By J.C. Ryle
Nothing so hardens the heart of man as a barren familiarity with sacred things.
Lingering is the sure destruction of a happy Christianity.
A letter may be written, which is not sealed; so grace may be written in the heart, yet the Spirit may not set the seal of assurance to it.
The same fire which melts the wax hardens the clay.
The day of judgment will prove that many besides husbands have been won without the word by a holy life.
The man who does not take pains about these three things must never expect to grow. Here are the roots of true Christianity. Wrong here, a man is wrong all the way through! Here is the whole reason why many professing Christians never seem to get on.
True Christianity is a fight.
Weak as this true Church may appear to the eye of man, it is an anvil which has broken many a hammer.
He must fight the flesh. Even after conversion he carries within him a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water. That heart will never be free from imperfection in this world, and it is a miserable delusion to expect it.
A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing!
He that would win heaven must be content to fight for it.
You may deceive me or any other minister; it is easy to do so. You may receive the bread and wine from my hands, and yet be cleaving to iniquity in your hearts.
Union is the bud, but communion is the flower: union is the babe, but communion is the strong man.
Never should any man or woman despair!
It is a solemn warning, when we think of the person Jesus names. He does not bid us remember Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Sarah, or Hannah, or Ruth. No: He singles out one whose soul was lost for ever.
As we die, so we shall receive our portion after death: as the tree falls, so it must lie.
It may cost much to be a Christian, but you may be sure it pays.
No man was ever disappointed in Christ.
No cross, no crown! No conflict, no saving Christianity!
Things that have not life will not grow.
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