[137] This pamphlet was originally published in 1851, under the title 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.
[138] London: 1846. Nisbet & Co., Berners Street.
[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 passages 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 assertion 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 institution of certain forms of worship." Now suppose one were to take this interpretation of the word "Church," given by an Oxford divine, and substitute it for the simple word in some Bible texts, as, for instance, "Unto the angel of the external institution of certain forms of worship of Ephesus, write," etc. Or, "Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the external institution 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 assembly of men. But it bears this sense under four different modifications, giving four separate meanings to the word. These are—
I. The entire Multitude 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.