The Conversion of Benjamin Franklin
Bill Fortenberry
On March 9, 1790, just one month before his death at age 84, Benjamin Franklin penned a letter to Ezra Stiles in which he said that he had some doubts about the deity of Christ. This letter has often been cited as evidence that Franklin rejected Christianity and maintained his skepticism until his death. I was recently confronted with this claim again, and I decided that I would take the time to read Franklin’s writings in chronological order to see if it might be possible to trace out his spiritual journey. As I did so, I was shocked to discover that this iconic figure of the Revolution had documented his own, spiritual revolution in clear detail revealing to all the world his conversion from skeptical deism to a full faith and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Here is a brief synopsis of what I found (Links to original sources are provided at the end of the article):
Benjamin Franklin was raised in a Christian home, but according to his autobiography, he decided to become a deist at the age of fifteen after reading several books on the subject. He soon began to doubt this decision, however, and he wrote that “I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful." Franklin moved to London at the age of seventeen while still a deist, and during that stay, he published a pamphlet with the motto, "Whatever is, is right." It was during this time, that Franklin really began to doubt the truth of deism, and he recorded in his autobiography that he "doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argument." He then said that he "grew convinced that truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life." It was about his conclusions of this time that Franklin wrote, "Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such;" and he concluded that it was "the kind hand of Providence" which preserved him during this "dangerous time of youth."
Franklin returned from London in 1726, and two years later he wrote out his "Articles of Belief." The wording of this document is consistent with the time period after his rejection of deism but before his acceptance of the Bible as revelation from God. This transitional phase appears to have continued through 1731 when Franklin wrote his outline of "Doctrine to be Preached." In the mere ten lines of this outline that have been recovered, there is no reference to Scripture. There is, however, a marked difference between this outline and the "Articles of Belief" which Franklin had written three years prior. In this outline, Franklin completely abandoned his earlier concept of God as merely the God of our solar system with other God's above Him and instead fully embraced a single God whom he identified as the "Father of the Universe." Franklin's "Doctrine to be Preached” described God as "infinitely good, Powerful and wise" as well as "omnipresent." At this time, Franklin also recognized the existence of an afterlife and wrote that men "are made more happy or miserable after this Life according to their Actions."
This brings us to the consideration of Franklin's 1732 article "On the Providence of God in the Government of the World" in which he argued for the intervention of God in the affairs of men. This argument agrees with Franklin's "Doctrine to be Preached" of the previous year in that it was predicated on "the Existence of a Deity and that he is the Creator of the Universe." It also agreed in the claim that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good. The 1732 article, however, introduced several additional concepts which are not seen in the remnants of the earlier outline, though they might have been in the portions which have been lost. In particular, Fanklin's 1732 article included the conclusion "that the Deity sometimes interferes by his particular Providence, and sets aside the Events which would otherwise have been produc’d in the Course of Nature, or by the Free Agency of Men." This conclusion marks the first indication that Franklin recognized God's direct interference in the actions of men, and it is also the first evidence of Franklin's acknowledgement of the free will of man. This article also marks the first record we have of Franklin saying that men should pray to God for "his Favour and Protection." His previous prayer in the "Articles of Belief" was primarily focused on praising God, and the request in that prayer was only for aid in maintaining good virtue. The 1732 article, by contrast, stated that men should pray for God's direct intervention in their lives.
About two years after Franklin's article on the providence of God, a new preacher by the name of Hemphill arrived in Philadelphia, and Franklin wrote in his autobiography that "I became one of his constant hearers." It was shortly after Mr. Hemphill's arrival that Franklin published an article entitled "Self-Denial is not the Essence of Virtue." In that article, we find Franklin denying a doctrine that had been fundamental to his beliefs up to this time. He denied his previous claim that men would be rewarded by God according to their virtues. In this February 18, 1735, article, he wrote that "We do not pretend to merit any thing of God, for he is above our Services; and the Benefits he confers on us, are the Effects of his Goodness and Bounty."
