s.
Winchester and Murray. And as all who had embraced universal salvation
believed that the effects of sin and the means of grace extended into a
future life, the terms _Restorationist_ and _Universalist_ were then used
as synonymous; and those who formed that convention adopted the latter as
their distinctive name.

During the first twenty-five years, the members of the Universalist
convention were believers in a future retribution. But, about the year
1818, Hosea Ballou, now of Boston, advanced the doctrine that all
retribution is confined to this world. That sentiment, at first, was
founded upon the old Gnostic notion that all sin originates in the flesh,
and that death frees the soul from all impurity. Subsequently, some of the
advocates for the no-future punishment scheme adopted the doctrine of
materialism, and hence maintained that the soul was mortal; that the whole
man died a temporal death, and that the resurrection was the grand event
which would introduce all men into heavenly felicity.

Those who have since taken to themselves the name of Restorationists,
viewed these innovations as corruptions of the gospel, and raised their
voices against them. But a majority of the convention having espoused
those sentiments, no reformation could be effected. The Restorationists,
believing these errors to be increasing, and finding in the connection
what appeared to them to be a want of engagedness in the cause of true
piety, and in some instances an open opposition to the organization of
churches, and finding that a spirit of levity and bitterness characterized
the public labors of their brethren, and that practices were springing up
totally repugnant to the principles of Congregationalism, resolved to obey
the apostolic injunction, by coming out from among them, and forming an
independent association. Accordingly a convention, consisting of Rev. Paul
Dean, Rev. David Pickering, Rev. Charles Hudson, Rev. Adin Ballou, Rev.
Lyman Maynard, Rev. Nathaniel Wright, Rev. Philemon R. Russell, and Rev.
Seth Chandler, and several laymen, met at Mendon, Massachusetts, August
17, 1831, and formed themselves into a distinct sect, and took the name of
_Universal Restorationists_.

The Restorationists are Congregationalists on the subject of church
government.

The difference between the Restorationists and Universalists relates
principally to the subject of a future retribution. The Universalists
believe that a full and perfect r