A little of everything.

· Washington was a possibly a deist. Amongst other things, he stopped taking communion in his adult life. He certainly considered himself to be Christian.

· Jefferson was a deist, evidenced with his frequent usage of phrases like "Creator" and "Nature's God" as well as creating the Jefferson Bible, removing the miracles and including only Jesus' words.

· Adams seems to be a deist, as observed in his letters with Jefferson in 1814 discussing religion. The mere fact he was asking such questions leads me personally to believe he was questioning orthodox faith.

· Franklin was one of the few that was certainly a deist. He described himself as "thoroughly deist", but years later would open the constitutional convention with a prayer. A couple of years after that he was asked his beliefs and, being at the end, answered the question;

You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.

I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness. - B Franklin, Letter to Ezra Stiles, March 9 1790

This was old man Franklin. Weeks later on April 17, 1790, Franklin, "Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding," would die, "But the Work shall not be whlly lost," as it would "appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and Amended By the Author" (as he wrote his tombstone would read as a young man in 1728). He was at least a lifelong proponent of the benefit of society believing in organized religion as highlighted above, additionally writing in the "letter to an atheist" in most likely 1757 to some length of the influence it may have on those who do, concluding:

If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion, what would they be if without it?

Interestingly, Franklin was meant to be a clergyman of some degree. Born in puritan boston in 1706, he was the tenth child, the tithing, and meant for the church. His father, Josiah, could not afford to keep him in seminary school so he became an apprentice instead.

· Thomas Paine was a deist. He authored The Age of Reason - which some believe Franklin's "letter to an atheist" to have been sent to Paine, and he also had particularly harsh words for Christianity and its followers.

· Edmund Randolph was a deist until he became an Episcopalian, by his own admission. He wrote how he wished his family had prayed together more in his adult life, as his wife Elizabeth was very conservative. They did pray together frequently as her health failed at the end. One story he relates is of George Wythe and Jefferson coming to play chess one Sunday evening. Being sunday, and them being deists, Elizabeth would not even come into the room to greet them. All of this is written in a letter he wrote after Elizabeth's passing.

· Peyton Randolph was a deist, yet was vestryman at Burton Parish Church in Williamsburg (where Washington, Jefferson, and Henry among others attended while legislation was in session). One of Edmund's primary influencers in all things and his philosophical father, his uncle Peyton would care for Edmund as he attended W&M. Peytons loyalist brother, John, took his family back to England, allowing his son Edmund to stay with him nearby. When Peyton passed in 1775, Edmund was executor of his estate and recieved a generous inheritance.

· George Wythe was a member of the vestry in Bruton Parish Church and claimed the Bible as his favorite book. A surviving document from the collection of Thomas Adams supposedly quotes Wythe (at his home after dinner in conversation) as edging towards deism over orthodoxy;

...the Christian religion (the sweetest and sublimest in the World), labours throughout to infix in Our hearts this great truth, that God is love—and that in exact proportion as we grow in love, We grow in his likeness, and consequently shall partake of his friendship and felicity forever, while others therefore have been beating their heads, or embittering their hearts with disputes about forms of baptism and modes of faith, it has always, thank God, struck me as my great duty, constantly to think of this—God is love; and he that walketh in love, walketh in God and God in Him.

· Madison attended New Jersey College (now Princeton), a Presbyterian school. In 1773 he wrote in a letter the best of the generation would

declare their unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of Christ

He would drop out of the ministry to pursue law soon after sending the letter. He kept much of his religious view quiet later in life and historians have speculated what they were ever since, with one theory saying a lack of public practicing is evidence he was a deist.

· John Witherspoon was a Presbyterian Reverend and president of New Jersey College while Madison attended.

· Patrick Henry was a christian, saying;

I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.

· George Mason, who lived next to the Episcopalian Reverend John Moncure, was at vestryman for almost 40 years for the church (1749- mid1780s) and Godfather to the Moncure children (all of them). In the drafting of the VA Dexlararion of Rights, he wrote the right to

fullest Toleration in the Exercise of Religion ...[and, citizens should] practice Christian Forebearance, Love and Charity towards Each other

Which showed a bias towards one religion. A young Madison disapproved, changing it to

all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience