(Updated June 24, 2025)
Elias Boudinot (1740-1821) was an American Founder who served as the fourth President of the Confederation Congress, a member of the House of Representatives for New Jersey, as Director of the United States Mint, and on the Board of Trustees of Princeton.
Speeches
Elias Boudinot, Speech in Congress (March 22, 1790)1
It is true that the Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years…but…gentlemen cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong hand and stretched-out arm, and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and forever [Heb. 13:8]. The New Testament has afforded a number of texts to countenance this doctrine…One would have imagined that the uniform tenor of the Gospel, that breathes a spirit of love to our neighbor to be measured by our love to ourselves—that teaches us that whatsoever we would that men should do to us, to do so to them, would have prevented this misapplication. Surely the gentleman overlooked the prophecy of St. Peter, where he foretells, that, among other damnable heresies, “through covetousness shall they, with feigned words, make merchandise of you” (2 Pet. 2:3).
Writings
Elias Boudinot, The Age of Revelation, or The Age of Reason Shown to be an Age of Infidelity (1801)2
For near half a century, have I anxiously and critically studied that invaluable treasure; [the Bible] and I still scarcely ever take it up, that I do not find something new—that I do not receive some valuable addition to my stock of knowledge; or perceive some instructive fact, never observed before.
In short, were you to ask me to recommend the most valuable book in the world, I should fix on the Bible as the most instructive, both to the wise and ignorant. Were you to ask me for one, affording the most rational and pleasing entertainment to the inquiring mind, I should repeat, it is the Bible: and should you renew the inquiry for the best philosophy, or the most interesting history I should still urge you to look into your Bible.
I would make it, in short, the Alpha and Omega of knowledge; and be assured, that it is for want of understanding the scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, that so little value is set upon them by the xv | xvi world at large. The time, however, is not far off, when they will command a very different reception, among the sons of men… xvi | xvii
To you I commit this labor of my old age, hoping that, as it is designed for your own private instruction, you will receive it, as in the fear of the Lord, without a criticizing eye, or opposing heart; and that you will be persuaded by it, to search the Scriptures, “knowing that they contain the words of eternal life,” thereby you will gratify the most fervent desire of
An Affectionate Parent… xvii | xxii
[W]hat I principally look for, is, to persuade the rising generation, and those who are but beginning to doubt or waver, to make the divine Scriptures their serious and attentive study; and seek to understand the principles of the Gospel, before they pretend to judge of them, or to renounce them as untrue, or of but trifling importance. Thus they would do in any other science, and they cannot reasonably adopt a different practice in religion… xxii | 128
I am contented with knowing, that the Scriptures are the word of the ever-living God; and that therein he has revealed to me, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in whose name I was baptized, bear record in Heaven; and that these three are the one only infinite and eternal God, whom I am to worship, love and adore, in spirit and in truth.
Elias Boudinot, The Second Advent, or, Coming of the Messiah in Glory (1815)3
Although the kingdoms and nations of Europe are first to be involved in this visitation from on high, yet even the United States of America have also reason to fear and tremble, when God shall arise “to shake terribly the earth.” It is true, that their 181 | 182 constitutions have been long since formed and established on a purer basis—The first settlers of this wilderness were the sons and daughters of banishment, flight, and persecution. This desert proved an asylum for the Church of Christ, when the enemy came in as a flood; then she flew into the wilderness, as on the wings of an eagle [Apoc. 12]…
But has not America greatly departed from her original principles, and left her first love? Has she not also many 182 | 183 amongst her chief citizens, of every party, who have forsaken the God of their fathers, and to whom the spirit may justly be supposed to say, “ye hold doctrines which I hate, repent, or else I will come unto you quickly, and will fight against you with the sword of my mouth” (Apoc. 2:15-16).
America has been greatly favored by God, in all her concerns, both civil and religious, and she has much to hope, and much to fear, according as she shall attentively improve her relative situation among the nations of the earth, for the glory of God, and the protection of his people—She has been raised up in the course of divine Providence, at a very important crisis, and for no very inconsiderable purposes. She stands on a pinnacle—She cannot act a trifling or undecided part—She must determine who she will serve, God or mammon—She stands by faith, and has great reason to take heed lest she should fall, from a vain confidence in her own internal strength, forgetting “the rock from whence she has been hewed, and the hole of the pit, from whence she has been digged” (Isa. 51:1).
Is she not divided into violent parties, full of deadly hatred to each other, contrary to the charitable spirit of the Gospel?—And will not God avenge himself for these things?… 183 | 184
Hearken then, ye who are happily delivered from many of the evils and temptations to which the European nations are exposed. Your fathers fled from persecution: a glorious country was opened to them by the liberal hand of a kind Providence—a land, literally flowing with milk and honey—they were miraculously delivered from the savages of the desert—they were fed and nourished in a way that scarcely knew how. Alas! what have been the returns, their descendants, of late years, have made for 184 | 185 the exuberant goodness of God to them? The eastern states, however greatly fallen from their former Christian professions, were settled by a people really fearing God. “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do thy first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent” (Apoc. 2:5), that is, will deprive thee of those Gospel privileges with which thou hast been so greatly favored.
Footnotes
- Joseph Gales, ed., The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834), 1468. ↩︎
- Elias Boudinot, The Age of Revelation, or The Age of Reason Shewn to be an Age of Infidelity (Philadelphia: Asbury Dickins, 1801), xv, xvii, xxii, 128. ↩︎
- Matthew L. Harris, Thomas S. Kidd, eds., The Founding Fathers and the Debate Over Religion in Revolutionary America: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 181-83, 184-85. ↩︎
