Religious beliefs of the founding fathers

[Luke2427]

Good Christian folks exist in either of the two theological positions.

I just post this to make this point: If Calvinism is "heresy" or "false doctrine" as so many "non-cals" so often state on here, then our founding fathers were largely a bunch of heretics. Below are the religious views of the signers of the Constitution.

I found this that someone worked out. The religious view identified is consistent with the statement of faith for the particular denomination of which the founder was a member.

New Hampshire

* John Langdon, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* Nicholas Gilman, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
Massachusetts

* Elbridge Gerry, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Rufus King, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Caleb Strong, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* Nathaniel Gorham, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
Connecticut

* Roger Sherman, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* William Johnson, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Oliver Ellsworth, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
New York

* Alexander Hamilton, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* John Lansing, DUTCH REFORMED -- Calvinist
* Robert Yates, DUTCH REFORMED -- Calvinist
New Jersey

* William Patterson, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* William Livingston, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Jonathan Dayton, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* David Brearly, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Churchill Houston, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist

Pennsylvania

* Benjamin Franklin, DEIST
* Robert Morris, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James Wilson, DEIST
* Gouverneur Morris, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Thomas Mifflin, QUAKER
* George Clymer, QUAKER
* Thomas FitzSimmons, ROMAN CATHOLIC
* Jared Ingersoll, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist

Delaware

* John Dickinson, QUAKER
* George Read, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Richard Bassett, METHODIST
* Gunning Beford, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Jacod Broom, LUTHERAN

Maryland

* Luther Martin, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Daniel Carroll, ROMAN CATHOLIC
* John Mercer, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James McHenry, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Daniel Jennifer, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
Virginia

* George Washington, EPISCOPALIAN (Non-Communicant)
* James Madison, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* George Mason, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Edmund Randolph, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James Blair, Jr., EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* James McClung, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* George Wythe, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
North Carolina

* William Davie, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Hugh Williamson, DEIST
* William Blount, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Alexander Martin, PRESBYTERIAN -- Calvinist
* Richard Spaight, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
South Carolina

* John Rutledge, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Charles Pinckney, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Pierce Butler, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* Charles Pinckney, III, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
Georgia

* Abraham Baldwin, CONGREGATIONALIST -- Calvinist
* William Leigh Pierce, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Houstoun, EPISCOPALIAN -- Calvinist
* William Few, METHODIST


This information is consistent with this statement from wikipedia:

Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 49 were Protestants, and two were Roman Catholics (D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons). Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Revolutionary War was won), eight were Presbyterians, seven were Congregationalists, two were Lutherans, two were Dutch Reformed, and two were Methodists.

 

[SolaSaint]

Luke if we would go back and look at most Baptists from 100 years ago we would see the majority being Calvinists. The SBC specifically has abandoned the Doctrines of Grace they once wholeheartedly embraced. Very sad.

 

[Thomas Helwys]

So, Episcopalians are all Calvinists? :laugh: :laugh:

 

[Luke2427]

So, Episcopalians are all Calvinists? :laugh: :laugh:

Why do you laugh??

They certainly were. Have you ever heard of the Thirty-nine Articles?

 

[saturneptune]

A very fascinating list. The only thing that puzzles me is the Calvin-Episcopile connection. Since they were once connected to the Anglican church, and are the closest of the protestant denominations to the RCC, I am surprised that there is that close of a connection between the Episcopalian church and Calvinism.

And yes, I have heard of the 39 articles.

 

[SolaSaint]

So John Shelby Spong is a Calvinist?

 

[Luke2427]

A very fascinating list. The only thing that puzzles me is the Calvin-Episcopile connection. Since they were once connected to the Anglican church, and are the closest of the protestant denominations to the RCC, I am surprised that there is that close of a connection between the Episcopalian church and Calvinism.

And yes, I have heard of the 39 articles.

The shift took place, if i recall, in the middle of the 16th century under the reign of king Edward VI, Henry VIII' son. You'll recall that Henry broke England free from the RCC. Edward led the country strongly toward Protestantism but when he died his sister Mary (Bloody Mary) tried to force the country back to Catholicism. This gave England her fill of RCC and so the Church of England thereafter ran headlong into the doctrines of the reformation.

The Church of England is the Episcopal Church.

 

[Luke2427]

So John Shelby Spong is a Calvinist?

He is a liberal.

Like many denominations the Episcopalians strayed far from their origins.

 

[Iconoclast]

So John Shelby Spong is a Calvinist?

When you turn away from the truth you turn into John Shelby Spong....or someone who moves to Bismark ND....and makes gutless drive by posts then runs away without any biblical content being offered.

 

[Luke2427]

When you turn away from the truth you turn into John Shelby Spong....or someone who moves to Bismark ND....and makes gutless drive by posts then runs away without any biblical content being offered.

What did I miss?

 

[Thomas Helwys]

Why do you laugh??

They certainly were. Have you ever heard of the Thirty-nine Articles?

They certainly were not. You are obviously ignorant of the history and theology of the Anglican Communion (and I don't say that in a mean sense). Have you ever heard of the Elizabethan Settlement? Considering what had happened under Henry, Edward, and Mary, Elizabeth wanted to make the Church of England appealing and acceptable to as wide a segment of the English populace as was possible. This Settlement essentially made Anglicanism comprehensive and able to give shelter to many systems and parties, including High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, those with Lutheran sympathies and doctrines,those with Eastern Orthodox sympathies and doctrines, Arminians, Calvinists, Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, and later holiness, pentecostal, and more, all using and claiming to adhere to the 39 Articles.

You might want to study Anglicanism more thoroughly before making blanket statements that are not historically accurate.

 

[Luke2427]

They certainly were not. You are obviously ignorant of the history and theology of the Anglican Communion (and I don't say that in a mean sense). Have you ever heard of the Elizabethan Settlement? Considering what had happened under Henry, Edward, and Mary, Elizabeth wanted to make the Church of England appealing and acceptable to as wide a segment of the English populace as was possible. This Settlement essentially made Anglicanism comprehensive and able to give shelter to many systems and parties, including High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, those with Lutheran sympathies and doctrines,those with Eastern Orthodox sympathies and doctrines, Arminians, Calvinists, Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals, and later holiness, pentecostal, and more, all using and claiming to adhere to the 39 Articles.

You might want to study Anglicanism more thoroughly before making blanket statements that are not historically accurate.

In the founders' day it was especially true of those in the 13 colonies who'd not long before experienced The Great Awakening, an extraordinary revival led by thorough Calvinists in America, that Anglicans were Largely Calvinist.

The Thirty-nine articles are Calvinistic. That episcopalians have strayed from them over the last 100 years is no argument to the contrary.

Here is article 17:

Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity

.


J. I. Packer, a Calvinist Anglican, is quoted in this article by Joel Beeke.

Puritanism lasted from the 1560s to the early 1700s. The Puritans believed the Church of England had not gone far enough in its reformation, because its worship and government did not agree fully with the pattern found in Scripture. They called for the pure preaching of God’s Word; for purity of worship as God commands in Scripture; and for purity of church government, replacing the rule of bishops with Presbyterianism. Above all, they called for greater purity or holiness of life among Christians. As J. I. Packer has said, “Puritanism was an evangelical holiness movement seeking to implement its vision of spiritual renewal, national and personal, in the church, the state, and the home; in education, evangelism, and economics; in individual discipleship and devotion, and in pastoral care and competence.” 24 Doctrinally, Puritanism was a kind of vigorous Calvinism; experientially, it was warm and contagious; evangelistically, it was aggressive, yet tender; ecclesiastically, it was theocentric and worshipful; and politically, it sought to make the relations between king, Parliament, and subjects scriptural, balanced, and bound by conscience. 25

Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists were all part of the Calvinist movement. Some Puritans seceded from the Church of England during the reign of King James I (1603–1625). They became known as separatists or dissenters and usually formed Congregationalist churches. Puritan conformists remained within the Anglican fold.

These were the Anglicans in the 13 Colonies.

Four more streams of immigrants brought Calvinism to America. Dutch Reformed believers, from the 1620s, were responsible for the settlement of New Netherlands, later called New York. The French Huguenots arrived by the thousands in New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas in the late seventeenth century. From 1690 to 1777, more than two hundred thousand Germans, many of whom were Reformed, settled mostly in the Middle Colonies. The final stream was the Scots and the Scotch-Irish, all Presbyterians. Some settled in New England, but many more poured into New York, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. “As a consequence of this extensive immigration and internal growth it is estimated that of the total population of three million in this country in 1776, two-thirds of them were at least nominally Calvinistic,” John Bratt concludes. “At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the largest denominations were, in order: Congregationalists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, German Reformed, and Dutch Reformed. Roman Catholicism was tenth and Methodism was twelfth in size.”

 

[Crabtownboy]

My impression is that their Calvinism and the Calvinism you support are very different beliefs. I doubt they would recognize much of what is touted by Hyper-Calvinists as a Calvinism they believe in.

I doubt that Calvin would recognize muc ow what is touted as Calvinism today.

There was a Calanist scholar, widely known and published, who gave lectures here several years ago. I made the above statements to him in a question form and he agreed saying, "Calvin would not recognize many of the beliefs ascribed to him today."

I do not have permission from this scholar to publish his name. I can supply it to you via private message if you desire to read his writings.

 

[Luke2427]

My impression is that their Calvinism and the Calvinism you support are very different beliefs. I doubt they would recognize much of what is touted by Hyper-Calvinists as a Calvinism they believe in.

I doubt that Calvin would recognize muc ow what is touted as Calvinism today.

There was a Calanist scholar, widely known and published, who gave lectures here several years ago. I made the above statements to him in a question form and he agreed saying, "Calvin would not recognize many of the beliefs ascribed to him today."

I do not have permission from this scholar to publish his name. I can supply it to you via private message if you desire to read his writings.

This is a claim without support.

Just because you doubt it doesn't make it not so.

Calvin's beliefs are clearly and thoroughly laid out in the institutes. I have a copy right here.

The Puritans and pilgrims were thorough Calvinists- more, not less, than the average Calvinist today.

Episcopalians descended from these Puritans and the founding fathers among them had not long come out of The Great Awakening which was a powerful, thoroughly Calvinistic revival.

 

[Crabtownboy]

This is a claim without support.

Just because you doubt it doesn't make it not so.

Calvin's beliefs are clearly and thoroughly laid out in the institutes. I have a copy right here.

The Puritans and pilgrims were thorough Calvinists- more, not less, than the average Calvinist today.

Episcopalians descended from these Puritans and the founding fathers among them had not long come out of The Great Awakening which was a powerful, thoroughly Calvinistic revival.

As I said in the earlier post, I do not have this scholar's permission to name him in a public forum like this one. I can send you his name privately if you would like. It certainly is supported in what he said to me and in his writings. In effect he said that Calvin would recognize many of the beliefs attributed to him my modern Calvinists. Now you may not like that idea, but that is the idea he expressed ... and he does have an international reputation for scholarship.

Have you read the book, by another author, High Calvinists In Action: Calvinism and the City, Manchester and London, 1810-1860?

I would also like to know if you agree with the following statement?

Consequently, the two primary distinctives of hyper-Calvinism are: that the gospel is not to be offered indiscriminately to all people; and secondly, its corollary, that it is the duty only of the elect to exercise saving faith and evangelical repentance. Three secondary distinctives include: eternal justification; an eternal covenant of grace; and an excessive emphasis on irresistible grace and the passivity of the elect in their salvation.

From: Howson, Barry H., Erroneous and Schismatical Opinions: the question of orthodoxy regarding the theology of Hanserd Knollys (c. 1599-1691), Brill, 1971, p171.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

Luke if we would go back and look at most Baptists from 100 years ago we would see the majority being Calvinists. The SBC specifically has abandoned the Doctrines of Grace they once wholeheartedly embraced. Very sad.

Gentlemen...so why do you still have anything to do with them?

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

A very fascinating list. The only thing that puzzles me is the Calvin-Episcopile connection. Since they were once connected to the Anglican church, and are the closest of the protestant denominations to the RCC, I am surprised that there is that close of a connection between the Episcopalian church and Calvinism.

And yes, I have heard of the 39 articles.

And the Methodist may have well been Calvinists also!

 

[Thomas Helwys]

In the founders' day it was especially true of those in the 13 colonies who'd not long before experienced The Great Awakening, an extraordinary revival led by thorough Calvinists in America, that Anglicans were Largely Calvinist.

The Thirty-nine articles are Calvinistic. That episcopalians have strayed from them over the last 100 years is no argument to the contrary.

Here is article 17:

.


J. I. Packer, a Calvinist Anglican, is quoted in this article by Joel Beeke.



These were the Anglicans in the 13 Colonies.

I am not arguing that there was not Calvinist influence in the Articles. Archbishop Cranmer was influenced by Continental Protestantism, including Calvinism but also Lutheranism. Lutheranism was as influential on Cranmer as Calvinism was, maybe more so. After the Settlement, the Church of England and Anglicanism came to function as a "via media" between Protestantism and Catholicism.

Episcopalians have strayed from the Articles over the last 100 years? Please! Ever heard of the Oxford Movement? This was a movement in the Church of England in the early to mid-1800's High Church Party that produced Anglo-Catholicism. The High Church party which had always existed in the COE back to the Settlement was Catholic in its sympathies, certainly the antithesis to Calvinism.

John Wesley was a High Church Anglican prior to his "evangelical" conversion after which he retained his Arminianism.

Calvinists were and are only one party in the Anglican Church and not the largest one, either. There are many such parties.

I wrote my master's thesis on the Elizabethan Settlement, its aftermath and effect on British Christianity, including the Baptists in Britain, so I know what I'm talking about.

As I said, it would do you good to thoroughly study the history of Anglicanism.

 

[HeirofSalvation]

The SBC specifically has abandoned the Doctrines of Grace they once wholeheartedly embraced. Very sad.

Yes..... they sold out on that whole slavery thing too

:laugh:SORRY... I just couldn't resist any longer, It popped in my head the second I read this post 10 hours ago, and I've been exercising restraint since then. :laugh:

 

[Bro. James]

Jon Chauvin, aka John Calvin, and his religious progeny are pedobaptists. Church of England(Anglican, Episcopal and splinters) are pedo baptists. The RCC is pedobaptist. The RCC is the mother of the above. The daughters have a lot in common with their mother, including the error of infant baptism.

True Baptists are not pedobaptists. Many of them have died refusing to baptize their infants. True Baptists are not splinters of the so-called Protestant Reformation of the RCC. True Baptists have refused to recognize Rome as a church of God.

How soon we forget.

High, middle or low, most of this Calvinism stuff is ecumenical smoke screen.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Bro. James