Editor’s Note: Church & State is pleased to present this collection of historic quotes supporting separation of church and state. The final quote by James R. Willson is proof that even 19th-Century Christian Nationalists recognized the secular nature of the U.S. Constitution and knew that the country was not founded to be an officially “Christian nation.”
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“[W]hen they [the Church] have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself … and made His garden a wilderness as at this day. And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and that all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the world and added to His church or garden.”
– Roger Williams, Baptist and founder of the Rhode Island colony, in “Mr. Cotton’s Letter, Lately Printed, Examined and Answered,” 1644.
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“An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.”
“Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.”
– Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience, 1644.
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” … all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments …”
– Rhode Island Charter, 1663. Rhode Island’s government was the first government to enshrine equal freedom of religion and conscience for all.
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“Religious matters are to be separated from the jurisdiction of the state, not because they are beneath the interests of the state but, quite to the contrary, because they are too high and holy and thus are beyond the competence of the state.”
“God has appointed two kinds of government in the world, which are distinct in their nature, and ought never to be confounded together; one of which is called civil, the other ecclesiastical government.”
– Isaac Backus, New England Baptist minister, in “An Appeal to the Public for Religious Liberty,” 1773.
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“We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
– Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, enacted 1786. Thomas Jefferson was the primary composer of the bill. For many years prior Baptists and other religious dissenters had pressed for the abolishment of Virginia’s theocratic government.
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“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. … [In] the formation of the American [state] governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. … These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
– John Adams, in “Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,” 1787-1788.
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“The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”
– John Leland, Baptist minister, in “The Virginia Chronicle,” 1790.
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“Is conformity of sentiments in matters of religion essential to the happiness of civil government? Not at all. Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear – maintain the principles that he believes – worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse or loss of property for his religious opinions. Instead of discouraging him with proscriptions, fines, confiscation or death, let him be encouraged, as a free man, to bring forth his arguments and maintain his points with all boldness; then if his doctrine is false it will be confuted, and if it is true (though ever so novel) let others credit it. When every man has this liberty what can he wish for more? A liberal man asks for nothing more of government.”
– John Leland in “Right of Conscience Inalienable, and Therefore, Religious Opinions Not Cognizable By The Law,” 1791.
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”
– The religion clauses of the Constitution’s First Amendment, 1791.
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“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
– President Thomas Jefferson, in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, Connecticut.
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“Strongly guarded…is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.”
[T]he number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church and state.”
– James Madison, in an undated essay (probably early 1800s) and an 1819 letter.
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“Never in any form, since the United States became an independent nation, has it acknowledged the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor professed subjection to his law.”
‘The United States are in the dominion of the King of kings, and they ought to have honored Him … [instead] “Atheists, Deists, Jews, Pagans, and profane men, of the most abandoned manners, are as eligible to office by the United States constitution, as men fearing God and hating covetousness.”
“There is no recognition of the law of God in the instrument [U.S. Constitution] which gives the nation its national organization. … how very careful the framers were to avoid every word that might be construed into a declaration of respect to the statutes of Jehovah. … It is certainly true, since Messiah is the Prince of the kings of the earth, that the national constitution is sinful in refusing this allegiance” [“to either Messiah the King, or the Christian religion”].
“‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.’ Amendments, Art. I. … Whatever has any respect of religion, or tends to give it stability, is prohibited by this article. … which formally proclaims that it will not do any thing to promote the glory of his [God’s] name. … there never existed, previous to this constitution, any national deed like this, since the creation of the world. A nation having no God!”