Below are some selected quotations from the book.
Chapter 8: Stradbroke: Twenty Fruitful Years
The great aim of all he wrote was to lead readers to respond to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘This is the end for which I desire to write and preach; and it is of little use or value to write and preach for anything else.'
(p.124)
(Quoted from Ryle’s Principles for Churchmen: A Manual of Positive Statements on Doubtful, or Disputed Points, 1884, p.149)
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Chapter 9: The Teacher
"It is not Atheism I fear so much in the present times as Pantheism. It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true. It is the system which is so liberal, that it dares not say anything is false. It is the system which is so charitable, that it will allow everything to be true. It is the system which is so scrupulous about the feelings of others that we are never to say they are wrong ... What is it but a bowing down before a great idol speciously called liberality? What is it all but a sacrificing of truth upon the altar of a caricature of charity? Beware of it if you believe the Bible."
(pp.140-141)
(Quoted from Ryle’s 'Only One Way', Home Truths, 1860, pp.174-175)
----------
Chapter 11: Standing Firm under Darkening Skies
‘You cannot convert men, and give them eyes to see or hearts to feel. The Holy Ghost alone can do that. But you can be witnesses. Stand fast, both in public and in private, even if you stand alone ... Stand fast in the old belief that the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation was given by inspiration of God, and that the historical facts recorded in the Old Testament are all credible and true.’
(p.194)
(Quoted from Charges and Addresses, pp.198-199)
"A wave of colour blindness about theology appears to be passing over the land. The minds of many seem utterly incapable of discerning any difference between faith and faith, creed and creed, tenet and tenet, opinion and opinion, thought and thought, however diverse, heterogeneous, contrariant, and mutually destructive they may be. Everything, forsooth, is true, and nothing is false, everything is right and nothing is wrong. ... You are not allowed to ask what is God's truth, but what is liberal, and generous, and kind.
"These people live in a kind of mist or fog ... They are eaten up with a morbid dread of CONTROVERSY and an ignorant dislike of PARTY SPIRIT, and yet they really cannot define what they mean by these phrases.’"
(p.195)
(Quoted from Ryle’s Principles for Churchmen, xix and xxii)
----------
Chapter 13: What Does Ryle Say for Today?
Ryle had no developed theory of revival. He knew history and Scripture too well to believe that it depended on human effort. At the same time he took very seriously the truth that disobedience to Scripture is disobedience to God. Churches stand or fall by faith or unbelief. Far more than questions of churchmanship, it burdened him that the movement which questioned the trustworthiness of Scripture, begun in the universities and spreading in the land, would bring spiritual desolation. Through forty years he had taught that Scripture gives us, not 'the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth' (1 Cor. 2:13). 'He that holds a Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man, but of God. He holds a volume which not only contains, but is God's word.’ 'To me and many others it is God's mouth-piece to a dark and fallen world.' 'I abhor the idea of a fallible Bible almost as much as the idea of a fallible Saviour.’
The denial of this belief ushered in one of the greatest changes in British church history.
(p.221)
Quoted from extensive sections of Ryle’s Charges and Addresses, 1890, 1892, 1893, pp.210, 262, 263)
----------
Appendix 1: Extracts from Ryle
The Cross of Christ
"Whenever a church keeps back Christ crucified, or puts anything whatever in that foremost place which Christ crucified should always have, from that moment a church ceases to be useful. Without Christ crucified in her pulpits, a church is little better than a cumberer of the ground, a dead carcase, a well without water, a barren fig tree, a sleeping watchman, a silent trumpet, a dumb witness, an ambassador without terms of peace, a messenger without tidings, a lighthouse without fire, a stumbling-block to weak believers, a comfort to infidels, a hot-bed of formalism, a joy to the devil, and offence to God."
(p.239)
(Quoted from Ryle’s ‘The Cross of Christ’, Old Paths, 240-242.)
The New Birth
"The change which our Lord here declares needful to salvation is evidently no slight or superficial one. It is not merely reformation, or amendment, or moral change, or outward alteration of life. It is a thorough change of heart, will, and character. It is a resurrection. It is a new creation. It is a passing from death to life. It is the implanting in our dead hearts of a new principle from above. It is the calling into existence of a new creature, with a new nature, new habits of life, new tastes, new desires, new appetites, new judgments, new opinions, new hopes, and new fears. All this, and nothing less than this is implied, when our Lord declares we all need a 'new birth'. ... Heaven may be reached without money, or rank, or learning. But it is clear as daylight, if words have any meaning, that nobody can enter heaven without a 'new birth'."
(pp.239-240)
(Quoted from Ryle’s Expository Thoughts: John, vol. 1, pp.86-87 (John 3:1-8)).
‘We maintain that to tell a man he is born of God or regenerated while he is living in carelessness or sin, is a dangerous delusion and calculated to do infinite harm to his soul. We affirm confidently that fruit is the only certain evidence of a man's spiritual condition; that if we would know whose he is and whom he serves, we must look first at his life. Where there is the grace of the Spirit, there will be always more or less the fruit of the Spirit. Grace that cannot be seen is no grace at all, and nothing better than Antinomianism. In short, we believe that where there is nothing seen, there is nothing possessed.’
(p.240)
(Quoted from J. C. Ryle, by M. Guthrie Clark, p.24.)
"Well says Martin Luther: 'Accursed is that charity which is preserved by the shipwreck of faith or truth, to which all things must give place; both charity, or an apostle, or an angel from heaven.' Well says Dr Gauden: 'If either peace or truth must be dispensed with, it is peace and not truth. Better to have truth without public peace than peace without saving truth.'"
(p.248)
(Quoted from Ryle’s ‘The Importance of Dogma’, Principles for Churchmen, 103, 107, 109.
