Light From Old Times

The nineteenth century was an age that witnessed great progress in many areas of exploration and learning. However, according to J.C. Ryle, it was an age of great ignorance too. ‘With all the stir made about education’, he wryly observed, ‘the ignorance of our own country’s history is something lamentable and appalling and depressing.’ What particularly distressed Ryle was the scant knowledge of the English Reformation evident amongst his contemporaries. In this lay a grave danger: one of the reasons so many congregations drift form their evangelical foundations is their sheer ignorance of Christian history, and their lack of understanding of the major doctrinal controversies and why they matter. Therefore he taught that one of the best ways to stop Christians wavering ‘with every changing wind of doctrine’ (Eph. 4:14) is to instill in them a deep love for Reformation and Puritan teaching, and a willingness to suffer for those gospel truths. The Bible often calls us to remember the past, Ryle explained, but the devil tries to make us forget. If the church is to be strengthened, then Christians must be persuaded to read the saints of the past and to learn the lessons of church history.

Ryle’s abiding hope for Light From Old Times is that our souls will be stirred to prayer and action by the great testimonies of Reformers and Puritans found within its pages, and then that we will dig deeper into the writings of these spiritual giants.

About the Author

John Charles Ryle was born of well-to-do parents at Macclesfield on 10 May 1816. Ryle started his ministry as curate at the Chapel of Ease in Exbury, Hampshire, moving on to become rector of St Thomas’s, Winchester in 1843 and then rector of Helmingham, Suffolk the following year. While at Helmingham he married and was widowed twice. He began publishing popular tracts, and Matthew, Mark and Luke of his series of Expository Thoughts on the Gospels were published in successive years (1856-1858). His final parish was Stradbroke, also in Suffolk, where he moved in 1861, and it was as vicar of All Saints that he became known nationally for his straightforward preaching and firm defence of evangelical principles. He wrote several well-known and still-in-print books, often addressing issues of contemporary relevance for the Church from a biblical standpoint. He completed his Expository Thoughts on the Gospels while at Stradbroke, with his work on the Gospel of John (1869). His third marriage, to Henrietta Amelia Clowes in 1861, lasted until her death in 1889.

After a period as honorary canon of Norwich (1872), in 1880 Ryle became the first bishop of Liverpool, at the recommendation of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. His episcopate was marked by his efforts to build churches and mission halls to reach the rapidly expanding urban areas of the city. He retired in 1900 at age 83 and died later the same year in Lowestoft. His successor in Liverpool described him as ‘the man of granite with the heart of a child.’