Saviour of All Fellowship
December 2000

Dear Friends in Faith,
    We are thankful for this opportunity to keep in touch with others who share with us the conviction that God is indeed the Saviour of all mankind. We have prepared a newsletter for each month this past year. Once again we offer full sets of these to any of our readers, or individual letters.
     There is nothing new about the following except that the thoughts are still relevant after all these years. These are comments from books written in the 18th century by men who saw the truth of universal salvation:
    Concerning Colossians 1:16-20, Sir George Stonehouse wrote in 1761, “. . . if all things are reconciled to God, and if God shall quicken all things, then will no creature be damned to all eternity; but, say our opponents, some creatures will be damned to all eternity, and therefore the terms all things must not be here understood in their extensive signification . . . . They boldly distinguish between the all things created, and the all things to be quickened, that they may not be forced to quit the point of eternal damnation” (Universal Restitution, p.259).
    Regarding this and similar passages, Charles Chauncy wrote in 1784, “But why should these texts be . . . restrained in their sense? What need is there of . . . limiting their meaning? May we not, yea, ought we not, to argue . . . after this manner? `As it was the design of Christ, in coming into the world, to destroy sin, it must certainly be destroyed; and since it is not destroyed in this present state, we may reasonably look for another, when this design of his mediatory manifestation shall be fully accomplished’” (The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations, p.172).
    On this same matter, Elhanan Winchester wrote in 1792, “Those who venture to contradict their Maker, and say that he will contend forever and be always wroth, ought to give as good a reason at least why he will, as he hath given why he will not; and consequently, must prove him not to be the Father of all spirits, and the Creator of all souls” (Universal Restoration, p.92 [1874 reprint]).
    Stonehouse was an Anglican, educated at Oxford where he belonged to a society called “The Holy Club,” along with John and Charles Wesley, George Whitfied and James Hervey; Chauncy was an influential Congregationalist, pastor of the First Church in Boston; and Winchester was an itinerant preacher (originally a Baptist) both in America and England.
    The nice thing about having a web site is that it is accessible to people all over the world. We have been quite pleased by the number of new people who have signed up to receive the Saviour of All Fellowship newsletter due to the web site. This has been quite an undertaking. It takes a lot of work, planning how the site should look (at least it does for me). Then there are time constraints in doing all the work involved in actually implementing what I’ve planned. If you have any ideas concerning the new site please let us know.

In His Grace and Peace,
Dean Hough and Tony Nungesser

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