Please note: Not every quote listed on this page is from a confirmed universalist (though most are). Some of these statements were made by those who may have seen by the Spirit and by the Scripture, the great and final gathering of all things back to God. Within those who hold to the restitution of all things, there are varieties of beliefs. At any rate, we think the quotes speak for themselves.
…On the Nature of God’s Judgments
“It is love alone in the holy Deity that will allow no peace to the wicked, nor ever cease its judgments till every sinner is forced to confess that it is good for him that he has been in trouble, and thankfully own that not the wrath but the love of God has plucked out that right eye, cut off that right band, which he ought to have done but would not do for himself and his own salvation.” ——William Law
“It is claimed that it takes the iron out of Christianity because it removes the threat. No longer can the sinner be dangled over the pit of hell. No longer can what Burn’s called the “hangmen’s whip” of the fear of Hell be threateningly cracked over the sinner. But the kind of universalism in which I believe has not simply obliterated hell and said that everything will be all right for everyone; it has stated grimly that, if you will have it so, you can go to Heaven via Hell.” ——William Barclay
“A belief in God’s universal love to all his creatures, and that he will finally restore all those of them that are miserable to happiness, is a polar truth. It leads to truths upon all subjects, more especially upon the subject of government. It establishes the equality of mankind – it abolishes the punishment of death for any crime – and converts jails into houses of repentance and reformation.” ——Benjamin Rush
“It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose, ‘Surely,’ saith he, ‘I had rather a great deal men should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his children as soon as they were born;’ as the poets speak of Saturn. And as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men.” ——Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Essays of Superstition
“The assertion of God’s universal mercy is more powerful to affect the hearts of the most harden’d than the terrifying pictures of the rigorous judgments of God.” ——Pierre Cuppe on universal restoration (Heaven Open to All Men) (1743)
“Let no man take offense at the opening of this mystery as though it brought anything new into religion, for it has nothing new in it; it alters no point of Gospel doctrine, but only sets each article of the old Christian faith upon its true ground. Every number of destroyed sinners must, through the all-working, all-redeeming love of God, which never ceaseth, come at last to know that they had lost and have again such a God of love as this.” ——William Law, Way to Divine Knowledge
“…hell must surely be the terrible experience of being allowed to reap the full harvest of sin and its awful fruits of misery, ruin and torment. Holy Love would so thankfully spare every single soul such an experience, but if there is no other way by which men can be brought to hate and abominate sin and to turn from it willingly and for ever, then they will be permitted to reap that awful harvest. Surely all whom Holy Love permits to pass through that appalling experience will learn at last to turn from evil with utmost horror and loathing, safe for ever after from any future temptation to plunge into it again!” ——Hannah Hurnard
“It is claimed that universalism does away with free will … what is forgotten is that God has eternity to work in. It is not a question of God, as it were, rushing a man into heaven. It is a question of God using an eternity of persuasion and appeal until the hardest heart breaks down and the most stubborn sinner repents.” ——William Barclay
“To believe that anyone goes into the Lake of Fire to bear that punishment again for sin is actually to diminish the work of Calvary and to detract from the perfect atonement of the cross, making it without effect and altogether unnecessary. Hence, we must view the Lake of Fire as being something other than retributive; and our only alternative is that the Lake of Fire is remedial.” ——Charles P. Schmitt, The Unending Triumph of Jesus Christ
“In the New Testament Greek we really find the depth of meaning for this word, reconcile, which is to change thoroughly. There can be no true unification without first a thorough change. Thus, we are not seeking for just a present-time harmony, covering over the past and hoping for the best in the future, but we desire that the Spirit of God, working within, shall bring a thorough change in us, and then we shall be united with our Lord…There must be a change before unification, ‘for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness” and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?ʼ” ——Ray Prinzing
…On Salvation
“It is often remarked by those who oppose the doctrine of universal salvation, that if God is the Savior of all men, then there is no difference between the saint and the sinner, the believer and unbeliever. Those who make this remark, seem to forget, that while God is declared to be the Savior of all men, he is also said to be ESPECIALLY the Savior of the believer. Though it is true, that God is the Savior of all, yet a little more attention would teach you, that all along, in Scripture, there is a salvation held forth as the SPECIAL PROPERTY of the believer, in which the unbeliever can have no part or lot. Though all shall be saved with an everlasting salvation, yet the believer ALONE can enjoy this special salvation.” ——Rev. I. D. Williamson (1840)
“The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not one of salvation. Salvation is given by grace to everyone. Christians are simply those charged by God with a special mission. The meaning of being a Christian is not working at your own little salvation, but changing human history.” ——Jacques Ellul
“Salvation. We can best understand the meaning of salvation from the Jews, to whom the Savior was promised. They held that themselves should have the chief place of happiness in the other world; but the Gentiles that were good men, should likewise have their portion of bliss there too. Now, by Christ the partition-wall is broken down, and the Gentiles that believe in him are admitted to the same place of bliss with the Jews; and why then should not that portion of happiness still remain to them, who do not believe in Christ, so they be morally good? This is a charitable opinion.” ——John Selden (1584–1654), Table Talk
“Some have asked what good does it do to believe that God will save all men. You might as well ask what good it does to believe that God will save some men… Every evangelist believes that it is God’s will to save some men during this present time, or he would not be an evanglist. And if a man does not believe that God will save any men past this present age, what does he expect to be doing in the ages to come? To what end, then, is such a man’s “sonship” ministry? Why strive and labor to be a Son, to set creation free, if what God is accomplishing in redemption during this present age is all there is…If there is no out-working of redemption in the ages to come, no extension, nor expansion of the kingdom of God beyond the formation of the Body of Christ, they why not settle for the fundamentalist’s version of heaven and content ourselves with spending eternity shouting up and down the golden streets, waving palm branches and strumming harps?” ——J. Preston Eby
“I hold the restoration of all souls; because having myself been the chief of sinners, … God, through Jesus Christ, by the efficacy of his holy spirit, … granted me the mercy and the pardon of all my sins, and had plucked me as a brand out of hell, (so that) I could not have a doubt but the whole world would be saved by the same power.” ——George de Benneville
“It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved. Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned.” ——Jacques Ellul
“First, the purpose of God by the first-fruits or first-born, is to save and bless the later-born…This glorious truth, though the very essence of the gospel, which announces salvation to the world through the promised seed of Abraham, is even yet so little seen by many of Abraham’s seed, that not a few of the children of promise speak and act as if Christ and His Body only should be saved, instead of rejoicing that they are also the appointed means of saving others. Even of the elect, few see that they are elect to the birthright, not to be blessed only, but to be a blessing; as first-born with Christ to share in the glory of kingship and priesthood with Him, not only to rule and intercede for their younger and later-born brethren, but to avenge their blood, and to raise up seed to the dead, and in and through Christ, their life and head, to redeem their lost inheritance. Thank God that if the elect know not thier double portion, God knows and keeps it for them, and will in due time, spite of their blindness, fulfill His purpose in and by them. But surely it is a reproach to the heirs, that they know not their Father’s purpose, and that through not knowing it, they bear so imperfect a testimony as to His goodwill to all his fallen creatures.” ——Andrew Jukes, The Restitution of all Things (pp. 30, 33-34)
“As long as there is any hate in us we are not ready for heaven, not as long as we’re shutting the golden doors on anyone else…the heavenly banquet cannot begin until we are all there, and I can greet with love…everybody who has caused me pain, and call out a welcome to them all. The heavenly banquet cannot begin until all those whom I have hurt are ready to welcome me, in all my flawed and contradictory humanness… Belief in hell is lack of faith because it attributes more power to Satan than to God…but it is God who has the last word! God is not going to abandon creation, nor the people up for trial in criminal court, nor the Shiites, nor the communists, or the warmongers, nor the greedy and corrupt people in high places, nor the dope pushers, nor you, nor me. Bitter tears of repentance may be shed before we can join the celebration, but it won’t be complete until we are all there.” ——Madeleine L’Engle
…On the Fatherhood of God
“I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor. 15:24-28). For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God—and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father—He is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again.” ——William Barclay
“Thou, O Father, wilt not be angry with thy child because he thought—and tried to bid others to think just and noble things of thee; though, O Savior, wilt not frown at him because he trusted in the infinitude of thy compassion; and thou, O Holy Spirit, whose image is the soft stealing of the dew and the golden hovering of the dove, wilt know that if he erred it was because he fixed his eyes, not on the glaring and baleful meteors of anathematizing orthodoxy, but on the star of Bethlehem and the clouds that began to shine above the coming of the Lord; and that—if perchance he erred—the light which led astray was light from Heaven.” ——Canon F. W. Farrar (1831–1903)
