Quote 799
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No man preaches a sermon well to others who does not first preach it to his own heart.
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
Without absolutes revealed from God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas.
Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and living out the gospel in our souls
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.
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
Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman.
Years are slipping away and time is flying. Graveyards are filling up and families are thinning. Death and judgement are getting nearer to us all. And yet you live like one asleep about your soul! What madness! What folly! What suicide can be worse than this? Awake before it is too late; awake, and arise from the dead, and live to God. Turn to Him who is sitting at the right hand of God, to be your Saviour and Friend. Turn to Christ, and cry mightily to Him about your soul. Holiness (Chapter 6)
[Sin] cannot be killed without a sense of pain and trouble. Hence it is compared to the cutting off of right hands, and the plucking out of right eyes.https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.viii.viii.html
We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is the law of grace.
He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.
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
How foolish are they who know not God! So many good things before their eyes, yet Him Who Is they fail to see.Confessions (Ch. Conversion)
When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported that he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare. If there is a God, he wouldn't be another object in the universe that could be put in a lab and analyzed with empirical methods. He would relate to us the way a playwright relates to the characters in his play. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright, but only to the degree the author chooses to put information about himself in the play. The Reason for God (122)
In general, let us all endeavour to carry a constant regard unto the authority of God in his commands into all those seasons, places, societies, occasions, wherein we are apt to be surprised in any sin or a neglect of duty. And I may reduce this instruction or point it unto three heads or occasions, — namely, secrecy, businesses, and societies.https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.ix.iii.html
Be of good courage, all ye that trust in the Lord; you may, you ought, without fear or dauntedness of spirit, to engage into the pursuit of universal holiness. He who hath commanded it, who hath required it of you, will bear you out in it. Nothing that is truly evil or finally disadvantageous shall befall you on that account: for let the world rage whilst it pleaseth, and threaten to fill all things with blood and confusion, "to God the Lord belong the issues from death;" he alone can "kill" and "make alive." There is, therefore, no small enforcement unto holiness from the consideration of the command, with respect unto the power of the commander, relating unto things in this world.https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.ix.iii.html
This, therefore, evidenceth unto the consciences of men that the obligation unto holiness is indispensable. And it would be well if we always carried this formal consideration of the commandment in our minds. Nothing is more prevalent with us unto watchfulness in holiness, as nothing doth more effectually render what we do to be obedience, properly so called. Forgetfulness hereof, or not heeding it as we ought, is the great reason of our loose and careless walking, of our defect in making a progress in grace and holiness. No man is safe a moment whose mind by any means is dispossessed of a sense of the sovereign authority of God in his commands, nor can any thing secure such a soul from being pierced and entered into by various temptations.https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.ix.iii.html
The command of God that we should be holy is not to be considered only as an effect of power and authority, which we must submit unto, but as a fruit of infinite wisdom and goodness also, which it is our highest advantage and interest to comply with.https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.ix.iii.html
And, moreover, there is no less fatal mistake where we make the object of this duty to be only some particular lusts, or the fruits of them in actual sins, as was before observed. This is the way with many. They will make head against some sins, which on one account or other they find themselves most concerned in; but if they will observe their course, they shall find with how little success they do it. For the most part, sin gets ground upon them, and they continually groan under the power of its victories; and the reason is, because they mistake their business. Contests against particular sins are only to comply with light and convictions. Mortification, with a design for holiness, respects the body of sin, the root and all its branches. The first will miscarry, and the latter will be successful.https://ccel.org/ccel/owen/pneum/pneum.i.viii.viii.html
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
Two men cannot be one, because they have two souls, no more could we be one with Christ were it not the same Spirit in him and us.
I no way doubt but that many men do receive more grace from God than they understand or will own, and have a greater efficacy of it in them than they will believe. Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness, which, in opinion, they deny to be imputed: for the faith of it is included in that general assent which they give unto the truth of the gospel, and such an adherence unto Christ may ensue thereon, as that their mistake of the way whereby they are saved by him shall not defaud them of a real interest therein.Justification by Faith, 164
Temptations and occasions put nothing into man, but only draw out what was in him before.
We are prone to think that we are very willing to have forgiveness, but that God is unwilling to bestow it… but indeed things are quite otherwise.
Top Authors
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2. J.C. Ryle (111)
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4. John Calvin (83)
5. John Piper (82)
6. J.I. Packer (76)
7. George Swinnock (69)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (48)
12. Gerald Bray (47)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. John Owen (44)
15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
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17. Joe Boot (42)
18. Abraham Kuyper (40)
19. John Flavel (38)
20. Thomas Brooks (36)
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