Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 8

Another difficulty arises out of the manner in which Mr. Ruskin speaks of the relation of his Chamouni guides to dogmatic teaching. They ought not, he says, to be compelled to hold opinions on the subject, say, of the height of the Celestial Mountains, the creva.s.ses which go down quickest to the pit, and other cognate points of science, differing from, or even contrary to, the tenets of the guides of the Church of France.

It is difficult in the extreme to know exactly what is here meant. No doubt it is needless for a guide to drop a plumb-line down every creva.s.se that he has to cross. It would be great waste of time to lecture his travellers on the laws that regulate the motion of glaciers or the dip of the mountain strata. But what are the doctrines that stand in this relation, or this no-relation, to the spiritual life? Is it meant that all theology should be swept away like a dusty old cobweb?

I would go myself as far as this, that the fewer and simpler the doctrines that a clergyman preaches, the better; that all doctrines should be required to pa.s.s the test of reason and conscience, which are also in their degrees Divine revelations, so far, at least, as this, that no doctrine can be admitted which is demonstrably repugnant to either one or the other. And in the third place, the greatest care should be taken to discriminate matters of faith, real axioms of religion, from pious opinions or venerable practices which have no vital connection with the Christian faith; which, to use Burke's phrase, all understandings do not ratify, and all hearts do not approve. A grave responsibility rests upon those who neglect this discrimination. It is also a point of the highest importance that when most doctrinal a clergyman should be least dogmatic; that he should remember that all doctrine, by the necessity of the case, is cast into an ant.i.thetical, more or less paradoxical shape; that he should never lose sight of the harmony and balance between intersecting truths, or of that unfortunate tendency of the human mind to seize upon and appropriate points of difference in their crudest and most antagonistic form, to the exclusion of points of agreement; that he should always do his best to show the reasonableness of the Christian teaching, its a.n.a.logy and harmony with all the works of G.o.d; that where his knowledge fails, he should frankly confess that it does fail, and not try to eke it out by guesses, or to disguise its insufficiency by rhetoric.

But after all these allowances it remains a fact that the clergyman is not a guide only, but a teacher, an amba.s.sador. He is to teach his people all that he knows about G.o.d and His relation to the soul of man.

He is to study and meditate himself, and to set forth the conclusion he has reached fully and fearlessly. And if he discharges this duty reasonably and zealously, he need not be afraid of finding that there is a gulf fixed between doctrine and practice. These two must go together.

There can be no conduct deserving the name without a philosophy of conduct, and that philosophy is a sound divinity. Even the loftiest and most abstruse doctrines must have an influence upon life. It is a common remark that scientific truth should be pursued for its own sake, and that the most valuable practical results have often followed from investigations carried out with a single eye to the truth. It is an equally common remark that those teach the simplest things best whose range of knowledge and belief is widest. We might point to Mr. Ruskin himself as a striking ill.u.s.tration of this. What is simpler than beauty?

what more universally apprehended? what at first sight more incapable of a.n.a.lysis? Yet as we listen to the great critic, what wonderful laws does he point out--what a wealth of knowledge does he bring to bear--how clear he makes it to us that the power of feeling (still more the power of creating) beauty is the hard-won fruit of labour, study, and devotion. So it is with life: those who would create a beautiful life must know the laws of spiritual beauty,--and those laws are theology.

But criticism is a thankless task. It is a more gracious and, towards a great man, a more respectful office to note those points on which our debt to Mr. Ruskin is acknowledged, and our sympathy with him unalloyed.

These letters are, in spirit at any rate, not unworthy of the man who has exercised a deeper and wider influence upon the morality of our time than any other, except perhaps Thomas Carlyle. And the great lesson of each of these eloquent teachers is the duty of Reality. There are many points in which we do not agree with them: let us be all the readier to acknowledge the debt that we owe. Both laymen,--like Amos, neither prophets nor sons of prophets,--they have done a work which, perhaps, under the altered circ.u.mstances of society, no professional preacher could have achieved. Any one who considers the earnestness and reverence of modern intellectual literature; the anxious desire even of the Agnostic to lay the foundations of his moral life as deep as possible; the manifold efforts, while denying all religion, yet to maintain the union of imagination and reason, without which there can be no loftiness of character, no n.o.bility of aspiration, yet which nothing but religion can consecrate and fructify,--and compares all this with the sneering, self-satisfied flippancy of Gibbon and Voltaire, will feel how vast is the change for the better; and these two writers have been the chief instruments in bringing that change about.

Let me notice briefly two points on which Mr. Ruskin insists in these letters with great force and beauty. The first is the love of the Father. No text is more familiar than that which tells us that "G.o.d is love." It is not indeed inconsistent with that other text which tells us that He is "a consuming fire." But if its meaning is fully imbibed and allowed to bear its natural fruit, it must result in the abandonment of those forensic views of our blessed Lord's atonement, which all the subtlety of Canon Mozley cannot bring into harmony with the dictates of our consciences. If the Father is love, there can be no division, no ant.i.thesis between the Father and the Son. If He is love, then the idea of sacrifice, which is of the essence of love, must enter into our conception of the Father also. I say no more about this, because any one who chooses to do so may find the Fatherhood of G.o.d, and all that it implies, treated of with great fulness and a marvellous depth of spiritual insight in the letters of Erskine of Linlathen.

