A53715:200
Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers
Of the mortification of sin in believers: the 1. Necessity, 2. Nature, and 3. Means of it. With a resolution of sundry cases of conscience thereunto belonging. By John Owen, D.D. a servant of Jesus Christ in the work of the Gospel.
London: printed for Nathanael Ponder, 1668
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1. When upon Thoughts, perplexing Thoughts about Sin, instead of applying himself to the Destruction of it, a man searches his Heart to see what Evidences he can find of a good Condition, notwithstanding that sin and Lust, so that it may go well with him.
For a man to gather up his Experiences of God, to call them to mind, to collect them, consider, try, improve them, is an excellent thing; a Duty practised by all the Saints; commended in the Old Testament and the New. This was Davids work, when he communed with his own heart, and called to remembrance the former loving kindness of the Lord, Psal. 77.6, 7, 8, 9. This is the Duty that Paul sets us to practise, 2 Cor. 13.5. And as it is in it self ⟨p. 89⟩excellent, so it hath beauty added to it, by a proper Season. A time of Trial, or Temptation, or Disquietness of the Heart about Sin, is a picture of Silver to set off this Golden Apple, as Solomon speaks: But now, to do it for this End, to satisfy Conscience, which cries and calls for another purpose, is a desperate Device of an heart in love with Sin. When a mans Conscience shall deal with him, when God shall rebuke him for the sinful distemper of his Heart, if he, instead of applying himself to get that Sin pardoned in the Blood of Christ, and mortified by his Spirit, shall relieve himself, by any such other Evidences as he hath, or thinks himself to have, and so disentangle himself from under the yoke, that God was putting on his neck; his Condition is very dangerous, his Wound hardly curable. Thus the Jews under the gallings of their own Consciences, and the convincing preaching of our Saviour, supported themselves with this, that they were Abraham's Children, and on that account accepted with God; and so countenanced themselves in all abominable wickedness to their utter ruin.
For a man to gather up his Experiences of God, to call them to mind, to collect them, consider, trye, improve them, is an excellent thing; a Duty practised by all the Saints; commended in the Old Testament and the New. This was Davids work, when he communed with his own heart, and called to remembrance the former loving kindness of the Lord,