Known as a diest rather than a devout Christian, Benjamin Franklin nevertheless had some sage advice when it came to church and state union. In his letter to Richard Price in 1780, he wrote,

"If Christian Preachers had continued to teach as Christ and his Apostles did, without Salaries, and as the Quakers now do, I imagine Tests would never have existed; for I think they were invented, not so much to secure Religion itself, as the Emoluments of it. When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

Benjamin Franklin to Richard Price

9 Oct. 1780 Writings 8:153--54

The Founders' Constitution Volume 4, Article 6, Clause 3, Document 5 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a6_3s5.html The University of Chicago Press

The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Albert Henry Smyth. 10 vols. New York: Macmillan Co., 1905--7.