It can hardly be doubted that the kind of language which Protestants of a certain cla.s.s have been, and still are, in the habit of using, about the "Scheme of Redemption," const.i.tutes a most serious stumbling-block in the way of many an earnest spirit. There are few preachers probably, and few congregations now,--in the Establishment at any rate,--who would not revolt against the hideous calmness with which Jonathan Edwards contemplates the "little spiders" dropping off into the flames.

But a great deal of mischief remains to be undone. Those who are acquainted with the biographies of Sh.e.l.ley, of James and of John Stuart Mill, know well what effect the fierce doctrines of Calvinism have produced upon minds which for the issues of morality and, surely, even of religion, were "finely touched." And who can tell what horror and indignation have been wrought in some minds, what agonies of despair in others, who, when at last the blessed work of repentance began to stir within them, and they turned their eyes for comfort to the cross, were met by the terrible warning that none but the select few can call G.o.d their Father, and that in all probability their own eternal tortures were decreed before ever they entered the world?

The other point to which I must briefly advert is Mr. Ruskin's protest against the use of words which imply--which leave the least possibility of hoping for--a mechanical absolution, a pardon of sins that have not been abandoned. I do not indeed think that the reproach of using such language falls upon those who are fond of the t.i.tle of priests alone, for the doctrines of Calvinism are far more liable to abuse. Nor do I think that any preaching of our clergy on this subject can be said to have "turned our cities into loathsome centres of fornication and covetousness." But here, if anywhere, we ought never to forget the danger of even seeming to set Theology against Reason and Conscience, of allowing the least pretext for thinking that a mere intellectual a.s.sent to abstract truths on the one hand, a mere acceptance of ecclesiastical ordinances on the other, can wipe away sins; or that a heart unpurified by charity and obedience, could be at rest even in the kingdom of heaven.

_From the Rev._ CANON COOPER, _Vicar of Grange-over-Sands_.

Thank G.o.d, all good men are broader and better than their creed,--better and broader, I mean, than those parts of their creed which they insist upon most, because they distinguish them from other people. (These distinguishing points are always of the least importance, in my opinion.) And with my experience of sermons for nearly forty years (for I was very early "called upon to hear sermons"), I am not conscious of such universal omissions on the part of the "priests" of the Church of England as Mr. Ruskin affirms. The universality of the _love_ of G.o.d the _Father_, embracing even the "_wicked rich_" as well as the "wicked poor," is largely dwelt upon by all "schools."

The kingdom of G.o.d _in this present sinful world_ is preached and is laboured for. In the present, however, it is more correctly described as the _kingdom of Christ_. When "the end comes," "He shall deliver up the kingdom to G.o.d, _even the Father_" (1 Cor. xv. 24, and _seqq._) As for denouncing the sins of the rich, this is largely done, and especially by "lively young ecclesiastics" in great towns. And as to preaching forgiveness without amendment, no man of common sense can do that; but Mr. Ruskin may say that common sense is rare among the clergy; and some may be afraid to preach morality, because of an old-fashioned superst.i.tion that _morality_ is opposed to the _Gospel_. However, I do not hear much of such preaching. As for the duty of every man to do something of the work of the world for his daily bread, that is largely taught; and I believe that the kingdom of G.o.d is coming in that respect.

A great deal of the drudgery of the world is done by big men now. Also I think that the sinfulness of _omission_ is much insisted on by the clergy, as it is abundantly noticed in the Prayer Book, in accordance with the clear teaching of Christ. And the same may be said upon the _personal guilt_ of sin. A good clergyman never allows his people to shelter themselves _in a crowd_.

I do not feel the force of the taunt about our saying every week, "There is no health in us," because the most "healthy" Christian finds out always fresh failings as his conscience grows more healthy (not morbidly sensitive), and he is always ready to join in the general confession to his dying day.

There is some value in the remark about Christian parents putting their children into situations where they will be tempted to worship the devil in order to win the kingdom of the world; but here, as elsewhere, the exaggeration, for the sake of being forcible, is too marked.

_From the Rev._ HENRY M. FLETCHER.

"Yes," I should say, "it is possible to put the Gospel of Christ into such plain words and short terms as that a plain man may understand it, and plain men do understand it. And it is not left to be gathered out of (any of) the Thirty-nine Articles, which are meant not for simple but for clerkly people."

