
By: Tom Hart
To: Robert Berndt
Re: Founding Father Beliefs

Regarding : Founding Father Beliefs
Reply Requested? Yes, Please Reply...
     The Rev. Bird Wilson, D.D., author of the "Memoir of Bishop
White," says:

          "Though the General attended the churches in which Dr.
     White officiated, whenever he was in Philadelphia during the
     Revolutionary war, and afterwards while President of the
     United States, he never was a communicant in them" (Memoir of
     Bishop White, p. 188).

          "Gen. Washington never received the communion in the
     churches of which I am the parochial minister." -- Bishop
     White.

          "On sacramental Sundays, Gen. Washington, immediately
     after the desk and pulpit services, went out with the
     greater part of the Congregation." -- Rev. Dr. Abercromble.

     "After that, [Dr. Abercrombie's reproof,] upon communion
days, he absented himself altogether from the church." -- Rev.
Dr. Wilson.

          "The General was accustomed, on communion Sundays, to
     leave the church with her [Nelly Custis], sending the
     carriage back for Mrs. Washington. " -- Rev. Dr. Beverly
     Tucker.

          "He never was a communicant in them [Dr. White's
     churches]." -- Rev. Dr. Bird Wilson.

          "I find no one who ever communed with him." -- Rev.
     William Jackson.

          "The President was not a communicant." -- Rev. E.D.
     Neill.

          "This [his ceasing to commune] may be admitted and
     regretted." -- Rev. Jared Sparks.

          "There is no reliable evidence that he ever took
     communion." -- Gen. A.W. Greely.

          "There is nothing to show that he was ever a member of
     the church." -- St. Louis Globe.

          "I have never been a communicant." -- Washington,
     quoted by Dr. Abercrombie.


     In a letter to Rev. B.C.C. Parker of Massachusetts, dated
Nov. 28, 1832, in answer to some inquiries respecting
Washington's religion, Bishop White says:

     "His behavior [in church] was always serious and attentive,
but as your letter seems to intend an inquiry on the point of
kneeling during the service, I owe it to the truth to declare
that I never saw him in the said attitude. ... Although I was
often in company with this great man, and had the honor of dining
often at his table, I never heard anything from him which could
manifest his opinions on the subject of religion. ... Within a
few days of his leaving the presidential chair, our vestry waited
on him with an address prepared and delivered by me. In his
answer he was pleased to express himself gratified by what he had
heard from our pulpit; but there was nothing that committed him
relatively to religious theory" ("Memoir of Bishop White," pp.
189-191; Sparks' "Life of Washington," Vol. ii., p. 359).


          "When the war was over and the victory over our enemies
     won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace
     were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was
     neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely
     voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published
     by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show
     that the question was gravely debated whether God should be
     in the Constitution or not, and, after a solemn debate he
     was deliberately voted out of it. ... There is not only in
     the theory of our government no recognition of God's laws
     and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its
     administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those
     who have been called to administer the government have not
     been men making any public profession of Christianity. ...
     Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by
     the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a
     professing Christian."

     Dr. Wilson's sermon was published in the Albany Daily
Advertiser in 1831

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