Posted on 05/19/2003 8:10:22 PM PDT by webber
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.
"Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us."
"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best."
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.
(signed) G. Washington
The longest-living Founding Father was John Quincy Adams. As such, he was a much sought after speaker for patriotic events. On July 4, 1837, he made a very astute observation. He said:
"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth?"
"That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before?"
Sound 'Christian' to you? Yeah, me too.
;-/
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.
"Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us."
"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best."
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.
(signed) G. Washington
The longest-living Founding Father was John Quincy Adams. As such, he was a much sought after speaker for patriotic events. On July 4, 1837, he made a very astute observation. He said:
"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth?"
"That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before?"
Sound 'Christian' to you? Yeah, me too.
;-/
No I don't. Only you pretend. I said America was founded as a Christian (as opposed to Bhuddist, Muslim, etc.) nation... which it was. Stop lying. Lying makes you a liar, and is the last refuge of one who has lost the debate on facts.
Regarding the quote from Adams, I'll again refer you to a story told by Thomas Jeferson.
During debate over the wording of the Declaration of Independence, a motion was made to add the words "Our Lord Jesus Christ" after the word "Creator". It was defeated.
There is no doubt America offers (well, it used to) an ideal environment for the practice of Christianity. That is well and good.
But it was not ever a Christian theocracy. Why is that a problem?
"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States.." "...Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency" From President George Washington's Inaugural Address, April 30th, 1789, addressed to both Houses of Congress.
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible" President George Washington, September 17th, 1796
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle." President George Washington
"...The Smiles of Heaven can never be expected On a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of Order and Right, which Heaven Itself Ordained." President George Washington
"I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- God Governs in the Affairs of Men, And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, Is it possible that an empire can rise without His aid?" Benjamin Franklin
"Except the Lord build the house, They labor in vain who build it." "I firmly believe this." Benjamin Franklin, 1787, Constitutional Convention
"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles.... This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."Noah Webster
"Whether this [new government] will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation [Proverbs 14:34]. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others." Patrick Henry
"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed." Patrick Henry
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." President Thomas Jefferson
"The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart." President Thomas Jefferson
"Of all systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to be so pure as that of Jesus." Thomas Jefferson, To William Canby, 1813
"We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions ubridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other." John Adams, address to the militia of Massachusetts, 1798.
"I hold the precepts of Jesus as delivered by Himself, to be the most pure, benevolent and sublime which have ever been preached to man..." President Thomas Jefferson
"The highest story of the American Revolution is this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." President John Adams
"Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. And to the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift [James 1:17] we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land." James Madison
"We've staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us . . . to Govern ourselves according to the commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded." President James Madison
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." First Chief Justice of Supreme Court John Jay
"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court
"Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating [removing] Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools." Benjamin Rush
"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God." President John Quincy Adams
"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity." President John Quincy Adams
"a true American Patriot must be a religious man...He who neglects his duty to his maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public" First Lady Abigail Adams
"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests." President Andrew Jackson
If there is anything in my thoughts or style to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity." Daniel Webster
"It is extremely important to our nation , in a political as well as religious view , that all possible authority and influence should be given to the scriptures , for these furnish the best principles of civil liberty , and the most effectual support of republican government. The principles of all genuine liberty , and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by it's authority.The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer...." Noah Webster
"The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social transactions...." Noah Webster
"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws...." Noah Webster
"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice , crime , ambition , injustice , oppression , slavery , and war , proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible...." Noah Webster
"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his apostles , which enjoins humility , piety and benevolence ; which acknowledges in every person a brother , or a sister , and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity , and to this we owe our free constitutions of government...." Noah Webster
"It is the sincere desire of the writer (Noah Webster) that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible , particularly the New Testament or the Christian religion." Noah Webster
"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior (Jesus) of the world is communicated to us through this book. Abraham Lincoln
"Our laws and institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teaching of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that is should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian . . . this is a Christian nation." US Supreme Court, 1892
"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state." President Harry S. Truman.
"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration to ultimate national disaster" General Douglas MacArthur
Liberals, who want to purge Christianity from our history, have floated this as a fact while it is true only in the very limited sense that Jefferson did not believe in the Nicene creed.
Throughout history, many who consider themselves Christian have not subscribed to the creed (which is why it was written in the first place).
Jefferson was what was first called a dissenter and then became the Unitarian church. Unitarianism evolved from the Arian heresy of the 4th century. It is a Christian heresy and those who believe in it are Christian heretics, not believers in Ganesha, Ahura Mazdah or some vague diety. The believe in the God of the Old and New Testament. Jefferson, Franklin, John & Abigail Adams, Millard Filmore, William Channing, Joseph Priestley were all Unitarians "dissenters of one flavor or another.
A few deists were around at the time--Tom Paine and Ethan Allen the most notable. Both were hostile to the Christian faith and did not see that it could be reformed as Jefferson and other Unitarians believed it could.
The word "Christian" appears NOWHERE in either the Declaration or the Constitution. The attempt to insert "Our Lord Jesus Christ" was DEFEATED. The Founders specifically disallowed the Congress from making ANY law with respect to religion, and specifically forbade ANY religious test or affirmation.
The Founders knew very well the evils that arose from mixing government and religion. Europe was full of various flavors of it, and suffered from it mightily.
Which is why they founded a FREE nation, not a theocracy.
And Patrick Henry notwithstanding, the guy who wrote the Declaration was a Deist, not a Christian.
Regards,
jimt
Well....I was thinking more along the idea of how Jefferson thought that such things as the virgin birth, Jesus' miracles, the Resurrection, etc were horse hockey.
Setting up a separate theology department follows the old Renaissance teaching that theology is the queen of the sciences. Try again.