You seem to have felt it startling that Mr. Ruskin should ask for a simple and comprehensible statement of the Christian Gospel--at least Mr. Ruskin represents the case so. What Christ's ministers are bidden to go into all the world and preach is--the good news that G.o.d has reconciled the world unto Himself in Jesus Christ His Son; and that whosoever will accept this Jesus as His Lord and Saviour shall have eternal life through Him. You could not, I think, arrive at a definition of what the Gospel of Christ is by explaining the terms of the Lord's Prayer.

You must tell first about _Jesus_, our Lord, and what He has done, before child or man can have any proper notion of "the Gospel." The Gospel is a message from "Our Father which is in Heaven," of His love, and of what His love--the love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost--has devised and executed for the redemption and glorification (through sanctification) of His rebellious children.

There can be small objection taken to Mr. Ruskin's proposal to make the Lord's Prayer "a foundation of Gospel teaching, as containing what all Christians are agreed upon as first to be taught," if the "Gospel teaching" is understood to be "teaching the truth to _Christians_." But "the Gospel teaching or preaching," which is spoken of by Mr. Ruskin, is "Gospel preaching" to the world not yet Christian, either Jewish or heathen; and the Lord's Prayer cannot properly be taken as a foundation of Gospel teaching to it. It must be told first of Jesus and His work, and must have owned Him "Lord," before it can rightly be taught from _His_ prayer. This prayer can have no _authority_ but to those who have become His disciples. Those who are already His disciples learn naturally from Him their relation and their duty to His Father and their Father. St. Paul, in preaching to the Athenians, dwells not on the Fatherhood _of G.o.d_, but on the need of repentance as a preparation for the judgment which awaits all. "Jesus and the Resurrection" was what they heard of first from this model preacher.

_From the Rev._ A. T. DAVIDSON.

MY DEAR SIR,--Permit me to say one thing with regard to the correspondence which has pa.s.sed between Mr. Ruskin and yourself.

Profitable as it is to listen to Mr. Ruskin, the student of Mr.

Maurice's writings will merely find in these remarkable letters an additional plea on behalf of those truths for which Mr. Maurice so bravely and so pa.s.sionately contended. It is most refreshing to find two such teachers in accord; and probably there will be many who will learn from Mr. Ruskin what they never would have learnt, or even sought for, from Mr. Maurice. It is, of course, for the truth, and not for his individual statement of it, that Mr. Ruskin, even as Mr. Maurice did, contends. It will, I am sure, be a matter of small moment to him so long as the truth be sought for, whether it be arrived at by means of these letters, or by means of Mr. Maurice's books on "The Lord's Prayer," "The Prayer Book," and "The Commandments."

Believe me, my dear Sir, to be yours faithfully.

_From the Rev._ EDWARD GEOGHEGAN.

BARDSEA VICARAGE, ULVERSTON.

"Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head."

It is in the spirit which is expressed in these words that I desire to offer the following notes on Mr. Ruskin's Letters. Among the charges which he brings against the clergy are the following:--

That we have no clear idea of our calling, or of the Gospel of Christ (Letters III. and IV.)

That we profane the name of G.o.d in the pulpit (Letter VI.)

That we teach that every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delighteth in them (Letter VIII.)

That we hold our office to be that, not of showing men how to do their Father's will on earth, but how to get to heaven without doing any of it either here or there (Letter VIII.)

That we neither profess to understand what the will of the Lord is, nor to teach anybody else to do it (Letter VIII.)

That we pretend to absolve the sinner from his punishment, instead of purging him from his sin (Letter VIII.)

That we patronize and encourage all the iniquity of the world by steadily preaching away the penalties of it (Letter VIII.)

That we gather, each into himself, the curious dual power and Ja.n.u.s-faced majesty in mischief of the prophet that prophesies falsely, and the priest that bears rule by his means (Letter VIII.)

That we do not exercise discipline by keeping wicked people out of church (Letter VI.)

That we do not require each member of our flocks to tell us what they do to earn their dinners (Letter IX.)

That we encourage people in hypocrisy, by inviting them to the authorized mockery of a confession of sin (Letter X.)

I cannot examine the evidence which Mr. Ruskin possesses in support of these charges, as he has not produced it in these Letters. Neither can I attempt to refute the accusations. To prove a negative is always difficult; it becomes an impossible task when the indictment is laid not against any individuals mentioned by name, but against a whole order. I will only observe, that even if all these charges be true, the people of England are not in such evil case as Mr. Ruskin fancies. The laity of England possess the inestimable advantage of not being dependent on the sermons of their clergy for either doctrine, or correction, or instruction in righteousness. Even though a clergyman should never utter certain doctrines of Christ from the pulpit, or reprove certain sins, he is obliged to do so at the font, at the lectern, and at the altar. Although from the pulpits of the fifty hundreds of clergy whom Mr. Ruskin heard, he never heard so much as _one_ clergyman heartily proclaiming that no covetous person, which is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of G.o.d, he must have often heard this proclamation from the altar, in the epistle for the third Sunday in Lent, and from the lectern whenever the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians is read for the lesson.