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
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
There are two great ends why Christ did institute a particular church, and they were to express the two great graces and duties that He requires of us. The first end was that his saints together might jointly profess their faith in Him and obedience to Him. And we have no other way of doing it: He hath tied us up to this... The next great end was that we might have a direct exercise of His other great command and of that other great duty, of love to believers.
Christ died for our preferment; He suffered that we might reign. He hung on the cross that we might sit on the throne; His crucifixion is our coronation.
He suffered in His soul; yea, the sufferings of His soul were the very soul of His sufferings. He felt in His inner man the exquisite torments and inexpressible anguish of the wrath of God.
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!
A soul enlightened with the knowledge of the truth, and made sensible of its own condition by spiritual conviction, has two predominant desires and aims, whereby it is wholly regulated,-the one is, that *God may be glorified*; and the other, that *itself may be eternally saved.*
We cannot enjoy peace in this world unless we are ready to yield to the will of God in respect of death. Our times are in His hand, at His sovereign disposal. We must accept that as best.