image and likeness. The Universalist " sees the whole creation in one vast, resistless move ment, sweeping towards the grand finality of universal holiness and universal love " (Schaff-Herzog). A disciple of what has been called the Larger Hope, he protests vehemently against the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. God is love. " The terms are equivalent. They can be interchanged. God is not anger though He can be angry, God is not vengeance though He does avenge. These are attributes, love is essence. There fore, God is unchangeably love. Therefore, in judgment He is love, in vengeance He is love—' love first, and last, and midst, and without end.' But in fact the traditional creed knows nothing of what love really is. For love is simply the strongest thing in the universe, the most awful, the most inexorable, while the most tender. Further, when love is thus seen in its true colours, there Is less than ever an excuse for the mistake still so common, which virtually places at the centre of our moral system sin and not grace. This it is which the
traditional dualism has for centuries been doing, and is still doing. Doubtless retribution is a most vital truth. Universalists rejoice to admit it; nay, largely to base on it their system; but there is a greater truth—which controls, and dominates the whole, the truth of Love. We must not, in common phrase, put the theological cart before the horse. Retribution must not come first, while love brings up the rear; nor must we put the idea of pro bation before that of God's education of His human family. In a word, to arrive at truth is hopeless, so long as men virtually believe in a quasi-trinity—God and the Devil, and the Will of Man." So writes a modern Universalist (Thomas Allin). Universalism as a denominational creed was preached first by James Relly (1722?-1778). Originally one of 'Whitefield's preachers, about 1761 he became a Universalist. One of his disciples was John Murray (1741-1815), who in 1770 went to America and, after preaching in various places for some years, established a number of churches in the New Eng land and Middle States. A famous American Univer salist was Hosea Ballou (1771-1852), but his views differed considerably from those of John Murray. In course of time Universalism made great progress in the United States, and the Universalists became a powerful denomination. See Schaff-Herzog; Chambers's EncYcl.: Thomas Allin, Universalism Asserted as the Hope of the Gospel, 9th ed., 1905.