Daniel Dreisbach on Thomas Jefferson and the First Amendment

Here is historian Daniel Dreisbach's opinion of Thomas Jefferson and separation of church and state. Dreisbach says:

Jefferson firmly believed that the First Amendment, with its metaphoric "wall of separation," prohibited religious establishments by the federal government only.

Does Dreisbach believe the modern notion of establishment is what Jefferson believed? That isn't what TJ believed nor is it what he practiced. Jefferson used the historical definition of establishment used by the other framers that was defined by the Toleration Act of 1689, although the definition was common knowledge years before that. Modern liberals and conservatives are still getting TJ's separation letter to the Danbury Baptists confused. While TJ was President, there were worship services in many government buildings, including the House of Representatives. His letter to the Baptists was to protect the church from the state, not the state from the church. Here is the ultimate violation of modern separation dogma found in a government document:

And whereas, The greater part of the said tribe [Kaskaskia Indians] have been baptised and received into the Catholic church to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually for seven years one hundred dollars towards the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for the said tribe the duties of his office and also to instruct as many of their children as possible in the rudiments of literature. And the United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe in the erection of a church.

Liberals come up with all kinds of excuses for this one, that because they were Indians, we could give them money and they could establish and evangelize whatever faith they wanted, with our money! The fact is, the founding fathers believed the Law of Nature applies to all peoples at all times. Secularists even claim the catholic priest will not evangelize, as if they know what a catholic priest does. Warren Throckmorton is another fake Christian, who promotes homosexual sin in his writing and distorts the truth of the Kaskaskia Treaty TJ signed, by writing, "The Kaskaskia were already Catholic converts." Yet the treaty says, "The greater part of the said tribe have been baptised and received into the Catholic church." The point is not that they were all Catholics or not; it's what the treaty says. They weren't all Catholics and it's no different than in our nation, where almost everyone were Christians, so why not promote Christianity?

Liberals want it both ways. Throckmorton's next sentence is just as misleading, writing:

Nothing is said directly about evangelizing, and is an inference. Nothing in the treaty required the priest to attempt to make converts.

Does that mean they won't evangelize? Of course they will evangelize. That's what they do. It's another smokescreen. And then he makes a stupid assumption, "He certainly could have involved himself in numerous other pastoral duties to the already converted."

Whether TJ wanted to evangelize the Kaskaskia is irrelevant. The point is TJ violated the first amendment given the fact he didn't believe he violated it. The law of nature applies to everyone:

[A] Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse.

--TJ to James Madison, December 20, 1787.

If Throckmorton is correct, TJ contradicted himself here by interfering with the Kaskaskia's religion:

I presume the views of the society are confined to our own country, for with the religion of other countries, my own forbids intermedling. I had not supposed there was a family in this state not possessing a bible and without having the means to procure one. when, in earlier life I was intimate with every class, I think I never was in a house where that was the case. however, circumstances may have changed, and the society I presume have evidence of the fact. I therefore inclose you chearfully an order on Messrs Gibson and Jefferson for 50.D.

--TJ to Samuel Greenhow, January 31, 1814.

TJ did not feel he could intervene with other nations and their religion because those rights are inerrant in the Law of Nature. James Madison believed the same thing:

[E]very government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights.

--JM. Annals of Congress, June 8, 1789.

The Greatest Influence to Thomas Jefferson

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson claimed Francis Bacon was the greatest man that ever lived. It is ironic TJ put Bacon at the top of a circled Trinity with Locke and Newton beneath him, in view of the fact TJ was a unitarian and Bacon a Trinitarian. Bacon was a devout Anglican, who, it would appear, believed in all the fundamentals of Christianity. His rejection of Aristotle's philosophy for empiricism, and Locke's blank slate theory, for the more correct Original Sin doctrine, by man's erroneous understanding of initial information is refreshing, given Bacon had such an effect on the primary draughtsman of the Declaration of Independence.

The most influential man the world has ever known according to the rationalist Thomas Jefferson, was an Orthodox Christian. How poetic.

Timothy Dwight, And The Moderate Calvinist Battle Against Unitarianism

The theological fight between Orthodox Christians and Unitarians took center stage in mid to late 18th Century America. Moderate, Orthodox Calvinists such as: Timothy Dwight, Abiel Holmes, Ashbel Green, Samuel Langdon, Ezra Stiles, Joseph Bellamy, Jedidiah Morse, Nathan Strong et al., battled unitarians: Jonathan Mayhew, Ebenezer Gay, Charles Chauncy, Simeon Howard, and Samuel West. These leaders in the Church, fought like cats and dogs in various periodicals, and in the pulpits, over the fundamentals of Christianity, and what was literal and allegory. Timothy Dwight was the leader, and promoter of today's Evangelical movement. For the next one-hundred years and beyond, Dwight's Theology was study material in every Protestant college in the world, going through twelve editions. Dwight is the Father of Modern Evangelicalism.

Dwight, and the Evangelicals halted unitarianism, deism, and other forms of Pelagianism to the inner Boston, Massachusetts area:

By the 1830's, evangelicals had successfully contained Unitarianism within the Boston area and the West had become the new battleground for Orthodoxy.

          -Stephen E. Berk, Calvinism Versus Democracy. Anchron Books, 1974, p. 199.

Furthermore, independent periodicals echoed the same point:

Unitarians, who are principally confined to Boston and its vicinity.

-Boston Patriot, May 13, 1815.

That unitarianism was limited to a small area reflects the influence it had on the population. Make no mistake, there were many Unitarians at Harvard, however, "only one man: John Clark of Boston, an overseer of the college disagreed with David Tappan's election as Professor of Divinity in 1793." (Bentley, Diary, III, p. 38). Dwight's battle with the unitarians started in 1783 as the minister in "Greenfield Hill," a congregational church in Fairfield, Connecticut. "Dwight had a genius for recognizing able proteges — among them Lyman Beecher, Nathaniel W. Taylor, and Leonard Bacon, all whom would become major religious leaders and theological innovators in the ante bellum decades." Having graduated from Yale in 1769, Dwight made Yale the "largest institution of higher education in North America." Dwight took over Yale from Evangelical Clergyman Ezra Stiles, the President from (1778-1795) and Pastor of Second Congregational Church in Newport, R. I. from (1755-1777).

Not a few historians label Stiles an innocent bystander in this Puritan battle against pelagianism, which may have been the case publicly, however his diary paints a different picture. If Stiles did not join this quarrel in print, he joined the Orthodox in the pulpit. His diary gives many examples of his opinion of heresy.

May God defeat these insidious Machiavellian hellish designs against his Chh [Church] in New England.

-Diary, Vol I, p. 587.

Stiles had many, less than Orthodox friends, such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Stiles once had dinner in Scotland with Franklin, and David Hume. However, he was an evangelical:

[M]ay I be quickened to greater fidelity..to press home Evangelical Truths..reprehending with all authority, not shuning to declare the whole truth.

-Diary, Oct. 22, 1769. 

His Diary presents short entries of debate that never appear to escalate detailing Christian doctrine:

He [Abraham Redwood] has a peculiar notion about sin--that there is no Imputation of sin from Adam, but God created every man a Sinner..I objected this made G[o]d the Author of Sin.

-Diary, May 9, 1770.

Stiles died in 1795, and Dwight personally led Yale in training men to carry out the fight against heresy. Dwight engineered the Second Great Awakening (1802-1810), aligning Old Calvinists by planning to spread Orthodoxy throughout New England. Among these Calvinists Dwight joined forces with, were Hopkinsians, after Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D. D. pastor of the First Congregational Church at Newport, Rhode Island. Hopkinsians were remnants of the Edwardians, after the great Theologian Jonathan Edwards; the main theologian of the Great Awakening, that spread from New England to Georgia. Towards the end of Edwards' life, he strayed into meta-physical doctrine, attempting to "combine his theory of cause & effect with Newtonian Cosmology." The staunch Calvinist that he was, Edwards did not believe in self-determination; this tended to mis-lead his later followers that God was vengeful, wanting to punish everyone. Rigid discipline, and too much emphasis on human depravity pushed parishoners away. Here is an example of Edwards' thoughts:

No energy is self-generating, so the actions of human will must be determined from outside oneself.

-Edwards, Stephen E. Berk, Calvinism Versus Democracy. Achron Books, 1974.

Contrast Edwards with Dwight and the moderate Calvinists:

God's foreknowledge has not the remotest influence on the agent, or his action.

-Dwight, Theology I.

Dwight used "means" to nurture one's spiritual conversion, through prayer, education, and church attendance. The Old Calvinists meta-physical doctrines stifled evangelism, but Dwight understood they were a vital group, with a large base, that also disliked heterodox doctrine calling itself Christianity. Yet, the Scriptures are simple; for simple people. The Church has long delineated what is literal and what is allegory. Here, in Luke 17: 26-30, Jesus affirms the flood, the story of Abraham, Lot, and the destruction of the cities of the plain:

And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. [italics mine]

Notice, Jesus says, "[A]s it was in the days of Noe." Unitarians and/or rationalists, proclaim they adhere to inerrancy, yet, denial of these obvious literal passages leave no excuse.

