202 quotes
John Owen Quotes
The sharpest, most searching lines from John Owen, drawn straight from the Puritan Paperbacks. Filter by theme, or browse the whole collection.
“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
“He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.”
“Indwelling sin always abides whilst we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified.”
“Sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures.”
“Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts.”
“A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.”
“To kill sin is the work of living men; where men are dead, sin is alive, and will live.”
“All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the Spirit.”
“Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes.”
“Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, might it have its own course, it would go out the utmost sin in that kind.”
“If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation.”
“Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also!”
“I do not understand how a man can be a true believer unto whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow, and trouble.”
“Think of the guilt of sin, that you may be humbled. Think of the power of sin, that you may seek strength against it.”
“The nearer anyone is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there.”
“God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties is to cast off His authority.”
“A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul.”
“He who prays as he ought will endeavor to live as he prays.”
“The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men.”
“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.”
“The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.”
“Not to be daily mortifying sin, is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who hath furnished us with a principle of doing it.”
“Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things; first, it will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigour; secondly, it will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace.”
“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.”
“It is the Spirit alone that can mortify sin; He is promised to do it, and all other means without Him are empty and vain.”
“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.”
“Mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self, wherein sincerity is most evident.”
“There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so whilst we live in this world.”
“He that stands still and suffers his enemies to double blows upon him without resistance, will undoubtedly be conquered in the issue.”
“It is evident that you contend against sin merely because of how it troubles you.”
“Old neglected wounds are often mortal, always dangerous.”
“Duties are excellent food for a healthy soul; they are no physic for a sick soul.”
“Think greatly of the greatness of God.”
“Christ's blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls.”
“There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.”
“There is no way of deliverance from the state and condition of being in the flesh, but by the Spirit of Christ.”
“Christ by his death, destroying the works of the devil, procuring the Spirit for us, hath so killed sin, as to its reign in believers, that it shall not obtain its end and dominion.”
“He, then, that would mortify any disquieting lust, let him take care to be equally diligent in all parts of obedience, and know that every lust, every omission of duty, is burdensome to God, though only one be burdensome to him.”
“So great an advantage is given to sin and Satan by your temper and disposition, that without extraordinary watchfulness, care, and diligence, they will prevail against your soul.”
“If Christ be chosen for the foundation of our supply, he will not fail us.”
“He that would be little in temptation, let him be much in prayer.”
“The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.”
“Did Christ die, and shall sin live? Was He crucified in the world, and shall our affections to the world be quick and lively?”
“The indulgence of one sin opens the door to further sins; the indulgence of one sin diverts the soul from the use of those means by which all other sins should be resisted.”
“Temptation is like a knife, that may either cut the meat or the throat of a man; it may be his food or his poison.”
“Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.”
“The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it; the course of the world takes away the shame of it.”
“The seed of every sin is in every heart.”
“There are two things that are suited to humble the soul of men, a due consideration of God, and then of ourselves.”
“A true saving knowledge of sin is to be had only in the Lord Christ; in Him alone we can see the desert of our iniquities.”
“Lack of a due sense of the sinfulness of our best works leads to dreams of self-righteousness and self-justification.”
“Selfishness is the making a man's self his own center, the beginning and end of all he does.”
“The best duties of unbelievers are but white lies.”
“As a tender and loving friend is grieved at the unkindness of his friend, so is it with this tender and loving Spirit, who hath chosen our hearts for a habitation to dwell in.”
“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.”
“Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and living out the gospel in our souls.”
“There neither is, nor ever was, in the world, nor ever shall be, the least dram of holiness, but what, flowing from Jesus Christ, is communicated by the Spirit, according to the truth and promise of the gospel.”
“The foundation of true holiness and true Christian worship is the doctrine of the gospel, what we are to believe.”
“Morality divorced from the doctrines of the gospel is not that holiness which the gospel requires.”
“There is no imagination wherewith man is besotted, more foolish, none so pernicious, as this, that persons not purified, not sanctified, not made holy in their life, should afterwards be taken into that state of blessedness.”
“Let not men deceive themselves; sanctification is a qualification indispensably necessary unto those who will be under the conduct of the Lord Christ unto salvation. He leads none to heaven but whom He sanctifies on the earth.”
“Sanctification is a progressive, lifelong work.”
“Great winds and storms help fruit-bearing trees; so also do corruptions and temptations help the fruitfulness of grace and holiness.”
