 Even though J.C. Ryle was raised in a
nominal Christian home, he once believed that Christianity must be one of the most
disagreeable occupations on earth—or in heaven. But one day he happed into a church
where, hearing Scripture read out loud, he was transformed. One verse, and the emphasis
made in between each clause, gripped him. “By grace are ye saved . . . through faith
. . . and that not of yourselves . . . it is the gift of God.” Reflecting on his
conversion, Ryle said, “Nothing to this day appeared to me so clear and distinct as
my own sinfulness, Christ’s preciousness, the value of the Bible, the absolute
necessity of coming out of the world, the need of being born again, and the enormous folly
of the whole doctrine of baptismal regeneration.” And he never looked back.
Ryle grew up
in a wealthy home, wanting for nothing, heir to the family fortune, in pursuit of a
banking career, walking in his father’s footsteps. In 1841, however, his
father’s investments collapsed and instantly his whole future changed. “We got
up one summer’s morning with all the world before us as usual, and went to bed that
night completely and entirely ruined.” He described that experience as “the
blackest chapter of my life.” By fall of that year he applied himself to Christian
service.
In December
1841 he was ordained by the Church of England and was made Rector of the Church of St.
Thomas in Winchester; from there he moved to the parish of Helmingham in Hampshire,
serving three years; and then he served thirty-six years in Suffolk. In 1880, after
thirty-nine years of faithful ministry, he was made the first Bishop of Liverpool, in the
Church of England. He was affectionately known as “the working man’s
bishop.” And as a bishop he adopted one single text for his official work: “Thy
word is truth” (John 17:7).
Ryle was
trained at Eton College, then at Oxford. Commenting on his very deliberate writing
technique, he said, “In style and composition, I frankly avow that I have studied as
far as possible to be plain and pointed and to choose what an old divine calls ‘picked
and packed words.’ I have tried to place myself in the position of one who is
reading aloud to others.” He credits William Cobbett, the political radical; Thomas
Guthrie, the Scot; John Bright, the Quaker orator; John Bunyan, Puritan and author of Pilgrim’s
Progress; Matthew Henry, the great biblical commentator; and William Shakespeare, of
course, as influences on his pen.
J.C. Ryle was
a theological vertebrate. He never suffered from what he called a “boneless,
nerveless, jellyfish condition of soul.” His convictions were not negotiable. Indeed,
his successor described him as “that man of granite.” Archbishop Magee called
him “the frank and manly Mr. Ryle.” Charles Spurgeon said he was “an
evangelical champion . . . One of the bravest and best of men.” Ryle simply observed,
“What is won dearly is priced highly and clung to firmly.” And his fortitude was
not limited to doctrinal matters. As a best-selling author he used his royalties to pay
his father’s debts. True character is not for sale, neither does it owe any man.
J.C. Ryle
died on Trinity Sunday, 1900. At his funeral, “The graveyard was crowded with poor
people who had come in carts and vans and buses to pay the last honours to the old
man—who had certainly won their love.” Canon Hobson, speaking in Ryle’s
memorial sermon, said, “Few men in the nineteenth century did so much for God, for
truth and for righteousness among the English-speaking race, and in the world, as our late
Bishop.” Bishop Chavasse, His successor, said he was a man “who lived so as to
be missed.”
From his
conversion to his burial, J.C. Ryle was entirely one-dimensional. He was a one-book man;
he was steeped in Scripture; he bled Bible. As only Ryle could say, “It is still the
first book which fits the child’s mind when he begins to learn religion, and the last
to which the old man clings as he leaves the world.” This is why his works have
lasted—and will last—they bear the stamp of eternity. They contrast fruit which
“remains” (John 15:16) against wood, hay, and stubble. Today, more than a
hundred years after his passing, these works stand at the crossroads between the historic
faith and modern evangelicalism. Like signposts, they direct us to the “old
paths.” And, like signposts, they are meant to be read.
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