John Owen

To believe in Christ for redemption, for justification, for sanctification, is but one half of the duty of faith–it respects Christ only as he died and suffered for us, as he made atonement for our sins, peace with God and reconciliation for us, as his righteousness is imputed to us for justification… we are exhorted to receive him and believe in him, but that is not all that is required of us.  Christ in the gospel is proposed to us as our pattern and example of holiness… Wherefore let us be much in the contemplation of what he was, what he did, how in all instances of duties and trials he carried himself, until an image or idea of his perfect holiness is implanted in our minds, and we are made like him thereby.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

The Lord Christ had called his apostles to the great work of building his church, and the propagation of his gospel in the world. Of themselves, they were plainly and openly defective in all qualifications and abilities that might contribute anything to it. But whatever is wanting in themselves… he promises to supply it… by sending the Holy Spirit to them, on whose presence and assistance alone depended the whole success of their ministry in the world.
…And this is the hinge whereon the whole weight of it turn and depends to this day. Take it away… and there will be an absolute end f the Church of Christ in this world—no dispensation of the Spirit, no church.
—John Owen

The apostle calls it to ‘fall into temptation’ (1 Tim. 6:9), as a man falls into a pit or deep place where there are  traps and snares with which he might be entangled. The man is not instantly killed or destroyed, but he is entangled and detained. He does not know how to get free or be at liberty. So Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 10:13 in terms of temptation taking us. To be taken by a temptation is to be tangled with it, to be held in its cords, and not find at present, a way to escape. Peter also says in 2 Peter 2:9, ‘The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations.’ If they are entangled with them, God knows how to deliver them out of them. When we allow a temptation to enter into us, then we ‘enter into temptation.’ When sin knocks at the door, we are at  liberty; but when a temptation comes in and we allow it to speak with our heart, reason with our mind, entice and allure our affections, for a long, or a short time, then sin subtly and almost imperceptibly draws our soul to take particular notice of it: we enter into temptation.
—John Owen, “Temptation”

The Spirit represents the person of Jesus Christ. He works and effects whatever the Lord Christ had taken upon himself to work and effect towards his disciples…All their work and duty being  suspended on the accomplishment of that promise since he is God, they might suppose that he would come with some absolute new dispensation of truth, so that what they had learned and received from Christ should pass away and be of no use to them. To prevent any such apprehension he lets them know that the work he had to do was only to carry on and build on the foundation which was laid in his person or doctrine. This was the Holy Spirit to do. And this he did.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

Regeneration consists in spiritual renovation of our nature… This will infallibly produce a reformation of life.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

Holiness is not confined to this life, but passes over into eternity and glory. Death has no power over it, to destroy it or divest us of it… All those graces whereby holiness is constituted, and wherein it consists, shall in their present nature, improved to perfection, abide forever… That love whereby we now adhere to God as our chiefest good; that faith whereby we are united  to Christ, our everlasting head; that delight in any of the ways or ordinances of God… that love and good will which we have for all those indwelt by the Spirit and bear the image of Christ… shall be purified, enhanced, perfected, and pass into glory.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit

God has appointed the ministry for the application of the  word to the minds and consciences of men for their instruction and conversion… The Word of God, thus dispensed by the ministry of the church is the only outward means used by the Holy Ghost in the regeneration of the adult to whom it is preached… It is sufficient to to teach men all that is needful for them to believe and do, that they maybe converted to God and yield him the obedience that he requires.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

A spiritual darkness and death came by sin on all mankind… In thi state of things, the Holy Spirit undertook to create  a new world… wherein righteousness should dwell.  And this, in the first place, was by his effectual communication of a new principle of spiritual life to the souls of God’s elect… This he does in their regeneration… All our faith and obedience to God, and all our acceptance with him, depend on regeneration or being born again.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

No man ever circumcised his own heart. No man can say he began to do it by the power of his own will, and then God only helped him by his grace. As the act of outward circumcision on the body of a child was the act of another, and not of the child who was  only passive therein [but the effect was on the body of the child only], so it is in the spiritual circumcision—it is the act of God, in which our hearts are the subject. It is the blindness, obstinacy, and stubbornness in sin that is in us by nature, with the prejudices which possess our minds and affections, which hinder us from conversion to God. But by the circumcision, they are taken away.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”.

