Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
I should like to answer the above letter at some length; but have,
to-day, no time. The sum of answer is—Nothing can be done, but what I
am trying to form this St. George’s Company to do.
For the sake of my female, and theological, readers, I print the next
following letter:—
“The Parsonage, Werrington, Peterborough, July 7, 1875.
“My dear Sir,—In your comment on a former letter of mine you
acknowledged (a) that the Gospel which I endeavour to preach—Be
persuaded by the Lord Jesus Christ; let His life rule your lives—is
eternally true and salutary, but, because I have joined with you in
condemning a doctrine opposed to this, you have rather hastily assumed
(b) that I have ‘eagerly repudiated the doctrine of the Eleventh
Article of the Church of England,’ to which Article I have given, and
not withdrawn, my public assent.
“You have of course taken for granted (c) that the Eleventh Article
teaches the ‘pleasant and supremely false gospel’—Let His life be
instead of your lives; you may be saved by faith without righteousness.
But does it?
“The Article says:
“‘We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ, by Faith, and not for our own works or
deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most
wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is
expressed in the Homily of Justification.’
“This teaches, in simple English enough, that there is but one
righteousness in God’s sight—the righteousness of Christ and that this
righteousness becomes ours by faith: so that faith alone sets us right
with God.
“Before the court of public opinion (d) men may be accounted righteous
for ‘works and deservings’ of their own, like those which were so
eminently satisfactory to the Pharisee who went up to the Temple to
pray; but before God, whose judgments are true, the only merit for
which any man is accounted righteous is the merit of Jesus Christ. The
Publican ‘went down to his house justified’ because of that faith in
God which led him to hunger and thirst after a righteousness higher
than his own, and in due time to be filled with it.
“A man is ‘justified by faith only’ because by faith only he accepts
the righteousness of Christ, not instead of, but for, (e) his own. He
is therefore accounted righteous before God because, in His sight, who
sees the end from the beginning, he is righteous.
“But, while the righteousness is verily his own, he confesses that, in
the deepest sense, it is not his own, for the source and efficient
cause of it is Christ—the merit is His.
“From all this it will appear that what I repudiate is not the Eleventh
Article, but the eternally false and damnatory doctrine which has
seemed to you to be set forth therein.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account