Quotes from JC Ryle

God forbid that anyone should neglect present duties! To sit idly waiting for Christ, and not to attend to the business of our respective positions is not Christianity but fanaticism. Let us only remember in all our daily pursuits that we serve a Master who is coming again. If I can stir up just one Christian to think more of that second coming and to give it more prominence, I feel that this book will not have been published in vain.

The door of mercy is set wide open. The door is not yet locked. The door can be opened. God's heart is full of love. God's heart is full of compassion. Whoever and whatever a person might have been, at midnight or at any time, whenever he returns to God, he will find God willing to receive him, ready to pardon him, and glad to have him at home. All things are ready. Whoever desires to enter can come in.

Everything around us seems unscrewed, loosened, and out of joint. The fountains of the great deep appear to be breaking up. Ancient institutions are tottering and ready to fall. Social and religious systems are failing and crumbling away. Church and state both seem convulsed to their very foundations, and what the end of this convulsion may be no one can tell.

Young men, God does not show favoritism or respects the honors bestowed by men. He rewards no man's heritage, or wealth, or rank, or position. He does not see with man's eyes. The poorest saint that ever died in a ghetto is nobler in His sight than the richest sinner that ever died in a palace.

Knowledge, not improved and well employed, will only increase our condemnation at the last day.

For my part, I am persuaded that the more light we have, the more we see our own sinfulness. The nearer we get to heaven, the more we are clothed with humility.

Gold is not less gold if it is mingled with alloy, nor is light less light if it is faint and dim, nor is grace less grace because it is young and weak. But after every allowance, I cannot see how anyone deserves to be called holy who willfully allows himself to sin and is not humbled and ashamed because of sin. I dare not call anyone holy who makes a habit of willfully neglecting known duties or willfully doing what he knows God has commanded him not to do.

He believed that Jesus, who met him on the way to Damascus, could give him a hundredfold more than he gave up, and in the world to come everlasting life. By faith he "counted the cost," and saw clearly on which side the balance lay. He believed firmly that to carry the cross of Christ was gain.

Whitefield, again, was among the first to show the right way to meet infidels and skeptics. He saw clearly that the most powerful weapon against such men is not metaphysical reasoning and critical disquisition; but preaching the whole gospel, living the whole gospel, and spreading the whole gospel.

The visible church of Christ will always be a mixed body until Christ comes again. The visible church is always in danger of neglecting the doctrine of Christ's second advent. Whenever Christ does come again, it will be a very sudden event. Christ's second advent will cause an immense change to all the members of the visible church, both good and bad.

Our God is a God of order, and a God who works by means, and we have no right to expect His cause to be kept up by constant miraculous interpositions, while His servants stand idle.

The net of the gospel may perhaps be spread far more widely than it has ever been before, but in the last day, the angels will find an abundance of bad fish in it as well as good. There may be millions more people working for the gospel, and I pray that might be, but however faithfully they may sow, a large proportion of tares will be found growing together with the wheat at the time of harvest.