Letters to the Clergy on the Lord's Prayer and the Church Part 10

To me it seems that an habitual protesting att.i.tude on the part of those who are called upon to be the teachers of the Church implies that they have not themselves properly entered the temple of Christian truth. He to whom Christian doctrine has revealed itself in all its wondrous harmony cannot do other than devote himself to unfolding to others what is ever present to his own mind, so that he may aid in building up their thoughts consistently and symmetrically, and thus help to establish them firmly in the Christian faith.

We may, then, it seems to me, express our thankfulness that Mr. Ruskin has spoken, though ever so briefly, a word of encouragement to the clergy of the English Church amongst whom the thought of a future of reunion for Christendom has been welcomed. Mr. Ruskin is familiar with the practical working of the Christian Church in Italy and elsewhere on the Continent, and seeing, as he has seen, that her influence is exerted towards securing an orderly and healthy state of social life, he does not give circulation to the indiscriminate calumnies which were once wont to be uttered, and which were alike at variance with the truth and provocative of a mischievous severance of Christians from one another.

But we must, I think, be more especially grateful to Mr. Ruskin for his calling widespread attention to the great Christian doctrine of the Fatherhood of G.o.d. There is especial need for this being uplifted before the thoughts of men at the present day, and it is being so uplifted. The more it is upheld, the more fully will it be discerned. It cannot be said that the doctrine is not accepted within the English Church. Still, it has not yet been received in all its fulness. Amongst the separatists outside the borders of our Church, the doctrine that G.o.d is the Father of all humanity, and the loving Father too, is rejected in two extreme ways. The set of "believers" who adopt the one extreme view consider that the Lord's Prayer--so luminous, as Mr. Ruskin reminds us, with the thought of G.o.d's fatherly love--should be used only by the elect, such as themselves, and that all others have no right to address G.o.d as their Father. The other set of so-called "believers" considers with a deplorable Pharisaism that they have arrived at such a stage of perfection as to be beyond the need for using words which require them to ask every day for forgiveness of their trespa.s.ses. Why should they ask for such, they say, when their trespa.s.ses are non-existent? If they are children of the Father they are not so in the same sense as those who conscientiously use the prayer addressed to the Father in heaven. I regret that Mr. Ruskin's facile pen has betrayed him into writing some words with reference to our Liturgy which bring him momentarily into sympathy with these self-righteous ones who have no need to confess that they want more health of soul.

But the doctrine of the loving Fatherhood of G.o.d, as revealed to us in Christ, is one that is unfolding itself more and more clearly to the Christian world. If it has unfolded itself to us we may aid in its increased discernment. It is one that involves the acceptance of the thought that all human life and every sphere of human endeavour are under Divine patronage. G.o.d is in every way our Father. All human excellences whatsoever exist in their fulness and perfection in Him. As they are manifested in us and in our brothers and sisters around us, they are Divine excellences becoming incarnate on the realm of humanity.

Childhood, for instance, as it manifests its sweetness and winsomeness in Christian homes, is an outcome of the eternal childhood which dwells in G.o.d, and which was manifested supremely to the world in the life of the Divine Child at Bethlehem and Nazareth.

So that the doctrine of the loving Fatherhood of G.o.d has sheltering beneath it the thought of the divineness of childhood. Cl.u.s.tering with it are many kindred thoughts. There is the divineness of youth, the frankness of Christian boyhood, the tender grace of Christian girlhood,--these are manifestations of the eternal youth abiding in the Divine Lord of humanity.

I might speak to you in like manner of the divineness of manhood and of womanhood, and of the divineness of old age. All womanly excellences, as well as all manly virtues, reside in the Divine One. I might speak to you of the divineness of wedded life, the divineness of Christian fatherliness and motherliness. The divineness of the student's life and of the teacher's life might also be dwelt upon. The divineness of the ministry of reconciliation, in which ministry all may take part who help others to separate themselves from sin and selfishness and to enter into union with G.o.d and His life of love,--this I present to you as a fruitful thought. The divineness of all efforts tending towards the solace and comforting of suffering human souls,--that too is one of the beneficent thoughts involved in the great Christian truth that G.o.d is the Father of humanity.

