Gettysburg Address ... easy question? maybe

[Leon Greene]

(03-14-2018 10:46 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(03-13-2018 12:03 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Thanks, David. I will never be a Lincoln scholar like some of you, but the questioning of Lincoln's religious beliefs has truly been a "question vexata" to me for years. From the little bit that I have read, there seems to be so many instances of Lincoln calling on God that I cannot fathom how Lincoln scholars have called his faith into question.

I thought it a relevant observation that in using the President's "exact" (ipsissima verba) words, James F. Rusling quoted Lincoln regarding his prayer before Gettysburg with these words:

"[T]he fact is, in the very pinch of the campaign there, I went to my room one day and got down on my knees, and prayed Almighty God for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him that this was His country, and the war was His war, but that we really couldn’t stand another Fredericksburg or Chancellorsville. . . . And after thus wrestling with the Almighty in prayer, I don’t know how it was, and it is not for me to explain, but, somehow or other, a sweet comfort crept into my soul, that God Almighty had taken the whole business there into His own hands, and we were bound to win at Gettysburg!"

Who but President Abraham Lincoln would "wrestle" with Almighty God in prayer?

Jacob (Genesis 32)