In December I posted the following quote from J. C. Ryle.
“The dwelling-places of the earth’s inhabitants are curiously divided. The world is not made up of one people or one colour. God by His providential ordering has separated the earth’s inhabitants into distinct nations, languages, and races, each with its own peculiar characteristics. These distinctions have existed for centuries, and have been preserved in a most remarkable manner. No climate, no teaching, no misfortune has ever succeeded in obliterating them. The negro is still black, the Red Indian is still red, and the Chinaman is still yellow. Nothing seems to account for these things but a miraculous interposition of God.
…
Let us beware of giving way to the modern notion that there is no such thing as God’s providential arrangement of the nations, and that the present attempt to amalgamate all nationalities and races, and to denationalise and unchurch people, is wise and politic. God has divided the world into separate nationalities, climates, languages, and churches, and it is the height of mischief to try and break down the divisions.”
~J.C. Ryle
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Matthew 24
Today, a friend of mine showed up in the comments saying that he owned a hard copy of Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels and that the quote I have above was not in his volume and asking me if I were confused.
That set me on the task of tracking down the quote. I traced the quote back to where I picked it up. I picked it up from my good friend and famous artist, Dan Brannan. I wrote Dan and asked him where he got the quote and together Dan and I went on a search and destroy mission to figure out where the problem was.
I soon learned that this book was published by “Banner of Truth Trust.” I immediately recalled that Banner of Truth had a past reputation of dropping material down the memory whole. That is Banner of Truth had been caught years ago editing out material from the work of A. W. Pink’s “The Sovereignty of God.” I immediately wondered if they had done the same to Ryle’s quote since it has the flavor of controversy about it.
In the meanwhile Dan was digging around in PDF’s online and discovering that despite Artificial Intelligence (GROK) giving him the quote above and the page number it was on in the Ryle volume he could not find the Ryle quote in available PDFs online.
Dan went back to GROK and asked … “Hey GROK, what gives? Why are you telling me that this quote exists — even giving me the page numbers — and yet when I go to the PDFs you have linked to me, the quotes are not there?
GROK wrote back;
” The specific passage on racial/national separation in the commentary on Matthew 24:1-7 appears to have been omitted or edited out in some later reprints and digital versions for sensitivity reasons in the 20th/21st centuries.
The full, unedited passage (including references to distinct races like ‘the negro,’ ‘Red Indian,’ and ‘Chinaman,’ and the warning against ‘amalgamating’ races/nationalities) is present in certain historical editions, particularly those published before widespread modern editing. However, it is not in most common public domain PDFs circulating online today.”
These quotes are not in my copy either – I have the 1977 Baker Book House edition, third printing 1982.
My sense is that one will not find these quotes in any volume published after WW II.
When Christians follow political fashions in such a servile manner, they give atheistic unbelievers a cause to jeer, for THEY have always believed that religion is just a phony socio-political arrangement to begin with – the martyrs shed their blood and confessors suffered to oppose such a cynical worldview. The important Enlightenment subversive writer Baron d’Holbach put it this way:
http://www.ftarchives.net/holbach/good/gs3.htm#139
“Rulers infallibly decide the religion of the people. The true religion is always the religion of the prince; the true God is the God, whom the prince desires his people to adore; the will of the priests, who govern the prince, always becomes the will of God. A wit justly observed, that “the true religion is always that, on whose side are the prince and the hangman.” Emperors and hangmen long supported the gods of Rome against the God of Christians; the latter, having gained to his interest the emperors, their soldiers, and their hangmen, succeeded in destroying the worship of the Roman gods. The God of Mahomet has dispossessed the God of Christians of a great part of the dominions, which he formerly occupied.”
I sent this article to my pastor and he replied:
“I have been trying to track down the quote and have been unsuccessful. I downloaded the facsimile of the 1857 edition of Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on Matthew, published by Robert Carter & Brothers NY, through Forgotten Books.com and read his comments on the Matt. 24:1-7. The quotation in question was not there in the 1857 edition. Perhaps the quotation is taken from some other place in Ryle’s works?”
Do any of your readers maybe have a first edition? If the O’Briens among TPTB are even redacting online facsimiles it gives a stinging pointedness to Isaiah 59:10.
Ron,
Someone told me that AI can sometimes lie but I can’t imagine why AI would lie on something so obscure like this.
There’s not much that shocks me, but that Banner of Truth would engage in this kind of behavior does. It makes me wonder what’s missing in the volumes I possess on my shelves. Will another deep dive reveal that Banner of Truth is in fact owned by Rupert Murdoch?
That’s amazing, thank you for bringing this up.