“When the Holy Spirit sanctifies believers, He puts into their minds, wills and hearts a gracious, supernatural principle which fills them with a holy desire to live to God.”
“Before the work of grace, the heart is stony; it can do no more than a stone can do to please God.”
“He works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.”
“For sinners to have fellowship with the infinitely holy God is truly astonishing.”
“We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.”
“Christ is our best friend, and ere long will be our only friend.”
“The more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world wither in my eyes.”
“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.”
“No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter who does not in some measure behold it here by faith.”
“Only a sight of His glory, and nothing else, will truly satisfy God's people.”
“We shall not benefit from reading the Old Testament unless we look for and meditate on the glory of Christ in its pages.”
“A man may take the measure of his growth or decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of His Kingdom, and of His love.”
“To those to whom Christ is the hope of future glory, he is also the life of present grace.”
“There is an infinite distance between God and His creatures, and it is an act of sheer grace for Him to take notice of earthly things.”
“Unless we are thoroughly convinced that without Christ we are under the eternal curse of God, as the worst of His enemies, we shall never flee to Him for refuge.”
“We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.”
“Sin carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind; mortification must chiefly be directed to the affections.”
“Were our affections filled and taken up with spiritual realities, what access could sin, with its painted pleasures, with its sugared poisons, with its envenomed baits, have unto our souls?”
“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.”
“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.”
“God loves, that he may be beloved.”
“So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in him, and no more.”
“You love him not, because you know him not.”
“That wisdom which cannot teach me that God is love, shall ever pass for folly.”
“It was from eternity that he laid in his own bosom a design for our happiness.”
“Lay down then your reasonings; take up the love of the Father upon a pure act of believing, and that will open your soul to let it out unto the Lord in the communion of love.”
“This is the bottom of all peace, confidence, and consolation, the grace and mercy of our Maker, of the God of the whole earth.”
“Had not God set forth the Lord Christ, all the angels in heaven and men on earth could not have apprehended that there had been any such thing in the nature of God as this grace of pardoning mercy.”
“To save sinners through believing, shall be found to be a far more admirable work than to create the world of nothing.”
“This is that which brings salvation, when we shall see that God has glorified all his properties in a way of doing us good.”
“Christ so loves his people that he sings with joy over them.”
“How many millions of sins in every one of the elect, every one of which is enough to condemn them all, hath this love overcome!”
“I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of my consolation.”
“The Comforter gives a sweet and plentiful evidence and persuasion of the love of God to us, such as the soul is taken, delighted, satiated withal.”
“Without the diligent use of the grace of obedience, we shall never enjoy the graces of joy, peace and assurance.”
“The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or some of the sins of all men.”
“Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God's elect, that they should believe.”
“Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God. Would you, then, see the true demerit of sin? Take the measure of it from the cross of Christ.”
“No heart can conceive that treasury of mercies which lies in this one privilege, in having liberty and ability to approach unto God at all times at His throne of grace.”
“If we would talk less and pray more, things would be better than they are in the world; at least, we would be better enabled to bear them.”
“We ought as much to pray for a blessing upon our daily rod as upon our daily bread.”
“Do not plunge straight into prayer or worship, but spend time meditating on the glory of Christ first, and in this way the graces necessary for carrying out that duty will be roused and ready.”
“Ignorance of God and of ourselves is the great principle and cause of all our worries.”
“A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.”
“He who is more frequent in his pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people, is but a sorry watchman of souls.”
“The first and principal duty of a pastor is to feed the flock by diligent preaching of the word.”
“If a man teach uprightly and walk crookedly, more will fall down in the night of his life than he built in the day of his doctrine.”
“If the Word does not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.”
“In the divine Scriptures, there are shallows and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade, and deeps where the elephant may swim.”
“If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false.”
“Only what God has commanded in His word should be regarded as binding; in all else there may be liberty of actions.”
“Faith, if it be a living faith, will be a working faith.”
“See in the meantime that your faith brings forth obedience, and God in due time will cause it to bring forth peace.”
“For the most part we live upon successes, not promises; unless we see and feel the print of victories, we will not believe.”
“There is no true gospel fruit without faith and repentance.”
“No repentance is acceptable with God but what is built on the faith of forgiveness.”
“Cursed is the person who encourages you to come to Christ and allows you to think that you can still indulge one sin in your life.”
“The gospel shall be victorious.”
