Reverend John Murray
John Murray was one of the founders of the Universalist denomination in the United States, a pioneer minister and an inspirational figure.
Some of his accomplishments were:
September 1770: John Murray arrives off the coast of Good Hope, New Jersey, meets Thomas Potter and reluctantly agrees to preach in Potter’s small church; first Universalist sermon given in America on September 30, 1770.
Served as a chaplain in the Rhode Island Brigade in the Continental Army, September-December 1775, during the Siege of Boston; George Washington supported his appointment.
In September 1775 and, perhaps, on March 9, 1776, Murray dined with Washington in his headquarters on Brattle Street in Cambridge MA.
First minister of the first Universalist Church in America, Gloucester, 1779-93.
Known as “Salvation Murray” to distinguish himself from another minister named John Murray who was nicknamed “Damnation Murray.”
Named litigant in Murray vs. Citizens of Gloucester, which established the principle of the separation of church and state, 1783-86.
Participated in the first general Universalist Convention in Oxford, Massachusetts, September 1785.
Helped organize and was a leading participant in the General Convention of Universalists in Philadelphia, May 25-June 8, 1790, which adopted the Articles of Religion, Plan of Church Government and Circular Letter.
This convention passed the first denominational resolution against slavery. It called the practice "inconsistent with the union of the human race in a common Savior" and recommended "gradual abolition."
As the public representative of the Convention, Murray presented the convention's formal address to President George Washington on August 9, 1790.
First minister of the First Universalist Society of Boston, 1793-1809.
Author of Letters and Sketches of Sermons (1812) and co-author of The Life of the Rev. John Murray (1816).
The Reverend John Murray was born in England and was associated with theologians John Wesley and George Whitfield. He became a disciple of the Reverend James Relly, a London clergyman whose writing formed the doctrinal basis for the Universalist denomination. In 1770, after the death of his first wife and their only child, Murray came to America where he took up the life of an itinerant preacher, spreading for the first time on American shores, the doctrine of universal salvation.
In 1774, Epes and Winthrop Sargent, brothers, who both had read Relly's writings, invited Murray to Gloucester to speak. After several visits, Murray settled in Gloucester and preached first in private homes and then, after 1780, in a small building Winthrop Sargent built as a place of worship. During the Revolution, George Washington appointed Reverend Murray as a chaplain in the American army. During the war Murray retired from this position and returned to Gloucester due to poor health.
The Rev. John Murray was brought to Gloucester to preach Universalism by Judith’s father Winthrop. Because Congregationalism (what we know today as Puritanism) was the official state religion, all parishioners were expected to pay pew taxes to the First Parish Church in Gloucester. The Sargents, Stevens’ and others refused to do that, paying their taxes instead to the Universalist church (today’s Independent Christian Church down the street). Eventually this case was tried in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Universalists won, thereby establishing the legal precedent for the separation of church and state. In these excerpts from Letter 613 to her cousin, Mrs. Gardiner, Judith explains that because the Universalists prevailed, all the marriages that John Murray had performed prior to the trial were now deemed to be legal.