Hosea Ballou

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title: "Hosea Ballou" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1771-births", "1852-deaths", "writers-from-boston", "clergy-from-boston", "19th-century-american-male-writers", "writers-from-salem,-massachusetts", "writers-from-portsmouth,-new-hampshire", "baptists-from-new-hampshire", "people-from-windsor-county,-vermont", "american-christian-theologians", "clergy-of-the-universalist-church-of-america", "christian-radicals", "18th-century-christian-universalists", "19th-century-christian-universalists", "christian-universalist-theologians", "burials-at-mount-auburn-cemetery", "people-from-richmond,-new-hampshire", "former-baptists"] description: "American Universalist clergyman and theological writer" topic_path: "people/1770s" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosea_Ballou" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American Universalist clergyman and theological writer ::

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Hosea Ballou D.D. (April 30, 1771 – June 7, 1852) was an American Universalist clergyman and theological writer.

Originally a Baptist, he converted to Universalism in 1789. He preached in a number of towns in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. From 1817, he was pastor of the Second Universalist Church of Boston. He wrote a number of influential theological works, as well as hymns, essays and sermons, and edited two Universalist journals. Ballou has been called one of the fathers of American Universalism.

Life and career

Hosea Ballou was born in Richmond, New Hampshire, to a family of Huguenot origin. The family claimed to be of Anglo-Norman heritage. The son of Maturin Ballou, a Baptist minister, Hosea Ballou was self-educated, and devoted himself early on to the ministry. In 1789 he converted to Universalism, and in 1794 became pastor of a congregation in Dana, Massachusetts. This cites: :The biography by Thomas Whittemore (4 vols., Boston, 1854–1855) and that by Oscar F. Safford (Boston, 1889); :and J. C. Adams, Hosea Ballou and the Gospel Renaissance (Boston, 1904). Ballou was also a high-ranking freemason, who attained the position of Junior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire in 1811.

Ballou preached at Barnard, Vermont, and surrounding towns in 1801–1807; at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1807–1815; at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1815–1817; and, as pastor of the Second Universalist Church of Boston, from December 1817 until his death there. He was buried at the Mount Auburn Cemetery.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/2ndUniversalistChurch_SchoolSt_Boston.png" caption="Second Universalist Church, [[School Street]], Boston; built 1817"] ::

He founded and edited The Universalist Magazine (1819–later called The Trumpet), and The Universalist Expositor (1831–later The Universalist Quarterly Review), and wrote about 10,000 sermons as well as many hymns, essays and polemic theological works. He is best known for Notes on the Parables (1804), A Treatise on Atonement (1805) and Examination of the Doctrine of a Future Retribution (1834). These works mark him as the principal American expositor of Universalism.

Ballou married Ruth Washburn; children included Maturin Murray Ballou. He is the grand-uncle of Hosea Ballou II, the first president of Tufts University.

Beliefs

Ballou has been called the "father of American Universalism," along with John Murray, who founded the first Universalist church in America. Ballou, sometimes called an "Ultra Universalist," differed from Murray in that he divested Universalism of every trace of Calvinism, and opposed legalism and trinitarian views. As he wrote, "Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit."

Ballou also preached that those forms of Christianity that emphasized God as wrathful in turn hardened the hearts of their believers:

Hymns

In 1844 Ballou published A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Use of Universalist Societies and Families. None of his hymns is included in the Unitarian hymnal Singing The Living Tradition (1993), but his thoughts appear in Reading #705.

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Universalist Quarterly and General Review, Volumes 11–12, pg. 176

Further reading

• Universalist Magazine. v.9 (Boston: Henry Bowen, Province House Row, 1827)
• M.M. Ballou. Biography of Rev. Hosea Ballou. Boston : A. Tompkins, 1852. Google books
• M.M. Ballou. Life story of Hosea Ballou: for the young. Boston: A. Tompkins, 1854. Illustrations by Billings. Internet Archive
• Oscar F. Safford. Hosea Ballou: a marvellous life-story, 4th ed. Boston: Universalist Pub. House, 1890. Google books
• Bressler, Ann Lee. The Universalist Movement in America, 1770–1880. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

References

1. Sister Mary Monica, M.I.C.M., Tert.. (February 20, 2006). "Hosea Ballou — Son of Richmond — Father of Universalism". Saint Benedict Center, Richmond, New Hampshire.
2. Safford. 1890
3. Ballou, Hosea. (February 22, 2004). "An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution, On the Principles of Morals, Analogy and the Scriptures". Trumpet Office.
4. Ballou, Hosea. (1844). "A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Use of Universalist Societies and Families". BB Mussey.
5. The Unitarian Universalist Association. (1993). "Singing The Living Tradition". Beacon Press.

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