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.
I desire to cast my crown at the feet of Jesus, and to cry grace! grace! Dear Sir, what a charming word is that? I am sure I can freely own, that all my salvation is of grace, unmerited, distinguishing, electing grace!
Repentance was never yet produced in any man's heart apart from the grace of God. As soon may you expect the leopard to regret the blood with which its fangs are moistened, as soon might you expect the lion of the wood to abjure his cruel tyranny over the feeble beasts of the plain, as expect the sinner to make any confession, or offer any repentance that shall be accepted of God, unless grace shall first renew the heart.
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
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
Those who suppose that the doctrine of God's grace tends to encourage moral laxity are simply showing that, in the most literal sense, they do not know what they are talking about. For love awakens love in return; Knowing God (The Grace of God, 152)
You need grace! But someone says if you throw that much grace around it will be a liscence for sin. Only among the unconverted Church members. Oh they will take it as an excuse for sin. The genuinely converted will say this, if grace be such. If it be so large and so wide... depths I cannot sound. Then oh let me be holy! Unknown
Grace is not educed or extracted out of the potency of any created nature. Grace is born in heaven, and came from the inmost of the heart of Christ; it hath neither seed nor parent on earth, therefore the Lord challengeth it as his own
Grace is not lawless. True grace is: Active and obedient, Thankful and holy, Eager to honor the Lawgiver, Concerned for the glory of the gospel, Joyful and bold in Christ, Yet tender and reverent, as if there were no gospel— And free and fearless, as if there were no curse.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
Did Christ die and shall sin live? Was He crucified in the world, and shall our affections to the world be quick and lively? Oh, where is the spirit of Him, who by the cross of Christ was crucified to the world, and the world to Him!
grace never changes what is right. It does change our relationship to what is right by giving us a desire and the power to do right, but it never redefines the standard of right and wrong.Law-and-Gospel