“Then Jesus tells it to us straight up.  He comes to rip and tear families apart because He is bringing not peace but a sword, not unity but division (Matthew 10:35;  Luke 12:49,52).  He was not on vacation in Palestine but on a mission of violence that would end violently.” (13)

From Chapter 1: “King of Fools”

“The big question that looms in my mind is this: If it’s God’s love that wins, then what kind of love wins?” (27)

“There is an inherent, settled antipathy between God’s Kingdom and the kingdom of the world.” (29)

“What we need to make clear with our bumper stickers and culture-current writings is that the move that wins is a holy love.  The love that won on the cross and wins the world is a love that is driven, determined, and defined by holiness” (30)

“Our accomdation to our culture’s insistence on a half-truth puts us in danger of declawing and domesticating the mighty King, whose presence made deamons scream and death flee in shame.” (31)

“His coming was not to be marked by peace and tranquility – He came to impose a test of absolute allegiance.  He forced people into a divisive crisis of choice (Matthew 10:34-39).” (31)

I certainly do not agree with everything in the book.  For instance I would never say that Jesus was a revolutionary like Che or Castro (I would not say he is like George Washington either).  Also, I have a little trouble agreeing that unbelievers can serve God through their art (174).  But taken as a whole I would heartily recommend this book to everyone.  It is very readable and winsome.

Here are the 3 top reasons I like it:

1.  He gives a good explanation of who God is as a joyous, vengeful, righteous, merciful, jealous, and patient King who wants to share his joy with you while demanding that you bow down and worship him.

2.  He gently takes the emerging church to task (especially Rob Bell) by validating their concerns but noting that many times their cure is worse than the disease itself.

3.  He gently takes the fundamentalists to task by giving a solid defense of the arts as a legitimate Christian occupation and that “Apparently for Jesus – no works, no heaven” (156).

I hope soon to post a few of my favorite quotes from the book.

“A godly man bears God’s name and image; godliness is Godlikeness.  It is one thing to profess God, another thing to resemble him.” -32

“God’s power makes him mighty; his mercy makes him lovely; but his holiness makes him glorious.  The holiness of God is the intrinsic purity of his nature and his abhorrence of sin.  A godly man bears some kind of analogy with God in this.” -32

“The godly set themselves against evil, both in purpose and in practice.  They are fearful of that which looks like sin.” -33

“Many pretend to love Christ as a Saviour but hate him as he is the Holy One.” -34

“As faith enlivens, so love sweetens every duty.” -30

“A godly man loves God and therefore delights to be in his presence; he loves God and therefore takes comfort in nothing without him.” -30

“Let us test our godliness by this touch-stone: Do we love God?  Is he our treasure and centre?  Can we, with David, call God our ‘joy’, yes, our ‘exceeding joy’?  Do we delight in drawing near to him, and ‘come before his presence with singing’?  Do we love him for his beauty more than his jewels?  Do we love him when he seems not to love us?” -31

“Many court him, but few love him.  People are for the most part eaten up with self-love; they love their ease, their worldly profit, their lusts, but they do not have a drop of love to God.” -31

“Faith enlivens the grace; not a grace stirs up till faith sets it working.” -28

“When I believe God’s love to me, this makes me weep that I should sin against so good a God.” -28

“True knowledge brings a man out of love with himself.  The more he knows, the more he blushes at his own ignorance.” -23

“Though God requires knowledge of God more than burnt offerings, (Hos. 6:6), yet it is a knowledge accompanied by obedience.  True knowledge not only improves a Christian’s sight, but improves his pace.” -24

“Knowledge which is not applied will only light a man to hell.  It would be better to live a savage than to die an infidel under the gospel.” -26

“Saving knowledge is not by speculation, but by inspiration.” -27

I continue to be encouraged and humbled by the words of Thomas Watson.  I have read his The Doctrine of Repentance and The Great Gain of Godliness and have always finished a page written by Thomas Watson desiring more of God and the holiness without which I will not see the Lord.

Check the book out at Westminster Theological Seminary Bookstore.  (Cheaper than Amazon.com)

“It is better to go with difficulty to heaven than with ease to hell” (8)

“A woman may as well expect to have a child without pangs as one can have repentance without sorrow. He that can believe without doubting, suspect his faith; and he that can repent without sorrowing, suspect his repentance.” (19)

“We are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found sweetness in committing it.” (24)

“The Christian has arrived as a sufficient measure of sorrow when the love of sin is purged out.” (24)

“The more bitterness we taste in sin, the more sweetness we shall taste in Christ.” (27)

Ingredients of Proper Confession:

1. “Confession must be voluntary”

“true confession drops from the lips as myrrh from the tree or honey form the comb, freely.” (29)

2. “Confession must be with compunction”

“It is one thing to confess sin and another to feel sin.” (29)

3. “Confession must be sincere”

4. “In true confession a man particularizes sin”

“In the same way a wicked man says, ‘Lord, I have sinned’, but does not know what the sin is; as least he does not remember, whereas a true convert acknowledges his particular sin.” (30)

5. “A true penitent confesses sin in the fountain”

“We are ready to charge many of our first sins to Satan’s temptations, but this sin of our nature is wholly from ourselves; we cannot shift it off to Satan.” (30)

“Our nature is an abyss and seminary of all evil, from whence come those scandals that infest the world.” (31)

6. “Sin is to be confessed with all its circumstances and aggravations”

7. “In confession we must so charge ourselves as to clear God”

8. “We must confess our sins with a resolution not to act them over again”

“many seem to kill their sins in their confessions and afterwards let them grow as fast as ever.” (31)

“Origen calls confession the vomit of the soul whereby the conscience is eased of that burden.” (32)

“What king will pardon that man who, after he has confessed his treason, practices new treason?” (32)

The Results of Proper Confession: (34-35)

1. “Holy confession gives glory to God”

“A humble confession exalts God” (34)

2. “Confession is a means to humble the soul”

3. “Confession gives vent to a troubled heart”

4. “Confession purges out sin”

“Confession is like the dung-gate, through which all the filth of the city was carried forth.” (35)

5. “Confession of sin endears Christ to the soul”

6. “Confession of sin makes way for pardon”

“Repentance causes a holy bashfulness. If Christ’s blood were not at the sinner’s heart, there would not so much blood come in the face.” (39)

“Our sins are worse than the sins of the devils: the lapsed angels never sinned against Christ’s blood. Christ died not for them. The medicine of his merit was never intended to heal them. But we have affronted and disparaged his blood by unbelief.” (42)

“A true penitent is a sin-loather.” (45)

“Christ is never loved till sin be loathed. Heaven is never longed for till sin be loathed.” (45)

“We are never more precious in God’s eyes than when we are lepers in our own.” (45)

“Sound repentance begins in the love of God and ends in the hatred of sin.” (45)

“So let the devil cook and dress sin with pleasure and profit, yet a true penitent with a secret abhorrence of it is disgusted by it and will not meddle with it.” (46)

“He who hates one sin hates them all.” (46)

“Where there is a real hatred, we not only oppose sin in ourselves but in others too” (47)

“To the godly sin is as a thorn in the eye; to the wicked it is as a crown on the head.” (47)

“Affliction is but corrective; sin is destructive. Affliction can but take away the life; sin takes away the soul (Luke 12:20).” (49)

“In the torments of hell there is something that is good, namely, the execution of divine justice. There is justice to be found in hell, but sin is a piece of the highest injustice. It would rob God of his glory, Christ of his purchase, the soul of its happiness.” (51)

“a true convert seeks the destruction of every lust. He knows how dangerous it is to entertain any one sin. He that hides one rebel in his house is a traitor to the Crown, and he that indulges one sin is a traitorous hypocrite.” (54)

“He that returns to sin by implication charges God with some evil. If a man puts away his wife, it implies he knows some fault by her. To leave God and to return to sin is tacitly to asperse the Deity.” (55)

“A true turning from sin is a divorcing it, so as never to come near it any more.” (56)

“Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.” (63)

“Repentance is necessary for civil persons. … Indeed these are often in the worst condition: these are they who need no repentance (Luke 15:7). Their civility undoes them. They make a Christ of it, and so on this shelf they suffer shipwreck. Morality shoots short of heaven. … Civility is insufficient for salvation. Though the life be moralized, the lust may be unmortified. The heart may be full of pride and atheism. I am not saying, repent that you are civil, but repent that you are no more than civil.” (67)

“Indeed, if prayer does not make a man leave sin, sin will make him leave prayer.” (68)

“Repentance is a continuous act. The issue of godly sorrow must not be quite stopped till death.” (69)

“Let it grieve you that so much of your age has not been time lived but time lost; that you have filled up your golden hours more with froth than with spirits.” (71)

“Sin hangs weights on us so that we move but slowly to heaven.” (73)

“No prayer touches God’s ear but what comes from a heart touched with the sense of sin.” (77)

“Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.” (77)

“Let a man, said Augustine, grieve for his sin and rejoice for his grief.” (78)

“It is not so much the sins we have committed that so provoke and grieve Christ as that we refuse the physic of repentance which he prescribes.” (84)

“Be as speedy in your repentance as you would have God speedy in his mercies: ‘the king’s business required haste’ (I Sam 21:8).” (86)

