J.C. RYLE:
Prepared to Stand Alone
By Iain H. Murray
Banner of Truth. 275 pages. £8.50
ISBN 978 1 848 716 797
This is the biography admirers of J.C. Ryle have been waiting for! Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, it is full of judicious quotes from the man himself. Good biographies need to encourage, challenge and inspire in equal measure and this one does all three in spades!
Born as the oldest son to a wealthy mill owner, John Charles Ryle was due to inherit ‘an immense fortune’ when his father went bankrupt. Wonderfully converted at Oxford in his last year there, he went into the ordained ministry of the Church of England somewhat reluctantly, but later saw that as the good hand of a sovereign God.
Single parent
In fact, one of the most striking things about Ryle’s story is how difficult life was for him in many ways – he went through the loss of his first two wives prematurely due to ill health and was for a time the sole parent coping with five children.
His parishes were not always easy either. But he trusted in a God who rules and overrules in our lives and could later say: ‘God was fitting me for an after-work in a way I did not know’. After 20 very fruitful and influential years as vicar of Stradbroke, he became in 1880 the first Bishop of Liverpool, at the age of 63! His writing and preaching was hugely popular and has remained so ever since.
Every minister should read it
This is a book every minister should read. Ryle had the common touch and despite lots of opposition was loved by ordinary people and was a champion of a robust Protestant Reformed Evangelicalism. He warned against the danger of ministers not knowing their people and was often in the homes of his parishioners.
He helpfully saw the difference between an ‘expository lecture’ and preaching, and did both, but laboured hard at simple and straightforward biblical preaching that caught peoples’ attention.
He saw the need for ministers to prioritise prayer and reading (especially the lessons learned from church history). He always prioritised the preaching of the gospel, and while he had a high view of the minister’s calling, believed in the crucial role of the laity. He proved to be the model evangelical bishop, widely loved and respected in Liverpool, who prioritised gospel ministry there and saw it grow in his time, and cared for the needs of the people of Liverpool.
He was a strong and respected Evangelical leader who remained completely faithful to his early Reformed Evangelical convictions, even when what he stood for was becoming very unpopular.
Two stand-out chapters
Two chapters stand out in the book –‘The Teacher’ and ‘What does Ryle say for Today?’ Both are worth the price of the book! He sought to get the balance of all that Scripture teaches across. He believed passionately in the inerrancy of Scripture as ‘God’s Word written’, and knew the erosion of that belief
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would destroy the church. He stood against any watering down of Evangelical conviction on the place of God’s moral law, the substi-tutionary atonement of the Cross, the truth of heaven and hell, and the needful work of the Holy Spirit in election and conversion.
Let me give you two brief quotes which sound so modern: ‘It is not Atheism I fear so much in the present times as Pantheism. It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true. It is the system which is so liberal, that it dares not say anything is false. It is the system which is so charitable, that it will allow everything to be true… Beware of it if you believe the Bible’.
Fearless and faithful
‘We have hundreds of jelly-fish clergymen, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity’. He wrote: ‘Even if I stand alone I cannot change my opinion’. How we need more fearless and faithful bishops and pastors like him today!
He was big minded too in his unshakeable Evangelical convictions. He warned of walking the narrow road with a narrow mind: ‘beware of narrow-mindedness in our judgment both of rivals and friends.’
One area of assessment where I find myself in disagreement with Iain Murray is that ‘Ryle is not the right starting point when it comes to the formulation of a policy for Evangelicals within the Church of England today’. He rightly says that the attachment of the Church of England to her 39 Articles and Prayer Book has been sadly and dangerously weakened since Ryle’s time, especially by the ‘Worship and Doctrine Measure’ of 1974. Loosened in its ties yes, but not yet broken! Some bishops and other clergy still behave badly, but our Confession, though undermined, still stands.
That is why the current debate on sexuality is so important, because if the Church collectively in Synod abandons clear biblical teaching on the subject it will have for the first time confessionally denied a fundamental of the faith, and that is a Church-dividing issue. Ryle saw clearly that a unity devoid of truth was no unity at all. But for as long as possible he wanted to stay and fight for the faith – Ryle’s grace, courage and backbone is exactly what those of us in mainstream denominations need at this time!
Thank you, Iain Murray, for a wonderful book!
