John Owen Quotes

93 Sourced Quotes

The natural man "cannot see or discern that divine excellency in the Scripture, without an apprehension whereof no man can believe it aright to be the word of God."

John Owen
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.

John Owen
We can have no power from Christ unless we live in a persuasion that we have none of our own.

John Owen
In or towards whomsoever the Holy Spirit puts forth His power, or acts his grace for their regeneration, he removes all obstacles, overcomes all oppositions, and infallibly produces the intended effect.

John Owen
What do we want? What would we be at? What do our souls desire? Is it not that we might have a more full, clear, stable comprehension of the wisdom, love, grace, goodness, holiness, righteousness, and power of God, as declared and exalted in Christ unto our redemption and eternal salvation?

John Owen
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.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what was in him before.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God's elect, that they should believe.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
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.

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

John Owen
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.

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

John Owen
A true saving knowledge of sin is to be had only in the Lord Christ: in him may we see the desert of our iniquities.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
Christ is the meat, the bread, the food of our souls. Nothing is in him of a higher spiritual nourishment than his love, which we should always desire.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.

John Owen
Though we are commanded to 'wash ourselves', to 'cleanse ourselves from sins', to 'purge ourselves from all our iniquities', yet to imagine that we can do these things by our own efforts is to trample on the cross and grace of Jesus Christ. Whatever God works in us by his grace, he commands us to do as our duty. God works all in us and by us.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
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.'

John Owen
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.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
Sin also carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, as we shall see, mortification is chiefly directed to take place upon the affections.

John Owen
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.

John Owen
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 mediation of Christ, especially his cross.

John Owen
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.

John Owen