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.
Bee-masters tell us, that they are the best hives which make the greatest noise; so that conscience is the best which makes the greatest noise in daily reasonings and debates before it's own bar.
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
Conscience is like a looking glass. If it be foul and dusty, you can see nothing in it; but wipe away the dust, and you may see your face in it clearly. There is a time coming when God will wipe off the dust from the glass of a man's conscience, and he shall see his sins clearly represented.
Conscience is God's echo, and sometimes it is so shrill and clamorous that the sinner cannot endure the noise, but silences conscience; and at last by often sinning, conscience begins to be sleepy and seared.
But the sincere Christian that allows himself in no sin delights to commune with his own soul and when he is debating things with his own conscience esteems himself in good company. He had rather God's deputy, conscience, should admonish him to contrition than that God Himself should do it to his confusion.
Conscience must be satisfied with something; therefore men usually please themselves with so much of obedience as is least contrary to their interests and inclinations and have not an entire uniform respect to the whole law. As if a servant should think himself dutiful when he goes to a feast or a fair when his master bids him, when in the meantime he declines errands of less trouble but of more service; whereas in such matters he does not obey his master's will, but his own inclination. So in commands easy and compliant with our own humors and designs, we do not so much serve God as our own interests, and there is more of design than of duty and religion in such actions; and therefore they lose their reward with God.
Every quiet conscience is not a clear conscience. Some are lulled asleep in security, and their consciences are quiet merely because they are insensible. It may be they have so harassed and wasted their consciences by dreadful sins, so often mortally wounded them, that now they have not strength enough to become quarrelsome and troublesome; and this they call peace.
He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience that feels nothing, and a dumb conscience that says nothing is in as miserable condition as a man can be in on this side hell.
You must know conscience is a faculty that is corrupted as much as any other by nature and is very often made use of by Satan to deceive both good and bad, godly and ungodly. Many that know their consciences, they say, speak peace to them will be found merely cheated and gulled when the books shall be opened; no such discharge will then be found entered in the book of the word as conscience hath put into their hand. And many gracious souls who passed their days in a continual fear of their spiritual state and were kept chained in the dark dungeon of a troublesome conscience shall then be acquitted and have their action against Satan for false imprisonment and accusing their consciences to the disturbing their peace.
Conscience is the seat of guilt. It is like a burning glass, so it contracts the beams of the threatenings, twists them together, and reflects them on the soul until it smoke, scorch, and flame.
A dead conscience and a dissolute life are inseparable. And how many that are surrounded with the celestial beams of the gospel are as impure and impenitent as those in the black night of paganism? They stand at the entrance of the bottomless pit yet do not smell the brimstone that enrages the fire there. The flames of their lusts have seared their consciences to a desperate degree of hardness and insensibility. Danger of Prosperity