Quotes About John Owen

#1. God and the Doctor we alike adore But only when in danger, not before John Owen

Hugh Laurie

#2. The conferring and comparing of Scriptures is an excellent means of coming to an acquaintance with the mind and will of God in them. - JOHN OWEN

Joel R. Beeke

#3. 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

#4. To the sick man the physician when he enters seems to have three faces, those of a man, a devil, a god. When the physician first comes and announces the safety of the patient, then the sick man says: Behold a God or a guardian angel!

John Owen

#5. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET AMERICANS TO NOTICE ANYTHING IS TO TAX THEM OR DRAFT THEM OR KILL THEM, Owen said.

John Irving

#6. 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.

John Owen

#7. I say, then, that mortification is the work of believers, and believers only. 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. 2.

John Owen

#8. Clearly the Holy Spirit is not merely a quality to be found in the divine nature ... He is a holy intelligent person.

John Owen

#9. As a tender and loving friend is grieved at the unkindness of his friend ... so is it with this tender and loving Spirit, who hath chosen our hearts for a habitation to dwell in.

John Owen

#10. I did not hear what I should have listened to.

John Owen

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

John Owen

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

John Owen

#13. He who finds not opposition from [sin] ... is at peace with it, not dying to it.

John Owen

#14. I saw Ben Stiller's movie Walter Mitty [2013]; it's very beautiful. You look at some of the movies John Ford did with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart, and then look at Remington and Ansel Adams, and I think you see a connection, certainly in the imagery of the West.

Owen Wilson

#15. 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.

John Owen

#16. 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 ...

John Owen

#17. He that loves works out good to those that he loves, as he is able. God's power and will are equal; what He wills He works.

John Owen

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

John Owen

#19. He that is more frequent in his pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people, is but a sorry watchman.

John Owen

#20. That 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.

John Owen

#21. Prosperity hath slain the foolish and wounded the wise.

John Owen

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

John Owen

#23. Labour to grow better under all your afflictions, lest your afflictions grow worse, lest God mingle them with more darkness, bitterness and terror.

John Owen

#24. There is no broader way to apostasy than to reject God's sovereignty in all things concerning the revelation of himself and our obedience ...

John Owen

#25. 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

#26. Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts.

John Owen

#27. Unless we are thoroughly convinced that without Christ we are under the eternal curse of God, as the worst of His enemies, we shall never flee to Him for refuge.

John Owen

#28. 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

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

John Owen

#30. 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.

John Owen

#31. 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.

John Owen

#32. Satan's greatest success is in making people think they have plenty of time before they die to consider their eternal welfare.

John Owen

#33. Thin rays of orange creep up Tower Bridge and I realize I have never seen the sunrise from here. I had no idea that it could rise, almost perfectly, between the two towers of the bridge. This new light is a new day, and Timothy Squire and I watch it together.

John Owen Theobald

#34. When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone.

John Owen

#35. Let faith look on Christ in the gospel as he is set forth dying and crucified for us. Look on him under the weight43 of our sins, praying, bleeding, dying; bring him in that condition into thy heart by faith; apply his blood so shed to thy corruptions: do this daily.

John Owen

#36. Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things: - [1.] It will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigour. [2.] It will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace. [1.]

John Owen

#37. We are taught in an especial manner to pray that God would give his Holy Spirit unto us, that through his aid and assistance we may live unto God in that holy obedience which he requires at our hands.

John Owen

#38. Christ is the meritorious cause of the bestowing of those good gifts, faith and constancy unto martyrdom, upon you.

John Owen

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

John Owen

#40. 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.

John Owen

#41. Sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet.

John Owen

#42. Christ greatly delights in
his people and they greatly
delight in him

John Owen

#43. If private revelations agree with Scripture, they are needless, and if they disagree, they are false.

John Owen

#44. 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.

John Owen

#45. Arminians pretend, very speciously, that Christ died for all men, yet, in effect, they make him die for no one man at all.

John Owen

#46. And, therefore, seeing he doth not intercede and pray for every one, he did not die for every one.

John Owen

#47. 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.

John Owen

#48. 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.

John Owen

#49. 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

#50. The pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith while they are here in this world, are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations.

John Owen

#51. See in the meantime that your faith brings forth obedience, and God in due time will cause it to bring forth peace.

John Owen

#52. It is often those who are despised and trampled on that bear up the weight of a whole nation.

John Owen

#53. A sense of the love of Christ in the cross; lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification

John Owen

#54. 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.

John Owen

#55. We speak much of God, and talk of him, his ways, his works; the truth is, we know very little of him.

John Owen

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

John Owen

#57. When someone sets his affections upon the cross and the love of Christ, he crucifies the world as a dead and undesirable thing. The baits of sin lose their attraction and disappear. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin.

John Owen

#58. To put the last point another way, writers such as Graves, Sassoon, and Owen saw the Great War as the disease, but Tolkien saw it as merely the symptom.

