471 Quotes by J. C. Ryle

Tell me what a man does in the matter of Bible-reading and praying, in the matter of Sunday, public worship, and the Lord’s Supper, and I will soon tell you what he is, and on which road he is travelling.

Hell, hell fire, the damnation of hell, eternal damnation, the resurrection of the damnation, everlasting fire, the place of torment, destruction, outer darkness, the worm that never dies, the fire that is not quenched, the place of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, everlasting punishment... these are the words which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself employs. Away with the miserable nonsense which people talk in this day who tell us that the ministers of the gospel should never speak of hell.

Yet sanctification, in its place and proportion, is quite as important as justification. Sound protestant and evangelical doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless: it does positive harm. It is despised by keen-sighted and shrewd men of the world, as an unreal and hollow thing, and brings religion into contempt.

What young men will be, in all probability depends on what they are now, and they seem to forget this. Youth is the planting time of full age, the molding season in the little space of human life, the turning point in the history of man’s mind.

He and sin must quarrel, if he and God are to be friends.

Worst of all, there are hundreds of young unestablished believers who are so infected with the same love of excitement, that they actually think it a duty to be always seeking it. Insensibly almost to themselves, they take up a kind of hysterical, sensational, sentimental Christianity, until they are never content with the “old paths,” and, like the Athenians, are always running after something new.

A man’s state before God may always be measured by his prayers.

If the Bible is not the Word of God and inspired, the whole of Christendom for 1800 years has been under an immense delusion – half the human race has been cheated and deceived, and churches are monuments of folly. If the Bible is the Word of God and inspired, all who refuse to believe it are in fearful danger; they are living on the brink of eternal misery. No man, in his sober senses, can fail to see that the whole subject demands most serious attention.

So that the best believer, if he knows what he says, and says the truth, is but a sinner at the best.