Dwight, and the moderates employed Old Calvinists to spread a moderate, almost Arminian form of Calvinism.

 Along with Jedidiah Morse in Massachusetts, the New Divinity combined all Calvinists to defeat the unitarian influence. Morse, with the Hopkinsians, formed Andover Theological Seminary, that survives to this very day. Furthermore, the battle against heresy was not as some would suggest:

Contrary to publicized orthodox opinion, the great majority of Jeffersonians were in fact Trinitarian Protestants.

-Stephen E. Berk, Calvinism Versus Democracy. Anchron Books, 1974, p.150

In my opinion, Dwight and the Modern Calvinists did a dis-service, sometimes viciously attacking the Jeffersonians throughout New England. These attacks by Federalists, no doubt hurt the party, losing the 1800 election to Thomas Jefferson; linked "Jeffersonian leaders with the illuminati" in the Connecticut Courant, Berk, p. 131. Yes, the Jeffersonians attacked the Standing Order of Connecticut Gentry, however, writing these falsehoods didn't help the Federalists. Dwight even advised spurning democratic members of Puritan families. The Connecticut Courant, edited by Dwight's brother, Theodore, had the nerve to ask Jefferson to sign the Apostles Creed.

In New England, Jeffersonians had several papers as well, including The Aurora and American Mercury. Their rhetoric included calling Dwight, "Pope of Connecticut" and a diatribe in the Mercury, attacking the Standing Order of Connecticut:

"...an union of church & state--an union which the experience of all countries has proved to be incompatible with civil & religious liberty."

-American Mercury, Sept. 25, 1800.

It reads like James Madison. If it is him, it's another example of Madison's inconsistency, having fought against Virginia's assessment for Christian teachers, yet, he wrote any State can form whatever religion they like:

If there were a majority of one sect, a bill of rights would be a poor protection for liberty. Happily for the states, they enjoy the utmost freedom of religion...Fortunately for this commonwealth, a majority of the people are decidedly against any exclusive establishment. There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation. I can appeal to my uniform conduct on this subject, that I have warmly supported religious freedom. It is better that this security should be depended upon from the general legislature, than from one particular state. A particular state might concur in one religious project. But the United States abound in such a variety of sects, that it is a strong security against religious persecution; and it is sufficient to authorize a conclusion, that no one sect will ever be able to outnumber or depress the rest. [italics mine]

-James Madison, June 12, 1788. Elliot's Debates In the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Virginia).

Dwight viewed religion (Orthodox Christianity) the basis for liberty, as Puritanism had protected their rights, and provided happiness for nearly two centuries. Dwight was correct; there was no discrimination of any sects, nor a union of church and state. Dwight claimed the Jeffersonians wanted a pluralistic society, that always leads to infidelity:

Requiring citizens to support religion is not only consistent with freedom, but the primary cause of it.

-Woods, History of Andover,  p. 106.

In light of the happiness and liberty religion had brought to New England, the Jeffersonians arrogantly labeled Congregational missionary work as a "Priestly Conspiracy." Berk, p. 163. and "the usual alliance of church & state." Mercury, July 2, 1801; and June 27, 1805.

But Dwight had history on his side.  "To the orthodox mind, religion was the chief agency of social control." Berk, p. 142. In defense of Connecticut's Standing Order, Dwight wrote:

The whole history of the heathen world furnishes not a single reason to believe, that its teachings ever reformed one individual, either among the teachers, or among the disciples.

-Sermons I, On Revelation, p. 103.

Because God demands obedience to governmental authorities, this obedience is the basis for social virtue. To the Federalists, democracy served to destroy social harmony and a disrespect for authority.

At the end of the day, Harvard did not officially became Unitarian until Henry Ware was appointed Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1803, by succeeding David Tappan, who defended historical Puritanism. Unitarianism never even gained ground in outer Massachusetts. Many Politicians, such as, Josiah Bartlett, Benjamin Rush et al., became universalists, yet, never departed from Historical Christian Orthodoxy.

Finally, To The Blogosphere; James Madison's Notes On The Bible Part I

When I first saw these notes (and others James Madison wrote attending college), I felt like a kid in a candy store. I knew they were real, however, did his notes present Christian Orthodoxy, as the Bible explains? I have seen some of these quotes, one in particular, that is never sourced. They make their rounds, posted both by Christian Nation, and secularist hounds, who have no gumption to check its authenticity, thereby bringing attention to themselves, rather than to the substance of the quotes.

