Edward Turner

Edward Turner (1776-1853) was an American Universalist minister regarded in his generation as second in influence only to Hosea Ballou. He served congregations in Salem and Charlestown, Massachusetts, and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, helped prepare hymn collections for the Universalist General Convention, and was an early historian of the movement. Once Ballou's close friend and fellow circuit preacher, he became a leader of the Restorationist party, which held that souls undergo a limited period of punishment after death, in opposition to Ballou's view; amid the ensuing controversy he left the denomination and from 1828 served Unitarian congregations, ending his ministry at Fishkill, New York, in 1840.

The successor to the 1808 collection: a fuller body of psalms and hymns for the growing societies, compiled by Hosea Ballou with Edward Turner. It served the denomination's congregations through the 1820s and 30s alongside the Streeters' New Hymn Book, and its contents show Universalist worship consolidating from a movement's protest songs into a settled church's psalmody.

(Note: this summary was automatically generated and may be inaccurate.)