Less than two months later, the Gazette published an article that many attribute to Franklin entitled "Dialogue between Two Presbyterians." If, as is frequently assumed, the character in this dialogue represented by the initial S. conveys Franklin's own opinions, then this dialogue shows that at this point in 1735, Franklin was still struggling with the proper relationship between virtue and belief in regards to salvation. In the dialogue, S. claims that "Morality or Virtue is the End, Faith only a Means to obtain that End." S. also said, "The whole, says he, need not a Physician, but they that are sick; and, I come not to call the Righteous, but Sinners, to Repentance: Does not this imply, that there were good Men, who, without Faith in him, were in a State of Salvation?" We will see in a moment that Franklin quickly resolved this error, but it is important to note that if Franklin actually did use S. to convey his own opinions, then this dialogue marks the first time that Franklin chose to support his theological writings with quotes from Scripture. Nor is this statement the only reference to the Bible in the dialogue. Throughout the course of the discussion, S. directly quoted no less than ten passages of Scripture in support of his position. This is a significant change from Franklin's earlier statement that "Revelation had indeed no weight with me."
There is another even more significant change which should be noted at this point. In the dialogue, S. made the statement, "I suppose you think no Doctrine fit to be preached in a Christian Congregation, but such as Christ and his Apostles used to preach," and a few paragraphs later, he said, "Our Saviour was a Teacher of Morality or Virtue, and they that were deficient and desired to be taught, ought first to believe in him as an able and faithful Teacher." If these are the opinions of Franklin himself, then this dialogue marks the first recorded instance that I know of in which he referred to Jesus as the Savior and as the Christ.
In addition to publishing the "Dialogue between Two Presbyterians," Franklin also published three pamphlets in defense of Hemphill. In those pamphlets, we find Franklin shedding the last vestiges of his previously held deism and fully adopting biblical Christianity. The third of these pamphlets was entitled "A Defense of Mr. Hemphill's Observations," and in it, Franklin declared in no uncertain terms that "Christ by his Death and Sufferings has purchas’d for us those easy Terms and Conditions of our Acceptance with God, propos’d in the Gospel, to wit, Faith and Repentance." Here at last, he had arrived at pure Christian doctrine. He finally understood that there is a God, that sin separates men from Him, that no man is virtuous enough to regain fellowship with God, that the penalty for this failure is death, that Christ paid that penalty for all men through His own death on the cross and that it is only by placing faith in His sacrifice and repenting of our own failures that we can be brought back into favor with God. Here, Franklin speaks not as a mere deist or theist but as a true follower of Jesus Christ.
Now, some may claim that these pamphlets in defense of Hemphill were not intended to convey Franklin's personal beliefs. Ironically, however, many of those same individuals have used misconstrued quotes from these very same pamphlets in support of their claims that Franklin rejected Christianity. Gregg Frazer, for example, wrote the following in his book on the founding fathers:
In his defense of Hemphill, Franklin attacked the orthodox image of God as a righteous judge who must be satisfied as, in the words of one scholar, "repugnant both to reason and to God." On would expect him to oppose the doctrine that followed from that presupposition -- that is, that Christ came to offer an acceptable sacrifice. Indeed, Franklin tried to defend Hemphill against the charge that he denied "the true and proper satisfaction of Christ" by diminishing its significance and by changing the subject.
Frazer's conclusion is clearly contradicted by the above quote from Franklin's pamphlet, but his statement indicates that both sides of the argument accept Franklin's pamphlets in defense of Hemphill as expressions of Franklin's own opinions.
As additional evidence of this conclusion, we could note that Franklin's writings on religion subsequent to his defense of Hemphill were significantly different from his writings before that time. For example, three years after Hemphill's trial, Franklin wrote a letter to his parents in which he briefly mentioned his new religious beliefs. Here is what he said:
My Mother grieves that one of her Sons is an Arian, another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know; the Truth is, I make such Distinctions very little my Study; I think vital Religion has always suffer’d, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue. And the Scripture assures me, that at the last Day, we shall not be examin’d what we thought, but what we did; and our Recommendation will not be that we said Lord, Lord, but that we did Good to our Fellow Creatures. See Matth. 26.
Frazer said of this letter that Franklin here "confessed that his mother 'grieves' over his denial of the Trinity," but this conclusion ignores what we have previously learned about Franklin's beliefs. This letter notes that only one of Mrs. Franklin's sons was an Arian (a group that followed the teachings of Arius who denied the deity of Christ), but the other was an Arminian. Frazer completely ignores this distinction and merely assumes that Benjamin Franklin must be the Arian son. This is a remarkable oversight, for just ten pages earlier in his book, Frazer went to great lengths to prove that Benjamin Franklin was not a Calvinist. And indeed he was not, for we have already seen that he wrote of the free will of man in his 1732 article on the providence of God. Thus, Benjamin Franklin was most likely the son which Mrs. Franklin thought to be an Arminian, and it was his brother who denied the existence of the Trinity. Aside from this, however, the thing to note about this letter is that Franklin responded to his mother's concerns by quoting Scripture. This was never his practice prior to his defense of Hemphill, and it serves to prove that his conversion to Christianity was genuine.
Of course, it could be argued that this letter marks a regression from the bold statement of faith in the Hemphill pamphlets because Franklin here writes that we will be judged based on our actions, but such an objection would be very much mistaken. In fact, that is the very same conclusion that Franklin's sister presented to him in a letter in 1743. Franklin's response to his sister's apprehensions should be sufficient to remove any doubt of his conversion. Here is what he wrote:
You express yourself as if you thought I was against Worshipping of God, and believed Good Works would merit Heaven; which are both Fancies of your own, I think, without Foundation. I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have compos’d and wrote a whole Book of Devotions for my own Use: And I imagine there are few, if any, in the World, so weake as to imagine, that the little Good we can do here, can merit so vast a Reward hereafter. There are some Things in your New England Doctrines and Worship, which I do not agree with, but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your Belief or Practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves. I would only have you make me the same Allowances, and have a better Opinion both of Morality and your Brother. Read the Pages of Mr. Edward’s late Book entitled Some Thoughts concerning the present Revival of Religion in NE. from 367 to 375; and when you judge of others, if you can perceive the Fruit to be good, don’t terrify your self that the Tree may be evil, but be assur’d it is not so; for you know who has said, Men do not gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles.
Here, Franklin provides a direct denial of the claim that he was relying on good works to gain entrance into Heaven, and to further allay the fears of his sister, he directs her to discover his beliefs about morality in the pages of Jonathan Edwards' account of the revival in New England. Within the pages that Franklin listed, is found a remarkable explanation of the proper role of morality in the life of the believer. Even today, Edwards is well known as one of the greatest theologians in the history of America, and the deference to his teachings on morality indicates that Franklin had an appropriately Christian view of that subject. This is even further supported by a letter which Franklin wrote to George Whitefield in 1753 in which he said:
You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration: I can do nothing to deserve such rewards. He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those who think they deserve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixt imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God’s goodness than our merit: how much more such happiness of heaven!
All of this is consistent with the view that Franklin rejected deism and had fully committed himself to Christianity by the time of his defense of Hemphill in 1735. From that point on, there is a decided change in his religious statements. In place of the feeble reasonings of a young deist, we find a solid faith in the work of Christ and a firm reliance on the teachings of the Scriptures. In fact, Franklin was so convinced of the truth of the Bible that he argued in the Constitutional Convention that "We should remember the character which the Scripture requires in rulers." The evidence for Franklin's conversion is far too solid and secure to be shaken by the single admission of a particular doubt in his old age.
UPDATE: Bill has now published a complete collection of Franklin's writings on religion. This new book Franklin on Faith is now available in both eBook and paperback format. Order your copy today from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1506127355
Benjamin Franklin was raised in a Christian home, but according to his autobiography, he decided to become a deist at the age of fifteen after reading several books on the subject. He soon began to doubt this decision, however, and he wrote that “I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful." Franklin moved to London at the age of seventeen while still a deist, and during that stay, he published a pamphlet with the motto, "Whatever is, is right." It was during this time, that Franklin really began to doubt the truth of deism, and he recorded in his autobiography that he "doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argument." He then said that he "grew convinced that truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life." It was about his conclusions of this time that Franklin wrote, "Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such;" and he concluded that it was "the kind hand of Providence" which preserved him during this "dangerous time of youth."