But the same great truth leads us to the discernment of other useful thoughts. I might speak of them as connected with the divineness of all toil which has for its object the increase of human knowledge, the gathering together of the stored-up lessons of the past, the beautifying of the daily life, the refining and spiritualizing of the daily thoughts of the great brotherhood and sisterhood. It would thus be quite justifiable to speak of the divineness of scientific toil, inasmuch as that has for its aim the unfolding of the thoughts of G.o.d, of which all appearances of the material world are the outcome and manifestation.

Thus too I might speak of the divineness of the work of those who enable us to see the results of the Divine guidance bestowed on the world in the ages past. I might speak of the divineness of the work of the artist who devotes himself to acquiring skill in subtly entangling in the colours he puts on canvas the sentiment underlying the landscape he reverently looks at, which to him is a manifestation of a heaven of beauty unseen by heedless eyes. I might also speak of the divineness of the labours of the Christian poet, who presents to the world truth in its feminine and most winning aspects.

When I should have spoken of all these things they could all be summed up into one phrase--the divineness of Humanity. And this is what I have faintly attempted to show necessarily springs up for recognition as the doctrine of the Fatherhood of G.o.d presents itself to us in all its impressiveness.

I must hasten to a close. I have said that Mr. Ruskin in what he asks us with reference to our relation to the Church in other countries sounds a note of catholicity. In what I have myself said as to Protestantism I have urged nothing inconsistent with a thorough loyalty to the principle of Christian individualism. But individualism in utter revolt against authority leads only to confusion and to a multiplicity of tyrannies.

Individualism thrives best under the protection of a generous all-embracing authority. Individualism before taking up the att.i.tude of revolt should consider that it, by brave patience and a reverent submissiveness to all higher influences around it, may contribute beneficently to the authority of the future, and increase the generousness and catholicity of its sway.

I will further remark that Mr. Ruskin's words as to the Fatherhood of G.o.d are also a catholic utterance. For the Fatherhood of G.o.d when pondered upon helps us to see that no sphere of human effort is beyond His control; that His house is one of many mansions of thought and affection and loving toil; that His heavenly kingdom is one including all domains on which human energies can be directed, over which human thoughts can roam, on which human love can lavish itself.

_From the Rev._ CANON E. H. M'NEILE, _Liverpool_.

What is the exact question asked in Letter II.?

Is it whether the clergy are or are not teachers of universal science?

If so, we answer, Yes, we are teachers of the science most universal of all, namely, the knowledge of G.o.d, which is eternal life: and of the way to attain it, which is holiness; and the principles of this science, which are universal, are not, as in other sciences, discovered by human research, but are revealed by G.o.d.

Does the question imply that there are points of science on which it is of no consequence what opinions a teacher holds? And if so, does it further mean that all matters of doctrine, such as are defined in the Thirty-nine Articles, are of this nature?

If so, I answer that it is only the theories or speculations of scientific investigators about which variety of opinion is immaterial, not the essential principles of the science; and that we cannot exclude all questions of doctrine from among those principles. I do not know what is meant by holding different opinions on points of science. About the facts of science there can be no difference of opinion; but there may be about the bearings, and the inferences to be drawn from them.

LETTER III

Here is a definite question. My answer is, Yes, but we do not refer to the Thirty-nine Articles for a statement of the Gospel, but rather to the Apostles' Creed, which contains the simplest summary of the facts on which the Gospel rests. (See 1 Cor. xv. 1, etc.)

LETTER IV

Here I answer, No. The Lord's Prayer was not intended to be a statement of the Gospel, but the language of those who have accepted it. No doubt the terms of the prayer may be so explained as to bring in a definition of the Gospel, working backwards; but a complete explanation would be longer than the Thirty-nine Articles. There seems to be a serious confusion of thought here between the offer of salvation to sinners estranged from G.o.d, and the utterance towards G.o.d of His reconciled children.

