#188 – About Dr. Joseph Priestly, Thomas Whittimore writes in THE MODERN HISTORY OF UNIVERSALISM
“He believed that God’s punishment will not be administered with the slightest tincture of revenge, but as a necessary means of qualifying the sinner for a better state of existence, which his present propensities disqualify him from enjoying. It is not the effect of anger in an irritated and avenging tyrant as the abominable tenets of orthodoxy would induce us to think of the Deity, but it is the medicine administered for our good by the Physician of our souls. Nor have we any reason to believe that it is greater in degree, or longer in duration than is necessary to produce the beneficial effect for which it is inflicted.”
It was a constant source of great consolation to him, that all thing exist and move on harmoniously to produce universal good by Divine appointment and direction.”