In this volume, Owen concludes his account of justification begun in volume five.
For solidity, profundity, massiveness and majesty in exhibiting from Scripture God’s ways with sinful mankind there is no one to touch him.
—J. I. Packer, author
To have known the pastoral ministry of John Owen . . . (albeit in written form) has been a rich privilege; to have known Owen’s God an even greater one.
—Sinclair Ferguson, professor, Redeemer Seminary, Dallas, Texas
John [Owen], English theologian, was without doubt not only the greatest theologian of the English Puritan movement but also one of the greatest European Reformed theologians of his day, and quite possibly possessed the finest theological mind that England ever produced.
—C. R. Trueman
John Owen was born at Stadhampton, Oxfordshire in 1616. He entered Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of twelve and completed his M.A. in classics and theology in 1635 at the age of nineteen. He was ordained shortly thereafter and left the university to be a chaplain to the family of a noble lord. His first parish, in 1637, was at Fordham in Essex, to which he went while England was involved in civil war. It was here that he became convinced that the Congregational way was the scriptural form of church government. In the 1640s he became chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, the new "Protector of England," and traveled with him on his expeditions to Ireland and Scotland. Between 1651 and 1660, he played a prominent part in the religious, political, and academic life of the nation. In 1651 he was appointed dean of Christ Church and in 1652 made Vice-Chancellor of Oxford—positions which allowed him to train ministers for the Cromwellian state church. He lost his position in 1660, however, when the restoration of the monarchy began after the death of Cromwell in 1658. Owen moved to London and led the Puritans through the bitter years of religious and political persecution—experiences which shaped his theological inquiry, pastoral reflection, and preaching. He also declined invitations to the ministry in Boston in 1663, and declined an offer to become president of Harvard in 1670. He died in August, 1683.
“1. To be Spiritually minded is the great distinguishing character of true believers from all unregenerate persons. As” (Page 271)
“It is therefore evident that the predominancy of voluntary thoughts is the best and most sure indication of the inward frame and state of the mind; for if it be so on the one side as unto the carnal mind, it is so on the other as unto the spiritual. Wherefore, to be spiritually minded, in the first place, is to have the course and stream of those thoughts which we ordinarily retreat unto, which we approve of as suited unto our affections, to be about spiritual things. Therein consists the minding of the Spirit.” (Page 277)
“Let us not mistake ourselves. To be spiritually minded is, not to have the notion and knowledge of spiritual things in our minds; it is not to be constant, no, nor to abound, in the performance of duties: both which may be where there is no grace in the heart at all. It is to have our minds really exercised with delight about heavenly things, the things that are above, especially Christ himself as at the right hand of God.” (Page 348)
“No persons are in greater danger of walking at hazard with God than those who live in the exercise of spiritual gifts in duties unto their own satisfaction and [that of] others; for they may countenance themselves with an appearance of every thing that should be in them in reality and power, when there is nothing of it in them.” (Page 287)
“Wherefore ‘the Spirit’ in this place is the holy, vital principle of new obedience, wrought in the souls of believers by the Holy Ghost, enabling them to live unto God.” (Page 269)