The Amazing Story of John Murray

Frank E. Robertson

If ever there was a person who seemed to be chosen by God to preach a religion of hope and love to Americans, John Murray was such a person. His story is well-documented by numerous eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century records, including an extensive autobiography dictated to his second wife, Judith Sargent Murray, during the last years of his life. The story is so chock full of coincidences and dramatic events that one wonders why it has not yet become one of the popular stories of American history, such as the stories of the Pilgrims or of the struggle of African Americans from slavery to freedom. Perhaps some day it will catch on and be familiar to most people regardless of their personal beliefs.

John Murray, photograph by the author of a Martha Oaks painting owned by Independent Christian Church "Universalist" (now Unitarian Universalist) of Gloucester, Mass.

John Murray was born on December 10, 1741, in Alton, England, a village forty-eight miles southwest of London. His father was an Episcopalian and his mother was a Presbyterian. He was the oldest of nine children.

At the age of two, he stole the show during a younger sister's infant baptism ceremony when, at the end of the prayer, he spoke out loud and clear the word “Amen.” That story, and the fact that he was able to read an entire chapter of the Bible by age six, encouraged some family members to predict that he was destined for the ministry.

At age eleven, his family moved to Ireland, where several branches of his family had long resided. Among them was the governor of the fortress at Cork, a stepson of his paternal grandmother. When fire suddenly destroyed the Murrays’ first residence in Ireland, that grandmother helped them become reestablished. Such relatives among the upper classes also helped to educate John. He participated in their discussions and browsed their libraries. He was offered support for a college education, but his father turned it down, believing college environments were centers of sin and degradation. Regardless of his father’s strict religious beliefs and prejudices about education, John appears to have found a way to read many of the great classics of English literature, among them the works of William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, and John Milton, even the spicy novel Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. Of course, the Bible and books about the Bible were read daily at home.

When John entered his teens, his parents began to attend gatherings led by Rev. John Wesley, who had been on a preaching tour in Ireland. Very soon, both John's mother and father were recruited to teach Bible classes under Wesley's guidance. Young John stood out among the youth at these meetings and was put in charge of a class of forty boys. John met with mixed success during that experience. Discipline problems arose in the class, but after a special meeting of the leaders, John was praised for the way he taught the class and judged to have done as well as anyone could have, given the circumstances.

At that time, the Methodist movement had not separated from the Church of England, and the Murrays were also involved in the local Episcopal church. As expected, John attended confirmation classes but found himself in conflict with the local pastor who appears to have had a humorless disposition. At one point in class, John happened to be holding his hat over his face when someone else laughed. The pastor took offense at the laughter as if it had been directed at him and blamed John. At another point, John raised the question of why confirmation is necessary if the ritual of Baptism makes a person a Christian and welcome in the kingdom of heaven. The pastor took offense at the question and branded John as “very impertinent.”

John tried to apologize without success. He was later stunned to find out that everyone but him had received a written invitation to the Confirmation Sunday exercises. John decided to attend anyway. The bishop who was leading the ceremony that day asked each of the young people a question during the ceremony and John's response was given special praise, much to the dismay of the local pastor.

Among the youth of his day, John was probably considered popular. He became good friends with the prominent Little family of the community and they considered him one of their own sons. A distant relative of that family, a Miss Dupee, caught John's attention and he developed a secret love for her. By coincidence, his best friend also developed a romantic interest in Miss Dupee. That best friend was one of the sons of Mr. and Mrs. Little.

The two young men vowed to preserve their friendship by accepting whomever the beautiful Miss Dupee would choose. Such romances never seem to have easy resolutions. John secretly wrote her a love letter revealing his attraction to her and privately slipped it into her hand at a social event. A few days later, John found himself confronted by his father, to whom Miss Dupee had given the letter, and sternly reprimanded in front of other family members. John, of course, was crushed and fled from the room in tears; later he found out that Miss Dupee was not interested in either one of the two young men.

The story of John’s friendship with the Little family has a sad ending. Both of the Little sons died of a malignant fever and the parents pleaded with the Murrays to allow John to become their surrogate son and move into their house. John’s parents objected but the action of his father concerning the love letter had alienated John from his father and finally John was given permission to move into the Little home, a home, by the way, of the upper class and far more extensive than John's modest middle-class home. Some considered John a social climber because of that move.

