Thomas Brooks - One unmortified lust

It is not your strongest resolutions or purposes, without the grace of the Spirit, which can overmaster a lust. A soul-sore will continue to run—though we resolve and say it shall not. It was the blood of the sacrifice, and the oil, which cleansed the leper in the law. And by them is meant the blood of Christ and the grace of His Spirit. Lev. 14:14-16. It was a touch of Christ's garment which cured the woman of her bloody issue.

Your strongest resolutions or purposes may hide a sin, but cannot quench it. They may cover a sin, but cannot cut off a sin. A black patch may cover a sore—but it does not cure it! Neither is it the papists' purgatories, watchings, whippings, nor the kissing of the statue of St. Francis, or licking of lepers' sores—which will cleanse the fretting leprosy of sin!

In the strength of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit—set soundly upon the mortifying of every lust! Oh, hug none, indulge none—but resolvedly set upon the ruin of every lust!

One leak in a ship will sink it!
One stab strikes Goliad just as dead—as twenty-three did Caesar!
One Delilah may do Samson as much mischief as all the Philistines!
One broken wheel spoils the whole clock!
One vein bleeding will let out all the vitals!
One fly will spoil a whole box of ointment!
One bitter herb will spoil all the pottage!
By eating one apple, Adam lost paradise!
One lick of honey endangered Jonathan's life!
One Achan was a trouble to all Israel!
One Jonah raises a storm and becomes load too heavy for the whole ship! Just so—one unmortified
lust will raise very strong storms and tempests in the soul! And therefore, as you would have a blessed calm and quietness in your own spirits under your sharpest trials, set thoroughly upon the work of mortification.
Gideon had seventy sons, and but one bastard child, yet that bastard child destroyed all his seventy sons!

Ah, Christian! do you not know what a world of mischief one unmortified lust may do? And therefore let nothing satisfy you but the blood of all your lusts!


-Thomas Brooks

Horatius Bonar - 'Twas I that shed the sacred blood

I see the crowd in Pilate's hall,
their furious cries I hear;
their shouts of "Crucify!" appall,
their curses fill mine ear.
And of that shouting multitude
I feel that I am one;
and in that din of voices rude
I recognize my own.

I see the scourgers rend the flesh
of God's belovèd Son;
and as they smite I feel afresh
that I of them am one.
Around the Cross the throng I see,
that mock the Sufferer's groan;
yet still my voice it seems to be,
as if I mocked alone.

'Twas I that shed that sacred Blood,
I nailed him to the Tree;
I crucified the Christ of God;
I joined the mockery.
Yet not the less that Blood avails
to cleanse me from sin,
and not the less that Cross prevails
to give me peace within.

- Horatius Bonar (I see the crowd in Pilate's hall)

John Owen - When our thoughts do not directly, or by logical inference, end in God, they are not spiritual

All things arise from his power, and are all disposed by his wisdom into a tendency unto his glory: "Of him, and through him, and to him, are all things." Under that consideration alone are they to be the objects of our spiritual meditation, — namely, as they come from him and tend unto him. All other things are finite and limited, but they begin and end in that which is immense and infinite. So God is "all in all." He therefore is, or ought to be, the only supreme, absolute object of our thoughts and desires; other things are from and for him only. When our thoughts do not either immediately and directly, or mediately and by just consequence, tend unto and end in him, they are not spiritual, 1 Peter 1:21.


- John Owen (The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, Chapter 8)

John Owen - Our defect in the duty of constant thoughtfulness and contemplations on Christ brings forth our lack of experience in the power of holy intercourse and communion with Christ

Our want (lack) of experience in the power of this holy intercourse and communion with Christ ariseth principally from our defect in this duty. I have known one who, after a long profession of faith and holiness, fell into great darkness and distress merely on this account, that he did not experience in himself the sweetness, life, and power, of the testimonies given concerning the real communications of the love of Christ unto, and the intimation of his presence with, believers. He knew well enough the doctrine of it, but did not feel the power of it; at least he understood there was more in it than he had experience of. God carried him by faith through that darkness, but taught him withal that no sense of these things was to be let in to the soul but by constant thoughtfulness and contemplations on Christ. How many blessed visits do we lose by not being exercised unto this duty! See Song of Solomon 5:1-3. Sometimes we are busy, sometimes careless and negligent, sometimes slothful, sometimes under the power of temptations, so that we neither inquire after nor are ready to receive them. This is not the way to have our joys abound.


