What generous and enlightened spirit will not be stirred to its
innermost depths by these words, burning as they are with a
well-grounded indignation?
I dare say some of the clergy will have a word to say on their claim to
the priesthood as implying a sacrificial and mediatorial character. On
this point I will say nothing at present.
But it is an awfully solemn consideration put before us here, whether
instead of the pure blessings and the bright countenances intended to
be ours, our accursed blessings and defiled faces are not the natural
consequences of our wilful misunderstanding of what the will of the Lord
is.
"Thy will be done" is a petition which can be offered up in two quite
distinct senses. In the one, it is an expression of resignation to the
Father's afflictive dispensations; in the other, the heartfelt desire to
work out the revealed will of God in all the many-sided aspects of life.
In the first sense, when sorrow or death has entered our door, our first
impulse, if we are Christians, is to give evidence of, and expression
to, our resignation by recognizing the _will of God_. Hence Mr. Ruskin
interposes: "Are you so sure that it _was_ the will of God that your
child should die, or that you should have got into that trouble?" I look
in my local paper in the column of deaths, and see in a neighbouring
large town how extraordinary a proportion of deaths are those of
children. I have taken occasional cemetery duty in one of the busiest
centres of industry in Yorkshire, and was shocked at the large numbers
of funerals in white. Am I to believe it was the _will of God_ that so
many young children should perish, especially as I look to my own
beautiful parish, with its sweet sea and mountain breezes mingled, where
the deaths of children are comparatively rare? and am I not forced to
believe that, even without the assistance of destitution--neglect and
overcrowding, and "quieting mixtures" and ardent spirits, and kicks and
blows have filled most of those little graves? I fear that the will of
Satan is here being accomplished vastly to his satisfaction. And seldom
does the Government do more than touch the fringe of these monstrous
evils. Of course they say "We cannot interfere," or "Legislation in
these matters is impracticable." But can we not all remember when it was
just as certain that free trade in food was impracticable? but who does
not see that it is saving us from famine this dark year 1879?--that
compulsory education was revolutionary and full of unimaginable perils
to the country, and yet who are so glad as the poor themselves, now that
it has been carried into effect? It used to be thought that if people
chose to kill themselves with unwholesome open drains before their
doors, there was no power able to prevent them. But we are wiser now.
Legislators have generally been, or chosen to appear, like cowards till
the time for action came, very late, and then they were decided enough.
Now let us hope that a way may be found to save infant life from
premature extinction by wholesale.
Let me use this opportunity of saying that in the letters we are now
considering there is a feature which ought not to escape those who are
desirous of deriving good from them; and that is that in their very
condensed form no time is taken for explanation or expansion. Mr. Ruskin
speaks as unto wise men, and asks us to judge for ourselves what he
says. But my own experience, after frequent perusal of them, shows me
that there is a vast fund of truth in them which becomes apparent only
after patient consideration and reflection. Without desiring at all to
bestow extravagant praise on my kind friend, or any other distinguished
man, it is only fair and just to own that the truth that is in these
letters shines out more and more the more closely they are examined. It
is a gift that God has given him, which has cost him far more pain,
worry, and vexation, through all kinds of wilful and envious, as well as
innocent and unconscious misrepresentation, than ever it has gained him
of credit or renown.
This principle leads me to view _now_ with approbation what I could not
read at first without an unpleasant feeling. The sentence: "Nearly the
whole Missionary body (with the hottest Evangelical section of the
English Church) is at this moment composed of men who think the Gospel
they are to carry to mend the world with, forsooth, is this, 'If any man
sin, he hath an Advocate with the Father.'" And when I first read it to
my reverend brethren, hard words were spoken of this passage, because in
its terseness, in its elliptic form, it easily allows itself to be
misunderstood. Yet the paragraph contains the essence of the Gospel
expressed with a faithful boldness not often met with in pulpit
addresses.
"If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father." We have here a
solemn and momentous truth, expressed in few words, as clearly and as
briefly as any geometrical definition. But is this _all_ the Gospel?
Will this alone "mend the world, forsooth"? Now the extreme men of one
particular school in the English Church do really preach little else
beside this. When they are entreated to preach upon good works, too, and
unfold a little of their value and beauty,--if they have any at
all,--the answer is always to the effect, "Oh, of course; faith in
Christ must of necessity beget the love of good works. These are the
signs of that. Preach Christ crucified, and all the rest will be sure to
follow." And this is what is exclusively called "preaching the Gospel."
The preacher who teaches us to love our enemies, to live pure lives, to
be honourable to all men and women, to bring up our families in the
truth, is frowned upon as a "legal preacher." As a clergyman myself, I
am not afraid of saying that I look upon this so-called Gospel-preaching
as fraught with not a little of danger. God knows, wicked sinners are
found in every congregation and class of men, kneeling to pray, and
singing praises, exactly like good men. Now I can hardly conceive a
style and matter of preaching more calculated to excuse and palliate,
and almost encourage sin, than this narrow and exclusive so-called
Gospel-preaching. Neither Christ nor His apostles taught thus at all.
The whole Sermon on the Mount is moral in the highest and purest sense.
Every epistle has its moral or _legal_ side. "Woe is me if I preach not
the Gospel!" and I cannot be preaching the Gospel unless, along with the
great proclamation, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the
Father," I also do my utmost to teach "what the will of the Lord is"
concerning a pure, holy, and blameless life, full of active, good works,
done in deep humility and self-abasement; because Christ loved me and
died for me, and asks me, in love to Him, to walk in His steps.