The actual circumstances of the move were rather different from anything that John’s jealous enemies could suggest. Not only had both of the Little sons died suddenly but John himself came down with the same fever and struggled near death's door. The economic personal gain of joining the Little family was the furthest thing from John’s tortured, grief-stricken mind, and the suggestion that he had selfish motives was deeply offensive to him.

During this period that the health of John’s father began to decline and relatives soon gathered around the great patriarch’s deathbed. John and the Littles were there too, of course, and his father singled out John to take on the leadership of the Murray family. John was the person asked to lead the final prayer for his father and be close to his side as he breathed his last. The same people who had expressed jealousy about John’s relationship with the Littles, including a few of his siblings, resented the authority given to him at his father’s death.

During his teen years, John had developed an accomplished preaching style, based on his family’s relationship with John Wesley and other missionary preachers. Wesley considered him to have real promise, and occasional invitations were extended to John to speak before various religious gatherings of the Methodists who met daily in the area. John was now in his late teens and these preaching experiences helped him feel more self-assured than many young adults of his generation. Given his high level of confidence and the continuing resentments from his siblings and some of the Little relatives, he decided to leave Ireland altogether and go to England, where he had spent his early childhood. The Little family gave him a purse to help him get established until he could find employment in the London area.

On his way to England, John visited relatives in Cork, Ireland, and met the famous evangelist George Whitefield, who urged him to join the Tabernacle in London when he got settled. While traveling across England from the west coast, he stopped at Bristol and Bath where he was invited to speak before various Methodist groups. In each town, one of the local members offered him home hospitality. These experiences with strangers interested in religion appear to have foreshadowed his later circuit-rider-preacher days in America.

Once in London, with plenty of money to spend, John found himself more and more leading a double life. On the one hand he participated in Whitefield’s Tabernacle gatherings; on the other hand some of his new friends invited him to go out on the town to attend concerts, plays, parties, and dances. Feelings of guilt and self-disgust about this double life troubled his mind. When the money ran out and creditors were after him, he resolved to break with those friends who were living loose lives and devote himself exclusively to the few friends he had made at the Tabernacle. Indeed, he went forward at one of the meetings and confessed his sins before the gathering, asking for their forgiveness. Of course, they rejoiced in his vow to reform himself and accepted him into their inner circle of more devout members. He went on to become one of the trusted leaders of the movement.

At one of the Sunday evening gatherings, John met Eliza Neal, the sister of one of his close religious friends. He and the young lady were attracted to each other and began to carry on a secret correspondence. Just when the two lovers were about to let their families know that they were in love and wished to be married, they were both surprised when the patriarch of Eliza’s family, her grandfather, demanded that Eliza cease any further contact with John!

John received a letter, supposedly written by Eliza but really penned by her brother, calling for an end to their relationship and stating that she never wanted to see him again. But John knew Eliza's handwriting from the secret love letters she had been sending him and recognized the fatal letter as a forgery. John demanded to see Eliza in person and hear her rejection from her own lips. The brother's two-faced behavior was revealed and plans resumed for the wedding. Apparently, that brother had heard John confess his sins but was not very willing to forgive and forget as he pretended, especially when his sister’s future was at stake. Other members of the Neal family took offence at that brother’s behavior and gave their support to John’s and Eliza's marriage. Indeed, another of Eliza’s brothers, William, housed the newly married couple for a few months until they could establish themselves in a place of their own.

Finally, there came a period when John Murray felt that life was wonderful. He had found the love of his life. Eliza was expecting their first child, a son. He had a good job in the textile business. The bills were paid. He had reestablished himself as a respected member of the community. Little did he suspect that his life was about to be turned upside-down and he would go through a series of trials reminiscent of Job’s sufferings in the Jewish Bible story.

The first trial came as a result of growing differences in belief between John and his religious friends. At that time, John called himself “an independent Baptist, Methodist, Churchman.” (Life of John Murray, p.110) Although John attended meetings at the Tabernacle, he had met Eliza at a Baptist meeting near Good Man's fields, and it appears he and Eliza attended both Baptist and Methodist gatherings.

The theological conflict developed innocently and gradually. One day one of the leaders of the Tabernacle asked John to take a couple of other members to go and visit a young lady who had become interested in the ideas of James Relly. At that time, John had no knowledge of the actual teachings of James Relly. He only knew that he was considered a Universalist heretic of the worst sort, a victim of the Devil. Nor did it occur to John to examine Relly’s ideas before visiting the young lady.

