Quotes about Grace
A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.
— John Owen
a sense of the love of Christ in the cross; lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification
— John Owen
Arminians pretend, very speciously, that Christ died for all men, yet, in effect, they make him die for no one man at all.
— John Owen
The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart. When a man hath confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
— John Owen
The use of means for the obtaining of peace is ours; the bestowing of it is God's prerogative.
— John Owen
in the meantime praying the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who has, of the riches of his grace, recovered us from a state of enmity into a condition of communion and fellowship with himself, that both he that writes, and they that read the words of his mercy, may have such a taste of his sweetness and excellencies therein, as to be stirred up to a farther longing after the fulness of his salvation, and the eternal fruition of him in glory.
— John Owen
The death of Christ is their meritorious cause; the Spirit of God and his effectual grace their efficient, working instrumentally with power by the word and ordinances.
— John Owen
A believer] is oftentimes at the very brink, at the very door of some folly or iniquity, when God puts in by the efficacy of actually assisting grace, and recovers them to an obediential frame of heart again. And this is a peculiar work of Christ, wherein he manifests and exerts his faithfulness toward his own: 'He is able to succor them that are tempted' (Heb. 2:18)....Here lies a great part of the care and faithfulness of Christ toward his poor saints.
— John Owen
And, therefore, seeing he doth not intercede and pray for every one, he did not die for every one.
— John Owen
The flesh would fain be indulged upon the account of grace: and every word that is spoken of mercy, it stands ready to catch at, and to pervert to its own corrupt aims and purposes. To apply mercy, then, to a sin not vigorously mortified, is to fulfil the end of the flesh pon the gospel.
— John Owen
The Holy Spirit is promised of God to be given to us, to do this work (of mortification). The taking away of the stony heart, that is, the stubborn, proud, rebellious, unbelieving heart, is, in general, the work of mortification that we treat of.
— John Owen
We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is a law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover.
— John Owen