J. C. Ryle Quotes

208 Sourced Quotes

A deep sense of sin, a humble willingness to be saved in God's way, a teachable readiness to give up our own prejudices when a more excellent way is shown, these are the principal things. These things the two disciples possessed, and therefore our Lord "went with them" and guided them into all truth.

J. C. Ryle
The Christianity that saves is a thing personally grasped, personally experienced, personally felt and personally possessed.

J. C. Ryle
True repentance is no light matter. It is a thorough change of heart about sin, a change showing itself in godly sorrow and humiliation - in heartfelt confession before the throne of grace - in a complete breaking off from sinful habits, and an abiding hatred of all sin. Such repentance is the inseparable companion of saving faith in Christ.

J. C. Ryle
No salvation without regeneration - no spiritual life without a new birth - no heaven without a new heart.

J. C. Ryle
Any well-read man knows that the moral difference between the condition of the world before Christianity was planted and since Christianity took root is the difference between night and day, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of the devil.

J. C. Ryle
There is not enough Bible-reading among us. It is not sufficient to have the Book. We must actually READ it, and PRAY over it ourselves. It will do us no good, if it only lies still in our houses. We must be actually familiar with its contents, and have its texts stored in our memories and minds. Knowledge of the Bible never comes by intuition. It can only be obtained by diligent, regular, daily, attentive, wakeful reading.

J. C. Ryle
It is not hard to deceive ministers, relatives and friends. But it is impossible to deceive Christ.

J. C. Ryle
Let us only take heed that this office of Christ is not set before us in vain. It will profit us nothing at the last day that Jesus was a Shepherd, if during our lifetime, we never heard His voice and followed Him. If we love life, let us join His flock without delay.

J. C. Ryle
If we would have good ministers, we must remember our Lord's example, and pray for them. Their work is heavy. Their responsibility is enormous. Their strength is small. Let us see that we support them, and hold up their hands by our prayers.

J. C. Ryle
Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted.

J. C. Ryle
He that has trained his children for heaven,
rather than for earth- for God rather than for man- he is the parent who will be called wise at the last.

J. C. Ryle
Without the blessing of the Lord, your best endeavors will do no good. He has the hearts of all men in His hands, and except He touch the hearts of your children by His Spirit, you will weary yourself to no purpose. Water, therefore, the seed you sow on their minds with unceasing prayer.

J. C. Ryle
Naked we came upon earth, and naked we go forth, and of all our possessions, we can carry nothing with us.

J. C. Ryle
The man who has nothing more than a kind of Sunday religion -- whose Christianity is like his Sunday clothes put on once a week, and then laid aside -- such a man cannot, of course, be expected to care about growth in grace.

J. C. Ryle
We must read our Bibles like men digging for hidden treasure.

J. C. Ryle
The love of our Lord Jesus Christ towards sinners is strikingly shown in His steady purpose of heart to die for them.

J. C. Ryle
Let us read the Bible reverently and diligently, with an honest determination to believe and practice all we find in it.

J. C. Ryle
The best of men are only men at their very best. Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, - martyrs, fathers, reformers, puritans, - all are sinners, who need a Savior: holy, useful, honorable in their place - but sinners after all.

J. C. 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...

J. C. Ryle
Let it be a settled principle in our minds that the first and chief business of the Church of Christ is to preach the Gospel.

J. C. Ryle
Do something, by God's help, to make heaven more full and hell more empty.

J. C. Ryle
The blood of Christ can cleanse away all sin. But we must 'plead guilty' before God can declare us innocent.

J. C. Ryle
There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster, it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the authentic reality that called itself Christianity in the beginning.

J. C. Ryle
Nothing is so offensive to Christ as lukewarmness in religion.

J. C. Ryle
People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it, is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.

J. C. Ryle
Let us awake to a sense of the perilous state of many professing Christians. 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord'; without sanctification there is no salvation (Hebrews 12:14). Then what an enormous amount of so-called religion there is which is perfectly useless!

J. C. Ryle
We are all so sunk in sin, and so wedded to the world, that we would never turn to God and seek salvation, unless He first called us by His grace. Without a divine call, no one can be saved.

J. C. Ryle
The faith that has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils.

J. C. Ryle
The devil has more knowledge than any of us, and yet is no better for it.

J. C. Ryle
The true secret of spiritual strength is self-distrust and deep humilty.

J. C. Ryle