“Many are now in hell that proposed to repent.” (86)

“By late repentance, though we do not lose our crown, yet we make it lighter.” (88)

“God who pardons him that repents has not promised to give him tomorrow to repent in.” (90)

“God is never pleased with us than when we fall out with ourselves for sin.” (93)

“We please God by repentance but we do not satisfy him by it.” (97)

“Though repentance helps to purge out the filth of sin, yet it is Christ’s blood that washes away the guilt of sin.” (97)

“This is the mischief sin has done; it has not only made us sick, but senseless.” (99)

“This conceit of the easiness of repentance is a great hindrance to it.” (100)

“A sinner will rather lose Christ and heaven than his lusts.” (100)

“Because of mercy men presume and think they may go on in sin, but should a king’s clemency make his subjects rebel.” (101)

“God will hardly show those mercy who sin because mercy abounds.” (101)

“It [repentance] does not crucify but clarify our joy, and takes it off from the fulsome lees of sin.” (102)

“Repentance does not take away a Christian’s music, but raises it a note higher and makes it sweeter.” (103)

“A creditor may forbear his debtor, but forbearance does not excuse payment.” (104)

“If you cannot bear a reproach for religion, never call yourself Christian.” (105)

“The farm and shop so take up people’s time that they have no leisure for their souls. Their golden weights hinder their silver tears.” (105)

“So, being conscious of our own inability to leave sin, let us get Christ to be bound with us and engage his strength for the mortifying of corruption.” (120)

“Beg of Christ to give to us such a look of love as he did to Peter, which made him go out and weep bitterly. Implore the help of God’s Spirit.” (121)

“We can harden our hearts, but cannot soften them. This crown of free-will is fallen from our head. Nay, there is in us not only impotency, but obstinacy (Acts 7:51). Therefore beg of God a repentant spirit. He can make the stony heart bleed. His is a word of creative power.” (121)

“As you may render him more service, so you may do him more disservice than others. The nearer men stand to God, the greater dishonor hath he by their miscarriages; and more will they be imputed by foolish men to God himself.” (78)

and the warning to live holy lives because people are watching all the more,

“Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin, lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labours.” (63)

I hope in the future to post my favorite quotes from The Reformed Pastor as I did from the The Mortification of Sin.

One of the things that I wish more book reviews had in them were more quotes from the book. I know that pulling quotes out of context can be deadly but I’d rather those of you who have not read the book get the highlights from Owen himself. I want you to taste this work itself to inspire you to read it, not to tell you what it tastes like. So without further ado, here are my favorite quotes from The Mortification of Sin.

“the vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depend on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.” (p.24)

“Be killing sin, or it will be killing you” (p.26)

“When sin lets us alone, we may let it alone: but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be the most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times, in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion.” (p.28)

“[Sin] is modest, as it were, in its first motions and proposals; but having once got footing in the heart by them, it constantly makes good its ground, and presseth on to some degrees in the same kind.” (p.31)

“Not to be daily mortifying sin is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace and love of God, who hath furnished us with a principle of doing it.” (p.32)

“Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness, who walks not over the neck of his lusts.” (p.34)

“The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin, without bitterness in the heart. When a man hath fixed 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.” (p.36)

Concerning the Holy Spirit:

“Spiritually sick men cannot sweat out their distemper with working.” (p.43)

“This renewing of us by the Holy Ghost, as it is called (Titus 3:5), is one great way of mortification: he causes us to grow, thrive, flourish and abound in those graces which are contrary, opposite, and destructive to all the fruits of the flesh, and to the quiet or thriving of indwelling sin.” (p.45)

“He [the Holy Spirit] is the fire which burns up the very root of lust.” (p.45)

“The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our understandings, wills, consciences and affections, agreeably to their own natures: he works in us and with us, not against us or without us: so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself.” (p.46)

“A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.” (p.75)

Unmortification removes our assurance of salvation:

“Every unmortified sin will certainly do two things; first, it will weaken the soul, and deprive it of its vigor; secondly, it will darken the soul, and deprive it of its comfort and peace.” (p.51)

“An unmortified lust will drink up the spirit and all the vigor of the soul, and weaken it for all duties.” (p.51)

“As sin weakens, so it darkens the soul. It is a cloud, a thick cloud, that spreads itself over the face of the soul, and intercepts all the beams of God’s love and favour. It takes away all sense of the privilege of adoption.” (p.52)

“A sin is not mortified when it is only diverted. … A man may be sensible of a lust, set himself against the eruptions of it, take care that it shall not break forth as it hath done; but in the mean time may suffer the same corrupted habit to vent itself some other way; as he who heals a skins a running sore thinks that himself cured, but in the mean time his flesh festereth by the corruption of the same humour, and breaks out in another place. … He hath changed his master, but is a servant still.” (p.58-59)

“Occasional conquests of sin do not amount to mortifying it.” (p.59)

“Now the first thing in mortification is the weakening of this habit of sin or lust, so that it shall not, with that violence, earnestness, rise up, conceive, tumultuate, provoke, entice, disquiet, as naturally it is apt to do.” (p.64-65)

“It is to be feared that very many have little knowledge of the main enemy that they carry about them in their bosoms.” (p.69)

Concerning the unregenerate:

“Unless a man be a believer, that is, one that is truly ingrafted into Christ, he can never mortify any one sin.” (p.74)

“There is no death of sin, without the death of Christ.” (p.74)

“All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain.” (p.76)

“men must be gold and silver at bottom, or else refining will do no good.” (p.77)

“I say, then, mortification is not the present business of unregenerate men. God calls them not to it as yet. Conversion is their work; the conversion of the whole soul, not the mortification of this or that particular lust.” (p.77)

He that shall call a man from mending a hole in the wall of his house, to quench a fire that is consuming the whole building, is not his enemy. … Thou settest thyself against a particular sin, and dost not consider that thou art nothing but sin.” (p.83)

“To break men off from particular sins, and not to break their hearts, is to deprive ourselves of advantages of dealing with them.” (p.84)

“Hatred as sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting; a sense of the love of Christ in the cross; lies at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification.” (p.89)

“As [sin] never dies of itself, so, if it be not daily killed, it will always gather strength.” (p.95)

“By applying grace and mercy to an unmortified sin, or one not sincerely endeavoured to be mortified, is this deceit carried on.” (p.97)

“It is true, indeed, a resolution to this purpose to indulge a man’s self in any sin on the account of mercy, seems to be (and doubtless, if for any course, is) altogether inconsistent with Christian sincerity, is a badge of a hypocrite and is the turning of the grace of God into wantonness (Jude 4).” (p.97)

“When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, it is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of the naughtiness.” (p.99)

“But now, if a man be so under the power of his lust that he hath nothing but law to oppose it with; if he cannot fight against it with gospel weapons, but deals with it altogether with hell and judgment, which are the proper arms of the law; it is most evidentthat sin hath possessed itself of his will and affections to a very great prevalency and conquest.” (p.100)

“Paul’s main argument to evince that sin shall not have dominion over believers is that they are not under the law, but under grace.” (p.101)

“This is the proper issue of lust in the heart; it darkens the mind so that it shall not judge aright of its guilt.” (p.109)

“There is conceivably more evil and guilt in the evil of thy [Christian] heart that doth remain, than there would be in so much sin if thou hadst no grace at all.” (p.109)

“whilst any one lies under an abiding power of sin, the threats of destruction and everlasting separation from God are to be held out to him.” (p.114)

“this is the proper work of the law, to discover sin in the guilt of it, to awake and humble the soul for it, to be a glass to represent sin in its colours.” (p.121)

“Was my soul washed that room might be made new defilements? Shall I endeavour to disappoint the end of the death of Christ? Shall I daily grieve that Spirit whereby I am sealed to the day of redemption?” (p.122)

“Consider what ways, what companies, what opportunities, what studies, what businesses, what conditions, have at any time given, or do usually give advantages to thy distempers [sin]; and set thyself heedfully against them all. … Know that he who dares to dally with occasions of sin, will dare to sin.” (p.129)

“As sin gets ground in the affections to delight in it, it gets also upon the understanding to slight it.” (p.130)

“When men truly look upon Christ whom they have pierced, without which there is no healing or peace, they will mourn (Zech. 12:10); they will mourn for him even upon this account, and detest the sin that pierced him.” (p.148)

“yet when peace is spoken, if it be not attended with the detestation and abhorrency of that sin which was the wound, and caused the disquietment, that is no peace of God’s creating, but of our own purchasing.” (p.150)

“God will justify us from our sin, but he will not justify the least sin in us; he is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” (p.157)

“God’s peace is humbling peace, melting peace, as it was in the case of David (Ps. 51:1).” (p.158)

“Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls.” (p.162)

If you were convicted and encouraged by Owen’s thoughts and words, as I hope you were, you may want to purchase and read the book yourself. You can purchase it here at Westminster Theological Seminary Bookstore at one of the lowest prices ever. If you don’t want to wade through the original older English it was written in you can check out this contemporary English version updated by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic.

Note: I am quoting from the 2003 Christian Heritage/Christian Focus reprint, so all page numbers correspond to that book.