Thoughts from the writings of Bishop J. C. Ryle

I entreat you, in the last place to observe how one error in religion leads to another. There is a close connection between false doctrines. It is almost impossible to take up one alone....It throws a colour over the whole of a man's divinity. It fills his mind with a tangled maze of confusion as to all the leading articles of the faith. He starts with a theory for which no single plain text of Scripture can be alleged, and before this theory he tramples down plain passages of the Bible by the score! They interfere forsooth, with his favourite theory, and therefore cannot mean what common sense tells us they do! We ought to be as jealous about a little false doctrine, as we would be about a little sin! Remember the words ofd Paul about false doctrine,--"a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Gal. v. 9.) Foundations of Faith: Selections from J. C. Ryle's Old Paths, p. 276.