Killing Sin with St. Owen (pt. 3)

Chapters 8 - 13

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Particular Directions for Mortifying Sin

   1. The First: Consider the “dangerous symptoms” of the particular lust and see if it falls under certain dangerous marks

   2. The Second: Get a clear sense of the guilt, danger, and evil of the sin.

      1. The guilt

      2. The danger

      3. The evil

   3. The Third: Fill your conscience with the actual guilt of sin, let it be disturbed.

   4. The Fourth: Seek deliverance from the power of sin

   5. The Fifth: Consider whether the lust that you are battling is rooted in your natural disposition/personality.

   6. The Sixth: Consider what situations cause sin to flare up. 

   7. The Seventh: Fight vigorously against the first motions of sin.

   8. The Eighth: Meditate on the Majesty of God compared to you

   9. The Ninth: When sin causes you guilt or removes peace from you, let God be the one to bring peace, not yourself.

3. Conclusion

Introduction

In the previous article, St. Owen defined for us what mortification is and set forward two general rules needed, such that without them, no sin can be truly mortified. Now, in this article, we turn to St. Owen’s actual advice for mortifying sin. He gives nine particular directions to apply for this. This is by far the lengthiest article in the series, so feel free to read parts at a time.

Particular Directions for Mortifying Sin

1: Consider the “dangerous symptoms” of the particular lust and see if it falls under certain dangerous marks.

The first direction that St. Owen gives us to consider the extent of how corrupting this sin has gotten and the effects that it has on your life. Depending on this, it may bear “deadly” marks that your lust is a deeply ingrained and indwelling one, that requires “extraordinary” courses of mortification. 

So what are these dangerous marks? There are six which St. Owen discusses.

1. “Inveterateness,” or a lust that has long been established and so indwelled, such that it has persisted continuously and continued to corrupt your soul for ages. “When a lust hath lain long in the heart, corrupting, festering, cankering, it brings the soul to a woeful condition.”¹ This kind of lust greatly damages the soul and needs extraordinary remedies. It ruins your assurance and peace, when you let such a lust corrupt for so long, what is the evidence you have for your being a son of God? How can one distinguish between a long-indwelling lust and unregeneracy? This is not to say that a believer cannot be afflicted by one of these lusts, but you find no hope for assurance in it. 

2. Secretly wishing to continue in the sin and yet still find peace in your heart elsewhere. Your heart wants to continue in it without continuously seeking to destroy it. There are several ways that this can occur:

   1. One can search his heart for Gospel assurance by completely ignoring that sin in their life. “Yes, I am good in other areas, I tithe, I attend church weekly, I serve my community” the sinner may say, yet they continue in this lust, the peace they establish is a false peace. Rather than running to hatred of this sin, they run to its acceptance. So did the Jews, when condemned by John the Baptist and Christ, they rested on being Abraham’s children and did not feel guilt or hatred for their many sins and errors.

   2. One can falsely attribute Grace and Mercy to it, without wanting to destroy it. “What does it matter if I fall into this sin, I can just repent later, God will show mercy on me. Plus, in all other ways I’m walking with Him, so it’s okay if He shows me mercy on this matter.” This is the flesh speaking, this is evil speaking, this is Satan speaking. And this is a false peace and a false mercy. God is willing and ready to forgive, but only upon true repentance, which consists of true sorrow and hatred for sin. 

3. The sin will frequently win over you, both in actions and in your will. Though you may not outwardly commit the action, if you delight in it in your thoughts and your will, you are consenting to the beginning motions of sin, which sin takes advantage of to throw you into the deepest pits of Hell. 

4. Sin is only fought against because of the punishments associated with sin, not because of sin being sin. If a man tries to wage war against sin only because he is fearful of punishment, he is not waging war against his sin, instead he is only perpetuating more sin, the sin of self-love. He only fights against sin because it would be bad for him to continue in it, and in doing so, he grows deeper and deeper into sin. He loves himself, not God. St. Owen writes:

Those who are Christ’s, and are actuated in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts.²

Such a person is not fighting with Gospel weapons, they are not fighting sin how God wants them to fight it. The only success they have against sin is not because God is renewing them, but because God is restraining them. And the restraining Grace of God can easily be taken away as judgment, as previously discussed. 

5. Your heart has been hardened as a result of judicial hardening. A hardening of heart as a punishment for your sin. Sometimes God will leave even some of His own up to the power of sin to correct them of former sins. But how is one who is regenerated supposed to distinguish themselves from the unregenerate in this case? They must examine their heart and their ways. What were you doing before you fell into this sin? Were you ignoring His ways? Were you given Grace which you weren’t thankful for? Have you been conforming yourself to the World? Were you once closer to the Lord? “If thou findest this to have been thy state, awake, call upon God; thou art fast asleep in a storm of anger round about thee.”³

6. God has already tried to work on these sins, yet they have remained. God has dealt with your lust in several ways, by affliction, by receding his grace, by His Word, by His ordinances, by both restraining and renewing and yet they held out against all of these things. In the reading of the Word, God may cut your heart yet you may not respond in repentance and restoration. What a terrible state to be in, and the only way to be delivered is by God’s sovereign Grace. If you find yourself in such a state, plead with God earnestly for Mercy and Deliverance

If these marks describe your condition, extraordinary mortification must take place by the Spirit. Now, remember, as a believer you can fall into these kinds of sin, yet know that your assurance has been lost. Sin kills assurance and peace  “He that hath these things in himself may safely conclude, ‘If I am a believer, I am a most miserable one.’ But that any man is so, he must look for other evidence, if he will have peace.”⁴

So, in sum, this is the first direction to mortifying sin, examining what kind of lust and sin you are fighting with. Does it bear these deadly marks? If so, you must make haste and seek the Doctor and the Healer to put these sins to death.

2: Get a clear sense of the guilt, danger, and evil of the sin.

The guilt of the sin.

Lusts will naturally attempt to minimize their own guilt, yet they are all worthy of judgment and damnation. Though your flesh may testify, “it is but a little sin,” yet the littlest blemish is enough to merit eternal damnation. For the regenerate, the flesh is weakened, but the guilt sin bears on the conscience remains. And among all men, we, as regenerate, are more evil than the unregenerate if we sin. You have been given Grace, you have been enlightened, yet you reject it knowingly. How much more guilty are we for sin! Not only that, but you are God’s Beloved. God sees the Beauty of His Work in His Beloved, so He hates the sin and the working of lusts in your heart all the more. How could God stand blemishes in His Beloved, whom He has bestowed with Grace upon Grace, Mercy upon Mercy? Once again, God worked in us, how could we sin! We are more evil than those not illuminated.

Let the guilt of sin bear witness on your heart, impress it upon your soul, and feel the guilt of all of your sin.

The danger of sin.

There are many dangerous aspects to sin.

Firstly, it can harden your heart, St. Owen writes:

Thou that wast tender, and didst use to melt under the word, under afflictions, wilt grow as some have profanely spoken, “sermon-proof and sickness-proof.” Thou that didst tremble at the presence of God, thoughts of death, and appearance before him, when thou hadst more assurance of his love than now thou hast, shalt have a stoutness upon thy spirit not to be moved by these things. Thy soul and thy sin shall be spoken of and spoken to, and thou shalt not be at all concerned, but shalt be able to pass over duties, praying, hearing, reading, and thy heart not in the least affected. Sin will grow a light thing to thee; thou wilt pass it by as a thing of nought; this it will grow to. And what will be the end of such a condition? Can a sadder thing befall thee? Is it not enough to make any heart to tremble, to think of being brought into that estate wherein he should have slight thoughts of sin? Slight thoughts of grace, of mercy, of the blood of Christ, of the law, heaven, and hell, come all in at the same season. Take heed, this is that thy lust is working towards, — the hardening of the heart, searing of the conscience, blinding of the mind, stupifying of the affections, and deceiving of the whole soul.⁵ 

Secondly, it can cause temporal judgment/correction on you. God will not fully cast you out (John 6:37), but He does not spare the rod, especially for His Beloved. There are consequences to sin outside of eternal damnation, and your sin will lead to it. Now He does not do these things out of a place of Anger, for there is no Anger in God for His Beloved, but out of His Heart of Love for them, that they turn and repent.

