John Jay and God's Judgment

Following Jefferson, Madison, Mason, et al. The Founding Fathers were emphatic. God judges nations:

"Providence sometimes chastises nations with physical epidemics, and sometimes (by "choosing their delusions") with moral epidemics, and after a while removes them. This encourages hope; for if we have arrived at or near the pessimum of this evil, the melitis cannot be far distant."

--Jay to Judge Peters, March 14th, 1815.