- True sanctification then does not consist in talk about religion.
- True sanctification does not consist in temporary religious feelings.
- True sanctification does not consist in outward formalism.
- Sanctification does not consist in retirement from our place in life, and the renunciation of our social duties.
- Sanctification does not consist in the occasional performance of right actions.
- Genuine sanctification will show itself in habitual respect to God’s law, and habitual effort to live in obedience to it as the rule of life.
- Genuine sanctification will show itself in an habitual endeavour to do Christ’s will, and to live by His practical precepts.
- Genuine sanctification will show itself in an habitual desire to live up to the standard which St. Paul sets before the Churches in his writings.
- Genuine sanctification will show itself in habitual attention to the active graces which our Lord so beautifully exemplified, and especially to the grace of charity.
- Genuine sanctification, in the last place, will show itself in habitual attention to the passive graces of Christianity. When I speak of passive graces, I mean those graces which are especially shown in submission to the will of God, and in bearing and forbearing towards one another.
. . . . . . . . . .
Such are the visible marks of a sanctified man. I do not say that they are all to be seen equally in all God’s people. I freely admit that in the best they are not fully and perfectly exhibited. But I do say confidently, that the things of which I have been speaking are the Scriptural marks of sanctification, and that they who know nothing of them may well doubt whether they have any grace at all.
Extracts from Ryle, Holiness, 24-29.