“The Spirit of the Lord speaks within my soul and says, “Within the breast of every man is the divine image of God (living God), in whose image and likeness he was made, that sin is a perversion and sickness an imposter, and that the grace and power of God through the Holy Ghost delivers man from all bondage and darkness, and man in all his nature rises into union and communion with God and becomes one with Him in the truest sense.” ——John G. Lake, Reality (p 124)
“Give them not hell, but hope and courage. Preach the everlasting love of God.” ——John Murray
“The fact remains—we are God’s offspring, created from a foundation of goodness that has gone wrong. History since the Garden is the gradual story of how God is slowly putting that wrongness right…and will continue to do so.” ——Michael Phillips
“For myself I can say, that if there is a God, and he is such a being as [the Universalist] describes, I can bow before him and give him all my heart. He says God is love, made the world in love, and in perfect wisdom, and well adapted to serve the divine purpose. He then made a family, all of them have sinned, and some of them have fallen very low, but God is determined, according to [the Universalist], to stand by His family, every one of them, let come what will come, till he makes all of them respectable. This standing by His family, as every true Father ought to do, is what I like in [the Universalist]idea of God. But if there is a God, and he has created a family and will at last turn against most of them, and in burning wrath cast them into Hell forever, as [traditional Christianity] describe(s), I should hate him—he is not as good as I am, for I propose to stand by my family and every member of it for as long as I live. It is an insult to ask me to love and worship a God who is guilty of doing what we would detest in an earthly father.” ——Robert Ingersoll
“I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing. [I believe] such is the mercy of God that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and the Son, and the many brethren, rush inside the center of the life-giving fire whose outer circles burn. I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.” ——George MacDonald
“Suppose it were offered to the father of three children to take his choice whether two should be received into heaven and one condemned to Hell, or the whole should be annihilated unto death. What would a parent say? Where is the father who would dare secure the bliss of two children at the cost of the endless misery of one? Which of the family would he select as the victim, whose undying pain should secure his brother’s joy? Is there any one living who would not suffer himself and his children to sink back again into nothingness, rather than purchase heaven at such a price?” ——Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant (p. 55)
“…Nothing can be lost that is not first owned. Just as a parent is compelled by civil law to be responsible for his family and his property, so the Creator—by His own divine law—in compelled to take care of the children He has created. And that means not only caring for the good children, but for the bad ones and lost ones as well. So the word lost came to be for Mrs. Smith, a term of greatest comfort. If a person is a ‘lost sinner’ it only means that he is temporarily separated from the Good Shepherd who owns him. The Shepherd is bound by all duties of ownership to go after all those who are lost until they are found.” ——Catherine Marshall, Beyond Ourselves (pp. 42-43)
“God will seek us — how long? Until he finds us. And when he’s found the last little shriveling rebellious soul and has depopulated hell, then death will be swallowed up in victory, and Christ will turn over all things to the Father that he may be all and in all. Then every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” —— Clarence Jordan (founder of Koinonia Community)
“It is often remarked by those who oppose the doctrine of universal salvation, that if God is the Savior of all men, then there is no difference between the saint and the sinner, the believer and unbeliever. Those who make this remark, seem to forget, that while God is declared to be the Savior of all men, he is also said to be ESPECIALLY the Savior of the believer. Though it is true, that God is the Savior of all, yet a little more attention would teach you, that all along, in Scripture, there is a salvation held forth as the SPECIAL PROPERTY of the believer, in which the unbeliever can have no part or lot. Though all shall be saved with an everlasting salvation, yet the believer ALONE can enjoy this special salvation.” ——Rev. I. D. Williamson (1840)
…Quotes from Others
Although John Wesley is not on record as a universalist, he was greatly influenced by the Moravians, many of whom were universalists. He quoted from Sixteen Discourses (Moravian Literature), the following statement, “By his (Christ’s) name, all can and shall obtain life and salvation.” One of Wesley’s intimate friends, Peter Bohler wrote: “All the damned souls shall yet be brought up out of hell.” (Bohler was made the Bishop of American Moravians, next in rank to Zinzendorf). ——Source: A Cloud of Witnesses, by John Wesley Hanson (p. 54)
The Reformer Martin Luther had hope for all. In his letter to Hanseu Von Rechenberg in 1522, Luther wrote: “God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the future.” Bengel’s book, Gnomon, quotes Luther’s exposition of Hosea as accepting the idea that Christ appeared to souls of some who in the time of Noah had been unbelieving, that they might recognize that their sins were forgiven through His sacrifice.
“… Since 1800 this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment. Its advocates among theologians today must be fewer than ever before…. Among the less conservative, universal salvation, either as hope or as dogma, is now so widely accepted that many theologians assume it virtually without argument.” ——Richard J. Bauckham, lecturer in the history of Christian thought at the University of Manchester
“has in this century quietly become part of the orthodoxy of many Christian thinkers and groups.” ——As noted by, Dr. J. I. Packer on Universalism
D. B. Eller asserts in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology that it is clear that “Universalism, in a variety of forms, continues to have appeal for contemporary faith, in both liberal and conservative circles.”
“We have not an impotent Father, or a disappointed Christ, or a defeated Holy Ghost, as is so commonly preached; but an omnipotent Father, and all-victorious Christ, and an almighty Holy Spirit, able to break the hardest of heart and subdue the stoutest will.” ——Dr. E. W. Bullinger, The Companion Bible
“Love wins all. Believe it.” ——Gary Amirault
“If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury,
but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good.
Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.” ——Hosea Ballou
“Universalism is essentially a battle for the freedom of the common person.” ——Clarence Russell Skinner
“The spirit of Love will be intensified to Godly proportions when reciprocal love exists between the entire human race and each of its individual members. That love must be based upon mutual respect for the differences in color, language and worship, even as we appreciate and accept with gratitude the differences that tend to unite the male and female of all species. We do not find those differences obstacles to love.” ——George de Benneville
“A candle must give itself away.
In the giving, the spending, the spreading, the sending, it finds itself.” ——John Wood
“Dear Friends, stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world so important to you as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before you the loftiest ideals, which has comforted you in sorrow, strengthened you for noble duty, and made the world beautiful for you. Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that you are worthy to be entrusted with this great message and that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost. Go on finding ever new applications of these truths and new enjoyments in their contemplation.” ——Olympia Brown
“Dead fish float with the tide; live ones swim against it.” ——Thomas Whittemore
“Universalism is more than cushioned seats and no hell.” ——Lyman H. Squires
“Universalists believe that all of us are going to end up together in heaven, so we might as well learn how to get along with each other now.” ——Gordon McKeeman
“Our work as Universalists is not simply to sow seeds, but to cultivate harvests.” ——Elbridge Gerry Brooks
“A belief in God’s universal love to all his creatures,
and that he will finally restore all of them that are miserable to happiness,
is a polar truth. . . It establishes the equality of [humanity]. . .”
——Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence
“We need to understand that religion is not a matter of . . . playthings for the Sabbath. . . It needs to be a power for good, finding daily expression in the lives of those who claim to be the children of God. ——Ellsworth C. Reamon
“To be able, in any way, to benefit, interest, or even amuse any of the weary beings that toil their way through this ‘vale of tears,’ whether our efforts are known and appreciated or not;. . . to have it in our power to wipe one tear from the cheek of the despondent, to cast one ray of light upon the haggard features of misery . . . The bare idea of its possibility has guilded the dark images of life with a glow which they never wore before.” ——Julia Kinney Scott
“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” ——Wise words from Simon and Garfunkle.
“If you combine a carnal view to scripture with fear, blind ego, self-righteous pride, a hidden desire for vengeance and spark the religious engine with a pharisaical spirit. You get a determined believer of hell. To suppose that God would bring beings into existence for both His purpose and pleasure who He knew in advance without mercy would be infinite losers by that existence, is to charge him a hypocrite with the utmost malignity. So much for Jesus turning the other cheek.” ——Author Unknown.
“The Victorious Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only Gospel that gives our heavenly Father full glory.” ——Gary Amirault
“You’d have to be a psychopath not to want (universalism) to be true.” ——Robin Parry
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) the Danish father of existentialism, believe in Universal Salvation. He writes: “If others go to hell, then I will go too. But I do not believe that; on the contrary I believe that all will be saved, myself with them – something which arouses my deepest amazement.” ——(Soren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, Vol. 6 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk)
“All will be redeemed in God’s fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones.” ——Madeleine L’Engle, the celebrated author of A Wrinkle in Time