THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
God's purpose, according to Cromwell, must be discovered in a different way—in that which He permitted to happen or caused to happen. "Seek to know the mind of God in all that chain of providences," he wrote to Colonel Hammond. Cromwell meant by "dispensations" or "providences" what other people call facts or events. He rebuked the Scots for refusing to recognise the significance of one of these dispensations and "slightingly calling it an event"—it was the event known as the battle of Dunbar[1]. In short, Cromwell's "look at providences" means just the same thing as Lincoln's "look into the plain physical facts of the case." Lincoln too was inclined to regard victories as something more than the result of stronger battalions and more skilful movements. A little after the battle of Antietam he was discussing with his cabinet the expediency of announcing his policy of emancipating the slaves. "In the course of his discussion,"
- ↑ Carlyle's Cromwell, Letters 85, 136, 148; Clarke Papers, i. 238, 375.
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