Thirdly, it can cause you to lose your assurance and peace. Peace with God is a key Gospel promise, assurance that you have been made right with God through faith, yet sin removes this assurance. It brings you into despair and you lose your vigor for God. 

Fourthly, if you are not in Christ, continuing in sin will lead you to eternal damnation. This is not to say that you are necessarily out of Christ, but once again, continuing in sin removes your assurance, it removes your peace.

The present evils of sin.

Many evils attend to a lust that is not mortified.

First, it grieves the Holy Spirit (Eph 4:30). Should this not be enough to draw you to hate sin? The Holy Spirit was given to you, His Beloved, as a Comforter, by Whom God’s Graces and Love is applied to you. He never once failed you, St. Polycarp when asked to reject Christ said, “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”⁶ Is this not also true of the Blessed Holy Spirit? St. Owen writes:

He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve us (Lam. 3:33), and shall we daily grieve him? … Among those who walk with God, there is no greater motive and incentive unto universal holiness, and the preserving of their hearts and spirits in all purity and cleanness, than this, that the blessed Spirit, who hath undertaken to dwell in them, is continually considering what they give entertainment in their hearts unto, and rejoiceth when his temple is kept undefiled.⁷

Secondly, Jesus is again crucified by our sin, we shame His Work. He poured Himself out for you. If you’ve ever watched The Passion of the Christ, you know how brutal crucifixion is--and the movie doesn’t even show the true horrors of it--and you spit on this and His Work every time you sin. 

Our works and usefulness will not be blessed, even our ministries dedicated to Him will be left abandoned by God. Those who bear fruit in Christian witness and ministry are those who are Holy and waging war on sin. You lose your usefulness in Christ’s witness to the World by your sin. 

So in sum, this is the second direction, to keep the guilt, dangers, and evils of sin afresh in your heart.

3: Fill your conscience with the actual guilt of sin, let it be disturbed.

Using the law and the guilt derived thereof will bear witness upon your heart and soul about sin, you will imprint a Spirit of hatred in your heart for it. Bring the law into your conscience and pray it convicts you. To do this, start with generals and descend into particulars. 

Consider God’s Holiness and how sin cannot stand before Him. Remember His Holy and Righteous Law, set before us to convict us of our sin and remind us of just how Holy our God Is. He does not dwell with the wicked, the wicked have no place in Him, and He hates it with all His being. Remember the punishment given for breaking the law, eternity without God. The fires of Hell are hot, yes, but the true despair and bondage of the poor souls in Hell is that they are deprived from seeing God’s face. Can you imagine a life without God for eternity? Can you imagine Him not showering you with Grace and Love? Do not rest in your freedom from the Law, as long as this indwelling sin is here, where is the evidence of your grace. Keep going back to the Law, find despair in it, let the guilt rule your heart. The Law does not go away under Grace, though you are not under it and sin has no dominion over you, yet the Law still convicts you; it is still the Most Wise and Holy Law. 

Move then from the Law into the Gospel, but do not use the Gospel to seek freedom from this Guilt, rather, reflect on the Goodness of the Gospel and reflect on how you have betrayed God’s Mercy. St. Owen writes:

Bring your lust to the gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt. Look on Christ whom you have pierced, and be bitter.

Say to your soul, “What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on? Is this how I respond to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, and to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Is this how I repay the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, and that the blessed Spirit has chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How can I hold up my head with any courage before him? Do I consider communion with him of so little value that, for the sake of this vile lust, I have left little room for him in my heart? How will I escape judgement if I neglect salvation in this way? In the meantime, what do I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation; I have despised them all, and treated them as worthless, just so I could harbor a lust in my heart. Can I imagine God’s fatherly features before me so that I can provoke him to his face? Was my soul washed only to make room for this new depravity? Why would I try to frustrate the purpose of Christ’s death? Why would I daily grieve the Spirit through whom I am sealed until the day of redemption?”

