J. C. Ryle Quotes

Salvation is from our side a choice, from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our 'accepting' and 'willing' are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God.

There can be but one will the master in our salvation, but that shall never be the will of man, but of God; therefore man must be saved by grace.

Grace is necessary to salvation, free will equally so - but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.

God's ways do not change... Still he shows his freedom and lordship by discriminating between sinners, causing some to hear the gospel while others do not hear it, and moving some of those who hear it to repentance while leaving others in their unbelief, thus teaching his saints that hew owes mercy to none and that it is entirely of his grace, not at all through their own effort, that they themselves have found life.

In the exercise of God's efficiency, the decree of God comes first. This manner of working is the most perfect of all and notably agrees with the divine nature.

The purpose of God is the sovereign cause of all that good that is in man, and of all that external, internal and eternal good that comes to man. Not works past, for men are chosen from everlasting; not works present, for Jacob was loved and chosen before he was born; nor works foreseen, for men were all corrupt in Adam. All a believer's present happiness, and all his future happiness springs from the eternal purpose of God.

To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.

There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God

God’s sovereign will is not at the whim and mercy of our person and individual responses to it.

Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him" and "you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God's 'free grace' but on Man's 'free will.'

We are able to persevere only because God works within us, within our free wills. And because God is at work in us, we are certain to persevere. The decrees of God concerning election are immutable. They do not change, because He does not change. All whom He justifies He glorifies. None of the elect has ever been lost.

The hand of the wicked can't stir one moment before God allows them to begin, and...one moment after God commands them to stop.

God overrules all mutinous accidents, brings them under His laws of fate, and makes them all serviceable to His purpose.

He does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He wills.

We did not happen to be--we were chosen by God to exist.

To know that nothing happens in God's world apart from God's will may frighten the godless, but it stabilizes the saints.

We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.

It is inconceivable that the God who gives Himself in His Son to save us, should have created some people ordained to evil and damnation. There can only be one predestination to salvation. In and through Jesus Christ all people are predestined to be saved. Our free choice is ruled out in this regard. God wants free people, except in relation to this last and definitive decision. We are not free to decide and choose to be damned.

If God did not act first, no one would be saved.

Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of His will.

I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side.

I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for Him to use, and that He found me.

Some people think God does not like to be troubled with our constant coming and asking. The way to trouble God is not to come at all.

God so loved the world that he made up his mind to damn a large majority of the human race.