It is the vocation of the Christian in every generation to out-think all opposition.
Lincoln had entirely outgrown juvenile delight in religious argument. Talking with God seemed to the mature Lincoln more important than talking about Him.
He (Lincoln) recognized the delicate balance between immanence and transcendence, refusing to settle for either of these alone. His was a God who was both in the world and above the world.
He (Lincoln) was accustomed to hearing words, many of them boring, but he was not accustomed to group silence.
The Biblical language was so deeply embedded in the great man’s mind that it became his normal way of speaking.
Take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man.
He (Lincoln) saw how intellectually and spiritually impoverished a person would be if he was limited to his own personal resources. The Bible, he recognized, vastly enlarged the area of experience on which an individual might depend.
Upon being given a Bible, President Abraham Lincoln replied, “In regard to this Great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man.
Deeply convinced of the reality of the divine will, he (Lincoln) had no patience at all with any who were perfectly sure they knew the details of the divine will.
A major element in Lincoln’s greatness was the way in which he could hold a strong moral position without the usual accompaniment of self-righteousness.
The key to Lincoln’s famous employment of humor is not that he failed to appreciate the tragic aspects of human existence, but rather that he felt these with such keeness that some relief was required.
His (Lincoln’s) patriotism was saved from idolatry by the overwhelming sense of the sovereignty of God.
He was too perplexed to please the conventional and too reverent. to please the infidels.
God, Lincoln believed, is seen more clearly events that in nature, though He maybe seen there also. It is a majestic thing, thought Lincoln, for a person to be RESPONSIBLE.
The difficulty was not that of following a moral principle at personal cost; the difficulty was that of knowing what to do when there is more than one principal, and when the principles clash.
It is most remarkable that Lincoln, when he saw so much that was vulnerable in the leadership of the Church, did not move to the opposite error and become a scoffer.
The writers in the newspapers could sounds smart because they did not have the responsibilities of decision, and they could sound bold by enunciating positions which they were not required to implement.
The profound paradox is that the great man became more confident in his approach to others, including the man of his own Cabinet, but he recognized that his major confidence was not himself but in Another.
The question, he (Lincoln) said over and over, is not what a man’s particular abilities may be, but what his rights are as a human being made in God’s image.
The only way to happiness is never to give happiness a thought.