Did Patrick Henry say It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Answer 1

No. This was written by an unknown author for the periodical The Virginian in 1956. Commenting on Patrick Henry's famous "bequest" of Christianity in his will, The Virginianeditorialized:

There is an insidious campaign of false Propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one-that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by 'religionists' but by Christians-not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.

In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example.

Henry's will was quoted in The Virginian as:

I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.

The bequest is more usually quoted this way:

This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.

In any case Patrick Henry never wrote the "religionists" quotation--he couldn't have. Both the language and history are wrong. A "religionist" in Patrick Henry's time was a person obsessed with religion, not a religious person, and "peoples of other faiths" would not be "afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here" until after Henry's time.