The visit took place and proved most unsuccessful from John's point of view. The young lady spoke to her alarmed guests with the utmost courtesy and patience, giving thoughtful responses to their questions but unmoved by their warnings. John went away believing that she was a lost soul but he could not help but be impressed by her dignified presence.

Another incident related to Relly soon touched John's life. A new church group was started by a Mr. Mason on Connon Street in London and John attended some of its meetings. Mr. Mason wrote a critique of James Relly's small book Union and asked John to read over the critique and share his input. John was honored to do so, even though he had no intention of reading Union. About all that John could say about Mr. Mason’s critique was to urge him to avoid using a pun in a way that seemed to weaken the critique. Mr. Mason took offense at that suggestion and avoided further contact with John.

Soon afterward, John and Eliza happened to be visiting her aunt and came across a coverless book in her aunt’s library. The aunt offered the book to John and he took it home, only to discover it was a copy of Relly’s Union. He and Eliza finally read the notorious book with “fearful apprehension” but found that a whole new explanation of many passages in the Bible was set before them in a rather challenging way, and the new explanation made sense to them. Basically, Mr. Relly suggested that there was really a very positive reason why God allowed his son Jesus to suffer the terrible death on the cross. God was actually taking on Himself the sins of the world so that all the souls of humankind could be redeemed and enter heaven. That did not at all suggest that people should not try to live more righteous lives but it did imply that there was a place somewhere in heaven for everyone at one level or another. Relly went on to offer quotation after quotation from the Bible to prove his point.

John and Eliza sat down together and poured over the Bible passages and prayed for guidance. They were astounded by what seemed to them to be a more truthful view of the Bible than they had heard before. They also decided to go hear James Relly even though they knew that all of their friends would shun them if they found out.

Again, they were pleasantly surprised at how truthful and positive their experience was. Here was a preacher who assumed that every person had inside them a most precious soul, cherished by God, longing to express itself by leading an unselfish religious way of life. As Jesus had gone out of his way to salvage the most troubled and despised of the human population, so the good Christian should do the same. No one should be declared as hopeless. All souls will be saved.

John soon found himself complaining to Eliza about how the preacher they had been used to in the past had changed and was nowhere near as interesting as he used to be. Eliza smiled and pointed out that it was John who had really changed.

The young couple returned again and again to hear Mr. Relly speak, and it did not take long for John to find himself confronted by a committee of his old friends, who demanded that if he insisted on further contact with the heretic, he must at least keep silent about any of those Universalist ideas. John refused to be silenced and was voted out of membership at the Tabernacle.

The loss of friends and business associates soon followed, but those were the least of the trials John had to endure. His son was struck by a fever and died. Soon afterward his precious Eliza caught the same fever and perished. Medical and funeral expenses, as well as the failure of his business, caused him to be arrested and readied for debtor’s prison.

John was so depressed, he longed for death himself. Having been accused of being a social climber in the past, he was too proud to ask for help from any of his relatives. Somehow, Eliza’s brother William found out about John’s plight and insisted on paying off his debts. James Relly tried to counsel John and arrange for new employment for him. John actually wondered why God kept him alive when he had lost all that was precious to him. John longed to go to heaven where he would be at peace. Such a belief in an afterlife was common in those days. John’s father used to rise every morning with the words: “Blessed by God, we are one day nearer our eternal rest.” (Life of John Murray, p. 48)

While visiting the Relly home one day, John encountered another guest who had just returned from a visit to North America. The guest spoke of the vast wilderness where one could easily get lost without a guide. Somehow these were just the words that John was ready to hear. He confided to James Relly that his heart’s desire was to disappear into such a wilderness where he was unknown, as if he had never before existed. Indeed, the next thing Relly knew, John had booked passage to New York on the brig Hand-in-Hand and set sail on July 21, 1770.

Artists’ rendition of the Hand-In-Hand. Photograph by the author of a sketch kept by the Murray Grove Association

As the ship neared New York, another vessel warned them of the embargo against British goods at various American ports like New York and urged them to try Philadelphia. The captain of the Hand-in-Hand changed course and headed for Philadelphia, only to find a very strict embargo there. A group of American merchants joined forces and signed a Non-Importation Agreement in protest of unfair treatment they had received from the English king. The captain was informed that New York was an open port, and he turned the ship around and headed back up along the coast of New Jersey toward New York.