“Unless we deny ourselves and all our own ideas and opinions, unless we become humble and teachable, we can never receive the gospel.”
“We are only servants and disciples of Christ when we do what is commanded us, and because it is commanded us.”
“Nothing shall be lost which is done for God or in obedience to Him.”
“The person who understands the evil in his own heart is the only person who is useful, fruitful, and solid in his beliefs and obedience.”
“We speak much of God, and talk of Him, His ways and His works; the truth is, we know very little of Him.”
“Because he is an infinitely glorious, good, wise, holy, powerful, righteous, self-subsisting, self-sufficient, and all-sufficient being, the fountain and author of all being and good, therefore he is to be worshipped.”
“Labour to grow better under all your afflictions, lest your afflictions grow worse, and God mingle them with more darkness, bitterness and terror.”
“Satan's greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.”
“And as men's diversions increase from the world, so do their entanglements from Satan.”
“I would only observe that place in Ezek. 9, God sends out his judgments, and destroys the city; but before, he sets a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.”
“Nothing in the whole nature of man, no power or faculty of the soul, is fallen under greater disorder and depravation by the entrance of sin than our affections are.”
“Some utterly forsake the assemblies; some come with great indifferency,—using their liberty, off and on, at their pleasure.”
“There was then, in the pure nature of man, no inclination to sin, no concupiscence of what is evil, no repugnancy to the law of God.”
“Speaking the truth in love," is the substance of our Christian profession.”
“Whatever spiritual thoughts such men have in and by their prayers, they are not spiritually minded.”
“God can send forth his Spirit when he pleases, and give all our churches and professors a new face, in the verdure and flourishing of his grace in them.”
“What is our duty with respect to dark and difficult dispensations of God's providence in the world?”
“Innumerable are the reasonings of the hearts of the sons of men on this account; we know not the thoughts of our own souls herein, how vile they are.”
“Noah, being moved by fear, "prepared an ark," wherein he saved himself and his family.”
“Now, however your persons or my person may fall in this trial, yet the cause in which we are engaged shall as surely conquer as Christ is alive and shall prevail at last.”
“Common or general grace consists in the external revelation of the will of God by his word, with some illumination of the mind to perceive it, and a correction of affections not to contemn it too much.”
“If we will be any thing in ourselves, faith tells us then it is nothing to us; for it only fills them that are empty, and makes them all by grace who are nothing by self.”
“I do not see that life and vigour in returning unto God, either in our persons or in our church relation, as I could desire.”
“The principles of these contrary thoughts are like Jacob and Esau; they struggle in the same womb, and oftentimes Esau will come first forth, and for a while seem to carry the birthright.”
“And seeing the end is certain, we are thus afresh to enter into this ark, Jesus Christ.”
“So many of us as have afresh engaged ourselves in covenant unto God, let us remember that we have taken the "mark of God upon our foreheads;" and it will ill become us to set the mark of Antichrist by it.”
“What endeavours to walk with God are found upon them, or seen in their ways?”
“The perfection of both is, to fear and love the Lord with all the heart and all the soul, and to walk in all his ways.”
“A door made into the ark will do you no good, unless you enter in and make good your entrance at the door.”
“It is not in our nature to humble ourselves to walk with God; we have an opposition to it and all parts of it: no angels or men can persuade us to it.”
“We cannot be washed, and cleansed, and purged from an imputed sin; this is done by the laver of regeneration.”
“Men may read what the world is by evident characters, in the habits and attire that it wears.”
“Children are owned in the house, are missed if they are out of the way, and have their daily provision constantly made for them.”
“My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?”
“What evidence have you that you have a love to these things, that can hear them reproached, scorned, contemned, and never be moved at it?”
“Who, almost, hath prepared his heart to walk with God as he ought? who considers whether his walking be such as it ought to be?”
“God forbid I should countenance profane men in their contempt of the ways of God, and the reproaches of hypocrisy that they are ready to cast upon the best of the saints of God; I say, God forbid.”
“Now, if no more good redounds to us by the death of Christ than it does to Simon Magus, we are not much obliged to Christ for our salvation.”
“I will tell you what I am labouring after in my own heart; and the Lord direct you to find out what will be more useful!”
“And what do you have that you did not receive?” Everything that makes us different from others is received from God.”
“So that a man may lawfully, under the guidance and conduct of the Spirit of God, direct his prayer immediately to the person of Christ.”
