On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 37

THE NATURE AND AUTHORITY OF MIRACLE.

(_Contemporary Review, March_ 1873.)

NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS.[137]

PREFACE (CALLED "ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT") TO THE FIRST EDITION.

_Many persons will probably find fault with me for publishing opinions which are not new: but I shall bear this blame contentedly, believing that opinions on this subject could hardly be just if they were not 1800 years old. Others will blame me for making proposals which are altogether new: to whom I would answer, that things in these days seem not so far right but that they may be mended. And others will simply call the opinions false and the proposals foolish--to whose goodwill, if they take it in hand to contradict me, I must leave what I have written--having no purpose of being drawn, at present, into religious controversy. If, however, any should admit the truth, but regret the tone of what I have said, lean only pray them to consider how much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness, than by untimely fear._

DENMARK HILL,

_February, 1851._

PREFACE TO THE SECOND (1851) EDITION.

_Since the publication of these Notes, I have received many letters upon the affairs of the Church, from persons of nearly every denomination of Christians; for all these letters I am grateful, and in many of them I have found valuable information, or suggestion: but I have not leisure at present to follow out the subject farther; and no reason has been shown me for modifying or altering any part of the text as it stands. It is republished, therefore, without change or addition_.

_I must, however, especially thank one of my correspondents for sending me a pamphlet, called "Sectarianism, the Bane of Religion and the Church,"[138] which I would recommend, in the strongest terms, to the reading of all who regard the cause of Christ; and, for help in reading the Scriptures, I would name also the short and admirable arrangement of parallel pa.s.sages relating to the offices of the clergy, called "The Testimony of Scripture concerning the Christian Ministry."_[139]

PREFACE TO THIRD (CALLED SECOND) EDITION.

_I have only to add to this first preface, that the boldness of the pamphlet,--ungraceful enough, it must be admitted,--has done no one any harm, that I know of; but on the contrary, some definite good, as far as I can judge; and that I republish the whole now, letter for letter, as originally printed, believing it likely to be still serviceable, and, on the ground it takes for argument, (Scriptural authority,) incontrovertible as far as it reaches; though it amazes me to find on re-reading it, that, so late as 1851, I had only got the length of perceiving the schism between sects of Protestants to be criminal, and ridiculous, while I still supposed the schism between Protestants and Catholics to be virtuous and sublime._

_The most valuable part of the whole is the a.n.a.lysis of governments, -- 213-15; the pa.s.sages on Church discipline, -- 204-5, being also antic.i.p.atory of much that I have to say in Fors, where I hope to re-a.s.sert the substance of this pamphlet on wider grounds, and with more modesty._

BRANTWOOD,

_3rd August, 1875._

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 137: This pamphlet was originally published in 1851, under the t.i.tle of "Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds," by John Ruskin, M.A., author of the "Seven Lamps of Architecture," etc. (Smith, Elder, & Co.). A second edition, with an additional preface, followed in the same year, after which the pamphlet remained out of print till 1875, when it was reprinted in a third, erroneously called a second, edition (George Allen, Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent).--ED.]

[Footnote 138: London: 1846. Nisbet & Co., Berners Street.]

[Footnote 139: London: 1847. T. K. Campbell, 1, Warwick Square.]

NOTES,

ETC., ETC.

182. The following remarks were intended to form part of the appendix to an essay on Architecture: but it seemed to me, when I had put them into order, that they might be useful to persons who would not care to possess the work to which I proposed to attach them: I publish them, therefore, in a separate form; but I have not time to give them more consistency than they would have had in the subordinate position originally intended for them. I do not profess to teach Divinity, and I pray the reader to understand this, and to pardon the slightness and insufficiency of notes set down with no more intention of connected treatment of their subject than might regulate an accidental conversation. Some of them are simply copied from my private diary; others are detached statements of facts, which seem to me significative or valuable, without comment; all are written in haste, and in the intervals of occupation with an entirely different subject. It may be asked of me, whether I hold it right to speak thus hastily and insufficiently respecting the matter in question? Yes. I hold it right to _speak_ hastily; not to _think_ hastily. I have not thought hastily of these things; and, besides, the haste of speech is confessed, that the reader may think of me only as talking to him, and saying, as shortly and simply as I can, things which, if he esteem them foolish or idle, he is welcome to cast aside; but which, in very truth, I cannot help saying at this time.

183. The pa.s.sages in the essay which required notes, described the repression of the political power of the Venetian Clergy by the Venetian Senate; and it became necessary for me--in supporting an a.s.sertion made in the course of the inquiry, that the idea of separation of Church and State was both vain and impious--to limit the sense in which it seemed to me that the word "Church" should be understood, and to note one or two consequences which would result from the acceptance of such limitation. This I may as well do in a separate paper, readable by any person interested in the subject; for it is high time that _some_ definition of the word should be agreed upon. I do not mean a definition involving the doctrine of this or that division of Christians, but limiting, in a manner understood by all of them, the sense in which the _word_ should thenceforward be used. There is grievous inconvenience in the present state of things. For instance, in a sermon lately published at Oxford, by an anti-Tractarian divine, I find this sentence,--"It is clearly within the province of the State to establish a national _church_, or _external inst.i.tution of certain forms of worship_." Now suppose one were to take this interpretation of the word "Church," given by an Oxford divine, and subst.i.tute it for the simple word in some Bible texts, as, for instance, "Unto the angel of the external inst.i.tution of certain forms of worship of Ephesus, write," etc. Or, "Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external inst.i.tution of certain forms of worship which is in his house,"--what awkward results we should have, here and there! Now I do not say it is possible for men to agree with each other in their religious _opinions_, but it is certainly possible for them to agree with each other upon their religious _expressions_; and when a word occurs in the Bible a hundred and fourteen times, it is surely not asking too much of contending divines to let it stand in the sense in which it there occurs; and when they want an expression of something for which it does _not_ stand in the Bible, to use some other word. There is no compromise of religious opinion in this; it is simply proper respect for the Queen's English.

