John Owen may refer to:
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?
I wish thy lot, now bad, still worse, my friend, for when at worst, they say, things always mend.
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.
He works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.
Be killing sin or it will be killing you.
To believe that He will preserve us is, indeed, a means of preservation. God will certainly preserve us, and make a way of escape for us out of the temptation, should we fall. We are to pray for what God has already promised. Our requests are to be regulated by His promises and commands. Faith embraces the promises and so finds relief.
Faith, if it be a living faith, will be a working faith.
There are two things that are suited to humble the souls of men, and they are, first, a due consideration of God, and then of themselves - of God, in His greatness, glory, holiness, power, majesty, and authority; of ourselves, in our mean, abject, and sinful condition.
If Scripture has more than one meaning, it has no meaning at all.
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.
There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so whilst we live in this world.
We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.