66 Facts About Elhanan Winchester

Elhanan Winchester was an American theologian who explored numerous theological paths before becoming an advocate for universal restoration.

Elhanan Winchester was the eldest son of Elhanan Winchester and his second wife, Sarah Belcher.

Elhanan Winchester was well-known and held administrative offices in the village.

Elhanan Winchester was a member of the town's Congregationalist First Church, where he occasionally preached, leading him to be called Deacon Winchester.

Deacon Elhanan Winchester opened his home for services to Whitefield's followers, known as New Lights.

Elhanan Winchester retained Whitefield's revivalist and evangelical preaching style throughout his ministerial career.

Elhanan Winchester furthered his education primarily by self-study, mastering Latin, French, Greek, and acquiring a foundational command of Hebrew which he used to enhance his biblical scholarship.

Elhanan Winchester credits reading an English edition in 1778 for his acceptance of the universal reconciliation of all souls with their Creator.

Elhanan Winchester remained committed to universal reconciliation until his death in 1797.

Elhanan Winchester reasoned that errors in biblical scholarship incorrectly condemned souls to perpetual damnation.

However, subsequent actions in Elhanan Winchester's life appear to support Backus's observation.

Two years after he began preaching in his father's church, Elhanan Winchester left Brookline in 1771 and undertook a 60-mile journey to Canterbury, Connecticut.

Elhanan Winchester's visit coincided with the Baptist minister, Ebenezer Lyon, gathering Separates and others from the Congregational church into a shared community.

Elhanan Winchester was likely drawn to Rehoboth by the presence of established Baptist churches and a religious revival sweeping the area.

The twenty-year-old Elhanan Winchester assisted the Rehoboth church's 59-year-old minister, John Hicks.

Elhanan Winchester abandoned open communion and declared a church policy of closed communion.

Church members claiming Elhanan Winchester had broken his covenant with them removed his preaching privileges.

Elhanan Winchester defended his reversal by calling another council of Baptist churches.

Elhanan Winchester was encouraged to seek membership in another church.

Just 21 years old and shaken by the outcome of his first ministerial experience, Elhanan Winchester appeared susceptible to the Calvinist rigors of the Bellingham church.

Elhanan Winchester renounced his Arminian sentiments and embraced sterner views consistent with [hyper-Calvinism].

Elhanan Winchester preached at Grafton but did not serve as its minister.

Elhanan Winchester spent the next two years preaching in the neighboring towns of Northridge and Upton.

Elhanan Winchester even spent some time preaching in Hull, located on a peninsular point in Boston Harbor.

Shortly after the death of his third wife in the fall of 1779, Elhanan Winchester departed Welch Neck for an extended trip to New England.

The church elders then scrutinized Elhanan Winchester's newly added members and declared many of them deficient.

Elhanan Winchester's ministry at the First Baptist Church was an instant success.

Elhanan Winchester preached to large crowds at the church and then moved to larger facilities to accommodate the ever-increasing number of people coming to hear him.

In 1778, Elhanan Winchester scanned a borrowed copy of Klein-Nicolai's The Everlasting Gospel.

Not long afterward, Elhanan Winchester again obtained another copy of Klein-Nicolai's book.

The sermon was a clear indication that Elhanan Winchester was no longer willing to suppress his new beliefs.

Elhanan Winchester developed a friendship with George de Benneville.

Reflective of his admiration for de Benneville, Elhanan Winchester translated the French version of de Benneville's manuscript, Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of Dr George de Benneville.

Rush, a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, attended Elhanan Winchester's services, corresponded with Elhanan Winchester during his stay in London, and, when needed, rendered medical attention.

Elhanan Winchester believed that sin required harsh curative torment in the afterlife resulting in the eventual salvation of all souls.

Mr Elhanan Winchester has been impressed that it was his duty to preach the gospel in England.

Elhanan Winchester confessed that he booked his passage to London on a rather impulsive response to an advertisement for a ship soon to sail.

However, Elhanan Winchester's actions appear less impulsive and more calculated when his relationship with English Universalists is understood.

Elhanan Winchester was a prolific writer and dynamic preacher who had connections to America and Winchester.

Elhanan Winchester saw the restitution of all things in a more spiritual sense, unlike Clarke and other local Universalists who viewed their efforts in a political, social justice light.

Elhanan Winchester was familiar with this group, having corresponded with these Universalists.

Elhanan Winchester preached wherever a chapel or church opened its doors.

The increasing number of people coming to hear Elhanan Winchester aroused critics within the Calvinist orthodox community.

Elhanan Winchester preached there until he departed for America in 1794.

Elhanan Winchester's flock was composed of dissenters from mainstream religious orthodoxy.

In that letter Elhanan Winchester was explicit that he fled his London residence due to his wife, Maria Knowles.

Seven months later, Mrs Elhanan Winchester sailed for America and was reunited with her husband.

Elhanan Winchester preached in his hometown of Brookline and other familiar towns such as Roxbury, Grafton, Hull, Canterbury, and Oxford.

Elhanan Winchester temporarily filled the pulpit at Rev John Murray's society.

The gathering of his flock followed a funeral oration that Elhanan Winchester spontaneously preached at the graveside of a total stranger.

Elhanan Winchester was buried in the Old Burying Ground in the rear of the church.

Elhanan Winchester was a prolific author and used his many publications to spread his message and generate income.

Elhanan Winchester's search for spiritual truth and meaning was a journey of constancy and abrupt re-invention.

Elhanan Winchester retained his childhood Calvinist belief in the sovereignty of the Creator.

Elhanan Winchester was a trinitarian, he preached the doctrine of revelation, believed in the divinity of Christ, and substitutionary atonement.

Elhanan Winchester was a pre-millennialist and believed firmly in the judgment of the second coming of Christ.

Elhanan Winchester then joined the Baptists and flirted with Arminianism, only to reject that position.

Elhanan Winchester then immersed himself in hyper-Calvinism, only to disown that position.

Elhanan Winchester then dedicated himself to universal restoration that denied the essence of the Calvinist belief in the salvation of the elect.

Elhanan Winchester believed that universal salvation was not only a restorative force in the spiritual lives of individuals but a harmonizing force within Christianity.

Universal restoration offered a way to harmonize what Elhanan Winchester perceived as the irreconcilable discord generated by Arminian and Calvinist systems.

Elhanan Winchester articulated his middle ground in rhetorical arguments constructed from compound observations, one from each belief system.

Elhanan Winchester then concluded, since God's desires cannot be thwarted, therefore God's will to save all will be achieved.

For Elhanan Winchester, who believed the earth was only 6,000 years old, a purifying fire of 50,000 or more years would be sufficient to prepare a soul for reunion with Christ.

Elhanan Winchester offered that punishment destroys sin, humbles, and subdues the sinner, but it is actually the sacrificial blood of Jesus that saves souls.

Elhanan Winchester's preaching and writing style relied on a volume of scriptural references that were collected like mosaic tiles in a larger artwork.