John Owen Quotations

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, his exercise or his destruction

The custom of sinning takes away the sense of it, the course of the world takes away the shame of it.

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.

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

All thing I thought I knew; but now confess, the more I know I know, I know the less.

The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh.

Leanness of body and soul may go together.

All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the Spirit.

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.

After hearing the evidence, I will record a verdict of natural causes.

I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend, for when at worst, they say, things always mend.

We expect to report an operating margin between 2 percent and 4 percent, and that should bring us to a net loss for the full year. And for full-year, we are using an assumed fuel price of $1.92 (for a gallon of jet fuel). So, basically, $1.92 in the first quarter and an average of about $2 for each of the remaining three quarters.

It gives them an opportunity to either pick up those assets on the cheap or to have someone else come in and re-franchise the area.

I was very pleased with Jonathan's performance. He has had to wait patiently this season as we have a big squad but he has shown a great attitude and he certainly took his chance today.

The fact that he comes from Kraft and ran a $6 billion operation, and he's now willing to take on this challenge, is a positive sign. It's also a positive the board has come to the conclusion the restructuring guys have completed what needs to be done and the company is ready to move forward.

We have been living like cavemen, sleeping in cars, doing bodily functions outside. And meanwhile we're the victims, and we have families here.

They have all kinds of ways of making you pay.

It wasn't so much the amount of money as it was the frequency that struck a chord with some folks.

It's become a little bit of a pattern with franchises that were struggling. I'm not entirely surprised with the shutting down of the Houston franchise.

It's not going to happen overnight, ... But I think you're going to be seeing some major changes in downtown Waynesburg.

A natural man hath no such thing as free-will at all, if you take it for a power of doing that which is good and well-pleasing unto God in things spiritual.

For a man solemnly to undertake the interpretation of any portion of Scripture without invocation of God, to be taught and instructed by His Spirit, is a high provocation of him; nor shall I expect the discovery of truth from any one who thus proudly engages in a work so much beyond his ability.

If we believe not with faith divine and supernatural, we believe not at all.

As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace.

A man may be carried on in a constant course of mortification all his days; and yet perhaps never enjoy a good day of peace and consolation.

Only what God has commanded in His word should be regarded as binding; in all else there may be liberty of actions.

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.

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

I have known some good men who have been so addicted to their study, that they have thought the last day of the week sufficient to prepare for their ministry, though they employ all the rest of the week in other studies. But your business is to trade with your spiritual abilities. ... A man may preach a very good sermon, who is otherwise himself; but he will never make a good minister of Jesus Christ, whose mind and heart are not always in the work. Spiritual gifts will require continual ruminating on the things of the Gospel in our minds.

Temptation gains power by persistent solicitations that beget thoughts that make evil less serious

Temptation gains power where we see it prevail in others we know and we express neither shock or hatred of them and their ways nor pity and prayer for their deliverance.

Faith is the leading grace in all our spiritual warfare and conflict; but all along, while we live, it hath faithful company that adheres to it and helps it. Love works, and hope works, and all other graces - self-denial, readiness to the cross - they all work and help faith. Yet when we come to die, faith is left alone. Now, try what faith will do. Not to be surprised with any thing is the substance of human wisdom; not to be surprised with death is a great part of the substance of our spiritual wisdom.

I did not hear what I should have listened to.

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.

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.

Now nothing can prevent this but mortification; that withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that whatever it aims at it is crossed in.

A river continually fed by a living fountain may as soon end its streams before it come to the ocean, as a stop be put to the course and progress of grace before it issue in glory.

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.

Without a sincere and diligent effort in every area of obedience, there will be no sucessful mortification of any one besetting sin.

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.

Consider that it is not failing in this or that attempt to come to Christ, but a giving-over of your endeavors, that will be your ruin.

Mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self, wherein sincerity is most evident.

Christ so loves his people that he sings with joy over them.

Our great Pattern hath showed us what our deportment ought to be in all suggestions and temptations. When the devil showed Him "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them," to tempt Him withal, He did not stand and look upon them, viewing their glory, and pondering their empire.... but instantly, without stay, He cries, "Get thee hence, Satan." Meet thy temptation in its entrance with thoughts of faith concerning Christ on the cross; this will make it sink before thee. Entertain no parley, no dispute with it, if thou wouldst not enter into it.

God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.

The Scripture abounds in commands and cautions for our utmost diligence in our search and inquiry as to whether we are made partakers of Christ or not, or whether His Spirit dwells in us or not-which argue both the difficulty of attaining an assured confidence herein, as also the danger of our being mistaken, and yet the certainty of a good issue upon the diligent and regular use of means to that purpose.

If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: "God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entangled." When this is true in our lives, a passing temptation will not overcome us. We will remain free while others lie in bondage.

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.

the whole Pelagian poison of free-will ... a clear exaltation of the old idol free-will into the throne of God ... That the decaying estate of Christianity have invented.

There wanted not some beams of light to guide men in the exercise of their Stocastick faculty.

The mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh is the constant duty of believers.

Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in this way takes no steps toward his journey's end.

Spiritual wisdom consists in finding out the subtleties, policies, and depths of any indwelling sin... to trace this serpent in all its turnings and windings; be able to say, at its most secret actings, 'This is your old way and course; I know what you aim at.'

