Johann Wilhelm Petersen was a German-Danish theologian, mystic and pastor at the Lutheran Church in Hanover, and later superintendent in Lübeck and Aue. Johann Wilhelm Petersen grew up in Lübeck where he also studied theology. Together with his wife Johanna Eleonora, he developed a mystic and chiliastic form of pietism in which the belief in Universal Restitution came to play a central role.
“What fruit has the doctrine of eternal damnation born up till now? Has it made men more pious? On the contrary, when they have properly considered the cruel, frightful disproportion between the punishments and their own sins, they have begun to believe nothing at all…”
A digitalized version of the original German edition of his Mysterion Apokatastasis Panton can be found on Google Books here: Mystērion Apokatastaseōs Pantōn, Oder Das Geheimniß Der Wiederbringung aller Dinge, Durch Jesum Christum