John Garth

#59. Pardon comes not to the soul alone; or rather, Christ comes not to the soul with pardon only! It is that which He opens the door and enters by, but He comes with a Spirit of life and power.

John Owen

#60. The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you.

John Owen

#61. 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

#62. 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.

John Owen

#63. I cannot conceive an intention in God that Christ should satisfy his justice for the sin of them that were in hell some thousands of years before, and yet be still resolved to continue their punishment on them to all eternity.

John Owen

#64. The Holy Spirit is promised of God to be given to us, to do this work (of mortification). The taking away of the stony heart, that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart, is, in general, the work of mortification that we treat of.

John Owen

#65. He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.

John Owen

#66. If a man teach uprightly and walk crookedly, more will fall down in the night of his life than he built in the day of his doctrine.

John Owen

#67. If I had to pick, I'd say my favorite book is 'A Prayer For Owen Meany', by John Irving.

Sarah Dessen

#68. 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

#69. 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.

John Owen

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

John Owen

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

John Owen

#72. Before the work of grace the heart is 'stony.' It can do no more than a stone can do to please God.

John Owen

#73. 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

#74. YOU LET ME DROWN!" Owen said. "YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! YOU JUST WATCHED ME DROWN! I'M ALREADY DEAD!" he told us. "REMEMBER THAT: YOU LET ME DIE.

John Irving

#75. We all profess that we are bound for heaven, immortality, and glory: but is it any evidence that we really design it if all our thoughts are consumed about the trifles of this world, which we must leave behind us, and have only occasional thoughts of things above?

John Owen

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

John Owen

#77. IF WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER FOUR SECONDS, WE CAN DO IT IN UNDER THREE," he said. "IT JUST TAKES A LITTLE MORE FAITH." "It takes more practice," I told him irritably. "FAITH TAKES PRACTICE," said Owen Meany.

John Irving

#78. Reader, if thou intendest to go any farther, I would entreat thee to stay here a little. If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again, - thou hast had thy entertainment; farewell!

John Owen

#79. As rivers, the nearer they come to the ocean whither they tend, the more they increase their waters, and speed their streams; so will grace flow more fully and freely in its near approaches to the ocean of glory.

John Owen

#80. The death of Christ is their meritorious cause; the Spirit of God and his effectual grace their efficient, working instrumentally with power by the word and ordinances.

John Owen

#81. For to pretend that men may live habitually sinful lives without any attempt by the Spirit to mortify sin in them, nor with any desire for repentance, is to deny the Christian religion.

John Owen

#82. Meditate on the Word in the Word.

John Owen

#83. The purpose of our holy and righteous God was to save his church, but their sin could not go unpunished. It was, therefore, necessary that the punishment for that sin be transferred from those who deserved it but could not bear it, to one who did not deserve it but was able to bear it.

John Owen

#84. It is one thing to fear God as threatening, with a holy reverence, and another to be afraid of the evil threatened.

John Owen

#85. INTO PARADISE MAY THE ANGELS LEAD YOU,'" he'd said over my mother's grave; and so I say that one for him - I know it was one of his favorites. I am always saying prayers for Owen Meany. And

John Irving

#86. It is to be feared that very many have little knowledge of the main enemy that they carry about them in their bosoms. This makes them ready to justify themselves, and to be impatient of reproof or admonition, not knowing that they are in any danger. 2 Chronicles 16:10

John Owen

#87. GUYS, Owen Meany said. That spring, less than a month before Gravesend Academy's graduation exercises, the TV showed us a map of Thailand; five thousand U.S. Marines and fifty jet fighters were being

John Irving

#88. After all: I had been practicing lifting up Owen Meany - forever. The

John Irving

#89. 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

#90. When the heart is once won to rest in God, to repose himself on him, he will assuredly satisfy it. He will never be as water that fails; nor hath he said at any time to the seed of Jacob, "Seek ye my face in vain." If Christ be chosen for the foundation of our supply, he will not fail us.

John Owen

#91. This is a real-life story, Owen," I said. "It's not a mystery novel." In real life, I meant, there was nothing written that the missing father couldn't

John Irving

#92. We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love.

John Owen

#93. 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.

John Owen

#94. John Lee Hancock is someone that I had admired from afar. I think he is a wonderful director ... in the tradition I would say both of Clint Eastwood and Frank Capra.

Alison Owen

#95. I do not understand how a man can be a true believer, in whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble.

John Owen

#96. Always there have been six ravens at the Tower. If the ravens fly away, the kingdom will fall.

John Owen Theobald

#97. The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.

John Owen

#98. To break men off particular sins, and not to break their hearts, is to deprive ourselves of advantages of dealing with them

John Owen

#99. 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.

John Owen

#100. To those to whom Christ is the hope of future glory, he is also the life of present grace.

John Owen