In a letter to Dr. Woods, Jefferson says: "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies." "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."—Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.
Writing to Jefferson on the 5th of May, 1817, John Adams, giving expression to the matured conviction of eighty-two years, says: "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." To this radical declaration Jefferson replied: "If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas in which no two of them agree, then your declaration on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of worlds, if there were no religion in it.'"—Works, vol. iv. p. 301.
Writing to John Adams just before his death Jefferson makes the following declaration of his belief: "I am a Materialist."
"A question has been raised as to Thomas Jefferson's religious views. There need be no question, for he has settled that himself. He was an Infidel, or, as he chose to term it, a Materialist. By his own account he was as heterodox as Colonel Inger-soll, and in some respects even more so."—Chicago Tribune.
Alluding to Jefferson's belief the Rev. Dr. Wilson in his sermon on "The Religion of the Presidents," previously quoted, says: "Whatever difference of opinion there may have been at the time [of his election], it is now rendered certain that he was a Deist.... Since his death, and the publication of Randolph, [Jefferson's Works], there remains not the shadow of doubt of his Infidel principles. If any man thinks there is, let him look at the book itself. I do not recommend the purchase of it to any man, for it is one of the most wicked and dangerous books extant."
"In religion he was a Freethinker; in morals pure and unspotted."—Benson J. Lossing, in his "Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence!'
"Surely, Christians, your cause must be growing desperate, when, to sustain it, you must needs claim for its support so bitter an enemy as Thomas Jefferson—a man who affirmed that he was a Materialist; a man who recognized in your religion only "our particular superstition," a superstition without "one redeeming feature;" a man who divided the Christian world into two classes—"hypocrites and fools;" a man who asserted that your Bible is a book abounding with "vulgar ignorance;" a man who termed your Father, Son, and Holy Ghost a "hocus-pocus phantasm;" a man who denounced your God as "cruel, vindictive, and unjust;" a man who intimated that your Savior was "a man of illegitimate birth;" a man who declared his disciples, including your oracle Paul, to be a "band of dupes and impostors and who characterized your modern priesthood, of all denominations, as cannibal priests" and an "abandoned confederacy" against public happiness."—The Fathers of Our Republic.
Franklin rejected Christianity when a boy and remained a Rationalist to the end of his life.
"Some volumes against deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word I soon became a thorough Deist."—Franklin's Autobiography.
Writing to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, when he was eighty-four, he says: "I have with most of the Dissenters in England, doubts as to his [Christ's] divinity."