The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations
288The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations
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Overview
What did the founders of America think about religion? Until now, there has been no reliable and impartial compendium of the founders' own remarks on religious matters that clearly answers the question. This book fills that gap. A lively collection of quotations on everything from the relationship between church and state to the status of women, it is the most comprehensive and trustworthy resource available on this timely topic.
The book calls to the witness stand all the usual suspects--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams--as well as many lesser known but highly influential luminaries, among them Continental Congress President Elias Boudinot, Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll, and John Dickinson, "the Pennsylvania Farmer." It also gives voice to two founding "mothers," Abigail Adams and Martha Washington.
The founders quoted here ranged from the piously evangelical to the steadfastly unorthodox. Some were such avid students of theology that they were treated as equals by the leading ministers of their day. Others vacillated in their conviction. James Madison's religious beliefs appeared to weaken as he grew older. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, seemed to warm to religion late in life. This compilation lays out the founders' positions on more than seventy topics, including the afterlife, the death of loved ones, divorce, the raising of children, the reliability of biblical texts, and the nature of Islam and Judaism.
Partisans of various stripes have long invoked quotations from the founding fathers to lend credence to their own views on religion and politics. This book, by contrast, is the first of its genre to be grounded in the careful examination of original documents by a professional historian. Conveniently arranged alphabetically by topic, it provides multiple viewpoints and accurate quotations.
Readers of all religious persuasions--or of none--will find this book engrossing.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781400826704 |
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Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
Publication date: | 11/10/2009 |
Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 288 |
File size: | 2 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
The Founders on Religion
A Book of QuotationsChapter One
AddictionFollowing are extracts from letters written by Charles Carroll of Carrollton to his alcoholic son, Charles Carroll, Jr. The younger Carroll, as his anguished father frequently reminded him, had been the beneficiary of everything that wealth and parental affection could provide: financial security, a good education, an impressive home. In addition, Carroll, Jr., married a model wife from an excellent Philadelphia family who presented him with attractive children. But the younger Carroll could not conquer his addiction to alcohol, which wrecked his life. Charles Adams, the second son of John and Abigail Adams, was also an alcoholic who died young and in disgrace.
It will add great comfort to the few years I may have to live to see you persevere in the resolution which you have taken ... If you have not the resolution of perseverance you will degrade your character, shorten a miserable life, and that of an affectionate wife, who to escape the afflicting scene she has daily witnessed and for the sake of her health has been constrained to abandon her home. I earnestly, advise you to call in religion to your aid; never rise or go to bed without humbling yourself infervent prayer before your God, and crave his all powerful grace to overcome your vicious and intemperate habit; meditate on the end of your creation, and the dreadful consequences of not fulfilling it; keep your mind and body usefully occupied ... avoid idle companions addicted to the same failing; which has hitherto overcome all your good resolutions of amendment, and probably theirs. Idleness, says Solomon, is the root of all evil, and St. Paul, that evil communication corrupts good morals. All your endeavours to conquer the dreadful and degrading habit you have contracted, will be of no avail unless you abstain from tasting, even from smelling all ardent spirits.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton to Charles Carroll, Jr., April 27, 1813. Carroll Papers (microfilm), reel 2, Library of Congress.
I entreat you to comply strictly with my advice: refrain entirely from ardent spirits and strong malt liquors, and use wine with great moderation. Without a reformation you can not reasonably expect your wife to love you. I beg you will seriously reflect of an hereafter; religion will afford you the greatest of all consolations, and its powerful influence will aid you to get the better of your dreadful habit.
Ibid., May 25, 1813, reel 2.
I need not urge the necessity of your conquering entirely the fatal habit to which you have been so many years a slave; without a perfect and complete mastery of it, you know you can enjoy no peace of mind no comfort in this life, and the thought of your dying without reformation and repentance of the consequences in the next is most dreadful.
Ibid., June 1, 1815, reel 3.
In writing to you I deem it my duty to call your attention to the shortness of this life, the certainty of death, and of that dread judgment, which we must all undergo, and on the decision of which a happy or miserable eternity depends. The impious said in his heart, there is no God. He would willingly believe there is no God; his passions and the corruption of his heart would feign persuade him that there is not; the stings of conscience betray the emptiness of the delusion: the heavens proclaim the existence of God, and unperverted reason teaches that he must love virtue, and hate vice, and reward the one and punish the other.
Keep in mind, and reflect frequently and seriously on the passage in the Apocalypse: "Audivi Vocem de calo dicentem mihi scriebe Beati mortui qui in Domino moritentur; amodo jam dicit spiritus ut requiescant a laboribus suis; opera enim illorum sequuntureos."
The wise and best of the ancients believed in the immortality of the soul, and the Gospel has established the great truth of a future state of rewards and punishments; a series of prophecies from the expulsion of Adam and Eve out of paradise to within a few hundred years of the coming of Christ announcing that event, and all fulfilled in his person, leave no room to doubt of the truth of Christianity and of the words of Christ; he foretold the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, his resurrection, the conversion of the Gentiles, and the last and general judgment: how can we doubt of the latter, when all the others have been realized? How abject, how degraded, how despicable must the mind of that man be, who wishes to persuade himself, from the dread of punishment in a future state, the inevitable consequence of vice unrepented in this, that he is not of a nature superior to that of his dog and horse, limited like them to a transitory existence, and relinquishing the hope and belief of a glorious immortality, the sure reward of a virtuous life. O! The fatal effect of unbridled and habitual vice, which can pervert and blind the understanding of a person well educated and instructed!
My desire to induce you to reflect on futurity, and by a virtuous life to merit heaven have suggested the above reflections, and warning: despise them not; on the making them the daily subject of your thoughts, they can not fail to impress on your mind the importance of reform and repentance. The approaching festival of Easter, and the merits and mercies of our Redeemer ... have led me into this chain of meditation and reasoning, and have inspired me with the hope of finding mercy before my judge and of being happy in the life to come, a happiness I wish you to participate with me by infusing into your heart a similar hope. Should this letter produce such a change it will comfort me, and impart to you that peace of mind, which the world cannot give, and which I am sure you have long ceased to enjoy.
Ibid., April 12, 1821, reel 3.
[Charles Carroll, Jr., died, April 3, 1825-Ed.]. I presume that he expressed anguish and repentance for the life he led; the course of which both of us have more cause to lament than his end. He has appeared before a judge, the searcher of hearts and most merciful. Let us pray that he has found mercy at that dread tribunal.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton to Mrs. Charles Carroll, Jr., April 12, 1825. Ibid., reel 3.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Founders on Religion by James H. Hutson Copyright © 2005 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
Preface ixFounding Generation Members Quoted in This Volume xxi
A Note on the Texts xxv
The Quotations
Addiction 1
Afterlife 5
Age 12
America 15
American Revolution 17
Animals 19
Atheism 20
Bible: Value of 23
Bible: Accuracy of the Text 26
Bible: Exegesis of 31
Bible: Old Testament 33
Bible: Revision of 36
Calvinism 38
Catholicism 40
Catholicism: Jesuits 44
Chaplains 46
Children 48
Christianity 55
Christianity: Christian Nation 59
Church and State 60
Clergy 66
Communion 70
Conscience: see Liberty of Conscience 70
Consolation 70
Constitution of the United States 76
Creeds 79
Crime and Punishment 82
Death 84
Deism 86
Divorce 87
Ecumenicism 90
Education 94
Episcopalians 96
Faith 99
Fast and Thanksgiving Days 100
God 103
Grief 111
Hell 115
Indians: see Native Americans 116
Islam 116
Jesus 121
Jews 126
Law 132
Liberty of Conscience 134
Marriage 138
Millennium 140
Miracles 141
Missionary and Bible Societies 142
Morality 146
Native Americans 149
New England 154
Oaths 154
Patriotism 156
Paul, the Apostle 157
Persecution 158
Plato 161
The Poor 163
Prayer 163
Presbyterians 171
Proclamations: see Fast and Thanksgiving Days 172
Profanity 172
Prophecy 173
Providence 176
Quakers 183
Reason 186
Religion, Freedom of: see Liberty of Conscience 189
Religion: Propensity of Humans for 189
Religion: Social Utility of 190
Republicanism 194
Rights 196
Sabbath 198
Sin 200
Slavery 206
Trinity 215
Unitarianism 220
Universalism 221
Virgin Mary 223
War 224
Women 230
Suggestions for Further Reading 235
What People are Saying About This
What a superb and very welcome book this is. The quotations chosen by James Hutson are more than just wonderful reading. Transcending time, they are as illuminating and provocative, as wise, heartfelt, and uplifting as when they were written. The book belongs in every library. It should be required reading for everyone who teaches or preaches, for every serious student of religion and the good society, every public servant, indeed for every American who cares about the extraordinary minds and bedrock convictions of those we rightly honor as the founders.
David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer, author of "John Adams" and "Truman"
This is a much needed and thoughtful scholarly edition that will be welcomed by historians and general readers alike.
Frank Lambert, author of "The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America" (Princeton)
The Founders on Religion is a significant contribution because of its fair-mindedness and thorough representation of the spectrum of views on religion among the founders. Hutson includes new figuresand new quotes from familiar ones.
Kenneth P. Minkema, Yale University
A very well researched, attractively organized, historically reliable, often entertaining, and sometimes moving treatment of a set of related subjects that remain important for historical purposes as well as for contemporary public discussion. No other book of quotations from the founders has been so carefully selected and edited.
Mark A. Noll, author of "America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln"
In order to appreciate our values as a nation, it is important to understand how our Founders balanced their faith in divine Providence and their views on the role of government. The best way to do so is to read their own words, and James Hutson makes it possible in this valuable and thoughtful collection.
Walter Isaacson, author of "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"
"What a superb and very welcome book this is. The quotations chosen by James Hutson are more than just wonderful reading. Transcending time, they are as illuminating and provocative, as wise, heartfelt, and uplifting as when they were written. The book belongs in every library. It should be required reading for everyone who teaches or preaches, for every serious student of religion and the good society, every public servant, indeed for every American who cares about the extraordinary minds and bedrock convictions of those we rightly honor as the founders."—David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer, author of John Adams and Truman"In order to appreciate our values as a nation, it is important to understand how our Founders balanced their faith in divine Providence and their views on the role of government. The best way to do so is to read their own words, and James Hutson makes it possible in this valuable and thoughtful collection."—Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"A very well researched, attractively organized, historically reliable, often entertaining, and sometimes moving treatment of a set of related subjects that remain important for historical purposes as well as for contemporary public discussion. No other book of quotations from the founders has been so carefully selected and edited."—Mark A. Noll, author of America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln"This is a much needed and thoughtful scholarly edition that will be welcomed by historians and general readers alike."—Frank Lambert, author of The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America (Princeton)"The Founders on Religion is a significant contribution because of its fair-mindedness and thorough representation of the spectrum of views on religion among the founders. Hutson includes new figures—and new quotes from familiar ones."—Kenneth P. Minkema, Yale University