From Henry May, The American Enlightenment, Oxford, 1976, page 72, we
find this about George:

"George Washington, who was older than Madison or Jefferson, was more
completely shaped by colonial Virginian culture. In religion as in
style of life he was a man of the Moderate Enlightenment, a good deal
like an English country gentleman of the early eighteenth century. A
frequent but not regular churchgoer, a vestryman and a pewholder but
apparently not a communicant, Washington was to sprinkle his official
papers with references to 'the great Disposer of events,' 'the father
of Lights,' etc. There is no reason whatever to question the genuiness
either of his belief in an overruling providence or his nobly expressed
belief in religious liberty (not, as he pointed out to Jews of Newport,
toleration). Only once was Washinhgton to refer to 'the divine Author
of our Blessed Religion,' though he frequently used the
word 'Christian' in a favorable sense. Conservative by temperment,
decorous, open-minded, with a strong sense of duty and little interest
in theology, Washington throughout his life reflected virtues, with few
of the vices, of the Anglican past, thereby baffling the more strenuous
pietists and skeptics of the future."

I think I've posted this paragraph before. It can be taken many ways.
Deistic phrases in his writings along with more Christian style
phrases. But then Washington was a consumate politician.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 The elimination of religious tests for public office by the Constitutional
Convention of 1787 represented a major achievement for the future course of
American church-state relations. Article V1 not only removed the basis for
any preferential treatment of one religion over another for holding public
office, but also denied the right of any preferential status of religion
over nonreligion in matters of one's political participation in the life of
the Republic. William Lee Miller appropriately noted in his recent
historical review of religion and the Constitution, The First Liberty:
Religion and the American Republic, that "in the framing of Article VI
...the new nation was electing to be nonreligious in its civil life." On
the subject of religion, Miller finds "more striking than what the Federal
Constitution did include is what it did not." Unlike other legal documents
of the period and throughout history, there art no references in the
Constitution to the Deity, to God, to "Providence." or even to the Creator,
as in the case of the Declaration of Independence, which, unlike the
Constitution, was not a formal legal document.

The prohibition of any religious test for public office came not only out
of a religious pluralism that was rampant at the time of the nation's
founding, but also out of the concept of the new Republic as a secular
state. The very exclusion of any religious test for office was itself a
profound acknowledgment of the secular character of the new Republic, to
use Miller's phrase, "to be nonreligious in its civil life."

The secular state, by its very nature, is a limited state in which
the people have denied the jurisdiction of civil authority over religious
affairs. The secular state is not born out of hostility to religion, any
more than Article VI, as noted earlier, is to be viewed as adverse to
religion. In the words of America's most distinguished church historian of
the nineteenth century, Philip Schaff, the Constitution is neither hostile
nor friendly to any religion; it is simply silent on the subject, as lying
beyond the jurisdiction of the general government."

 As a secular state, America is a nation in which neither religion nor
irreligion enjoys any official status and where no church or religion is to
enjoy any advantages or to suffer any disadvantages because of an
establishment of religion. Religious identity is made irrelevant to one's
rights of citizenship, e.g., the right to vote and to hold public office.
One's religion or irreligion may not be made the basis of political
privilege or discrimination. At a time when there is a resurgence of the
notion of a "Christian America" in the body politic, the Bicentennial of
the Constitution is an especially appropriate time to reflect on the
meaning and significance of church and state in American public life. In
doing so, proper attention needs to be given to the importance of Article
VI in America's body politic md nationhood. In recent years, the growing
tendency of candidates for public office to stress their religious
credentials, to use religion to serve their own political purposes, and to
use political means for the advancement of religious interests needs to be
seen in the context of America as a secular state--"to be nonreligious in
its civil life."

 In the light of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there is something
awry, if not ominous, to be found in the words of a presidential aspirant
for 1988 declaring, " We have enough votes to run the country, and when the
people say,'We've had enough,' we're going to take over." These words
become completely incongruous when placed alongside the presidential oath,
"to defend the Constitution of the United States." Likewise, there is more
than mere arrogance to be attributed to the questions distributed by the
Freedom Council last fall to congressional candidates in the fourth
congressional district of North Carolina: "Are you a born-again Christian?"
"is Jesus Lord of your Life?" "Do you believe the Bible is the infallible
Word of God?" Similarly, the distribution of millions of copies of the
magazine, The Candidates' Biblical Scoreboard, by Christian Voice, in an
effort to report its "Christian" ratings of political candidates, is more
than divisive in the political process. It is contrary to both the letter
and the spirit of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States. It
is also a manipulation of religion to serve political ends.

 Today, there are those revisionists of American history who look back to a
"Christian American" that never was, but which they now  seek to restore.
There are still others who today bemoan America as a secular state and "the
naked public square," at a time when religious membership is at an all-time
high and religion is perhaps more pervasively popular, even visible, in
American public life and the mass media than ever before. Increasing
attention is being given to the religious identity of candidates for public
office, and candidates in turn, are more than willing to give at least
their rhetorical support to religion and religious values. Today, there are
those who celebrate what they call a "post-secular America" and "the
collapse of the 200-year hegemony of the secular Enlightenment" as they
anticipate the "rightful place" being given to Judeo-Christian values in
the public square and in the nation's public life.

