Biography of Rev. Hosea BallouBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Religion
Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Ballou, Hosea, 1771-1852; Clergy -- United States -- Biography; Universalists -- United States -- Biography
affected a stranger, or one not familiar with him, in quite an
impressive and solemn manner; it seemed so much as though he was
communing with unseen spirits, and a power that was invisible to those
about him or to himself, save through the powers of his mental vision.
It would seem that the little bodily rest which he allowed himself at
this period must have induced physical debility; and yet it did not
appear to do so. In travelling, a large portion of his short journeyings
were made in the evening; sometimes at midnight even, and often before
the break of day, in order to fulfil necessary appointments without
encroaching upon his arrangements at home. When stopping for his horse
to take rest and food, himself much fatigued, he would take his watch
from his pocket, and, laying it upon a table near some place where he
could find a recumbent position, he would carefully mark the time, and
say distinctly to himself, "I will sleep now for just one hour, when I
must awake and go on." Singular as this may seem, he has told us that he
never failed to awake at the expiration of the hour, and, much
refreshed, he would mount his horse and press on to fill some
professional engagement, perhaps twenty or thirty miles from the
stopping-place. At other times, while his horse was eating, he would
deliver a sermon, and, having completed it, would, without stopping for
any physical refreshment for himself, start off once more on his
mission.
"In searching the Scriptures," he says, "to enable myself to preach as
the divine oracles taught, I became satisfied that those who were then
called Universalists had founded their doctrine on wrong principles, as
well as other denominations. The doctrine of man's native depravity, of
original sin, of the deserts of eternal misery, of the vicarious
sufferings of Christ, by which he endured, in man's stead, the divine
penalty of God's law, whereby man could escape the punishment due to his
sins, was believed by those who called themselves Universalists, as well
as by Calvinists: also, the doctrine of the Trinity, holding that Christ
is equal to God, or, in other words, is God, being the second person in
the holy Trinity. All these notions, as it appeared to me, were
essential errors, constituting a mass of confusion. I soon renounced all
these views, and preached only God, and one mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus. All my brethren in the ministry, and all our
friends, stood on the old platform, and I found that I had to contend
with Universalists as well as with partialists. But I went to my work in
earnest, laboring, with all my skill and with all my limited talents, to
convince my brethren in the ministry, and all who heard me preach, that
the doctrines of the Trinity, of depravity, of eternal penalty, etc.,
were neither the doctrines of the Scriptures nor of reason. The
opposition to my sentiments fast gave way among Universalists, though
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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