J.C. Ryle
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John Charles Ryle (1816–1900) was the first Bishop of Liverpool and one of the most effective communicators of Reformed evangelical truth in the Victorian church. Born into a wealthy Cheshire banking family, he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was a celebrated athlete and scholar. His family's financial ruin in 1841 and a serious illness around the same time precipitated his conversion to earnest Christian faith.
He spent over three decades as a rural rector — at Helmingham in Suffolk and then at Stradbroke — writing constantly during those years of relative obscurity. His Expository Thoughts on the Gospels (seven volumes) grew out of his parish ministry and became one of the most widely used devotional commentaries in the evangelical world. His Holiness (1877) is a masterpiece of Reformed practical theology, insisting on the absolute necessity of sanctification while grounding it firmly in justification by faith alone. Knots Untied, Old Paths, and Practical Religion cover the full range of Christian doctrine and experience in the same clear, direct, energetic style.
When Disraeli appointed him the first Bishop of Liverpool in 1880, Ryle was sixty-four years old and virtually unknown outside evangelical circles. He proved to be an energetic and effective diocesan bishop, building churches, training clergy, and maintaining the evangelical character of his diocese against both Anglo-Catholic and liberal pressure. His prose style — plain, forceful, and free from theological jargon — made him one of the most accessible Reformed writers of any era.
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George Whitefield & His Ministry
Whitefield's Birth-place and Parentage - Educated at Gloucester Grammar School - Enters Pembroke College, Oxford - Season of Spiritual Conflict - Books which were made useful to him - Ordained by Bishop Benson - First Sermon - Preaches in London - Curate of Dummer, Hants - Goes to America - Returns…
J. C. Ryle's Estimation of Whitefield's Ministry
Estimate of good that Whitefield did - Testimonies to his direct Usefulness - Indirect good that he did - Peculiar character of his Preaching - Witnesses to his real power as a Preacher - Simplicity, Directness, Power of Description, Earnestness, Pathos, Action, Voice, and Fluency, his leading…
Thomas Manton: The Man and his Ministry
The publication of a complete and uniform edition of Manton's works is a great boon to the readers of English theology. Many of his best writings have been hitherto inaccessible to all who have not long purses and large libraries. The few who know him would gladly testify, I am sure, that Thomas…