John Ruskin

“ Ruskin seriously, or only sarcastically, tell us that the assaults upon the divine power of prayer gain any force from the circumstance that we are constrained to pray daily for forgiveness, never getting so far as to need it no longer? From the first day that we lisped at our mother's knee, "Forgive us our trespasses," until, bowed with age, we still say, "Forgive us our trespasses," we have never stood, and never will stand, one day less in need of forgiveness than another day—or our Lord would have provided a thanksgiving and a prayer for the perfected. ”

“ Ruskin himself as a striking illustration of this. What is simpler than beauty? what more universally apprehended? what at first sight more incapable of analysis? 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. ”

“ What, then, does true religion require of us if such circumstances make forgiveness impossible? To be ever ready, ever prepared to forgive; to seek every opening, every avenue to peace without sacrifice of self-respect and manly independence; to watch for opportunities to do kindnesses to the most inveterate enemy,—even where a change of heart appears hopeless. This is possible to a Christian, and this is what Christ demands. ”

“ Almighty, Eternal God, who alone doest great wonders, grant to Thy servant our bishop, and to all the congregations committed to him, the healthful spirit of Thy grace; and that they may please Thee in truth, pour out upon them the perpetual dew of Thy blessing.
O God, in whose hand are the hearts of kings,331 who art the consoler of the meek and the strength of the faithful, and the protector of all that trust in Thee, give to our king and queen and to the Christian people wisely to manifest the glory of Thy power, that by Thee they may ever be restored to forgiveness. ”

“ Brantwood, 12th July, 1879.
I wonder how many, even of those who honestly and attentively join in our Church services, attach any distinct idea to the second clause of the Lord's Prayer—the first petition of it—the first thing that they are ordered by Christ to seek of their Father?
Am I unjust in thinking that most of them have little more notion on the matter than that God has forbidden "bad language," and wishes them to pray that everybody may be respectful to Him? ”

“ Do the conditions attached to the emoluments we receive prohibit us from holding or teaching any other opinions than those we have subscribed to?
It is a question not to be approached without a tremor. But no abstract answer can well be given. Human nature replies for itself in the spectacle of the clergy of the Church of England divided and subdivided; here deeply sundered, there of different complexions amicably blending together, holding every variety of opinion which the Church allows or disallows within her borders. Human nature absolutely refuses to be shackled in its positive beliefs. ”

“ Ruskin regarded the loving work of the Father and of the Son as equal in the forgiveness of sins and redemption of mankind; that what is done by the Father is in reality done also by the Son; and that it is by a mere accommodation to human infirmity of understanding that the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed to us in language, inadequate indeed to convey divine truths, but still the only language possible ”

“ 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 nobility 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 ”

“ 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 assent 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. ”

“ He is to proclaim aloud, boldly and constantly, "This is the will of the Lord,"—to apply, that is, the morality of the Gospel, stringently and authoritatively, to the lives of his people. To effect this application with more power, he is to exercise a rigid discipline, and exclude from his congregation all who are not acting up to what he conceives to be the Gospel ideal. He is not to hamper himself with any set and formal Liturgy, which can never be copious or flexible enough to meet the varied needs of a number of men differing widely in knowledge and attainment. ”

“ Ruskin that the world has, from the first, used this prayer thoughtlessly and blasphemously; and probably will continue to do so to the end, when the thoughts and imaginations of all men's hearts shall be revealed, and no more disguises shall be possible; when the masked hypocrite's smile shall be torn from him and reveal the covetousness that breeds in his heart to its core; when the honourable man shall no longer be confounded with thieves, nor the usurer and extortioner be courted and bowed to like an honest man. ”

“ Perhaps the most subtle and unconscious way in which the religious teachers upon whom the ends of the world are come, have done this, is in never telling their people the meaning of the clause in the Lord's Prayer, which, of all others, their most earnest hearers have oftenest on their lips: "Thy will be done." They allow their people to use it as if their Father's will were always to kill their babies, or do something unpleasant to them; and following comfort and wealth, instead of explaining to them that the first and intensest article of their Father's will was their own sanctification ”

“ An honourable man would a hundred times rather accept a loan as a matter of profit to the lender than as a charity to himself. The right result of an honourable system of borrowing and lending with equal advantage to both, is the will of God, and not contrary to sanctification. The result of a compulsory system of charitable loans would lead only to the destruction of credit and mutual confidence, and the sacrifice of a multitude of Christian graces and virtues. ”

“ Whether it be indeed Utopian to believe that the kingdom we are taught to pray for may come—verily come—for the asking, it is surely not for man to judge; but it is at least at his choice to resolve that he will no longer render obedience, nor ascribe glory and power, to the Devil. If he cannot find strength in himself to advance towards Heaven, he may at least say to the power of Hell, "Get thee behind me;" and staying himself on the testimony of Him who saith, "Surely I come quickly," ratify his happy prayer with the faithful "Amen, even so, come, Lord Jesus." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Concerning the letter before us on the forgiveness of sins—each other's sins or debts, and our sins before God—it is not a question of theology, but of simple moral right and wrong; and I defy Mr. Ruskin's bitterest censors to deny, that, in this wicked world, men are more in earnest in deceiving, injuring, and swindling their friends than they are in seeking the love of their enemies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 God their Father, and that in all probability their own eternal tortures were decreed before ever they entered the world? ”

“ But after all these allowances it remains a fact that the clergyman is not a guide only, but a teacher, an ambassador. He is to teach his people all that he knows about God 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. ”