My Year with Owen #10

I will be sharing some John Owen quotes this year. The first book I'll be reading is Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers (1656).

By applying grace and mercy to an unmortified sin, or one not sincerely endeavored to be mortified, is this deceit carried on. This is a sign of a heart greatly entangled with the love of sin. ~ John Owen

To apply mercy, then, to a sin not vigorously mortified is to fulfill the end of the flesh upon the gospel. ~ John Owen

Frequency of success in sin's seduction, in obtaining the prevailing consent of the will unto it, is another dangerous symptom. ~ John Owen

When a man rights against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin has taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness (James 1:21) ~ John Owen

But now if a man be so under the power of his lust that he has nothing but law to oppose it with, if he cannot fight against it with gospel weapons, but deals with it altogether with hell and judgment, which are the proper aims of the law, it is most evident that sin has possessed itself of his will and affections to a very great prevalency and conquest. ~ John Owen

Sometimes in reading of the word God makes a man stay on something that cuts him to the heart, and shakes him as to his present condition. ~ John Owen

More frequently in the hearing of the word preached--his great ordinance for conviction, conversion, and edification--does he meet with men. God often hews men by the sword of his word in that ordinance, strikes directly on their bosom-believed lust, startles the sinner, makes him engage unto the mortification and relinquishment of the evil of his heart. ~ John Owen

Get a clear and abiding sense upon your mind and conscience of the guilt, danger, and evil of that sin wherewith you are perplexed. ~ John Owen

It is one of the deceits of a prevailing lust to extenuate its own guilt. ~ John Owen

Let this, then, be the first care of him that would mortify sin--to fix a right judgment of its guilt in his mind. ~ John Owen

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible