Mid-Cities Presbyterian Church Library

Status: Available

Book Description

In this abridgement of a classic work, the famous Puritan John Owen shows the need for Christians to engage in a life-long battle against the sinful tendencies that remain in them, despite their having been brought to faith and new life in Christ.

Owen is very insistent that believers cannot hope to succeed in this battle in their own strength. He sees clearly that the fight can be won only through faith in Christ, and in the power of the Spirit. Fighting sin with human strength will produce only self-righteousness, superstition and anxiety of conscience. But with faith in Christ, and with the power of the Spirit, victory is certain. The temptations in times like Owen’s and ours are obvious on every side; the remedy to them is clearly pointed out in this practical and helpful book.

Table of Contents

Preface
Publisher’s Foreword
1 Introduction
2 Why the Flesh Must Be Mortified
3 The Work of the Spirit in Mortification
4 How Life and Comfort Depend on Mortification
5 What Mortification Is Not
6 What Mortification Is
7 Only Believers Can Mortify Sin
8 God Requires Universal Obedience
9 The Dangerous Symptoms of Sin
10 Seeing Sin for What It Is
11 A Tender Conscience and a Watchful Heart
12 Humility
13 Wait for the Verdict of God
14 The Work of Christ and the Power of the Spirit

John Owen (1616-1683)

About the Author

John Owen was born in 1616 in Stadhampton, Oxfordshire and died in Ealing, West London, in 1683. During his sixty-seven years he lived out a life full of spiritual experience, literary accomplishment, and national influence so beyond most of his peers that he continues to merit the accolade of ‘the greatest British theologian of all time.’

No outline of Owen’s life can give an adequate impression of the stature and importance to which he attained in his own day. He was summoned to preach before Parliament on several occasions, most notably on the day after the execution of Charles I. During the Civil War, Owen’s merit was recognized by General Fairfax, then by Cromwell who took him as a Chaplain to Ireland and Scotland. He was adviser to Cromwell, especially though not exclusively on ecclesiastical affairs, but fell from the Protector’s favour after opposing the move to make him King. In 1658 he was one of the most influential members of the Savoy Conference of ministers of Independent persuasion. After the Ejection he enjoyed some influence with Charles II who occasionally gave him money to distribute to impoverished ejected ministers. All in all, he was, with Richard Baxter, the most eminent Dissenter of his time.

Despite his other achievements, Owen is best famed for his writings. These cover the range of doctrinal, ecclesiastical and practical subjects. They are characterized by profundity, thoroughness and, consequently, authority. Andrew Thomson said that Owen ‘makes you feel when he has reached the end of his subject, that he has also exhausted it.’ Although many of his works were called forth by the particular needs of his own day they all have a uniform quality of timelessness. The Trust has reprinted his Works in twenty-three volumes.

[See also Andrew Thomson’s ‘Life of Dr Owen’ in Volume 1 of The Works of John Owen.]

Richard Rushing

Richard Rushing is a graduate of Northwest Baptist Seminary, Tacoma, Washington (now Corban University School of Ministry). He was a pastor in eastern Washington for seven years and now ministers at Bethany Baptist Church, Martinez, California. He and his wife, Diane, have two married children. Richard Rushing had abridged and edited the work of John Owen for some of the Trust’s ‘Puritan Paperbacks’ series, and has also compiled the devotional Voices from the Past, based upon Puritan writings.

Source: Banner of Truth Trust

Paperback, 130 pages

Publisher: Banner of Truth Trust

Publication Date: ©Richard Rushing 2004; Fifth reprint 2009

ISBN: 978-0-85151-867-1

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