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.Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers Chapter 2
The gospel is most wickedly eclipsed while multitudes of petty "scholars" fret themselves how they might best teach the faith within a rigidly structured, accurate, methodical-philosophical form! A great multitude of errors have swarmed into the church through the reception of philosophy, like Greeks out of the belly of the Trojan horse...The clear fact is that the common, Aristotelian philosophy supplied sufficient materials for an infinity of quarrels and useless disputes. The facts shout out to heaven that our little, witty, chattering sophists, in their endless wrangling over the "articles of faith," are simply raking over the embers of Aristotle's philosophy, and in so doing they irritate the throne of Almighty God with legal quarrels and cheap tricks...It is a result of this that our theological libraries are packed full of weighty tomes, and our disputes are without end, and the most about matters, assertions and terms the Christian world would have done far better never to have heard of -and would not have heard of if they had not happened to enter the fertile brain of Aristotle so long ago! But the full catalog, the great Iliad of evils so produced, this is not the place to try to expound in detail.Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ
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.
It is better that our affections exceed our light from the defect of our understandings, than that our light exceed our affections from the corruption of our wills.Works, Vol 1. 401
A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.
Lusts that pretend to be useful to the state and condition of men, that are pleasant and satisfactory to the flesh, will not be mortified without such a violence as the whole soul shall be deeply sensible of. https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.viii.viii.html
peace with God is a calm, intelligent sense of friendship with the Lord of heaven and earth. He that has it, feels as if there was no barrier and separation between himself and his holy Maker. He can think of himself as under the eye of an all-seeing Being, and yet not feel afraid.
no man preacheth that sermon well that doth not first preach it to his own heart-If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us
Remember in particular the love of Jesus Christ, as God-man, in giving Himself for us. This love is frequently proposed to us with what He did for us, and it is represented peculiarly in this ordinance: "Who loved me and gave Himself for me," says the apostle. Faith will never be able to live upon the last expression "gave Himself for me" unless it can rise up to the first, "who loved me." Who "loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood," etc. (Rev. 1:5–6).
There are three ways whereby God represents Christ to the faith of believers. The one is by the word of the gospel itself, as written; the second is by the ministry of the gospel and preaching of the word; and the third by this sacrament, wherein we represent the Lord's death to the faith of our own souls.
In our desires for heaven, if they are regular, we consider not so much our freedom from trouble as from sin; nor is our aim in the first place so much at complete happiness as perfect holiness.
A man may want liberty and yet be happy, as Joseph was. A man may want peace and yet be happy, as David was. A man may want children and yet be blessed, as Job was. A man may want plenty and yet be full of comfort, as Micaiah was. But he that wants the gospel wants everything that should do him good. A throne without the gospel is but the devil's dungeon. Wealth without the gospel is fuel for hell. Advancement without the gospel is but a going high to have the greater fall.
If we maintain then the glory of God, let us speak in His own language or be forever silent. That is glorious in Him which He ascribes unto Himself. Our inventions, though never so splendid in our own eyes, are unto Him an abomination; a striving to pull Him down from His eternal excellency, to make Him altogether like unto us. God would never allow that the will of the creature should be the measure of His honor.