Jefferson certainly didn't think it the "queen of sciences". He didn't allow for a publicly-funded divinity school on the Univ of Virginia because he thought it was a violation of the First Amendment. He was keen, however, on giving the divinity students access to the U of Va campus (and students) because he thought it might "liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason and morality".
--Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 312-314 (1952).
Jefferson urged local governments to make land available specifically for Christian purposes: Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Bishop Carroll on September 3, 1801 (in the Library of Congress, #19966).
While President, Jefferson closed his presidential documents with the phrase, “In the year of our Lord Christ; by the President; Thomas Jefferson." (his presidential act of October 18, 1804)
In 1776, Congress proclaimed a day of fasting for Americans to "confess and bewail our manifold sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance and amendment of life, appease his [God's] righteous displeasure, and through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain his pardon and forgiveness."
In 1776, Congress, concerned over immorality in the Navy, ordered that commanders "to take care, that divine services be performed twice a day on board, and a sermon preached on Sundays."
In 1782, Congress set November 28, 1782, as a day of thanksgiving on which Americans were "to testify their gratitude to God for his goodness"
In 1782, Congress officially sanctioned the publication of the Aitken Bible.
In 1782, Congress directed that the military chaplains appointed by Congress be paid at the rate of a Major in the Continental Army.
In 1785, Congress voted that the central section in new townships be reserved for schools and "the Section immediately adjoining the same to the northward, for the support of religion."
In 1787, Congress voted that 10,000 acres on the Muskingum River in the present state of Ohio "be set apart and the property thereof be vested in the Moravian Brethren . . . or a society of the said Brethren for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity."
In 1777, Congress set December 18th as a day of thanksgiving on which the American people "may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor" and on which they might "join the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance."
One can say this is wrong, that church and state should be separated but one cannot refute history.
Jefferson and Madison attended regular Sunday services in the House of Representatives (services were held there until after the Civil War). Jefferson encouraged Sunday services in executive branch buildings and the Gospel was preached in Supreme Court chambers. These were all Christian services, not "deist" whatever.
Jefferson assured a Christian religious school that it would receive “the patronage of the government” (Letter of Thomas Jefferson to the Nuns of the Order of St. Ursula at New Orleans on May 15, 1804, original in possession of the New Orleans Parish. )
It spite of Christian right attempts to rewrite history to make Jefferson into a Christian, little about his philosophy resembles that of Christianity. Although Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence wrote of the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, there exists nothing in the Declaration about Christianity.
Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term "Nature's God" used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus (see The Jefferson Bible) leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.
Distortions of history occur in the minds of many Christians whenever they see the word "God" embossed in statue or memorial concrete . For example, those who visit the Jefferson Memorial in Washington will read Jefferson's words engraved: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every from of tyranny over the mind of man." When they see the word "God" many Christians see this as "proof" of his Christianity without thinking that 'God' can have many definitions ranging from nature to supernatural. Yet how many of them realize that this passage aimed at attacking the tyranny of the Christian clergy of Philadelphia, or that Jefferson's God was not the personal god of Christianity? Those memorial words came from a letter written to Benjamin Rush in 1800 in response to Rush's warning about the Philadelphia clergy attacking Jefferson (Jefferson was seen as an infidel by his enemies during his election for President). The complete statement reads as follows:
"The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: & enough too in their opinion, & this is the cause of their printing lying pamphlets against me. . ."
Jefferson aimed at laissez-faire liberalism in the name of individual freedom, He felt that any form of government control, not only of religion, but of individual mercantilism consisted of tyranny. He thought that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
If anything can clear of the misconceptions of Jeffersonian history, it can come best from the author himself. Although Jefferson had a complex view of religion, too vast for this article, the following quotes provide a glimpse of how Thomas Jefferson viewed the corruptions of Christianity and religion.
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782.
What is it men cannot be made to believe!
-Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786. (on the British regarding America, but quoted here for its universal appeal.)
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price, Jan. 8, 1789 (Richard Price had written to TJ on Oct. 26. about the harm done by religion and wrote "Would not Society be better without Such religions? Is Atheism less pernicious than Demonism?")
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.
-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814
You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Ezra Stiles Ely, June 25, 1819
As you say of yourslef, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, Aug. 15, 1820
Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind.
-Thomas Jefferson to James Smith, 1822.
I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned)
Bibliography (click on an underlined book title if you'd like to obtain it):
Merrill D. Peterson, ed, Thomas Jefferson Writings, (The Library of America,1984)
O.I.A. Roche, ed, The Jefferson Bible: with the Annotated Commentaries on Religion of Thomas Jefferson, (Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1964)
Dickinson W. Adams, ed, et al, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series (Princeton University Press, 1983)
Lester J. Cappon, ed, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, Vol. 2, (The University of North Carolina Press, 1959)
Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity, (Madison Books, 1987)
Julian P. Boyd, ed, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, (Princeton University Press 1950--)
A.A. Lipscomb, Albert E. Bergh, eds. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903-1904)
No, they did not. They forbade the establishment of a state religion. DPB101 has given you many illustrations.
The Founders knew very well the evils that arose from mixing government and religion.
No, they knew the dangers of establishing a state church.
Which is why they founded a FREE nation, not a theocracy.
To be sure, "FREE" did not mean "libertarian." Are those the only two choices? Free or a theocracy? You present a false dichotomy.
What are the details? What's the context of the letter? What did he mean by "patronage"? Is there a primary source paper trail that answers these questions?
There certainly is regarding the Univ of Virginia, the teaching of religion there & Jefferson's many thoughts on the matter -- and they all show that Jefferson & the Board of Visitors (trustees) felt a publicly-funded divinity school on the campus of the Univ of Virginia would be a violation of the First Amendment.
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