Let, then, the word be preached, and the sins of men will be rebuked, lust will be restrained, and some oppositions will be made against sin, though that be not the effect aimed at.

When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone.

God never intended for us to be left to pray on our own. God never changes His purpose, but He often does purpose a change.

Ignorance of God and of ourselves is the great principle and cause of all our disquietments; and, this ariseth mostly not from want of light and instruction, but for want of consideration and application.

I will not judge a person to be spiritually dead whom I have judged formerly to have had spiritual life, though I see him at present in a swoon (faint)as to all evidences of the spiritual life. And the reason why I will not judge him so is this -- because if you judge a person dead, you neglect him, you leave him; but if you judge him in a swoon,(faint) though never so dangerous, you use all means for the retrieving of his life.

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.

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

The beauty of the person of Christ, as represented in the Scripture, consists in things invisible unto the eyes of flesh. They are such as no hand of man can represent or shadow. It is the eye of faith alone that can see this King in his beauty. What else can contemplate on the untreated glories of his divine nature? Can the hand of man represent the union of his natures in the same person, wherein he is peculiarly amiable? What eye can discern the mutual communications of the properties of his different natures in the same person?

Many there are who, not comprehending, not being affected with, that divine, spiritual description of the person of Christ which is given us by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture, do feign unto themselves false representations of him by images and pictures, so as to excite carnal and corrupt affections in their minds. By the help of their outward senses, they reflect on their imaginations the shape of a human body, cast into postures and circumstances dolorous or triumphant; and so, by the working of their fancy, raise a commotion of mind in themselves, which they suppose to be love unto Christ.

Men think all things would be very glorious, it they might be done according their mind. Perhaps, indeed, they would-but with their glory, not the glory of God.

Longing, breathing, and panting after deliverance is a grace in itself, that has a mighty power to conform the soul into the likeness of the thing longed after...unless you long for deliverance you shall not have it.

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

It being our duty to mortify... we must be at work. He that is appointed to kill an enemy, if he leave striking before the other ceases living, does but half his work.

Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.

This day was yesterday to-morrow nam'd: To-morrow shall be yesterday proclaimed: To-morrow not yet come, not far away, What shall to-morrow then be call'd? To-day.

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.

To some men it is hard seeing a call of God through difficulties; when if it would but clothe itself with a few carnal advantages, how apparent it is to them! They can see it through a little cranny.

What then is holiness? Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and living out of the gospel in our souls (Eph 4:24).

Because he is; that is, 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; the first cause, last end, and sovereign Lord of all; therefore, he is to be worshipped: therefore, are we to admire, adore, and love him; to praise, to trust and to fear him.

The new goddess contingency could not be erected until the God of heaven was utterly despoiled of his dominion over the sons of men, and in the room thereof a home-bred idol of self-sufficiency set up, and the world persuaded to worship it. But that the building climb no higher, let all men observe how the word of God overthrows this babylonian tower.

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.

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.

And as men diversions increase from the world, so do their entanglements from Satan. When they have more to do in the world than they can well manage, they shall have more to do from Satan than they can withstand.

No wonder if such persons look upon imputed righteousness as the shadow of a dream, who esteem those things which evidence its necessity to be but fond imaginations. And small hope is there to bring such men to value the righteousness of Christ, as imputed to them, who are so unacquainted with their own unrighteousness inherent in them. Until men know themselves better, they will care very little to know Christ at all.

We must not be concerned only with that which troubles us, but with all that troubles God.

The least grace is a better security for heaven than the greatest gifts or privileges whatsoever.

Meditate on the Word in the Word.

When the Holy Spirit sanctifies believers, he does a complete work in them. He puts into their minds, wills and hearts a gracious, supernatural principle which fills them with a holy desire to live to God. The whole life and being of holiness lies in this. This is the new creation.

All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain.

A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others will scarce make it savoury unto them; yea, he knows not but the food he hath provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.

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.

Let no man pretend to fear sin that does not fear temptation also! These two are too closely united to be separated. He does not truly hate the fruit who delights in the root.

Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.

It is a throne of grace that God in Christ is represented to us upon; but yet is is a throne still whereon majesty and glory do reside, and God is always to be considered by us as on a throne.

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, according to his mind and will.

Assurance encourateth us in our combat; it delivers us not from it. We may have peace with God when we have done from the assaults of Satan.

Christ is our best friend, and ere long will be our only friend. I pray God with all my heart that I may be weary of everything else but converse and communion with Him.

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

The good Lord send out a spirit of mortification to cure our distempers, or we are in a sad condition!

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 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.

Sin aims always at the utmost; every time it rises up to tempt or entice, if it has its own way it will go out to the utmost sin in that kind. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could, every thought of unbelief would be atheism if allowed to develop. Every rise of lust, if it has its way reaches the height of villainy; it is like the grave that is never satisfied. The deceitfulness of sin is seen in that it is modest in its first proposals but when it prevails it hardens men’s hearts, and brings them to ruin.

We admit no faith to be justifying, which is not itself and in its own nature a spiritually vital principle of obedience and good works.

If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world: at least, we should be better enabled to bear them.

It is not the glorious battlements, the painted windows, the crouching gargoyles that support a building, but the stones that lie unseen in or upon the earth. It is often those who are despised and trampled on that bear up the weight of a whole nation.

The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart.