The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
MORAL PRINCIPLES / AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF
I must ever believe that religion substantially good which produces
an honest life, and we have been authorized by One whom you and I
equally respect, to judge of the tree by its fruit. Our particular
principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our God
alone. I inquire after no man's, and trouble none with mine; nor is it
given to us in this life to know whether yours or mine, our friends or
our foes, are exactly the right. Nay, we have heard it said that there
is not a Quaker or a Baptist, a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian, a
Catholic or a Protestant in heaven; that, on entering that gate, we
leave those badges of schism behind, and find ourselves united in
those principles only in which God has united us all. Let us not be
uneasy then about the different roads we may pursue, as believing them
the shortest, to that our last abode; but, following the guidance of a
good conscience, let us be happy in the hope that by these different
paths we shall all meet in the end.
to Miles King, 26 September 1814
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