All seemed to be going well, but no sooner had the Hand-in-Hand gotten out to sea than the ship was surrounded by a very dense fog. It was necessary to slow down because no one could see just how far they were from the shore and they feared shipwreck. Suddenly, a smaller boat passed them. The captain of the Hand-in-Hand shouted for directions, but the response was difficult to hear. Rather than “seventy miles” to New York Harbor as he was told, the captain heard “seven miles.” After the ship had sailed seven miles, an inlet appeared, but it was not New York. It was Cranberry Inlet. Before anyone realized the mistake, the Hand-in-Hand ran aground on a sandbar just inside Cranberry Inlet along the coast of New Jersey.

In order to dislodge the big ship from the sandbar, the captain rented a sloop from a local merchant and loaded some of the cargo onto the sloop. He commissioned John Murray to oversee the cargo and commanded him to follow the big ship up to New York as soon as the Hand-in-Hand could be freed. The big ship was set free and began to sail out to sea. The sloop tried to follow, but a strong wind suddenly caught it, blowing it toward shore. John and the sailors under his charge had no alternative but to secure the sloop and go ashore to wait until the wind shifted seaward again. They found a small inn where the sailors sought refreshment while John walked along the shore seeking a place to buy provisions.

John came across a girl cleaning a fish. He offered to buy the fish but the girl urged him to walk further past a meeting house where a farmer would have lots of fish for sale.

Beyond the meeting house stood a sizable farmhouse, in front of which the farmer Thomas Potter was cleaning a basket of fish. John offered to buy some of the fish but Thomas refused the offer. Instead, he gave John whatever fish he wanted and urged him to return after he had given the fish to the sailors. He invited John to have dinner and stay at his house rather than at the inn.

What John did not know was that this humble farmer had had a vision several years beforehand that God would send him a preacher very different from any preacher he had ever known. That preacher would be far more truthful about religion and speak of God as a loving creator who welcomed all people into heaven. Thomas Potter had built the meeting house for that expected preacher to use. Several religious groups in the area asked Thomas to let them use the meeting house. He let them use it but not control it. It had to be a place where people of all faiths would be welcomed. When Thomas saw the Hand-in-Hand run aground out in the bay, he had another vision that his preacher was on that ship.

Artists’ rendition of Thomas Potter viewing the Hand-In-Hand run aground in the bay. Authors’ photograph of print owned by the Murray Grove Association.

When John returned, Thomas greeted him with the words: “Come … my friend, I am glad you have returned. I have longed to see you; I have been expecting you a long time.” (Life of John Murray, p. 125)

Artists’ rendition of the meeting of John Murray and Thomas Potter. Author’s photograph of a print owned by the Murray Grove Association.

John was amazed and dumbfounded by Potter’s generosity and the suggestion that he, a stranger, was expected. When Thomas asked him to preach in the meeting house that Sunday, John stumbled over his response, denying that he was a preacher. Thomas asked if he had ever preached before. John admitted he had.

Gradually the two men’s stories came out. Potter shared how he had had a restless youth, traveling about. When he finally returned home, he found that the girl of his dreams had married someone else. He married her sister and built up a successful five hundred– acre farm and timber business as well as a modest fishing business. God had given him so much that he built the meeting house as a gift to God. He also had a vision that God would one day send him a preacher to use his meeting house, a preacher who believed that God is a force of love who includes all people in His Kingdom of Heaven.

Thomas could not read the Bible himself but had it read to him. His Universalism was probably taught to him by visiting German mystics from among the settlements in Pennsylvania, where many believed in God as a force of love and salvation for all.

By implication, Thomas believed that all people should be welcomed to his meeting house and no one faith group should control it. In essence, he longed for a truthful, loving, inclusive religion without the usual belief that most people were hopelessly evil and would suffer eternally in hell after they died.

John, on the other hand, was fleeing from religion and human society. He hunted for an excuse to avoid Thomas’s request: “The wind. As soon as the wind direction changes, I must set sail for New York, as I promised. I can not wait here until Sunday and preach in your meeting house,” he replied. It was a Friday in late September.

Thomas was utterly convinced that God had sent John to preach. He asked John to take the pulpit that Sunday, September 30, 1770, if the wind did not change. John reluctantly agreed but only on the condition that there was no change in the wind by that Saturday afternoon.

The wind did not change. Thomas sent out word that there would be a service in the meeting house on Sunday and that God had finally sent him the preacher foretold in his vision many years ago.

The curiosity of Thomas Potter's friends and neighbors must have been enormous. Some of them had called the meeting house “Potter's Folly.” Who was this preacher sent by God by a ship stranded on the sandbar? What would he say?

But could anyone have been more confused than John Murray? He believed that God took a personal interest in people; but was this God's plan for him? What would he say? He struggled with his thoughts through a restless night. Finally, he resolved simply to stand before the people and speak whatever thoughts came to him.

The big day arrived. Thomas Potter and his family sat in the single large pew he had built stretched out in front of the modest pulpit. Others sat on a hodgepodge of chairs and benches. The little meeting house was filled.

All smiles, Thomas stood up and introduced John as the preacher he had hoped for and the service began that would change John's life and transform American religion. The words of that famous sermon were not recorded. All we know is that Thomas was still smiling afterwards and utterly convinced that his dream had come true.

Artist’s rendition of John Murray preaching in the Potter Meeting House on September 30, 1770. Author’s photograph of a print owned by the Murray Grove Association.

Following the service, the wind shifted seaward and John set sail for New York, promising to return. Word of the miraculous event spread like wildfire. Invitations to preach in New York were waiting for him when he arrived. Other invitations soon followed from other towns along the coast. People crowded into churches and other meeting places to hear John tell the story of how he had been lifted out of great despair and sent across the sea on the Hand-in-Hand, hoping to escape his troubles in the wilderness of America, only to be stranded on a sandbar where a humble farmer had built a meeting house, waiting several years for God to send him a preacher.

Although John had serious doubts at first about all that Thomas claimed about him, he realized that the events did seem to fit everything he had believed over the years about divine leadership. John’s intelligence and natural modesty limited any tendency to allow people to hail him as a prophet or person with any special mystical powers. He felt his situation was an example of God using an average person to accomplish part of His plan for humankind.

John also doubted that the positive reception from the American public would last very long. He expected public opinion to change and it did. Opposition arose, especially from members of the clergy, and ministers began to close the doors of their churches to him and warn their members to avoid him. Their most common concern was rooted in the idea that if people believed all souls would eventually get to heaven, then people would develop loose morals and even sanction criminal behavior. They accused John of heresy and called him a victim of the Devil.

In 1773, John preached in the synagogue at Newport and amazed the congregation by using scripture passages to prove that God would include all Jews in His kingdom regardless of whether or not they had even heard of Jesus. That further alienated him from many in the Christian community but set the foundation for Universalism to become an inclusive liberal religious movement.

John was not easily frightened. Indeed, he confronted those who opposed him with remarkable courage. He challenged anyone to debate him publicly, Bible in hand. He participated in dozens of debates that drew huge crowds. Those crowds activated his detractors but attracted many new supporters. He was cool-headed and extremely fair and respectful toward those who opposed him.

One summer evening in Boston, an angry mob gathered outside the meeting house where John had been invited to preach, shouting insults at him; some threw stones through the windows. Suddenly a rock weighing more than a pound whizzed through the window behind the pulpit very nearly hitting John in the head. The congregation gasped. An anxious hush descended on the crowd as John calmly stepped down from the pulpit, walked over to the stone, lifted it up over his head, and said, “This argument is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational nor convincing.” (Life of John Murray, p.270) The crowd burst into laughter and then gave John a standing ovation. That moment of courage became one of the most cherished stories among Universalists down through the years.

During the first few years of John's itinerant preaching, John received invitations from church groups to become their resident minister, but he continued to return home to the Potter Farm in Good Luck, New Jersey. The group who finally convinced him to become its minister actually started to study Universalist theology the very year he came to America in 1770. That year, a group of prominent members of First Parish of Gloucester, Massachusetts, began to circulate among themselves a copy of James Relly's Union and meet privately in various homes to discuss its message. Judith Sargent Stephens, the woman who would become John Murray’s second wife, was a member. She was an accomplished author and early advocate for women’s rights. Later she would record his life story as he dictated it to her during the last several years of his life. At that time he struggled with an illness that confined him in their home until his death on September 3, 1815.