184. The word occurs in the New Testament, as I said, a hundred and fourteen times.[140] In every one of those occurrences, it bears one and the same grand sense: that of a congregation or a.s.sembly of men. But it bears this sense under four different modifications, giving four separate meanings to the word. These are--

I. The entire Mult.i.tude of the Elect; otherwise called the Body of Christ; and sometimes the Bride, the Lamb's Wife; including the Faithful in all ages;--Adam, and the children of Adam yet unborn.

In this sense it is used in Ephesians v. 25, 27, 32; Colossians i. 18; and several other pa.s.sages.

II. The entire mult.i.tude of professing believers in Christ, existing on earth at a given moment; including false brethren, wolves in sheep's clothing, goats and tares, as well as sheep and wheat, and other forms of bad fish with good in the net.

In this sense it is used in 1 Cor. x. 32, xv. 9; Galatians i. 13; 1 Tim.

iii. 5, etc.

III. The mult.i.tude of professed believers, living in a certain city, place, or house. This is the most frequent sense in which the word occurs, as in Acts vii. 38, xiii. 1; 1 Cor. i. 2, xvi. 19, etc.

IV. Any a.s.sembly of men: as in Acts xix. 32, 41.

185. That in a hundred and twelve out of the hundred and fourteen texts, the word bears some one of these four meanings, is indisputable.[141]

But there are two texts in which, if the word had alone occurred, its meaning might have been doubtful. These are Matt. xvi. 18, and xviii.

17.

The absurdity of founding any doctrine upon the inexpressibly minute possibility that, in these two texts, the word might have been used with a different meaning from that which it bore in all the others, coupled with the a.s.sumption that the meaning was this or that, is self-evident: it is not so much a religious error as a philological solecism; unparalleled, so far as I know, in any other science but that of divinity.

Nor is it ever, I think, committed with open front by Protestants. No English divine, asked in a straightforward manner for a Scriptural definition of "the Church," would, I suppose, be bold enough to answer "the Clergy." Nor is there any harm in the common use of the word, so only that it be distinctly understood to be not the Scriptural one; and therefore to be unfit for subst.i.tution in a Scriptural text. There is no harm in a man's talking of his son's "going into the Church; "meaning that he is going to take orders: but there is much harm in his supposing this a Scriptural use of the word, and therefore, that when Christ said, "Tell it to the Church," He might possibly have meant, "Tell it to the Clergy."

186. It is time to put an end to the chance of such misunderstanding.

Let it but be declared plainly by all men, when they begin to state their opinions on matters ecclesiastical, that they will use the word "Church" in one sense or the other;--that they will accept the sense in which it is used by the Apostles, or that they deny this sense, and propose a new definition of their own. We shall then know what we are about with them--we may perhaps grant them their new use of the term, and argue with them on that understanding; so only that they will not pretend to make use of Scriptural authority, while they refuse to employ Scriptural language. This, however, it is not my purpose to do at present. I desire only to address those who are willing to accept the Apostolic sense of the word Church; and with them, I would endeavor shortly to ascertain what consequences must follow from an acceptance of that Apostolic sense, and what must be our first and most necessary conclusions from the common language of Scripture[142] respecting these following points:--

(1) The distinctive characters of the Church, (2) The Authority of the Church.

(3) The Authority of the Clergy over the Church.

(4) The Connection of the Church with the State.

187. These are four separate subjects of question; but we shall not have to put these questions in succession with each of the four Scriptural meanings of the word Church, for evidently its second and third meaning may be considered together, as merely expressing the general or particular conditions of the Visible Church, and the fourth signification is entirely independent of all questions of a religious kind. So that we shall only put the above inquiries successively respecting the Invisible and Visible Church; and as the two last--of authority of Clergy, and connection with State--can evidently only have reference to the Visible Church, we shall have, in all, these six questions to consider:--

(1) The distinctive characters of the Invisible Church.

(2) The distinctive characters of the Visible Church.

(3) The Authority of the Invisible Church.

(4) The Authority of the Visible Church, (5) The Authority of Clergy over the Visible Church.

(6) The Connection of the Visible Church with the State.

188. (1) What are the distinctive characters of the Invisible Church?

That is to say, What is it which makes a person a member of this Church, and how is he to be known for such? Wide question--if we had to take cognizance of all that has been written respecting it, remarkable as it has been always for quant.i.ty rather than carefulness, and full of confusion between Visible and Invisible: even the Article of the Church of England being ambiguous in its first clause: "The _Visible_ Church is a congregation of Faithful men." As if ever it had been possible, except for G.o.d, to see Faith, or to know a Faithful man by sight! And there is little else written on this question, without some such quick confusion of the Visible and Invisible Church;--needless and unaccountable confusion. For evidently, the Church which is composed of Faithful men is the one true, indivisible, and indiscernible Church, built on the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone. It includes all who have ever fallen asleep in Christ, and all yet unborn, who are to be saved in Him: its Body is as yet imperfect; it will not be perfected till the last saved human spirit is gathered to its G.o.d.