The God of peace…was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, destroying the enmity which entered in by sin, and laying the foundation of eternal peace. From hence it is, that he will sanctify us, or make us holy…God, by the sanctification of our natures and persons, preserves that peace with himself in its exercise which he made and procured by the mediation of Christ… It is holiness that keeps up a sense of peace with God, and prevents those spiritual breaches which the remainders of our enmity would occasion. God, as the author of our peace, is the author of our holiness, by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of peace and love.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

The fountain of this life being in God and the fullness of its being laid up in Christ for us, he communicates the power and principle of it to us by the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost is the author and cause of the work of regeneration… Nothing is more in words acknowledged than that all the elect of God are sanctified by the Holy Ghost. And this regeneration is the head, fountain or beginning of our sanctification, virtually comprising the whole in itself.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

The Holy Ghost… gives a new understanding, a new heart, new affections, renewing the whole soul into the image of God… The most we have of saving light in our minds, of heavenly love in our wills and affections, of a constant readiness unto obedience in our hearts, the more pure we are, the more cleansed from the pollution of sin.
–John Owen

Unregenerate men… are spiritually dead. There is a necessity of an internal, powerful, effectual work of the Holy Ghost on the souls of men, to deliver them out of this state and condition by regeneration. And this principally respects their wills and affections, as the darkness and blindness before described relates to their minds and understandings. There is a spiritual life whereby men live unto God; to this they are strangers and aliens, and spiritually dead… The recovery and restoration of men by the grace of Christ is called their “quickening,” or the bestowing of a new life upon them.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit.”

It was the Holy Spirit who glorified the human nature of Christ, and made it in every way fit for its eternal residence at the right hand of God, and a pattern for the glorification of of the bodies of them that believe on him… He is the exemplar and pattern of that glory which in our mortal bodies we shall receive by the same Spirit.
–John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit.”

Have we received this principle of holiness and of spiritual life by the gracious operation of the Holy Ghost? There are—among many others—three duties incumbent on us, of which we ought to be as careful as of our souls. First, carefully and diligently by all means to cherish and preserve it in our hearts… Secondly, it is equally incumbent on us to evince and manifest it by its fruits, in the mortification of corrupt lusts and affections, in all duties of holiness, righteousness, charity, and piety in the world, that God may be glorified…. [Thirdly], in like manner it is required that we be thankful for what we have received.
Without these visible fruits, we expose our entire profession of holiness to reproach.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

Sanctification…is the immediate work of God by His Spirit upon our whole nature, proceeding from the peace made for us by Jesus Christ, whereby, being changed into his likeness, we are kept entirely in peace with God, and are preserved unblamable, or in a state of gracious acceptation with him, according to the terms of the covenant, unto the end.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

The God of peace…was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, destroying the enmity which entered in by sin, and laying the foundation of eternal peace. From hence it is that he will sanctify us, or make us holy…God, by the sanctification of our natures and persons, preserves that peace with himself in its exercise which he made and procured by the mediation of Christ…It is holiness that keeps up a sense of peace with God, and prevents those spiritual breaches which the remainders of our enmity would occasion. God, as the author of our peace, is the author of our holiness…by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of love and peace.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

Whereas the Spirit of God is everywhere said to sanctify us, we ourselves are commanded and said constantly to mortify our sins—the weakening, impairing, and destroying of the contrary principle of sin in its root and fruits.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

Do we see, sometimes, the flood-gates of men’s lusts and rage set open against the church, and interest of it, and doth prevalancy attend the, and power is, for a season, on their side? Let not the saints of God despond. He hath unspeakably various and effectual ways for the trifling of their conceptions, to give them dry breasts, and a miscarrying womb. He can stop their fury when he pleaseth. “Surely,” saith the Psalmist, “the wrath of man shall praise Thee, the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain,” Psalm. 76:10. When so much of their wrath is let out, as shall exalt his praise, he can when he pleaseth, set up a power, greater than the combined strength of all sinning creatures, and restrain the remainder of the wrath that they had conceived. “He shall cut off the spirit of princes, he is terrible to the kings of the earth,” Psalm. 76:12. Some he will cut off and destroy, some he will terrify and affright, and prevent the rage of all. He can knock them on the head, or break out their teeth, or chain up their wrath, and who can oppose him?
—John Owen, The nature of indwelling sin in believers.

