Washington does not use this exact phrase to describe his views. The term "wall of separation between church and state" was, in fact, coined by Thomas Jefferson in 1803 as a way to summarize his understanding of the religion clauses of the First Amendment.

Article VI of the United States Constitution, adopted a year before Washington’s Letter to the Hebrew Congregation, stipulates that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

This nation’s founders were the inheritors of the seventeenth-century natural rights philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes.

Inevitably, individuals will have personal feelings of dislike, distrust and even hatred of the religious beliefs of others. In 1792, Washington wrote to a correspondent, “Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing.”

Washington frequently used this phrase in his writing. In the letter to the Baptists, Washington wrote: “Every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”