Franklin returned from London in 1726, and two years later he wrote out his "Articles of Belief." The wording of this document is consistent with the time period after his rejection of deism but before his acceptance of the Bible as revelation from God. This transitional phase appears to have continued through 1731 when Franklin wrote his outline of "Doctrine to be Preached." In the mere ten lines of this outline that have been recovered, there is no reference to Scripture. There is, however, a marked difference between this outline and the "Articles of Belief" which Franklin had written three years prior. In this outline, Franklin completely abandoned his earlier concept of God as merely the God of our solar system with other God's above Him and instead fully embraced a single God whom he identified as the "Father of the Universe." Franklin's "Doctrine to be Preached” described God as "infinitely good, Powerful and wise" as well as "omnipresent." At this time, Franklin also recognized the existence of an afterlife and wrote that men "are made more happy or miserable after this Life according to their Actions."
This brings us to the consideration of Franklin's 1732 article "On the Providence of God in the Government of the World" in which he argued for the intervention of God in the affairs of men. This argument agrees with Franklin's "Doctrine to be Preached" of the previous year in that it was predicated on "the Existence of a Deity and that he is the Creator of the Universe." It also agreed in the claim that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good. The 1732 article, however, introduced several additional concepts which are not seen in the remnants of the earlier outline, though they might have been in the portions which have been lost. In particular, Fanklin's 1732 article included the conclusion "that the Deity sometimes interferes by his particular Providence, and sets aside the Events which would otherwise have been produc’d in the Course of Nature, or by the Free Agency of Men." This conclusion marks the first indication that Franklin recognized God's direct interference in the actions of men, and it is also the first evidence of Franklin's acknowledgement of the free will of man. This article also marks the first record we have of Franklin saying that men should pray to God for "his Favour and Protection." His previous prayer in the "Articles of Belief" was primarily focused on praising God, and the request in that prayer was only for aid in maintaining good virtue. The 1732 article, by contrast, stated that men should pray for God's direct intervention in their lives.
About two years after Franklin's article on the providence of God, a new preacher by the name of Hemphill arrived in Philadelphia, and Franklin wrote in his autobiography that "I became one of his constant hearers." It was shortly after Mr. Hemphill's arrival that Franklin published an article entitled "Self-Denial is not the Essence of Virtue." In that article, we find Franklin denying a doctrine that had been fundamental to his beliefs up to this time. He denied his previous claim that men would be rewarded by God according to their virtues. In this February 18, 1735, article, he wrote that "We do not pretend to merit any thing of God, for he is above our Services; and the Benefits he confers on us, are the Effects of his Goodness and Bounty."
Less than two months later, the Gazette published an article that many attribute to Franklin entitled "Dialogue between Two Presbyterians." If, as is frequently assumed, the character in this dialogue represented by the initial S. conveys Franklin's own opinions, then this dialogue shows that at this point in 1735, Franklin was still struggling with the proper relationship between virtue and belief in regards to salvation. In the dialogue, S. claims that "Morality or Virtue is the End, Faith only a Means to obtain that End." S. also said, "The whole, says he, need not a Physician, but they that are sick; and, I come not to call the Righteous, but Sinners, to Repentance: Does not this imply, that there were good Men, who, without Faith in him, were in a State of Salvation?" We will see in a moment that Franklin quickly resolved this error, but it is important to note that if Franklin actually did use S. to convey his own opinions, then this dialogue marks the first time that Franklin chose to support his theological writings with quotes from Scripture. Nor is this statement the only reference to the Bible in the dialogue. Throughout the course of the discussion, S. directly quoted no less than ten passages of Scripture in support of his position. This is a significant change from Franklin's earlier statement that "Revelation had indeed no weight with me."
There is another even more significant change which should be noted at this point. In the dialogue, S. made the statement, "I suppose you think no Doctrine fit to be preached in a Christian Congregation, but such as Christ and his Apostles used to preach," and a few paragraphs later, he said, "Our Saviour was a Teacher of Morality or Virtue, and they that were deficient and desired to be taught, ought first to believe in him as an able and faithful Teacher." If these are the opinions of Franklin himself, then this dialogue marks the first recorded instance that I know of in which he referred to Jesus as the Savior and as the Christ.
