Elhanan Winchester (September 30, 1751 – April 18, 1797) was an American theologian who explored numerous theological paths before becoming an advocate for universal restoration. As a result, Winchester is considered among the early leaders of American Universalism.
Early life Elhanan Winchester was born on September 30, 1751, in the small town of Muddy Water Village, later known as Brookline, Massachusetts, located 30 miles southwest of Boston. He was the eldest son of Elhanan Winchester (1719–1810) and his second wife, Sarah Belcher (1729–1760). The senior Winchester, a fourth-generation Massachusetts colonist, was married three times and sired sixteen children.
The elder Winchester was a farmer and shoemaker. He was well-known and held administrative offices in the village. He was a member of the town's Congregationalist First Church, where he occasionally preached, leading him to be called Deacon Winchester.
Later, the evangelical revivalist movement known as the First Great Awakening, led by Anglican cleric Rev. George Whitefield influenced Deacon Winchester. Deacon Winchester opened his home for services to Whitefield's followers, known as New Lights. As the number of followers grew, Deacon Winchester built a new home with a hall to accommodate the growing number of the sect's followers.
Whitefield's revivalist New Lights movement had a lasting influence on the young Winchester. He retained Whitefield's revivalist and evangelical preaching style throughout his ministerial career.
Education Elhanan Winchester had limited formal education. He 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. Winchester had a prodigious memory and great eloquence—skills he used throughout his ministerial career.
Personal life Winchester's personal life was filled with tragedy. When he was eight, his mother died giving birth to his brother Benjamin. Four of his five wives died. Of his eight children, most died at or near childbirth. Only one survived infancy, Reconcile, who lived 17 months and died on September 20, 1773. At his death in 1797, at the age of 45, his only survivor was his fifth wife.
His wives were:
Alice Rogers (1750–1776) of Rowley, Massachusetts, married 1769, died in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1776. Sarah Peck (1738–1777) of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, married 1776, died in Welch Neck, South Carolina, in 1777. Sarah Luke (?–1779) of South Carolina, married 1778, died in Welch Neck, South Carolina, in 1779. Mary Morgan (?–1783) a widow from Philadelphia, married 1781, died in 1783. Maria Knowles (1750–1816) a widow from Philadelphia, married October 18, 1784, survived her husband and died in Virginia.
Theological development Winchester, at the age of 19, married his first wife, Alice Rogers, in the fall of 1769. In that same year, he joined the Brookline New Lights Church and began his ministerial career preaching at the church.
Winchester's ministerial career was fluid. It was not uncommon for him to fully embrace one theological principle only to abandon it, seemingly capriciously, and then embrace a completely contradictory set of theological tenets.
His unsettled theological pursuits were resolved in 1778 when he read The Everlasting Gospel. Written under the pseudonym of Paul Siegvolck, Georg Klein-Nicolai published a German edition in 1705. Winchester credits reading an English edition in 1778 for his acceptance of the universal reconciliation of all souls with their Creator. He remained committed to universal reconciliation until his death in 1797.
Winchester reflected many of the ideas in the Everlasting Gospel in his 1788 work Elhanan Winchester: Dialogues on Universal Restoration. He reasoned that errors in biblical scholarship incorrectly condemned souls to perpetual damnation. In particular, he noted the translation of the Hebrew words adon olam and the Greek word aion did not mean "eternal." The correct translation, he argued, was only a reference to a limited unit of time. Similarly, he argued that sin was finite, not infinite, and therefore could not incur the wrath of endless punishment. Underscoring the value Winchester placed in Klein-Nicolai's Everlasting Gospel, he published another edition in London in 1792.
Early ministerial career
Brookline Congregational Separate Church Winchester's preaching career at the Brookline Separate Church was short-lived when a maid of his father became pregnant and named Elhanan as the father. Only one primary historical account was found of this event in Isaac Backus's History of New England with Particular Attention to the Denomination Called Baptists. However, subsequent actions in Winchester's life appear to support Backus's observation.
Canterbury Free Will Baptist Church (1771) Two years after he began preaching in his father's church, Winchester left Brookline in 1771 and undertook a 60-mile journey to Canterbury, Connecticut. There he visited the Free Will Baptist Church of Elder Ebenezer Lyon.
Established in 1711, the Congregational church in Canterbury was not immune to the influences of the First Great Awakening revivalist movement. In 1745, a separate church of Canterbury was formed on New Light principles and renounced fellowship with the established churches in the Standing Order. Despite its renunciation, the taxation system still compelled the Separates to fund the operation of the Standing Order churches. Under this financial strain and the stress of operating a church outside the community's religious norms, the Separate church floundered.
