Quotes from John Owen

You have your season, and you have but your season; neither can you lie down in peace, until you have some persuasion that your work as well as your life is at an end.

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.

The house built on the sand may oftentimes be built higher, have more fair parapets and battlements, windows and ornaments, than that which is built upon the rock; yet all gifts and privileges equal not one grace.

Satan's greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.

Every time we say we believe in the Holy Spirit, we mean we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.

But this is the second work of the law when it hath by its convictions brought the sinner into a condition of a sense of guilt which he cannot avoid, -- nor will anything tender him relief, which way so ever he lose, for he is in a desert, -- it represents unto him the holiness and severity of God, with his indignation and wrath against sin which have a resemblance of a consuming fire. This fills his heart with dread and terror and makes him see his miserable, undone condition.

Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substnace of all false religion in the world.

No men can be lords of our faith, though they may be helpers of our joy.

Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts.

The foundation of true holiness and true Christian worship is the doctrine of the gospel, what we are to believe. So when Christian doctrine is neglected, forsaken, or corrupted, true holiness and worship will also be neglected, forsaken, and corrupted.

Unless men see a beauty and delight in the worship of God, they will not do it willingly.

We need to attend diligently to the state of our soul, and to deal fervently and effectively with God about it.

On Christ's glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.

He can make the dry parched ground of my soul to become a pool and my thirsty barren heart as springs of water. Yes he can make this habitation of dragons this heart which is so full of abominable lusts and fiery temptations to be a place of bounty and fruitfulness unto Himself

The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.

There is no broader way to apostasy than to reject God's sovereignty in all things concerning the revelation of himself and our obedience...

Steadfastness in believing doth not exclude all temptations from without. When we say a tree is firmly rooted, we do not say the wind never blows upon it.

Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt die a conqueror; yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet.

To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.

Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and living out the gospel in our souls

The love of God is like himself – equal, constant, not capable of augmentation or diminution; our love is like ourselves – unequal, increasing, waning, growing, declining. His, like the sun, always the same in its light, though a cloud may sometimes interpose; ours, as the moon, has its enlargements and straightenings.

There is no way of deliverance from the state and condition of being in the flesh, but by the Spirit of Christ.

When we realize a constant enemy of the soul abides within us, what diligence and watchfulness we should have! How woeful is the sloth and negligence then of so many who live blind and asleep to this reality of sin. There is an exceeding efficacy nad power in the indwelling sin of believers, for it constantly inclines itself towards evil. We need to be awake, then, if our hearts would know the ways of God. Our enemy is not only upon us, as it was with Samson, but it is also in us.