 While the right of religion to be involved in the public square
and in the body politic is well established in America, even "unquestioned"
in the words of the United States Supreme Court this involvement is always
to be in the context of America's being a secular state and public policy's
being established on the basis of a "secular purpose," again to use the
language of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Americans would do well to
remember particularly in the face of a religious resurgence in American
public life, that more than one hundred million Americans are without
any Christian or Jewish affiliation, for whom Article V1 is as important
guarantee for their right of full political participation in American
democracy.
(Source of Information: Editorial" No Religious test Shall Ever Be
Required: Reflections on the Bicentennial of the U. S. Constitution., James
E, Wood, Jr. Journal of Church and State. Volume 29, Spring. 1987, Number 2
pp 206-208)

************************************************************
[ William Lee Miller, who has made a special study of the
role of religion in the nation's founding, summarized the
conclusion of that study in these striking words:

  Did "religious freedom" for Jefferson and Madison extend
 to atheists? Yes. To agnostics, unbelievers, and pagans? Yes. To
 heretics and blasphemers and the sacrilegious? Yes. To "the
 Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohametan, the
 Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination?" Yes. To Papists?
 Yes. To "irreligion"? Yes. To people who want freedom from
 religion? Yes. To people who want freedom against religion?
 Yes.(9)
(9) William Lee Miller, "The Ghost of freedoms Past," in The Washington
Post National Weekly Edition (13 October 1886), p. 23. ]
*****************************************************************
Let's look at some of what is said in the book cited by Gardiner
The Religious Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Charles B. Sanford.
University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, (1984 --third paperback
printing, 1992)
-------       -------        -------      --------
PREFACE
"Even scholars who are familiar with Jefferson's deism, Unitarianism,
and enthusiasm for Bible study do not seem to appreciate the importance
of his religious beliefs to his political philosophy and career."

PAGE 5  [What follows is the  "conservative Unitarian," comment
including the part about who actually made the comment which Gardiner
"forgot" to include.]
" His great-grandson described Jefferson's religion as that of a
"conservative Unitarian . . . "

PAGE 14
"In summary, we may conclude that Jefferson, in his college years, began
an involvement with Enlightenment and deistic writers which deeply
influenced him toward a liberal, intellectual, moralistic, personal, and
humanitarian view of government, society, and religion. This study
continued all of his life and is reflected in his choice of favorite
quotations and the books in his extensive library."

PAGE 20
"In private, deists like Jefferson and Paine had some reservations about
the Old Testament and did not hesitate to correct the biblical account
of creation in the light of Newtonian science and emerging
anthropology."

PAGE  48
"Daniel Boorstin is closer to the truth than Trainer when he emphasizes
that Jefferson and the American deists took man's relation to nature
rather than to god as their starting point."

PAGES 85 -92 beginning with the sub heading "JEFFERSON WAS DEIST"
and including sub headings, "GOD, SEEN IN THE CREATION." "GOD, THE
CREATOR OF MAN," "ONE GOD, NOT THREE," "JEFFERSON WAS A THEIST."

PAGE 92
"He followed and promulgated the ideas of the English deists,
particularly their belief in a creator of the universe, known by reason,
in opposition to orthodox Christian theism based on revelation,
theology, and mysticism."

PAGE 92
"Jefferson may thus well be called a deist."

PAGE 105
"Privately discussing religion with interested friends, though, he was
just as vehement as Paine or Rousseau in separating what he called 'the
grain from the chaff," "the gold from the dross," and  'the diamond from
the dunghill' in biblical passages."

PAGE 130
"Another of the important teachings of christ about God, according to
Jefferson, was the belief in one God. The phrase frequently used by
Jefferson was the 'Deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth,' which he used
in contrast to 'atheism,' meaning belief in no god, and 'theism,' by
which he meant orthodox Trinitarianism. Jefferson argued that the belief
of deism in the 'unity of the creator was the pure doctrine of Jesus
also.'"

PAGE 155
""I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of grief could
be intended. All of our other passions, within proper bounds, have a
useful object, but what is the use of grief in the economy [of life]?'"
        "That question came from the deistic faith, which Jefferson and
Adams shared, that everything in nature and human experience had a good
purpose, since everything came from the good design of the perfect
Creator, God."

PAGE 173-177 (Just a small sampling here, be sure to read the all five
pages to put it in proper context.)

FROM PAGES 173-174
          Conclusions about Jefferson's Religion

Was Jefferson really as radical in his religion as his opponents
declared or as some modern scholars indicate? In answer to the charge
that he was an "atheist, deist, or devil," he was not an atheist, he was
a deist, and personal morality and honor were important elements in his
character. He was strongly influenced by the liberal religious ideas of
the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, particularly the deism of
Scottish philosophers, beginning with the stimulation he received from
his favorite college professor, William Small, and continuing through a
lifetime of study of the books he acquired for his library."
 An evaluation of Jefferson's deism indicates that his beliefs about
God were not as radical as those of many of his contemporaries.
Jefferson defended his French philosopher friends who were atheists
as being honorable men, hut he did not share their views that the
universe could have always existed without a Creator. Jefferson
believed in God as the planner, architect, first cause, and master
builder of the universe. He went further and believed that God continued
 to guide, modify, and sustain his creation.
=====================================================