Judith Sargent Murray. Painting by Martha Oaks. Photograph, courtesy of The Sargent House Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

By 1774, the Gloucester group had begun to form an independent church, holding weekly lay-led meetings. They got word of a preacher visiting Boston who was accused of being a follower of the heretic James Relly and invited John to visit Gloucester and preach before them. He accepted their invitation. A positive rapport developed between them immediately. He was invited back in December of that year and accepted their call to be their minister. Without realizing it at first, John and the Independent Christian Church of Gloucester were beginning a new American denomination.

During the War for Independence, Generals Varnum and Greene recruited John to serve as a chaplain to the Rhode Island Brigade. Some other chaplains in the Army opposed John's Universalist theology and tried to have him removed from the service. George Washington heard of their action and put a stop to it by formally affirming John’s chaplaincy. Later, when the minister and some members of First Parish of Gloucester falsely accused John of being a foreign sympathizer and not a minister, letters of support from the generals silenced their accusations.

John’s community service projects in Gloucester included gathering contributions to aid more than a thousand starving residents when the British blockaded the town from the sea and fighting successfully in the courts to free the church members from the double expense of supporting “First Parish” and their own independent church.

While John was serving the Gloucester church, he continued traveling and preaching throughout the new United States. He also served the First Universalist Church of Boston for many years. Several clergy of various faith backgrounds began to build congregations of believers in Universalism. The persecution they experienced and the common beliefs they shared drew them together in small groups. John was a key organizer among them, and, on July 21, 1785, several of them gathered for a conference in Oxford, Massachusetts. They decided to call themselves "The Independent Christian Society, commonly called Universalists." (Universalism In America, vol. I, p. 207) The next year, they met in Boston and drafted a compact for the new denomination.

John did travel back to Good Luck, New Jersey, during the summer of 1783 for what was to be his final visit. To his surprise, he found out that his dear friend and inspiration had died in April of 1782. No one had notified him. He found Thomas Potter’s grave beside the meetinghouse. The building had not been in use for over a year. The whole experience was awkward, to say the least. Most of the people living and working at the farm were strangers to him. He agreed to preach that Sunday one more time, but without the smiling face of Thomas giving him loving encouragement, it did not seem the same.

During the service, in tribute to Thomas Potter, John classified his lost friend as an example of “unbounded benevolence,” (Universalism in America, p. 198) and said, "Peace, peace to thy spirit, thou friendly, feeling, faithful man! Thy dust is laid up to rest near the house thou didst build for God, but thy spirit rests with God in the house built by him for thee; and though our dust may not meet again, our spirits will meet and rejoice together in those regions of blessedness where pain can find no entrance..." (Universalism in America, p. 200).

Thomas left the meeting house to John in his will, but on November 7, 1809, one of Thomas’ relatives sold some of the farm property, including the meeting house, to a group of people who in turn designated it for the use of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of New Jersey. Years later the women of the Methodist Conference of New Jersey rebuilt the famous meeting house and it is currently loaned out to Unitarian Universalists attending gatherings in buildings on other parts of the original Potter farm at Murray Grove. It is interesting that the faith group who trained the young John Murray and then removed him from their membership eventually came to own and maintain the place many consider as the birthplace of American Universalism. Perhaps it is fitting that a major symbol of organized Universalism is in Methodist hands because most mainstream Christian groups in America have evolved toward a universalist view during the past two centuries. Gone are the sermons that declare that a large majority of human beings will suffer eternal punishment in Hell after death. Rather, the Christian message has grown to affirm the human worth of all persons and embrace the belief that everyone is salvageable, even hardened criminals. The Potter Meeting House began as an ecumenical center; it continues today in that way and might best be shared with all faith groups. Now, isn’t it time to spread this wonderful story to the larger community?

Potter Meeting House at Good Luck, New Jersey, with Potter’s grave inside the fenced in area. Photograph by author.

References:

Anonymous. Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray, Late Minister of the Reconciliation, and Senior Pastor of the Universalists Congregated in Boston., Written by Himself...To which is added a brief continuation to the closing scene. By a Friend, 2nd ed. Boston: Bowen and Cushing, 1827.

Eddy, Richard, Universalism In America, A History, vol. I. Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1891.

Skinner, Clarence R. and Alfred S. Cole, Hell's Ramparts Fell. Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1941.