Seeing we are chosen in Christ, and predestinated to be like him, those graces of holiness have the most evident and legible characters of electing love upon them which are most effectual in working us unto a conformity to him. That grace is certainly from an eternal spring which makes us like Jesus Christ. Of this sort are meekness, humility, self-denial, contempt of the world, readiness to pass by wrongs, to forgive enemies, to love and do good to all—which indeed are despised by the most, and duly regarded but by few.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Sprit”

The great work of the Holy Ghost in the dispensation and ministration of the gospel… gives to the ministry of the gospel both its glory and its efficacy. Take away the Spirit from the gospel and you render it a dead letter, and leave the New Testament of no more use to Christians than the Old Testament is to the Jews…
There is not any spiritual or saving good from first to last communicated to us, or that we are from and by the grace of God made partakers of, but it is revealed to use and bestowed on us by the Holy Ghost… There is not anything done in us or by us that is holy and acceptable to God, but it is an affect of the Holy Spirit… Without him we can do nothing.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

The great work whereby God designed to glorify himself ultimately in this world was that of the new creation, or of the recovery and restoration of all things by Jesus Christ…The Holy Ghost does immediately work and effect whatever was to be done…for the perfecting and accomplishment of the Father’s counsel and the Son’s work.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

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Seeing we are chosen in Christ, and predestinated to be like him, those graces of holiness have the most evident and legible character of electing love upon them which are most effectual in working us unto conformity to him. That grace is certainly from an eternal spring which makes us like Jesus Christ. Of this sort are meekness, humility, self-denial, contempt of the world, readiness to pass by wrongs, to forgive enemies, to love and do good to all–which indeed are despised by the most, and duly regarded but by few.
–John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

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He who does not know that God has promised to “work in us” in a way of grace what he requires of us in a way of duty, has either never read the Bible or does not believe it, either never prayed or never taken notice of what he prayed for. He is a heathen and has nothing of the Christian in him, who does not pray that God would work in him what he requires of him. This we know: that what God commands and prescribes to us, what he encourages us to do, we ought with all diligence and earnestness [as we value our souls and their eternal welfare] to attend to and comply withal.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

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Salvation is the end that God aims at in his choosing of us, in subordination to his own glory, which is and must be the ultimate end of all his purposes and decrees, or of all the free acts of his wisdom and love. That means which he has ordained whereby we shall be brought to this salvation, as designed in his eternal purpose, is the sanctification of the Spirit. Gospel holiness, therefore, is the effect of that sanctification of the Spirit, which God has designed as the special way and means on their part of bringing the elect unto salvation; and his choosing of them is the cause and reason why he does so sanctify them by his Spirit.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit.”

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A spiritual darkness and death came by sin on all mankind… In this state of things the Holy Spirit undertook to create a new world ..wherein righteousness should dwell. And this, in the first place, was by his effectual communication of a new principle of spiritual life to the souls of God’s elect…This he does in their regeneration…All our faith and obedience to God, and all our acceptance with him, depend on our regeneration and being born again.
—John Owen “Discourse on the Holy Spirit.”

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This duty of weakening sin by the growth and improvement of grace, and the opposition which is made to sin in all its acting’s is called mortification, killing, or putting to death..By the entrance of grace into the soul [sin] loses its dominion, but not its being. The utter ruin, destruction, and gradual annihilation of all the remainders of this cursed life of sin is our design and aim in this work and duty.
—John Owen

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All sanctified believers have an ability and power, in the renewed mind and understanding, to see, know, discern, and receive spiritual things…the mysteries of the gospel, the mind of Christ—in a due and spiritual manner. It is true, they have not all of them this power and ability in the same degree; but everyone one of them has enough of it, to discern what concerns themselves and their duties…Some of them seem, indeed, to be very low in knowledge…And some of them are kept in that condition by their own negligence and sloth; they do not use as they ought.. those means of growing in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. But everyone who is truly sanctified, and who thereby has received the least degree of saving grace, has light enough to understand the spiritual things of the gospel in a spiritual manner.
—John Owen,  “Discourse on the Holy Spirit.”

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The Lord Christ calls all his true disciples to bear witness and testimony to the holiness of his life, the wisdom and purity of his doctrine, the efficacy of his death to expiate sin, to make atonement and peace with God, with the power of his whole mediation to renew the image of God in us, to restore us unto his favour, and to bring us to the enjoyment of him. This he calls all his disciples to avow unto and express in the world. By their so doing is he particularly glorified. A testimony is to be given unto and against the world, that his life was most holy, his doctrine most heavenly and pure, his death most precious and efficacious…All this is done in no other way than by obedience to him in holiness.
—John Owen, “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

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A child who has a principle of life, a good natural constitution, and suitable food, will grow and thrive; but one who has obstructions from within, or distempers or disease, or falls and bruises, maybe weak and thriftless. When we are regenerated, we are as new born babes, and ordinarily, if we have the sincere milk of the word we shall grow thereby. But if we give way to temptations, corruptions, negligence’s, conformity to the world, is it any wonder if we are lifeless and thriftless?
It is time for us to be rather casting off every weight and the sin that so easily besets us, to be by all means stirring ourselves unto a vigorous recovery of our first faith and love, with an abundant growth in them …before our wounds become incurable.
—John Owen From “Discourse on the Holy Spirit”

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