Winchester's visit coincided with the Baptist minister, Ebenezer Lyon, gathering Separates and others from the Congregational church into a shared community. Lyon offered this community open communion. Allowing all, regardless of baptismal ritual, infant sprinkling or adult immersion, to come to the Lord's Table. Ebenezer Lyon received the young Winchester into this Baptist church and baptized him, via immersion.
Winchester's conversion from a Separate Congregational New Light to a Separate Baptist church was not uncommon. Both Congregational and Baptist Separates, influenced by the First Great Awakening, shared a common desire for a more biblical and simpler form of worship.
Rehoboth Baptist Church (1771–1772) After leaving Connecticut in the spring of 1771, Winchester and his wife settled in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Rehoboth and nearby Swansea had long been centers of Baptist activity.
Winchester was likely drawn to Rehoboth by the presence of established Baptist churches and a religious revival sweeping the area. The Baptist churches in Swansea and Rehoboth had recently added several hundred members. The twenty-year-old Winchester assisted the Rehoboth church's 59-year-old minister, John Hicks. The church ordained Hicks in 1762, but a few years later, the church witnessed a severe drop in membership when many immigrated to Nova Scotia. An effort was now underway to rebuild the church membership.
Hicks began that rebuilding effort in 1771. He baptized 40 people before falling ill. Winchester stepped in, baptizing 20 more people. With renewed membership, Ebenezer Lyon traveled from Canterbury and ordained Winchester on September 4, 1771.
A noted Congregational minister and later president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, recorded Winchester's ordination in his September 19–20 diary entry. The entry also revealed the disdain that orthodox Congregational ministers had for the Separate Baptists. The term "separate" was frequently applied to both Congregational and Baptist churches denoting them as not adhering to the dogma of either the Congregational Standing Order or within an established Baptist association. Stiles wrote (text corrected to modern English), "A New Light Baptist Elder from about Pomfret (near Canterbury) was the only Elder present & performed the Ordination in a boisterous if not blasphemous manner." Stiles continued, "These New Lights Baptist Teachers go about ordaining many that are by no means fit for the sacred Office, some that are fitter for Confinement in a Madhouse a few months, then for the pulpit."
Winchester, now the minister of the Rehoboth church, adopted Lyon's open communion policy, also known as mixed communion.
It is unknown if Winchester was fully aware of the controversy the open communion policy engendered among Baptists. Infant baptism had been a tradition that signified the inclusion of an infant into a church community. Once included, the infant would be nurtured into the faith. The First Great Awakening questioned the validity of passive infant baptism. The revivalist fervor demanded that an intentional new birth event was necessary to enter the faith. This regeneration was expressed by a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ. This emphasis on a new birth experience led many Baptists to abandon passive infant baptism and adopt an intentional baptism, also known as believer baptism, through immersion as the only acceptable form.
Winchester's open communion policy was short-lived. A 1772 church council questioning this communion policy split the church between those favoring open and those favoring closed communion. The closed communion adherents organized a new church selecting Jacob Hicks, the eldest son of the former pastor, as their minister. The open communion members stayed with the established church and continued with Winchester as their minister.
Another crisis over Winchester's communion policy erupted eight months later. After senior Baptist ministers approached the young Winchester and discussed his communion policy, he changed his position. Winchester abandoned open communion and declared a church policy of closed communion. Church members claiming Winchester had broken his covenant with them removed his preaching privileges. Winchester defended his reversal by calling another council of Baptist churches. That council rebuked him and advised him to confess his imprudence. He was encouraged to seek membership in another church. The church in Bellingham Massachusetts received Winchester into their membership.
Bellingham (1772–1776) The Bellingham First Baptist Church, organized in 1750, had called Elder Noah Alden as its second minister in 1766. Elder Alden described the church's Calvinist doctrine as "holding the Doctrine of Original sin, Universal Depravity, Absolute, Eternal, Unconditional, Personal Election."
Just 21 years old and shaken by the outcome of his first ministerial experience, Winchester appeared susceptible to the Calvinist rigors of the Bellingham church. He renounced his Arminian sentiments and embraced sterner views consistent with [hyper-Calvinism]. Years later, Winchester reflecting on this time, described himself as "one of the most thorough Calvinists upon the Continent."
Winchester remained a member of the Bellingham church until March 1776, when the church released him from their membership roll so he could join the Welch Neck Pee Dee River Baptist Church in South Carolina.
Grafton and elsewhere (1772–1774) Most likely, at the urging of Elder Alden, Winchester moved to the nearby town of Grafton. Elder Noah Alden had been involved in organizing the Grafton church in 1767. Winchester preached at Grafton but did not serve as its minister. He spent the next two years preaching in the neighboring towns of Northridge and Upton. He even spent some time preaching in Hull, located on a peninsular point in Boston Harbor.
Welch Neck (1775–1779)