By practical Christianity, Ryle did not mean "a religion that works" for anyone who practices it, but rather a religion that allows those who profess it to function: not to be saved, but because they are saved. That religion, for him, was Christianity alone, and he was convinced that there is no "system of religious teaching, by whatever name, that produces in human nature one quarter of the effect produced by the old and despised doctrinal system commonly called evangelical."
