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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
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.
he that would be little in temptation, let him be much in prayerhttps://ccel.org/ccel/owen/temptation/temptation.i.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
[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
Severity to sin is mercy to the soul.
To return when the Spirit makes intercession in thee or helps thee to make intercession with groans which cannot be uttered, let these groans be against sin rather than for divine comforts; groan rather for redemption from sin than from any other misery.
Watchfulness is of singular use to such as would be successful in this business of mortification. You must fight with sin ere ye can mortify it, for sin is not so tame as to make no resistance.
Of all Christians, none so mortified as those in whom grace is most exercised. Sin is a viper that must be killed or it will kill you forever, and there is no way to kill it but by the exercise of grace.
It is sad to consider how few professors in these days have attained the right way of mortifying sin. They usually go out against their sins in the strength of their own purposes, prayers, and resolutions and scarcely look so high as a crucified Christ. They mind not the exercise of their faith upon Christ, and therefore it is a righteous thing with Christ that after all they should be carried away captive by their sins. Nothing eats out sin like the actings of grace; nothing weakens and wastes the strength of sin like the exercise of grace. O did men believe more in Christ, sin would die more. Did they believe the threatenings more, sin would die more. Did they believe the promises more, sin would die more. Did they believe in reigning with Christ more, sin would die more.
Look upon a rabbit's skin, how well it comes off till it comes to the head, but then what hauling and pulling is there before it stirs! So it is in the mortifying, in the crucifying of sin. A man may easily subdue and mortify such and such sins, but when it comes to the head sin, to the master sin, to the bosom sin, O what tugging and pulling is there, what striving and struggling is there, to get off that sin, to get down that sin!
Use sin, as it will use you. Spare it not, for it will not spare you. It is your murderer and the murderer of the world; use it therefore as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you, and then though it kill your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls. And though it bring you to the grave, as it did your head, it shall not be able to keep you there.
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.
All images and idols are set up for no other end but to feign the presence of what really is absent.
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.
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8. John Flavel (83)
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11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. William Gurnall (63)
13. Louis Berkhof (63)
14. Thomas Manton (60)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. Thomas Brooks (94)
6. J.I. Packer (93)
7. John Piper (87)
8. John Flavel (83)
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11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. William Gurnall (63)
13. Louis Berkhof (63)
14. Thomas Manton (60)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
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