John Charles Ryle (10 May 1816 – 10 June 1900) was an English Evangelical Anglican bishop. He was the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool.
Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin, or sin will choke prayer.
A good conscience will be found a pleasant visitor at our bedside in a dying hour.
We must be holy, because this is the only sound evidence that we have a saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
He does not regard the quantity of faith, but the quality. He does not measure its degree, but its truth. He will not break any bruised reed, nor quench any smoking flax. He will never let it be said that any perished at the foot of the cross.
There is only one door, one bridge, one ladder, between earth and heaven - the crucified Son of God.
A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience, but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace.
People may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a holy life.
Let us strive, every year we live, to become more deeply acquainted with Scripture.
Sin always seems 'good, and pleasant, and desirable,' at the time of commission.
God does not look at riches, titles, education, or beauty. There is only one thing that God does look at, and that is the soul.
Sanctification is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration. He who is born again and made a new creature receives a new nature and a new principle and always lives a new life.
Troublous times, departures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted.
A saved soul has many sorrows. They have their share of bereavements, deaths, disappointments , crosses. What shall enable a believer to bear all this? Nothing but the consolation there is in Christ.
Follow Christ for His own sake, if you follow Him at all.
The saddest symptom about many so-called Christians is the utter absence of anything like conflict and fight against spiritual apathy in their Christianity. They eat, they drink, they dress, they work, they amuse themselves, they get money, they spend money, they go through a brief round of formal religious services once or twice every week. But of the great spiritual warfare - its watchings and strugglings, its agonies and anxieties, its battles and contests - of all things they appear to know nothing at all. Let us take care that this case is not our own.
Sunday morning, before we go to hear the Word of God preached. . . let us not rush into God’s presence careless, reckless, and unprepared, as if it mattered not in what way such work was done. Let us carry with us faith, reverence, and prayer. If these three are our companions, we will hear with profit, and return with praise.
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.
A zealous man feels that like a lamp he is made to burn; and if consumed in burning, he has but done the work for which God appointed him. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach and work and give money, he will cry and sigh and pray.
If men come among you who do NOT preach all the counsel of God, who do NOT preach of Christ, sin, holiness, of ruin, redemption, and regeneration, and do NOT preach of these things in a Scriptural way, you ought to cease to hear them.
It must not content us to take our bodies to church if we leave our hearts at home.