Today is the 240th birthday of Universalist minister Paul Dean.
He is much less well remembered than his Boston colleague and contemporary Hosea Ballou, and when I recently learned that Dean (and his wife) have an unmarked grave in the same cemetery that Ballou has a grand monument with a statue. I’ve started transcribing his only book the 1832 A Course of Lectures in Defence of the Final Restoration and I will release chapters of it on this site, starting today.
But first, a taste. Dean, on why not to believe the orthodox Calvinist position on election:
Lastly, we object to this as a scripture doctrine, because we think it calculated most unreasonably to discourage and drive, even into despair, beyond the reach of hope, the erring, weak minded, and scrupulous, who most of all need to be soothed in affliction, and encouraged to reform, and then to grow in grace daily. — Nor is this all; — on the other hand it has a tendency to countenance the arrogant, and lift up with pride the presuming, and embolden the hardened hypocrite.
And it all rings very true !