In addition to publishing the "Dialogue between Two Presbyterians," Franklin also published three pamphlets in defense of Hemphill. In those pamphlets, we find Franklin shedding the last vestiges of his previously held deism and fully adopting biblical Christianity. The third of these pamphlets was entitled "A Defense of Mr. Hemphill's Observations," and in it, Franklin declared in no uncertain terms that "Christ by his Death and Sufferings has purchas’d for us those easy Terms and Conditions of our Acceptance with God, propos’d in the Gospel, to wit, Faith and Repentance." Here at last, he had arrived at pure Christian doctrine. He finally understood that there is a God, that sin separates men from Him, that no man is virtuous enough to regain fellowship with God, that the penalty for this failure is death, that Christ paid that penalty for all men through His own death on the cross and that it is only by placing faith in His sacrifice and repenting of our own failures that we can be brought back into favor with God. Here, Franklin speaks not as a mere deist or theist but as a true follower of Jesus Christ.
Now, some may claim that these pamphlets in defense of Hemphill were not intended to convey Franklin's personal beliefs. Ironically, however, many of those same individuals have used misconstrued quotes from these very same pamphlets in support of their claims that Franklin rejected Christianity. Gregg Frazer, for example, wrote the following in his book on the founding fathers:
In his defense of Hemphill, Franklin attacked the orthodox image of God as a righteous judge who must be satisfied as, in the words of one scholar, "repugnant both to reason and to God." On would expect him to oppose the doctrine that followed from that presupposition -- that is, that Christ came to offer an acceptable sacrifice. Indeed, Franklin tried to defend Hemphill against the charge that he denied "the true and proper satisfaction of Christ" by diminishing its significance and by changing the subject.
Frazer's conclusion is clearly contradicted by the above quote from Franklin's pamphlet, but his statement indicates that both sides of the argument accept Franklin's pamphlets in defense of Hemphill as expressions of Franklin's own opinions.
As additional evidence of this conclusion, we could note that Franklin's writings on religion subsequent to his defense of Hemphill were significantly different from his writings before that time. For example, three years after Hemphill's trial, Franklin wrote a letter to his parents in which he briefly mentioned his new religious beliefs. Here is what he said:
My Mother grieves that one of her Sons is an Arian, another an Arminian. What an Arminian or an Arian is, I cannot say that I very well know; the Truth is, I make such Distinctions very little my Study; I think vital Religion has always suffer’d, when Orthodoxy is more regarded than Virtue. And the Scripture assures me, that at the last Day, we shall not be examin’d what we thought, but what we did; and our Recommendation will not be that we said Lord, Lord, but that we did Good to our Fellow Creatures. See Matth. 26.
Frazer said of this letter that Franklin here "confessed that his mother 'grieves' over his denial of the Trinity," but this conclusion ignores what we have previously learned about Franklin's beliefs. This letter notes that only one of Mrs. Franklin's sons was an Arian (a group that followed the teachings of Arius who denied the deity of Christ), but the other was an Arminian. Frazer completely ignores this distinction and merely assumes that Benjamin Franklin must be the Arian son. This is a remarkable oversight, for just ten pages earlier in his book, Frazer went to great lengths to prove that Benjamin Franklin was not a Calvinist. And indeed he was not, for we have already seen that he wrote of the free will of man in his 1732 article on the providence of God. Thus, Benjamin Franklin was most likely the son which Mrs. Franklin thought to be an Arminian, and it was his brother who denied the existence of the Trinity. Aside from this, however, the thing to note about this letter is that Franklin responded to his mother's concerns by quoting Scripture. This was never his practice prior to his defense of Hemphill, and it serves to prove that his conversion to Christianity was genuine.