Entertain your conscience daily with this treatment. See if it can withstand this aggravation of its guilt. If it does not sink a little and melt, then I am afraid that your case is a dangerous one.⁸

Descend then from these general statements into particulars. Consider all the benefits of the Gospel. Consider God’s patience towards you, how many times you thought we could bear you no longer, yet His Grace and Love still shone. “Above all thy expectation, he hath returned with visitations of love; and wilt thou yet abide in the provocation of the eyes of his Glory?”⁹ Consider how often you’ve been so close to hardening, yet God still breaks through your Heart. Consider all of God’s gracious dealings with you, load your conscience with guilt, lie in it, and you will strike at the power of lusts over you. How can this lust sway you when you are racked with guilt, let your guilt be your weapon to battle.

In sum, the third direction involves bring guilt to your conscience as a weapon against your lusts.

4: Seek deliverance from the power of sin

Do not be content at all with your sin, waste not a single moment pleading God with deliverance from sin, long and pant over Jesus' sweet deliverance from evils. “Get thy heart into a panting and breathing frame; long, sigh, cry out.” If you do not long for deliverance, you will not get it. For those who seek it, Christ will bring it, for those who do not, they will stay in their path to destruction.

In sum, the fourth direction is to long after deliverance from sin. 

5: Consider whether the lust that you are battling is rooted in your natural disposition/personality.

Certain sins are more likely to flare up in those with certain personalities or natures. For instance, some are more predisposed to alcoholism than others. Now, just because your natural inclinations move you to certain sins, this does not mean you are less culpable for them. You must be watchful and diligent about how your temper and personality lead to sin.

To control your nature and temper, you must bring your body into subjection. This is an ordinance of God that aids with the mortification of sin, it fights at the natural causes of your disposition to control it and discipline it. This is the purpose of certain acts such as fasting, watching, meditation, etc. Now these actions are to be pursued with limitations in mind:

1. The outward weakening of the body is not good in and of itself, you shouldn’t be seeking to put your body under subjection for no reason, but only as a means to weaken your natural temperament and disposition.

2. These means do not, by their own power, mortify any sins. They should only be looked at as ways that the Spirit might work in you to give you strength to put the sin to death.

In sum, the fifth direction is to consider whether the root of the lust is in your natural temper, in which case, you should put your body under subjection through fasting, watching, and other means. 

6: Consider what situations cause sin to flare up. 

Certain occasions lead you to sin, deeply examine your past experiences to discern what can cause temptations to arise and the first motions of sin to begin to work. This is one duty that Christ gives us, to be watchful (Mark 13:37, Luke 21:34). “Consider what ways, what companies, what opportunities, what studies, what businesses, what conditions, have at any time given, or do usually give, advantages to thy distempers, and set thyself heedfully against them all.”¹⁰ Do certain situations bring temptations? Cut them off. Do certain actions lead you to sin? Cease them at once. Do certain people lead you to sin? Purge them from your life.

In sum, the sixth direction is to consider what causes sin to arise in you and fight against those means.

7: Fight vigorously against the first motions of sin.

The first motions of sin pertain to the beginnings of your fleshly desires into sin. It is the start of which sinful actions proceed, rooted in the corruption of the flesh, however it is actually and properly sin. As such--and as previously noted--you must be striking at the root of your sin, which is these first motions. Do not let your sin go past the first step, “Thus far it shall go, and no farther.”¹¹ If you let it grow, it will only continue to fester and lead you to worse sin. Stop it as soon as you can, do not let your heart give more kindling to the fire of sin. St. Owen writes: 

Dost thou find thy corruption to begin to entangle thy thoughts? Rise up with all thy strength against it, with no less indignation than if it had fully accomplished what it aims at. Consider what an unclean thought would have; it would have thee roll thyself in folly and filth. Ask envy what it would have; — murder and destruction is at the end of it. Set thyself against it with no less vigour than if it had utterly debased thee to wickedness. Without this course thou wilt not prevail.¹²

In sum, the seventh direction is to fight sin as soon as possible, including at its first motions. 

8: Meditate on the Majesty of God compared to you

When the Prophets and others saw the majesty of God made manifest, as with Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Job, and were filled with it in their hearts, they were brought to humiliation and lowly status (Job 42:5-6). Compared to God, all you are is dust, you are nothing compared to His Glory and Majesty. Use this humiliation to your advantage, keeping an awestruck Heart and Mind for God’s Glory.

