Some early Universalists, known as Restorationists and led by Paul Dean, believed that after death there is a period of reprobation in Hell preceding salvation.

[5][6] Richard Bauckham in Universalism: a historical survey ascribes this to Platonist influence, and notes that belief in the final restoration of all souls seems to have been not uncommon in the East during the fourth and fifth centuries and was apparently taught by Gregory of Nyssa, though this is disputed by Greek Orthodox scholars.

[8] The first verifiable and undisputed believer in universal salvation is Gerrard Winstanley, author of The Mysterie of God Concerning the Whole Creation, Mankinde (London, 1648).

American Universalism developed from the influence of various Pietist and Anabaptist movements in Europe, including Quakers, Moravians, Methodists, Lutherans, Schwenkfelders, Schwarzenau Brethren, and others.

Adams Streeter (1735–1786), the first minister of Universalist congregations in Oxford and Milford, Massachusetts, original societies of Universalism in New England, came from a Baptist background, ordained in 1774.

[10] Hosea Ballou has been called the "father of American Universalism," along with John Murray, who founded the first Universalist church in America in Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1774.

The first Universalist church in South Carolina (and possibly in America) was the Freedonia Meeting Hall, situated in Newberry County.

[13][full citation needed] Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a convert to Winchester's teaching of universal salvation, but not a member of a Universalist church, was a vigorous foe of slavery, advocated the abolition of the death penalty, advocated for better education for women, supported free public schools, was a pioneer in the study and treatment of mental illness, and insisted that the insane had a right to be treated with respect.

The present church, located at 1810 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington DC, was established in 1930 and its current congregation continues to follow Universalist principles.

The issue resurfaced in the 1850s with the Fugitive Slave Act and other compromises; the Universalists, along with various other denominations, vigorously opposed slavery as immoral.

In New England, Baptists, Universalists, and Quakers provided some of the loudest voices calling for disestablishment of the government sponsored churches of the standing order.

Spiritualism was preached with some regularity from Universalist pulpits in the middle decades of the 19th century and some ministers left the denomination when their Spiritualist leanings became too pronounced for their peers and congregations.