J.C. Ryle's quotes

What is it that I fear for you? I fear everything! I fear lest you should persist in rejecting Christ till you have sinned away your own soul. I fear lest you be given over to a reprobate mind, and awake no more. I fear lest you come to such a deadness and hardness of heart that nothing but the voice of the archangel and the trump of God will break your sleep. I fear lest you cling to this vain world so closely that nothing but death will part it from you. I fear lest you live without Christ, die without pardon, rise without hope, receive judgment without mercy, and sink into hell without remedy.

Mark what I say; if you want to do good in these times, you must throw aside indecision and take up a sharply cut, doctrinal religion. If you believe little, those to whom you try to do good will believe nothing. The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct theology; by telling men roundly of Christ's vicarious death and sacrifice; by showing them Christ's substitution on the cross and His precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith and bidding them believe on a crucified Savior; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen serpent, by telling men to look and live, to believe, repent, and be converted. This--this is the only teaching which for eighteen centuries God has honored with success and is honoring at the present day, both at home and abroad. Let the clever advocates of a broad and undogmatic theology (the preachers of the gospel of earnestness and sincerity and cold morality), let them, I say, show us at this day any English village or parish or city or town or district which has been evangelized without "dogma", by their principle. They cannot do it and they never will. Christianity without distinct doctrine is a powerless thing. It may be beautiful to some minds, but it is childless and barren. There is no getting over facts. The good that is done in the earth may be comparatively small. Evil may abound and ignorant impatience may murmur and cry out that Christianity has failed. But depend on it, if we want to 'do good' and shake the world, we must fight with the old apostolic weapons and stick to dogma. No dogma, no fruits! No positive evangelical doctrine, no evangelization!

I am convinced that the first step toward attaining higher standard of holiness is to realize more fully the amazing sinfulness of sin.