John Owen Sin Quotations

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.

Now nothing can prevent this but mortification; that withers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour, so that whatever it aims at it is crossed in.

Without a sincere and diligent effort in every area of obedience, there will be no sucessful mortification of any one besetting sin.

Mortification is the soul's vigorous opposition to self, wherein sincerity is most evident.

Let, then, the word be preached, and the sins of men will be rebuked, lust will be restrained, and some oppositions will be made against sin, though that be not the effect aimed at.

When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone.

It is evident that you contend against sin merely because of how it troubles you.

Your state is not at all to be measured by the opposition that sin makes to you, but by the opposition you make to it.

The good Lord send out a spirit of mortification to cure our distempers, or we are in a sad condition!

Sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet.

He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.

The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.

There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so whilst we live in this world.

Sin will be always acting, if we be not always mortifying, we are lost creatures...

He who finds not opposition from [sin]... is at peace with it, not dying to it.

To kill sin is the work of living men; where men are dead (as all unbelievers, the best of them, are dead), sin is alive, and will live.

Indwelling sin always abides whilst we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified.

He works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.

The seed of every sin is in every heart.

I do not understand how a man can be a true believer, in whom sin is not the greatest burden, sorrow and trouble.

There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.

Never was sin seen to be more abominably sinful and full of provocation than when the burden of it was upon the shoulders of the Son of God...Would you, then, see the true demerit of sin?-take the measure of it from the mediation of Christ, especially his cross.

So great an advantage is given to sin and Satan by your temper and disposition, that without extraordinary watchfulness, care, and diligence, they will prevail against your soul.

Be killing sin or it will be killing you.