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
JC Ryle
Sin is Abominable – JC Ryle
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 –
Reading William Gurnall – 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)
Teaching of the Holy Spirit – JC Ryle
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
Hold Christ More Closely – JC Ryle
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 – JC Ryle
One single soul saved shall outlive and outweigh all the kingdoms of the world.
– JC Ryle –
Worldliness Kills – JC Ryle
Open transgression of God’s law slays its thousands, but worldliness its tens of thousands.
– JC Ryle –
from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, 1856
No Flowers Without Roots – JC Ryle
We cannot have flowers without roots, or fruit without trees. We cannot have the fruit of the Spirit, without vital union with Christ, and a new creation within.
– JC Ryle –
from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (Volume 2: Luke 6:27-38), 1856
A Profession of Religion Without Practice – JC Ryle
I must honestly declare my conviction that, since the days of the Reformation, there never has been so much profession of religion without practice, so much talking about God without walking with Him, so much hearing God’s words without doing them, as there is in England at this present date. Never were there so many empty tubs and tinkling cymbals! Never was there so much formality and so little reality. The whole tone of men’s minds on what constitutes practical Christianity seems lowered. The old golden standard of the behaviour which becomes a Christian man or woman appears debased and degenerated. You may see scores of religious people (so-called) continually doing things which in days gone by would have been thought utterly inconsistent with vital religion. … The ancient tenderness of conscience about such things seems dying away and becoming extinct, like the dodo; and when you venture to remonstrate with young communicants who indulge in them, they only stare at you as an old-fashioned, narrow-minded, fossilized person, and say, “Where is the harm?” In short, laxity of ideas amoung young men, and “fastness” and levity among young women, are only too common characteristics of the rising generation of Christian professors.
– JC Ryle –
1816-1900 AD