John Owen may refer to:
Every time we say we believe in the Holy Spirit, we mean we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.
The least grace is a better security for heaven than the greatest gifts or privileges whatsoever.
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.
Let our hearts admit, “I am poor and weak. Satan is too subtle, too cunning, too powerful; he watches constantly for advantages over my soul. The world presses in upon me with all sorts of pressures, pleas, and pretences. My own corruption is violent, tumultuous, enticing, and entangling. As it conceives sin, it wars within me and against me. Occasions and opportunities for temptation are innumerable. No wonder I do not know how deeply involved I have been with sin. Therefore, on God alone will I rely for my keeping. I will continually look to Him.
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.
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 most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men.
To kill sin is the work of living men; where men are dead (as all unbelievers, the best of them, are dead), sin is alive, and will live.
If Scripture has more than one meaning, it has no meaning at all.
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.
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.
Consider who and what you are; who the Spirit is that is grieved, what he has done for you, what he comes to your soul about, what he has already done in you; and be ashamed. Among those who walk with God, there is no greater motive and incentive unto universal holiness, and the preserving of their hearts and spirits in all purity and cleanness than this: That the blessed Spirit, who has undertaken to dwell in them, is continually considering what they give entertainment in their hearts unto, and rejoices when his temple is kept undefiled.
All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the Spirit.
When we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for-then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men.
All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain.
Christ greatly delights in his people and they greatly delight in him
I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend, for when at worst, they say, things always mend.
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
Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.
Temptation gains power by persistent solicitations that beget thoughts that make evil less serious