Quotes from John Owen

If prayer do not constantly endeavour the ruin of sin, sin will ruin prayer, and utterly alienate the soul from it.

Wherefore, he is principally considered as a comforter : and, as we shall see farther afterward, this is his principal work, most suited unto his nature, as he is the Spirit of peace, love, and joy; for he who is the eternal, essential love of the Divine Being, as existing in the distinct persons of the Trinity, is most meet to communicate a sense of divine love, with delight and joy, unto the souls of believers.

The soul which can be satisfied without beholding the glory of Christ, is not a soul for whom Christ prays.

We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.

Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps towards his journey's end. He who finds not opposition from it, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it. This

Ignorance of God is the source of all wickedness and confusion among men. From this ignorance arouse that flood of abominations which God swept away in Noah's day. The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were burned up with fire from heaven. In short, all the rage, blood, confusion, desolations, cruelties, oppressions and disasters which fill the world to this day, by which the souls of men have been swept into eternal destruction, have all arisen from the ignorance of God.

Slothful and lazy souls never obtain one view of this glory. The "lion in the road" deters them from attempting it (Prov 26:13).58 Being carnal, they abhor all diligence in the use of spiritual means, such as prayer and meditation, which to them are uneasy, unpleasant, and difficult. But for others, this way shares in the blessings of the promised destination. The means of obtaining a view of the glory of Christ are of the same kind and pleasantness of the view itself.

So the first consequence of Christ's withdrawing himself from us is that inward graces grow weak and we tend to rely more and more on outside helps. Above all, we lose the desire for holy meditation and we spend less and less time with Christ. Just as frost withers the plants in the garden, so the grace in our hearts also withers when the 'Sun of Righteousness' withdraws and hides himself.

Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.

To kill sin is the work of living men; where men are dead (as all unbelievers, the best of them, are dead), sin is alive, and will live" (chapter 7). Oh, the pastoral insights that emerge from Owen! As here: If you are fighting sin, you are alive. Take heart.

But it is evident that this is the state of many churches in the world; which are therefore worldly and carnal, not spiritual or evangelical. Power, and force, and wealth,—the gifts, in this case, of another spirit,—under various pretences and names, are their life and glory; indeed their death and shame.

God says, 'Here is one, if he could be rid of this lust I should never hear of him more; let him wrestle with this, or he is lost'" (chapter 8). Astonishing! God ordains to leave a lust with me till I become the sort of warrior who will still seek his aid when this victory is won. God knows when we can bear the triumphs of his grace.

That it is the Holy Spirit who teacheth us to understand aright the mind and will of God in the Scripture; without whose aid and assistance we can never do so usefully nor profitably unto our own souls.

This some call the "grace of prayer" that is given us by the Holy Ghost, as I suppose improperly, though I will not contend about it; for prayer absolutely and formally is not a peculiar grace distinct from all other graces that are exercised in it, but it is the way and manner whereby we are to exercise all other graces of faith, love, delight, fear, reverence, self-abasement, and the like, unto certain especial ends.

What promise hath any unregenerate man to countenance him in this work? what assistance for the performance of it? Can sin be killed without an interest in the death of Christ, or mortified without the Spirit?

Our belief of the Scriptures to be the word of God, or a divine revelation, and our understanding of the mind and will of God as revealed in them, are the two springs of all our interest in Christian religion. From them are all those streams of light and truth derived whereby our souls are watered, refreshed, and made fruitful unto God.

This is that whereon we believe the Scripture to be the word of God with faith divine and supernatural, if we believe it so at all: There is in itself that evidence of its divine original, from the characters of divine excellencies left upon it by its author, the Holy Ghost, as faith quietly rests in and is resolved into; and this evidence is manifest unto the meanest and most unlearned, no less than unto the wisest philosopher.

For by illumination in general, as it denotes an effect wrought in the minds of men, I understand that supernatural knowledge that any man hath or may have of the mind and will of God, as revealed unto him by supernatural means, for the law of his faith, life, and obedience.

And those who pretend to be teachers of others, and yet despise his teaching assistance, will one day find that they undertook a work which was none of theirs.

what it is that troubles us, we must refer it to one of these heads: -- either we want strength or power, vigour and life, in our obedience, in our walking with God; or we want peace, comfort, and consolation therein.

Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things: [1.] It will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigour. [2.] It will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace.

God will justify us from our sins, but he will not justify the least sin in us: He is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.

The true and acceptable principles of mortification shall be afterward insisted on. Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification.

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world. And this is a second principle of my ensuing discourse.