Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.
—Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775
“Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.
—Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775”
Is that statement supposed to prove Jefferson was a Christian rather than a Deist?
“....But, by the God that made me...”
Spirited: Though a Deist, Jefferson nevertheless understood and acknowledged that he was created by a living Creator rather than being an emergent product of evolution from non-lifebearing chemicals. Jefferson saw himself as a rational person rather than an evolved hominid. In short, Jefferson implicitly embraced “special creation” rather the secular cosmology-—matter is all that exists/ universal evolution.