Quotes from JC Ryle

Never does a person see any beauty in Christ as a Savior, until they discover that they are a lost and ruined sinner.

Of spiritual strife, exertion, conflict, self-denial, keeping watch, and battle, they know literally nothing at all. Such Christianity may satisfy people, and those who say anything against it may be considered to be very harsh and uncharitable, but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion that the Lord Jesus founded and His apostles preached. It is not the religion that produces real holiness. True Christianity is a "fight.

I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest, as expect a believer to attain much holiness, who was not diligent about his Bible reading, his prayers and the use of his Sundays. Our God is a God who works by means, and He will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them.

To swear extempore, it was remarked by some, brought an Oxford student into no trouble; but to pray extempore was an offence not to be borne!

We cannot work miracles as He did; in this He stands alone. But we can walk in His steps, in the matter of private devotion. If we have the Spirit of adoption, we can pray. Let us resolve to pray more than we have done hitherto. Let us strive to make time, and place, and opportunity for being alone with God. Above all, let us not only pray BEFORE we attempt to work for God, but pray also AFTER our work is done.

What clear doctrine characterized John the Baptist's preaching. He exalted Christ — "After me One is coming who is mightier than I." He spoke plainly of the Holy Spirit — "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Content with their hardly-won triumphs, that worthy body of men seemed to rest upon their oars. In the plenary enjoyment of their rights of conscience, they forgot the great vital principles of their forefathers, and their own duties and responsibilities.

I want the times we live in to be praying times. I want the Christians of our day to be praying Christians. I want the Church of our age to be a praying Church.

The persons I speak of are not thoughtless about religion: they think a good deal about it. They are not ignorant of religion: they know the outlines of it pretty well. But their great defect is that they are not "rooted and grounded" in their faith. Too often they have picked up their knowledge second hand, from being in religious families, or from being trained in religious .ways, but have never worked it out by their own inward experience

The vast majority of children are not trained in the way they should go, for when they reach adulthood, they do not walk with God.

Let this also be written in your memory, and never forgotten. No Holy Spirit,--no true Christianity! You must have the Spirit in you, as well as Christ for you, if you are ever to be saved. God must be your loving Father, Jesus must be your known Redeemer, the Holy Ghost must be your felt Sanctifier, or else it will be better for you never to have been born.

True saving faith is a very different kind of thing. True faith will always show itself by its fruits — it will sanctify, it will work by love, it will overcome the world, and it will purify the heart.