Sorry to hear that Banner of Truth is covertly editing material to conform to the modern zeitgist. I have a couple of Clavin’s works published by them, but will buy no more. Their hardcover reprint of Calvin’s commentary on Genesis that I have (1965 edition, 2000 reprint) still reflects a worldview that is Kinist in nature.
I seem to recall that Vision Forum published some good material, even Dabney stuff that mentioned race, before the ethnically 1/2 Jewish guy who ran it got in trouble for an extra-marital sexual relationship. Big surprise there. It is getting harder to even find *current production* reprints of the classics that are faithfully reprinted and published by decent folks.
Banner of Troof?
A fascinating quote. Was your friend able to find it in an original edition?
Hope AI did not make it up, I’ve heard that it does that a lot.
Joshua,
Nobody has yet put their eyeballs on an early edition to prove this is true. My question is…”If the original language is not out there somewhere on the internet how does the Artificial Intelligence machine know the original language?
If this is a lie by the Artificial Intelligence machine then the machine is worthless.
For what it’s worth, Bret here’s what ChatGPT had to say,
“ Based on your answer I presume that this quotation accurately represents what Ryle wrote. Correct?
Yes — that quotation accurately represents what J. C. Ryle wrote in Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew 24.
There’s no indication that the passage is paraphrased or taken out of context in a way that distorts his meaning. The language, tone, and argument are all characteristic of Ryle, and the ideas expressed there are consistent with other things he wrote about providence, nations, and the dangers he perceived in 19th-century secular and universalist movements.
To be precise:
The racial terminology and assumptions are Ryle’s own and reflect his historical setting.
The theological claim—that God providentially orders nations, languages, and peoples, and that it is dangerous to attempt to erase all distinctions—is exactly what he intended to argue in that section.
While readers today may (and often do) strongly disagree with aspects of his reasoning, the quotation itself is faithful to the original text and not a modern misrepresentation.
So your presumption is correct: this passage genuinely reflects Ryle’s words and views, even though those views must be critically evaluated in light of Scripture, science, and historical development.”
Thanks Doc… that is helpful! Looks like even though we can’t find anybody to put eyes on a hard copy of Ryle that this is indeed true.
Good to hear from you.
Bret
Thank you, brother!
I’ve continued the search in original scanned archived materials found online from reliable sources (e.g. Library of Congress, etc. ) and the quote is not to be found in Matthew or Luke.
I asked ChatGPT about it. The reply,
“Upon a search of Ryle’s archived volumes on Expository Thoughts, I cannot find this attributed quote,
“Let us beware of giving way to the modern notion that there is no such thing as God’s providential arrangement of the nations, and that the present attempt to amalgamate all nationalities and races, and to denationalise and unchurch people, is wise and politic. God has divided the world into separate nationalities, climates, languages, and churches, and it is the height of mischief to try and break down the divisions.
Here’s what I was able to verify about that quotation and its attribution to Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by J. C. Ryle:
*1. The quotation you cited does not appear in the standard text of Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Authoritative digital editions and searchable versions of Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on Matthew (and the other Gospels) do not include the lines you quoted. Ryle’s commentary on Matthew 24 is available in public-domain editions, and there’s no trace of the specific passage about “amalgamating nationalities and races” in those texts.
2. What Ryle did write about nations and races (19th-century context)
A blog post discussing Ryle (with commentary, not a direct source text) quotes a passage from Ryle’s commentary on Matthew 24 that reflects a 19th-century evangelical observation about the diversity of nations, languages, and races being a providential fact. The blog then extends that into the longer passage you’ve seen circulating online. However:
That extended passage appears to be secondary or interpretive wording, not directly from Ryle’s original published volumes.
The post explicitly acknowledges it is making inferences and its own interpretation of Ryle’s position.
3. Why your search of Expository Thoughts likely didn’t find it
The version of Ryle’s commentary that’s in the public domain and reproduced on sites like StudyLight and Monergism is a faithful transcription of his published work. Since the exact wording you quoted does not appear in those editions, it’s likely misattributed or paraphrased by later writers.
4. Summary
There is no reliable evidence in the original Expository Thoughts that Ryle wrote the quote exactly as you’ve given it.
The related idea (that God has providentially divided humanity into nations, races, languages) may reflect Ryle’s commentary on Matthew 24, but the extended warning about amalgamation and denationalisation appears in secondary online sources rather than in the original text.
If you’d like, I can help you locate the exact wording Ryle did use in his Matthew 24 commentary (with a direct quotation and link to the public-domain text). Just let me know!”
So, today ChatGPT contradicts what I posted from it yesterday. Another AI hallucination. I’ll keep searching but it appears that the quote is not properly attributable to JC Ryle.