Note 536 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Dr. Lingard (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 357) says, ‘From the doctrine of a superintending providence, the piety of our ancestors had drawn a rash but very convenient inference, that success is an indication of the Divine will, and that, of course, to resist a victorious competitor, is to resist the judgment of heaven:’ see also p. 114. The last vestige of this once universal opinion is the expression, which is gradually falling into disuse, of ‘appealing to the God of Battles.’