- John Owen (The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, Chapter 7)

John Owen - Meditate and think of the glory of heaven, and compare it with death and eternal misery

Meditate and think of the glory of heaven so as to compare it with the opposite state of death and eternal misery. Few men care to think much of hell, and the everlasting torments of the wicked therein. Those do so least who are in the most danger of falling thereinto. They put far from them the evil day, and suppose their covenant with death and hell to be sure. Some begin to advance an opinion that there is no such place; because it is their interest and desire that there should be none. Some, out of profaneness, make a scoff at it, as though a future judgment were but a fable. Most seem to think that there is a severity in thoughts about it, which it is not fit we should be too much terrified withal. Some transient thoughts they will have of it, but [they do] not suffer them to abide in their minds, lest they should be too much discomposed; or they think it not consistent with the goodness of Christ to leave any men in that condition, whereas there is more spoken directly of hell, its torments and their eternity, by himself than in all the Scripture besides. These thoughts, in most, proceed from an unwillingness to be troubled in their sins, and are useful unto none. It is the height of folly for men to endeavor the hiding of themselves for a few moments from that which is unavoidably coming upon them unto eternity, and the due consideration whereof is a means for an escape from it. But I speak only of true believers; and the more they are conversant in their thoughts about the future state of eternal misery, the greater evidence they have of the life and confidence of faith. It is a necessary duty to consider it, as what we were by nature obnoxious unto, as being "children of wrath;" what we have deserved by our personal sins, as "the wages of sin is death;" what we are delivered from through Jesus the deliverer, who "saves us from the wrath to come;" what expression it is of the indignation of God against sin, who hath "ordained Tophet of old," — that we may be delivered from sin, kept up to an abhorrency of it, walking in humility, self-abasement, and the admiration of divine grace. This, therefore, is required of us, that in our thoughts and meditations we compare the state of blessedness and eternal glory, as a free and absolute effect of the grace of God in and through Christ Jesus, with that state of eternal misery which we had deserved; and if there be any spark of grace or of holy thankfulness in our hearts, it will be stirred up unto its due exercise.


- John Owen (The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, Chapter 6)

John Owen - Are you spiritually minded?

But, alas! how many at present do openly walk contrary unto God herein! The ways, the countenances, the discourses of men, do give evidence hereunto. Their love unto present things, their contrivances for their increase and continuance, do grow and thrive under the calls of God to the contrary. So it was of old: "They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark." Can the generality of professors at this day give testimony unto the exercise of their thoughts upon such things as should dispose them unto this holy resignation? That they meditate on the calls of God, and thence make themselves ready to part with all at his time and pleasure? How can persons pretend to be spiritually minded, the current of whose thoughts lies in direct contrariety unto the mind of God?

Here lies the ground of their self-deceivings: They are professors of the gospel in a peculiar manner, they judge themselves believers, they hope they shall be saved, and have many evidences for it. But one negative evidence will render a hundred that are positive useless. "All these things have I done," saith the young man. "Yet lackest thou one thing," saith the Savior. And the want of that one rendered his "all things" of no avail unto him. Many things you have done, many things you do, many grounds of hope abide with you, neither yourselves nor others do doubt of your condition; but are you spiritually minded? If this one thing be wanting, all the rest will not avail you; you have, indeed, neither life nor peace. And what grounds have you to judge that you are so, if the current of your thoughts lies in direct contrariety unto the present calls of God? If, at such a time as this is, your love to the world be such as ever it was, and perhaps increased; if your desires are strong to secure the things of this life unto you and yours; if the daily contrivance of your minds be not how you may attain a constant resignation of yourselves and your all unto the will of God, which will not be clone without much thoughtfulness and meditations on the reasons of it and motives unto it, — I cannot understand how you can judge yourselves to be spiritually minded.


- John Owen (The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, Chapter 5)

John Owen - Consider the propotion of your thoughts on spiritual things to those on other things

Consider what proportion your thoughts of spiritual things bear unto those about other things. Our principal interest and concern, as we profess, lies in things spiritual, heavenly, and eternal. Is it not, then, a foolish thing to suppose that our thoughts about these things should not hold some proportion with those about other things, nay, that they should not exceed there? No man is so vain, in earthly things, as to pretend that his principal concern lieth in that whereof he thinks very seldom in comparison of other things. It is not so with men in reference unto their families, their trades, their occasions of life. It is a truth not only consecrated by the testimony of him who is Truth, but evident also in the light of reason, that "where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also;" and the affections of our hearts do act themselves by the thoughts of our minds, Wherefore, if our principal treasure be, as we profess, in things spiritual and heavenly, (and woe unto us if it be not so!) on them will our affections, and consequently our desires and thoughts, be principally fixed.


- John Owen (The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, Chapter 4)