“The deceitfulness of sin lays hold on something or other that lust in the mind stays upon with delectation, and so corrupts the whole frame of spirit which began the duty.”
“Love in its proper exercise gives a mutual inhabitation unto God and believers.”
“It is evident, then, that men may labour to walk with God, and yet stumble and fall, for want of this humbling themselves to the law of his grace.”
“And to those that are otherwise-minded, I give only this necessary caution: let them take heed, lest by inventing new ways to heaven for others, they lose the true way themselves.”
“And I would have us labour to have in great readiness all things which Christ requires of us.”
“Nothing can be so ruinous unto our profession as once to suppose it is an easy matter, a thing of course, to maintain our peace with God.”
“We must all appear before his judgment-seat, who will require of us whether we have done and observed what he hath commanded us or no.”
“When every lust, corruption, or passion, as anger, envy, displeasure, at this or that person or thing, can divert the mind from compliance with the proposal of spiritual things that is made unto it, we are carnal.”
“Let us, then, by faith, carry in our minds the examples that are recorded in the Scripture.”
“It is sufficiently proved that God, by his providence, governs and disposes of all things created by him.”
“If you see a man whose affections are set inordinately on any thing here below, it is easy to discern how he goes off from his native worth, and debaseth himself therein.”
“Who knows, but in a few days some of us may be taken into that incomprehensible glory, where we shall eternally admire that ever we did put any manner of weight on things here below?”
“If this liberty is still so in the hand of the Lord, that he always turns the king’s heart to what he pleases in particular – then certainly other men are not excepted from being ruled by the same providence.”
“God’s promises and the saints’ prayers in the holy Scripture seem to intend a grace that would give us a real internal ability to do what is spiritually good.”
“Again; so think of eternal things as continually to lay them in the balance against all the sufferings of this life.”
“When the flood was coming, Noah preached the righteousness of faith to the world, that they might escape, if they would attend unto it; but it was rejected by them.”
“Faith will furnish us with examples of the saints of God, whom he hath helped and assisted to go through sufferings, and who are now crowned and at rest in heaven.”
“He can give in a sufficiency of efficacious grace to repel any temptation, to subdue any or all our lusts and sins; for he can and doth work in us to will and to do according to his pleasure.”
“The decrees of God 65 being conformable to his nature and essence, they require eternity and immutability as their inseparable properties.”
“He is no pastor who doth not feed his flock.”
“No man preaches that sermon well to others that doth not first preach it to his own heart.”
“It is a powerful and effectual indwelling principle, inclining and pressing unto actions agreeable and suitable unto its own nature.”
“The more men sin, the more are they inclined unto sin.”
“To let it alone, is to let it grow; not to conquer it, is to be conquered by it.”
“This Spirit of whom we treat is in himself a distinct, living, powerful, intelligent, divine person.”
“The Holy Spirit is more intimate, as it were, unto the principles of our souls than they are to themselves.”
“We may be tempted, yet not enter into temptation.”
“God can make a way for a man to escape; when he is in, he can break the snare, tread down Satan, and make the soul more than a conqueror, though it have entered into temptation.”
“It is the work of the Holy Spirit to enable us to believe the Scripture to be the word of God, and infallibly to evidence it unto our minds.”
“His work it is to support, cherish, relieve, and comfort the church, in all trials and distresses.”
“To be spiritually minded is the great distinguishing character of true believers from all unregenerate persons.”
“Spiritual thoughts will no more hinder you in your callings than those which are vain and earthly, which all sorts of men find leisure for in the midst of their employments.”
“No unholy person hath any ground to expect the least advantage by the gospel, here or hereafter.”
“The latter days of churches are always perilous days, days full of danger.”
“Unless we are upon our watch and guard, and cry mightily unto God for help and assistance, we shall be all overtaken with perils and dangers in the days wherein we live.”
“Prayer for the good, prosperity, flourishing, peace, increase, edification, and protection of the church is a duty every day required of all the members thereof.”
“Let no man deceive himself: he that has no sight of the glory of Christ here, shall never have any of it hereafter unto his advantage.”
“A steady spiritual view of the glory of Christ by faith will give them a gracious revival from inward decays, and fresh springs of grace.”
“Communion consists in giving and receiving. Until the love of the Father be received, we have no communion with him therein.”
“Few can carry up their hearts and minds to this height by faith, as to rest their souls in the love of the Father; they live below it, in the troublesome region of hopes and fears, storms and clouds. All here is serene and quiet.”