Abide in Me says Jesus. Cling to Me. Stick fast to Me. Live the life of close and intimate communion with Me. Get nearer to Me. Roll every burden on Me. Cast your whole weight on Me. Never let go your hold on Me for a moment. Be, as it were, rooted and planted in Me. Do this and I will never fail you. I will ever abide in you.
– JC Ryle –
Obedience is the only proof of reality. Faith without works is dead, being alone. “Ye are my friends,” says Jesus, “if ye do whatever I command you” (John 15:14)
– JC Ryle –
from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, 1856
A right understanding of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.
– JC Ryle –
Above all let us humbly pray for the teaching of the Holy Spirit. He alone can apply truth to our hearts, and make us profit by what we read.
– JC Ryle –
from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, 1856
Nevertheless settle it firmly in our minds that sin is “the abominable thing that God hateth” that God “is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon that which is evil.” That the least transgression of God’s law makes us “guilty of all” that “the soul that sinneth shall surely die” that “the wages of sin is death” that God shall “judge the secrets of men” that there is a worm that never dies, and a fire that is not quenched. That “the wicked shall be turned into hell” and “shall go away into everlasting punishment” and that “nothing that defiles shall in any wise enter heaven.”
– JC Ryle –
For my own part, I can only say that I read everything I can get hold of which professes to throw light on my Master’s business, and the work of Christ among men. But, the more I read, the less I admire modern theology. The more I study the productions of the new schools of theological teachers, the more I marvel that men and women can be satisfied with such writings. There is a vagueness, a mistiness, a shallowness, an indistinctness, a superficiality, an aimlessness, a hollowness about the literature of the “broader and kinder systems”, as they are called, which to my mind stamps their origin on their face. They are of the earth, earthy. I find more of definite soul-satisfying thought in one page of Gurnall than in five pages of such books as the leaders of the so-called “Broad Church School” put forth. In matters of theology, the old is better.
– JC Ryle –
talking about William Gurnall’s book, “The Christian In Complete Armour” (dated April 23, 1864)
We must pray daily for the teaching of the Holy Ghost, if we would make progress in the knowledge of divine things. Without Him, the mightiest intellect and the strongest reasoning powers will carry us but a little way.
– JC Ryle –
from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, 1856
Let us hold to Christ more closely, love him more heartily, live for him more thoroughly, copy him more exactly, confess him more boldly, follow him more fully. Religion like this will always bring its own reward. Worldly people may laugh at it. Weak brethren may think it extreme. But it will wear well. In sickness it will bring peace. In the world to come it will give us a crown of glory that fades not away.
– JC Ryle –
from Sickness
One single soul saved shall outlive and outweigh all the kingdoms of the world.
– JC Ryle –
