Abraham Lincoln, Mediation on the Divine Will, circa September 2, 1862

Abraham Lincoln, May 16, 1861, Brady image, detail

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Source citation:

Abraham Lincoln, Meditation on the Divine Will, [2 September 1862], , in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 5: 403-404http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/.

Author:

Lincoln, Abraham

Type:

Miscellaneous

Date Certainty:

Disputed

Transcriber:

Transcription adapted from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), edited by Roy P. Basler

Adapted by Matthew Pinsker, Dickinson College

Transcription date:

07/05/2013

Transcription

The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.

[September 2, 1862?]

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.

Places

White House, Washington, DC

Abraham Lincoln, Mediation on the Divine Will, circa September 2, 1862

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