Lincoln, Providence and the Bible

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1 Springfield (Oct. 26, 2006) Mark A. Noll Lincoln, Providence and the Bible The Bible (categories adapted from Joseph Fornieri 1 ) rhetorical or stylistic: four score and seven years ago. evocative: --a house divided (Matthew 12:25) --it was strange that any men should dare to ask a just God s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men s faces. (Genesis 3:19) political Second Inaugural (1865): The prayers of both [sides] could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! (Matthew 18:7) theological Second Inaugural (1865): If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled up the bond-man s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether. (Psalm 19:9) Providence First Inaugural (1861): "If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth, and that justice, will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people." October 1858: Certainly there is no contending against the Will of God; but still there is some difficulty in ascertaining, and applying it, to particular cases. Around September 1862 ("Meditation on the Divine Will ): The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party--and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true--that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds. March 1865 "The Almighty has His own purposes." 1 Joseph R. Fornieri, Abraham Lincoln s Political Faith (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003).

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5 2006 Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series Lincoln and America s Faith October 26, 2006 University of Illinois at Springfield Phillip Paludan's Idiosyncratic Short List of Readings on Lincoln, the Civil War and Religion Stewart Winger, Lincoln, Religion and Romantic Cultural Politics (2002) Randall Miller, editor, Religion and the American Civil War (1998) Allen Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) Glen Thurow, Abraham Lincoln and American Political Religion (1976) James Moorehead, American Apocalypse: Yankee Protestants and the Civil War (1978) William Barton, The Soul of Abraham Lincoln (1933) Steven Woodworth, While God is Marching on: The Religious World of Civil War Soldiers (2001) Reinhold Niebuhr, The Religion of Abraham Lincoln, in Allen Nevins, editor, Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address (1964) William McLaughlin, The Meaning of Henry Ward Beecher (1970) Barbara Cross, Horace Bushnell: Minister to a Changing America (1958) William Wolf, The Religion of Abraham Lincoln (1963) (Please see our speakers biographies in the program for their books.)