Practical Religion / Being Plain Papers on the Daily Duties, Experience, Dangers, and Privileges of Professing Christians

by J. C. Ryle

Now I desire to protest against this notion, that you can have the fruits of Christianity without the roots,—that you can produce Christian tempers without teaching Christian doctrines,—that you can have charity that will wear and endure without grace in the heart.

I grant, most freely, that every now and then one sees a person who seems very charitable and amiable, without any distinctive doctrinal religion. But such cases are so rare and remarkable, that, like exceptions, they only prove the truth of the general rule. And often, too often, it may be feared in such cases the apparent charity is only seeming, and in private completely fails. I firmly believe, as a general rule, you will not find such charity as the Bible describes, except in the soil of a heart thoroughly imbued with Bible religion. Holy practice will not flourish without sound doctrine. What God has joined together, it is useless to expect to have separate and asunder.

The delusion which I am trying to combat is helped forward to a most mischievous degree by the vast majority of novels, romances, and tales of fiction. Who does not know that the heroes and heroines of these works are constantly described as patterns of perfection? They are always doing the right thing, saying the right thing, and showing the right temper! They are always kind, and amiable, and unselfish, and forgiving! And yet you never hear a word about their religion! In short, to judge by the generality of works of fiction, it is possible to have excellent practical religion without doctrine, the fruits of the Spirit without the grace of the Spirit, and the mind of Christ without union with Christ!

Here, in short, is the great danger of reading most novels, romances, and works of fiction. The greater part of them give a false or incorrect view of human nature. They paint their model men and women as they ought to be, and not as they really are. The readers of such writings get their minds filled with wrong conceptions of what the world is. Their notions of mankind become visionary and unreal. They are constantly looking for men and women such as they never meet, and expecting what they never find.

Let me entreat my readers, once for all, to draw their ideas of human nature from the Bible, and not from novels. Settle it down in your mind, that there cannot be true charity without a heart renewed by grace. A certain degree of kindness, courtesy, amiability, good nature, may undoubtedly be seen in many who have no vital religion. But the glorious plant of Bible charity, in all its fulness and perfection, will never be found without union with Christ, and the work of the Holy Ghost. Teach this to your children, if you have any. Hold it up in schools, if you are connected with any. Lift up charity. Make much of charity. Give place to none in exalting the grace of kindness, love, good nature, unselfishness, good temper. But never, never forget, that there is but one school in which these things can be thoroughly learned, and that is the school of Christ. Real charity comes down from above. True love is the fruit of the Spirit. He that would have it must sit at Christ's feet, and learn of Him.

IV. Let me show, lastly, why charity is called the "greatest" of the graces.

The words of St. Paul, on this subject, are distinct and unmistakable. He winds up his wonderful chapter on charity in the following manner: "Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity." (1 Cor. xiii. 13.)

This expression is very remarkable. Of all the writers in the New Testament, none, certainly, exalts "faith" so highly as St. Paul. The Epistles to the Romans and Galatians abound in sentences showing its vast importance. By it the sinner lays hold on Christ and is saved. Through it we are justified, and have peace with God. Yet here the same St. Paul speaks of something which is even greater than faith. He puts before us the three leading Christian graces, and pronounces the following judgment on them,—"The greatest is charity." Such a sentence from such a writer demands special attention. What are we to understand when we hear of charity being greater than faith and hope?

We are not to suppose, for a moment, that charity can atone for our sins, or make our peace with God. Nothing can do that for us but the blood of Christ, and nothing can give us an interest in Christ's blood but faith. It is unscriptural ignorance not to know this. The office of justifying and joining the soul to Christ belongs to faith alone. Our charity, and all our other graces, are all more or less imperfect, and could not stand the severity of God's judgment. When we have done all, we are "unprofitable servants." (Luke xvii. 10.)

We are not to suppose that charity can exist independently of faith. St. Paul did not intend to set up one grace in rivalry to the other. He did not mean that one man might have faith, another hope, and another charity, and that the best of these was the man who had charity. The three graces are inseparably joined together. Where there is faith, there will always be love; and where there is love, there will be faith. Sun and light, fire and heat, ice and cold, are not more intimately united than faith and charity.