“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we
have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that
their liberties are a gift from God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.” --Thomas
Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1794
“One of the amendments to the Constitution... expressly
declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press,' thereby guarding in the same sentence and under the
same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press; insomuch that
whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others.”
--Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798.
“We are all created by the same Great Spirit; children of
the same family. Why should we not live then as brothers ought to do?” -- Thomas Jefferson to the Delaware
& Shawanee Nations, February 10, 1802
“He who steadily observes the moral precepts in which all
religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven as to the
dogmas in which they all differ.” --Thomas Jefferson to William Canby, April
12, 1803
“I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished
anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others,
ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any
other.” – Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803
“Among the most inestimable of our blessings, also, is
that... of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to
His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government
and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.”
--Thomas Jefferson to John Thomas et al., 1807
“To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but
not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.” --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, September 18, 1813
“It is in our lives, and not from our words, that our
religion must be read.”
--Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Harrison Smith, August 6, 1816
“The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most
inalienable and sacred of all human rights.” --Thomas Jefferson: University of
Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes, 1819
“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.
I adhere to the principles of the first age; and consider all subsequent
innovations as corruptions of his religion, having no foundation in what came
from him. . . . If the freedom of religion, guaranteed to us by law in theory,
can ever rise in practice under the overbearing inquisition of public opinion,
truth will prevail over fanaticism, and the genuine doctrines of Jesus, so long
perverted by his pseudo-priests, will again be restored to their original
purity. This reformation will advance with the other improvements of the human
mind but too late for me to witness it.” --Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks, 4
November 1820
“The genuine and simple religion of Jesus will one day be
restored: such as it was preached and practised by himself.” --Thomas Jefferson
to Van der Kemp, 1820
“But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of
thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial
scaffolding, and restore us to the primitive and genuine doctrines of [Jesus]
this the most venerated reformer of human errors.” --Thomas Jefferson to John
Adams, April 11, 1823
“Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your
neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true.
Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have
entered, be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.” -- Thomas
Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825
No comments:
Post a Comment