You won’t find these quotes in the history books about Franklin: “Those Doctrines delivered by our Saviour and the Apostles, which are absolutely necessary to be believed, are so very plain, that the meanest Capacities, may easily understand ’em...” “Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all Iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar People zealous of Good-Works. And there is scarcely a Chapter in the whole Gospels or Epistles from which this Doctrine can’t be prov’d...” “I am conscious I believe in Christ, and exert my best Endeavours to understand his Will aright, and strictly to follow it...” “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...” In The Christian Pamphlets of Benjamin Franklin, Bill Fortenberry has provided us with three of the most intriguing pamphlets that Franklin ever wrote. In them, Franklin reveals religious views that few historians are even aware of and fewer still are willing to admit.
Benjamin Franklin was an important conservative figure in the American Restoration Movement, especially as the leading antebellum conservative in the northern United States branch of the movement. He is notable as the early and lifelong mentor of Daniel Sommer, whose support of the 1889 Sand Creek Declaration set in motion events which led to the formal division of the Churches of Christ from the Disciples of Christ in 1906.
According to contemporary biographies "His early religious training was according to the Methodist faith, though he never belonged to any church until he united with the Disciples."
In 1856, Franklin began to publish the ultra-conservative American Christian Review, which he published until his death in 1878. Its influence, initially considerable, was said to have waned following the American Civil War. Franklin undertook a rigorous program of publication correspondence, and traveling lectures which took him to "many" U. S. states and Canada.
Franklin's last move was to Anderson, Indiana, where he lived from 1864 until his death.
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