The great aim of all he wrote was to lead readers to respond to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ ‘This is the end for which I desire to write and preach; and it is of little use or value to write and preach for anything else.'
(p.124)
(Quoted from Ryle’s Principles for Churchmen: A Manual of Positive Statements on Doubtful, or Disputed Points, 1884, p.149)
----------
Chapter 9: The Teacher
"It is not Atheism I fear so much in the present times as Pantheism. It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true. It is the system which is so liberal, that it dares not say anything is false. It is the system which is so charitable, that it will allow everything to be true. It is the system which is so scrupulous about the feelings of others that we are never to say they are wrong ... What is it but a bowing down before a great idol speciously called liberality? What is it all but a sacrificing of truth upon the altar of a caricature of charity? Beware of it if you believe the Bible."
(pp.140-141)
(Quoted from Ryle’s 'Only One Way', Home Truths, 1860, pp.174-175)
----------
Chapter 11: Standing Firm under Darkening Skies
‘You cannot convert men, and give them eyes to see or hearts to feel. The Holy Ghost alone can do that. But you can be witnesses. Stand fast, both in public and in private, even if you stand alone ... Stand fast in the old belief that the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation was given by inspiration of God, and that the historical facts recorded in the Old Testament are all credible and true.’
(p.194)
(Quoted from Charges and Addresses, pp.198-199)
"A wave of colour blindness about theology appears to be passing over the land. The minds of many seem utterly incapable of discerning any difference between faith and faith, creed and creed, tenet and tenet, opinion and opinion, thought and thought, however diverse, heterogeneous, contrariant, and mutually destructive they may be. Everything, forsooth, is true, and nothing is false, everything is right and nothing is wrong. ... You are not allowed to ask what is God's truth, but what is liberal, and generous, and kind.
"These people live in a kind of mist or fog ... They are eaten up with a morbid dread of CONTROVERSY and an ignorant dislike of PARTY SPIRIT, and yet they really cannot define what they mean by these phrases.’"
(p.195)
(Quoted from Ryle’s Principles for Churchmen, xix and xxii)
----------
Chapter 13: What Does Ryle Say for Today?
Ryle had no developed theory of revival. He knew history and Scripture too well to believe that it depended on human effort. At the same time he took very seriously the truth that disobedience to Scripture is disobedience to God. Churches stand or fall by faith or unbelief. Far more than questions of churchmanship, it burdened him that the movement which questioned the trustworthiness of Scripture, begun in the universities and spreading in the land, would bring spiritual desolation. Through forty years he had taught that Scripture gives us, not 'the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth' (1 Cor. 2:13). 'He that holds a Bible in his hand should remember that he holds not the word of man, but of God. He holds a volume which not only contains, but is God's word.’ 'To me and many others it is God's mouth-piece to a dark and fallen world.' 'I abhor the idea of a fallible Bible almost as much as the idea of a fallible Saviour.’
The denial of this belief ushered in one of the greatest changes in British church history.
(p.221)
Quoted from extensive sections of Ryle’s Charges and Addresses, 1890, 1892, 1893, pp.210, 262, 263)
----------
Appendix 1: Extracts from Ryle
The Cross of Christ
"Whenever a church keeps back Christ crucified, or puts anything whatever in that foremost place which Christ crucified should always have, from that moment a church ceases to be useful. Without Christ crucified in her pulpits, a church is little better than a cumberer of the ground, a dead carcase, a well without water, a barren fig tree, a sleeping watchman, a silent trumpet, a dumb witness, an ambassador without terms of peace, a messenger without tidings, a lighthouse without fire, a stumbling-block to weak believers, a comfort to infidels, a hot-bed of formalism, a joy to the devil, and offence to God."
(p.239)
(Quoted from Ryle’s ‘The Cross of Christ’, Old Paths, 240-242.)
The New Birth
"The change which our Lord here declares needful to salvation is evidently no slight or superficial one. It is not merely reformation, or amendment, or moral change, or outward alteration of life. It is a thorough change of heart, will, and character. It is a resurrection. It is a new creation. It is a passing from death to life. It is the implanting in our dead hearts of a new principle from above. It is the calling into existence of a new creature, with a new nature, new habits of life, new tastes, new desires, new appetites, new judgments, new opinions, new hopes, and new fears. All this, and nothing less than this is implied, when our Lord declares we all need a 'new birth'. ... Heaven may be reached without money, or rank, or learning. But it is clear as daylight, if words have any meaning, that nobody can enter heaven without a 'new birth'."
(pp.239-240)
(Quoted from Ryle’s Expository Thoughts: John, vol. 1, pp.86-87 (John 3:1-8)).
‘We maintain that to tell a man he is born of God or regenerated while he is living in carelessness or sin, is a dangerous delusion and calculated to do infinite harm to his soul. We affirm confidently that fruit is the only certain evidence of a man's spiritual condition; that if we would know whose he is and whom he serves, we must look first at his life. Where there is the grace of the Spirit, there will be always more or less the fruit of the Spirit. Grace that cannot be seen is no grace at all, and nothing better than Antinomianism. In short, we believe that where there is nothing seen, there is nothing possessed.’
(p.240)
(Quoted from J. C. Ryle, by M. Guthrie Clark, p.24.)
"Well says Martin Luther: 'Accursed is that charity which is preserved by the shipwreck of faith or truth, to which all things must give place; both charity, or an apostle, or an angel from heaven.' Well says Dr Gauden: 'If either peace or truth must be dispensed with, it is peace and not truth. Better to have truth without public peace than peace without saving truth.'"
(p.248)
(Quoted from Ryle’s ‘The Importance of Dogma’, Principles for Churchmen, 103, 107, 109.
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