Did you never run to a tree for shelter in a storm, and find fruit which you did not expect? Did you never go to God for safeguard in these times, driven by outward storms, and there find unexpected fruit, the peaceable fruit of righteousness, that made you say, “Happy tempest, which cast me into such a harbor”?
– John Owen –
1616 –1683
Our greatest hindrance in the Christian life is not our lack of effort but our lack of acquaintedness with our privileges.
– John Owen –
Temptations and occasions put nothing into man, but only draw out what was in him before.
– John Owen –
1616-1683
A sin is not mortified when it is only diverted.
– John Owen –
from The Mortification of Sin, 1656
The first effect of a true love for Christ is our clinging to him. The believer’s soul is knit to Christ’s soul as David’s was to Jonathan’s (1 Samuel 18:1). Love produces a firm clinging to Christ crucified that makes a soul in some sense always present with Christ on the cross.
– John Owen –
from The Holy Spirit, 1674
Have I obtained a view of God’s fatherly countenance that I might behold his face and provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed that room might be made for new defilements? Shall I endeavour to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve the Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?
– John Owen –
Bring thy lust to the gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt: look on him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace, have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, which the blesses Spirit hath chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value that for this vile lust’s sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape, if I neglect so great salvation? In the mean time, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation; I have despised them all, and esteemed them as a thing of naught, that I might harbour a lust in my heart.
– John Owen –
from The Mortification of Sin
It is our duty to grow and thrive in holiness. Now what God requires of us, we are to believe he will help us to achieve. But we must not only believe that he will help us, but we must also believe that he is now helping us, we must not rely on our feelings of whether we are aware of being holy or not.
– John Owen –
from The Holy Spirit (abridged by RJK Law)