Before I present Founding Father James Madison's Notes on the Bible, the biggest question I had after reading them, was, did Madison write anything while forming the nation that blatantly contradicts these words from 1770 to 1775? That answer is a resounding no! But, let's face it, that some of the Founding Fathers changed their views is a fact of history. Along with Madison, Robert Treat Paine, John Marshall, James Kent, and John Adams come to mind. I mention John Adams because he also believed in inerrancy of Scripture until after he helped form the nation:

"The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity, Websters 1828 Dict.] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.

-John Adams to James Warren on August 4, 1778.

A thorough examination of each of their writings, show their fundamental views on religion changed over time. Calling the "Great Spirit" of the Indians the "Father of us all" and Christianity, "The best and purest religion" as Madison did, happened in the 19th century, beyond the time of our founding. Furthermore, Marshall and Kent never departed from inerrancy of the Bible, but Madison's quotes do.

Here are some of Madison's "Notes on Commentary on the Bible" found in The Papers of James Madison, p. 51-59. Vol. I. 16 Mar 1751 - 16 Dec. 1779. Edited by William T. Hutchinson and William M. E. Rachal. 1962, by the University of Chicago Press.

[Th]e Acts

Ch. 20. Grace, it is the free gift of God. Luke. 120 32-v. 32

Ch. 21. Sins, or Faults, committed before conversion should not be related to the prejudice of the late Sinner v. 8

Ch. 22. Carnal Reason, when against the command of God, should be laid by. v. 19

Ch. 23. Conscience[:] it should be inform'd as well as followed. v. 1.
Herod mentioned ib[id].
Sadducees, deny the Resurrection & the existence of Angel or Spirit v. 8

Ch. 26. Unconverted has little reason to expect to convert others by their ministry

Ch. 28. Charity[:] no duty more certainly rewarded in another World; so is it frequently rewarded in this, as was Publius, by the miraculous cure perform'd on his Father for his Charity to Paul. v. 8.

Gospels.

Mat. Ch 1st Pollution[:] Christ did by the power of his Godhead purify our nature from all the pollution of our Ancestors v. 5. &c

Virgin Mary had no other Child (probably) but our Saviour. v. 25

Some Proverbs of Solomon

XX 9 Who can say I have made my Heart clean; I am pure from my sin

In the book of Acts, where the Bereans are mentioned that they searched the scriptures, JM commends their conduct "as a noble example for all succeeding Christians to imitate and follow..."

"Omnisciency--God's foreknowledge doth not compel, but permits to be done." Acts, ch. II. v. 23.
"Christ's divinity appears by St. John, ch. XX. v. 28."
"Resurrection testified and witnessed by the Apostles. Acts, ch. IV. v. 33."

The editor believes these notes, with the exception of the extracts from Proverbs, were quoted from William Burkitt's, Expository Notes, with Practical Observations, on the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, printed in London in 1724. JM most likely wrote these notes while a student at the College of New Jersey.

Of course the above sentiments is what JM and his family believed for generations; foreknowledge, depravity, The Trinity, Grace, etc. encommpassed the Calvinist beliefs of James Madison.

JM's Calvinism is written in: The Federalist Papers of 1787-88, and his Memorial and Remonstrance of 1785, evidenced from "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction.."..It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society."

The Worship of God, (in its Christian context), is not a choice, but a duty, brought on by the conscience.

In part II, I'll discuss JM's later Calvinist writings.

The Calvinist, James Madison

From Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance, and his contribution in the Federalist, he was, at this time, no doubt a Calvinist, adhereing to total depravity. His three main teachers in his education were all Calvinist Clergyman. Does not sin corrupt the whole lump, or only parts of the lump? Yes, man can be good; that is not the issue, rather, man is prone to sin, and requires many checks that Calvinism supplies:

"The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation...Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy. It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits...Because the policy of the Bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of revelation from coming into the Region of it; and countenances by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those who might convey it to them." [bold face mine]
-James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785.
http://www.auok.org/original_intent_2.htm

Madison believed salvation was by grace through faith; a gift, that cannot be earned, not that salvation was by character, as Unitarians, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin believed.

"The genius of republican liberty seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in independence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and that even during this short period the trust should be placed not in a few, but a number of hands...The history of almost all the great councils and consultations held among mankind for reconciling their discordant opinions, assuaging their mutual jealousies, and adjusting their respective interests, is a history of factions, contentions, and disappointments, and may be classed among the most dark and degraded pictures which display the infirmities and depravities of the human character."
-Madison, Federalist #37.

Madison understood what depravity was, and how man acquired it.