LETTER V

The Lord's Prayer is elementary teaching for Christians, but it is not the first thing to be taught to those outside the family of G.o.d. The truth that we have a Father in heaven is a fundamental part of the Gospel. It is a.s.sumed in the Lord's Prayer; and so is the further truth that our Father of His tender love towards us has given His Son to die for us, that we may be delivered from the "consuming fire" which sin, not G.o.d, has kindled; and thus we have indeed a blessed scheme of pardon for which we are to be thankful to _both_ the Father and the Son. This makes _all_ the clauses of the apostolic blessing intelligible and living.

LETTER VI

Page 14: "For _other_ sins," etc. I think this is an incorrect comment.

The force of the threat is positive, not comparative. The language of the law is similar towards every sin.

In what is said about the abomination of hypocrisy in prayer we cordially agree. G.o.d give us grace to avoid it ourselves, and to warn our brethren faithfully against it! But in what follows there is an a.s.sumption of a power of discipline which the clergy do not possess, and which I fear the laity would be most unwilling to concede to them.

Mr. Ruskin seems also to slip into the old error of the servants in the parable of the tares.

LETTER VII

On page 21 St. John xiv. 9 is incorrectly cited, and it is difficult to know the exact drift of the writer.

I object to the statement that "in all His relations to us and commands to us," etc. (See, _e.g._, St. Matt. xxviii. 18-20.)

As to His not knowing whether His prayer could be heard, see St. John xi. 41, 42.

I think it is incorrect to say that our Lord Himself _used_ the prayer He gave us, at least in its entirety as it stands.

Pages 20, 21: Mr. Ruskin seems to me to draw most strongly the very comparison to which he objects. Surely the kingdom of Christ _is_ the kingdom of His Father. (Rev. xi. 15, xii. 10; Eph. v. 5.) Does not an unwillingness to accept the true divinity of our Lord underlie this pa.s.sage?

LETTER VIII

Page 25: There is surely a mistake here. Personal sanctification and national prosperity are very different things. A nation has no existence except in this world; therefore its prosperity is the chief end to be aimed at; and this is no doubt promoted by the holiness of its people.

But a man has another life hereafter; and comfort and wealth are not the end of his being. If granted, they are means to his sanctification, not _vice versa_.

It seems to me that Mr. Ruskin in this Letter writes somewhat recklessly, and that he must have been singularly unfortunate in his experience of preachers if he has never heard a faithful sermon against covetousness, which is the idolatry of our age. On page 26 he seems to fall into a great error in supposing that the proclamation of a free pardon for sin tends to encourage it. If a man is to be delivered from the power of his sins, he must first be delivered from the guilt of them.

No doubt the grace of G.o.d has been abused by some; and St. Paul himself felt that his doctrine was open to such abuse (Rom. vi. 1, 15). It is not, I think, just to attribute the corruption of our great cities to the teaching of the clergy. It is rather to be ascribed to the absence of that teaching.

LETTER X

Whatever justice there may be (and no doubt there is much) in Mr.

Ruskin's accusations against us clergy, he is surely under an entire misapprehension in the charge which he here makes against our Liturgy.

Our Prayer Book is doubtless constructed for the use of believing Christians, and is not fitted for the impenitent; but its adaptation to the needs of the repentant publican and of the advanced Christian is most wonderful. And that a form of prayer may be so adapted is surely proved by the Lord's Prayer itself, which Mr. Ruskin says is the _first_ thing to be taught to all, and which, with all his practice in thinking, he feels that he cannot adequately expound.

Surely the repet.i.tion of a confession of unholiness casts no slur upon the efficacy of our prayers for holiness when we recognize that holiness is progressive, and that spiritual growth may express itself not merely in new words, but in a heartier utterance of the old ones. As to the particular expression, "there is no health in us," it needs either the explanation of St. Paul--"I know that in me, _that is, in my flesh_, dwelleth no good thing,"--or else to be understood according to the old meaning of "health," viz., "_saving health_," _salvation_, _deliverance_ (Psalm cxix. 123, Prayer Book; Isa. lviii. 8; Jer. viii. 15).

It needs further to be remarked that repentance is not only a single definite act, but a state of mind.