John Owen

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. How shall he, then, mortify sin that has not the Spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.

There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon. It will always be so while we live in this world. Sin will not spare for one day. There is no safety but in a constant warfare for those who desire deliverance from sin's perplexing rebellion.

The gospel shall be victorious. This is the third thing that greatly comforts and refreshes me, — that if God should give me the honour, the strength, and grace to die in this cause, my cause shall be victorious, as sure as if I had the crown in my hand.

Some relate . . . that the eagle tries the eyes of her young by turning them to the sun; which if they cannot look steadily on, she rejects them as spurious. We may truly try our faith by immediate intuitions of the Sun of Righteousness. Direct faith to act itself, immediately and directly on the incarnation of Christ and His mediation; and if it be not the right kind and race, it will turn its eyes aside to anything else.

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.

The more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes.

There is a state of perfect peace with God to be attained under imperfect obedience.

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.

That wisdom which cannot teach me that God is love, shall ever pass for folly.

If our principal treasure be as we profess, in things spiritual and heavenly, and woe unto us if it be not so! on them will our affections, and consequently our desires and thoughts, be principally fixed.

In the divine Scriptures, there are shallows and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade, and deeps where the elephant may swim.

Without absolutes revealed from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas about manners, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of self-opinionated thinkers.

Would a soul continually eye His everlasting tenderness and compassion...[then] it could not bear an hour's absence from Him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

It is not the distance of the earth from the sun, nor the sun's withdrawing itself, that makes a dark and gloomy day; but the interposition of clouds and vaporous exhalations. Neither is thy soul beyond the reach of the promise, nor does God withdraw Himself; but the vapours of thy carnal, unbelieving heart do cloud thee.

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.

...but let it suffice us to know that it became God, who is the supreme Ruler, Governor and Judge of all that sin should be punished with death in the sinner or his surety; and therefore if God would bring many sons to glory, the Captain of their salvation must undergo sufferings and death, to make satisfaction for them.

Herein would I live; herein would I die; hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections; to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces.

It is evident that you contend against sin merely because of how it troubles you.

A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.

By faith ponder on this, that though thou art no way able in or by thyself to get the conquest over thy distemper, though thou art even weary of contending, and art utterly ready to faint, yet that there is enough in Jesus Christ to yield thee relief.

He that stands still and suffers his enemies to double blows upon him without resistance, will undoubtedly be conquered in the issue.