# “The safe-guard of Christ’s Church” by J.C. Ryle

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2017/07/12/the-safe-guard-of-christs-church-by-j-c-ryle/
- Published: 2017-07-12T19:00:54-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“That old enemy of mankind, the devil, has no more subtle device for ruining souls
than that of spreading false doctrine. ‘A murderer and a liar from the beginning,’
he never ceases going to and fro in the earth, ‘seeking whom he may devour.’

Outside the Church he is ever persuading men to maintain barbarous customs and destructive
superstitions. Human sacrifice to idols,—gross, revolting, cruel, disgusting worship
of abominable false deities,—persecution, slavery, cannibalism, child-murder, devastating
religious wars,—all these are a part of Satan’s handiwork, and the fruit of his 
suggestions. Like a pirate, his object is to ‘sink, burn, and destroy.’

Inside the Church he is ever labouring to sow heresies, to propagate errors, to 
foster departures from the faith. If he cannot prevent the waters flowing from the
Fountain of Life, he tries hard to poison them. If he cannot destroy the medicine
of the Gospel, he strives to adulterate and corrupt it. No wonder that he is called‘
Apollyon, the destroyer.’

The Divine Comforter of the Church, the Holy Ghost, has always employed one great
agent to oppose Satan’s devices. That agent is the Word of God.

The Word expounded and unfolded, the Word explained and opened up, the Word made
clear to the head and applied to the heart,—the Word is the chosen weapon by which
the devil must be confronted and confounded.

The Word was the sword which the Lord Jesus wielded in the temptation. To every 
assault of the Tempter, He replied, ‘It is written.’

The Word is the sword which His ministers must use in the present day, if they would
successfully resist the devil.

The Bible, faithfully and freely expounded, is the safe-guard of Christ’s Church.”

–J.C. Ryle, [_Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1848716826?tag=toletaupanre-20)(
London: William Hunt and Company, 1885), 347–348.

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