Volume IV of the collected works, hardcover, 445 Smyth-sewn pages, ISBN 0-9677603-2-1, $29.95.

Knots Untied
Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion From the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman

J.C. Ryle was not one to scratch itching ears: “This is no time for smooth words.” Knots Untied is exactly as the subtitle reads, Being Plain Statements— “plain,” as in candid, honest, and forceful. So “plain,” in fact, that twenty years after the book was written, Ryle said, “I frankly admit, after careful examination of Knots Untied, that I observe in its pages occasional sharp and strong expressions which perhaps I should not use if I wrote the book over again in the present year.” “Sharp expressions” or not, his point still stands—“there is one thing which is even worse than controversy, and that is false doctrine tolerated, allowed, and permitted without protest or molestation.”

Regardless, Knots Untied is Ryle at his best: writing as “a minister of Christ, a father of a family, and a lover of my country,” he calls upon all Christians to “have clear systematic views of the gospel of the grace of God. Nothing else will do good in the hour of sickness, in the day of trial, on the bed of death, and in the swellings of Jordan.” And that cannot be too plainly stated.