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Quote by J. C. Ryle

“Beware of self-righteousness in every possible shape and form. Some people get as much harm from their "virtues" as others do from their sins.”

Quote by J. C. Ryle

Author

J. C. Ryle

J. C. Ryle, the Bishop of Liverpool, was born on May 10, 1816, and died on June 10, 1900. He was a prominent religious leader in 19th-century England, known for his deep biblical scholarship and steadfast propagation of Christian faith. more

“Self-righteousness exclaims, "I will not be saved in God's way; I will make a new road to heaven; I will not bow before God's grace; I will not accept the atonement which God has wrought out in the person of Jesus; I will be my own redeemer; I will enter heaven by my own strength, and glorify my own merits." The Lord is very wroth against self-righteousness. I do not know of anything against which His fury burneth more than against this, because this touches Him in a very tender point, it insults the glory and honor of His Son Jesus Christ.”

“So when we call pain a problem, we claim we do not deserve it. We are even prepared to scuttle God to maintain our own innocence. We will say that God is not able to do what He would like, or He would never permit persons such as ourselves to suffer. That puffs up our egos and soothes our griefs at the same time. "How could God do this to me?" is at once an admission of pain and a soporific for it. It reduces our personal grief by eradicating the deity. Drastic medicine, indeed, that only a human ego, run wild, could possibly imagine.”

“I think, that a man never passes the verge of moral humility, till self-righteousness be dethroned, till the high and towering imaginations of the man's own righteousness by the law be levelled by the mighty weapons of the gospel, and he brought to submit to the righteousness of God for justification, which is, in the gospel revealed 'from faith to faith.'”

Thinking Men Self Law Imagination Moral Humility He Man Weapons Righteousness Submit Justification Verge Self Righteous Self Righteousness

Book:The Whole Works of the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, Minister of the Gospel at Stirling: Consisting of Sermons and Discourses, on Important and Interesting Subjects. To which is Added, an Enlarged Memoir of the Author, by D. Fraser

Source: The Whole Works of the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, Minister of the Gospel at Stirling: Consisting of Sermons and Discourses, on Important and Interesting Subjects. To which is Added, an Enlarged Memoir of the Author, by D. Fraser

“No wonder if such persons look upon imputed righteousness as the shadow of a dream, who esteem those things which evidence its necessity to be but fond imaginations. And small hope is there to bring such men to value the righteousness of Christ, as imputed to them, who are so unacquainted with their own unrighteousness inherent in them. Until men know themselves better, they will care very little to know Christ at all.”