Of course, it could be argued that this letter marks a regression from the bold statement of faith in the Hemphill pamphlets because Franklin here writes that we will be judged based on our actions, but such an objection would be very much mistaken. In fact, that is the very same conclusion that Franklin's sister presented to him in a letter in 1743. Franklin's response to his sister's apprehensions should be sufficient to remove any doubt of his conversion. Here is what he wrote:
You express yourself as if you thought I was against Worshipping of God, and believed Good Works would merit Heaven; which are both Fancies of your own, I think, without Foundation. I am so far from thinking that God is not to be worshipped, that I have compos’d and wrote a whole Book of Devotions for my own Use: And I imagine there are few, if any, in the World, so weake as to imagine, that the little Good we can do here, can merit so vast a Reward hereafter. There are some Things in your New England Doctrines and Worship, which I do not agree with, but I do not therefore condemn them, or desire to shake your Belief or Practice of them. We may dislike things that are nevertheless right in themselves. I would only have you make me the same Allowances, and have a better Opinion both of Morality and your Brother. Read the Pages of Mr. Edward’s late Book entitled Some Thoughts concerning the present Revival of Religion in NE. from 367 to 375; and when you judge of others, if you can perceive the Fruit to be good, don’t terrify your self that the Tree may be evil, but be assur’d it is not so; for you know who has said, Men do not gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles.
Here, Franklin provides a direct denial of the claim that he was relying on good works to gain entrance into Heaven, and to further allay the fears of his sister, he directs her to discover his beliefs about morality in the pages of Jonathan Edwards' account of the revival in New England. Within the pages that Franklin listed, is found a remarkable explanation of the proper role of morality in the life of the believer. Even today, Edwards is well known as one of the greatest theologians in the history of America, and the deference to his teachings on morality indicates that Franklin had an appropriately Christian view of that subject. This is even further supported by a letter which Franklin wrote to George Whitefield in 1753 in which he said:
You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration: I can do nothing to deserve such rewards. He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those who think they deserve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixt imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God’s goodness than our merit: how much more such happiness of heaven!
All of this is consistent with the view that Franklin rejected deism and had fully committed himself to Christianity by the time of his defense of Hemphill in 1735. From that point on, there is a decided change in his religious statements. In place of the feeble reasonings of a young deist, we find a solid faith in the work of Christ and a firm reliance on the teachings of the Scriptures. In fact, Franklin was so convinced of the truth of the Bible that he argued in the Constitutional Convention that "We should remember the character which the Scripture requires in rulers." The evidence for Franklin's conversion is far too solid and secure to be shaken by the single admission of a particular doubt in his old age.
UPDATE: Bill has now published a complete collection of Franklin's writings on religion. This new book Franklin on Faith is now available in both eBook and paperback format. Order your copy today from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1506127355
___________________________________________________
Sources:
Letter to Ezra Stiles:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tpILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA622
Autobiography statement on Deism:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RP05AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA52
Articles of Belief:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XJ1YAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1
Doctrine to be Preached:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PPMWbifv_cAC&pg=PA333
On the Providence of God in the Government of the World:
http://books.google.com/books?id=8vU_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA525
Self-denial is not the Essence of Virtue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=im8UAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA370
Dialogue between Two Presbyterians:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=027a
The Hemphill Pamphlets:
1) Observations on the Proceedings against Mr. Hemphill:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=037a
2) A Letter to a Friend in the Country:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=065a
3) A Defense of Mr. Hemphill’s Observations
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=090a
Letter to His Mother:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=202a
Letter to His Sister:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=384a
Letter to George Whitefield:
http://books.google.com/books?id=KGQFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA74
Statement in the Constitutional Convention:
http://books.google.com/books?id=aycWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1284
Sources:
Letter to Ezra Stiles:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tpILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA622
Autobiography statement on Deism:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RP05AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA52
Articles of Belief:
http://books.google.com/books?id=XJ1YAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1
Doctrine to be Preached:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PPMWbifv_cAC&pg=PA333
On the Providence of God in the Government of the World:
http://books.google.com/books?id=8vU_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA525
Self-denial is not the Essence of Virtue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=im8UAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA370
Dialogue between Two Presbyterians:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=027a
The Hemphill Pamphlets:
1) Observations on the Proceedings against Mr. Hemphill:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=037a
2) A Letter to a Friend in the Country:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=065a
3) A Defense of Mr. Hemphill’s Observations
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=090a
Letter to His Mother:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=202a
Letter to His Sister:
http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=2&page=384a
Letter to George Whitefield:
http://books.google.com/books?id=KGQFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA74
Statement in the Constitutional Convention:
http://books.google.com/books?id=aycWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1284