George de Benneville (London, July 25, 1703 – Pennsylvania, March 19, 1793) was a physician and Christian Universalist preacher.
Formative years
Born in London on July 25, 1703 to aristocratic Huguenot French parents in the court of Queen Anne, de Benneville served as a sailor during his adolescent years, traveling around the world and began to question his religion and compare it to other world religions. He shed his Huguenot religion, developed his own ideas about Christianity, and became a preacher while still in his teens.
Religious life
De Benneville had a mystical experience and later a near death experience that he described in The Life and Trance of Dr. George De Benneville. These experiences convinced him that Hell was for purification, not punishment, and that, ultimately, all souls would be united with God.
