"I thank you, Sir, for the copy you were so kind as to send me of the revd. Mr. Bancroft's Unitarian sermons. I have read them with great satisfaction, and always rejoice in efforts to restore us to primitive Christianity, in all the simplicity in which it came from the lips of Jesus. Had it never been sophisticated by the subtleties of Commentators, nor paraphrased into meanings totally foreign to its character, it would at this day have been the religion of the whole civilized world. But the metaphysical abstractions of Athanasius, and the maniac ravings of Calvin, tinctured plentifully with the foggy dreams of Plato, have so loaded it with absurdities and incomprehensibilities, as to drive into infidelity men who had not time, patience, or opportunity to strip it of its meretricious trappings[.]"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Presidents of the United StatesUnitarians from the United StatesFounding Fathers of the United States of AmericaUnited States Secretaries of StatePoliticians from Virginia
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Jefferson
1743 – 1826
US-amerikanischer Politiker und der dritte Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten (1801–1809).
489 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Jefferson →
Related Quotes
"...the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence …"
"It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate…"
"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry."
"The law books abound with similar instances of the care the judges take of the public integrity, Laws, moreover, abri…"
"Widespread poverty and concentrated wealth cannot long endure side by side in a democracy"
"I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one."
"Let the eye of vigilance never be closed."
"Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see."
"The incorporation of a bank and the powers assumed [by legislation doing so] have not, in my opinion, been delegated …"
"It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected."