BUSH'NELL, HORACE (1S02-76). An Ameri can theologian. He was born in Litchfield, Conn.. April 14, 1802; graduated at Yale in 1827, where he studied law and theology ; in 1833 became pastor of the North Congregational Church in Hartford, resigned 1859, and died there February 17, 1876. lle was a voluminous writer on theological subjects, sonic of his works being Principles of National Greatness: Christian Nurture (1847); God in Christ (1849): Christian Theology (1851); Sermons for the New Life ( 1858) ; Nature and the Super natural ( 1858) ; Work and Play ( 1864 ) : Christ and ills Salvation (1864); Woman's Suffrage, the Reform Against Nature (1869) ; The Pica rious Sacrifice (1865). He was also a writer for various periodicals and newspapers. He was a bold and original thinker, with peculiar elo quence of style. Though strongly evangelical in belief. he denied the Calvinistic theory of the atonement (known as the 'satisfaction theory'), and gave less than the ordinary emphasis to the distinction between the persons in the Trinity. These, with other divergences, led to his being accused of heresy; but ultimately the fellowship of the Congregational churches was found broad enough to include him. and he kept his standing
therein with growing influence until his death. During his later years his health compelled his relinquishment of the active pastorate, but his labors in authorship were unintermitted. While his theory of the atonement, the so-called 'moral power' view, has not commended itself in its exact form to the majority of evangelical Chris tians, and is adhered to by no organized sect or party, it cannot be denied that his moral earnest ness, his spiritual power, his wondrous suggest iveness. his brilliancy of thought and style, and his broad mental scope, have profoundly modified the thinking of the present age, through almost the whole circle of Protestant denominations. Indeed, with his detestation of all provincialism and sectarianism, he would have chosen any other form of influence rather than that which is exercised by the leader of a party in the Church. His select works appeared in a collected edition (8 vols., 1876-77). For his life. consult: M. B. Cheney. Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell (New York, 1880) ; T. T. Munger (Boston, 1899).