A53715:209
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.
Try thy self by this also: When thou art by Sin driven to make a stand, so that thou must either serve it, and rush at the command of it into folly, like the horse into the battle, or make head against it to suppress it; what doest thou say to thy Soul? what doest thou expostulate with thy self? is this all? Hell will be the end of this course, Vengeance will meet with me, and find me out; it is time for thee to look about thee, evil lies at the door. Pauls main Argument to evince, that sin shall not have dominion over Believers, is, that they are not under the Law, but under Grace, Rom. 6.14. If thy contendings against Sin be all ⟨p. 95⟩on legal Accounts, from legal Principles and motives, what assurance canst thou attain unto, that sin shall not have dominion over thee, which will be thy ruin?
Try thy self by this also: When thou art by Sin driven to make a stand, so that thou must either serve it, and rush at the command of it into folly, like the horse into the battel, or make head against it to suppress it; what doest thou say to thy Soul? what doest thou expostulate with thy self? is this all? Hell will be the end of this course, Vengeance will meet with me, and find me out; it is time for thee to look about thee, evil lyes at the door. Pauls main Argument to evince, that sin shall not have dominion over Believers, is, that they are not under the Law, but under Grace, Rom. 6.14. If thy contendings against Sin be all ⟨p. 95⟩on legal Accounts, from legal Principles and motives, what assurance canst thou attain unto, that sin shall not have dominion over thee, which will be thy ruine?
Yea know that this Reserve will not long hold out: if thy Lust hath driven thee from stronger Gospel Forts, it will speedily prevail against this also; do not suppose that such Considerations will deliver thee, when thou hast voluntarily given up to thine Enemy those Helps and Means of Preservation which have a thousand times their Strength. Rest assuredly in this, that unless thou recover thy self with speed from this Condition, the thing that thou fearest will come upon thee; what Gospel Principles do not, legal Motives cannot do.