Dwell on how little you actually know of Him. The 1689 says, “The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to Him as their creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which He hath been pleased to express by way of covenant” (1689 7.1). The only means we have of knowing God is the saying, that is, by His voluntary condescension to us. How can we even begin to Grasp the wonders of infinity? Even some of His closest and Holy Saints did not know Him much, Moses was not allowed to behold His full majesty. God is the one who makes Himself known, we don’t know anything beyond what He reveals. And does He not dwell in so many mysteries? The mind-boggling and beautiful mystery of the Trinity, of the Incarnation and Hypostatic Union, of Christ’s Union with the Church, etc. How could we ever hope to comprehend God with our minds? Only by faith are we able to truly know Him, and even the eyes of faith can only see so much. 

Use these techniques to fight pride and humble yourself. Viewing God like this will keep us in awe and wonder, eliminating areas for lust to enter. St. Owen writes:

Let us, then, revive the use and intendment of this consideration: Will not a due apprehension of this inconceivable greatness of God, and that infinite distance wherein we stand from him, fill the soul with a holy and awful fear of him, so as to keep it in a frame unsuited to the thriving or flourishing of any lust whatever? Let the soul be continually wonted to reverential thoughts of God’s greatness and omnipresence, and it will be much upon its watch as to any undue deportments. Consider him with whom you have to do, — even “our God is a consuming fire;” and in your greatest abashments at his presence and eye, know that your very nature is too narrow to bear apprehensions suitable to his essential glory.¹³

In sum, the eighth direction is to bring you to meditate on the complete and utter majesty of our Mysterious and Awesome God, to bring you a place of humiliation and reverence. The more you dwell on His Majesty, the less room there is for lusts to take hold.

9: When sin causes you guilt or removes peace from you, let God be the one to bring peace, not yourself. 

Sin causes discomfort and guilt, in fact, St. Owen advises to let guilt bear on your Heart to kill sin. But you are not to exist continuously in guilt and without peace. Peace is one of the chief Gospel promises, but God is the one who bestows the Grace of Peace, not yourself. It is His own Great Sovereignty and Will to bestow peace on whom He will bestow peace. And for His Sheep, He will bring peace to them, but not often in accordance with our timeline. He works outside of our expectations. Remember that one can be saved without feeling peace with God, but woe are you! “Perhaps thou mayst be saved, yet as through fire, and God will have some work with thee before he hath done; but thou wilt have little peace in this life, — thou wilt be sick and fainting all thy days (Isaiah 57:17).”¹⁴

Furthermore, Christ is the one who speaks peace to the conscience. He is the Amen, the faithful witness (Rev 3:14). So how are we to know if it is God who speaks peace to us or if it is ourselves. 

Some ways that men speak peace unto themselves are as follows:

• They will make use of the promises of God for Peace without hating their sin. They are wounded and convicted by their sin, but rather than using that to hate their sin and put it to death, they speak a false peace over their sin and continue in their ways. When men seek peace from Christ, they are moved to mourning because of their sin that pierced them. We look for healing of sin in Christ, particularly the cross, which should lead us to a proper hatred of sin. 

• They attempt to bring peace through reason, not through the Spirit. They commit a sin, know that they have wounded God, and consider what they are to do. They reason that “God promises that I will be forgiven if I repent, and so I will repent and be at peace.” This is another false peace. “This is another appearance upon the mount; the Lord is near, but the Lord is not in it. It hath not been the work of the Spirit, who alone can convince us of sin, and righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8), but the mere actings of the intelligent, rational soul.”¹⁵

  • But how do we know when the Spirit is working in us? Is this not the path that we should be taking? How do we know when we are doing this in the Spirit or walking alone?

    • Consider, does the disturbance of sin return for the same sin? Does peace abide? 

    • You must wait, have patience, trust and faith in the Lord. God will bring you peace, but you must wait for Him in faith. Peace is not instantaneous, as St. Owen will discuss, but it comes from waiting for the Lord to work and give it. Trust in Him. 

    • When God speaks peace to us, our soul rejoices in Him. The Word is Sweet, and the Sheep know His Voice. Furthermore, it is an effectual peace. If it is a false peace, no sin is actually mortified, you return to your vomit. If it is a real peace, it has a real constraining power against sin. 

• Peace with God is not an easy work, and it does not often come quickly and with haste. Rather it comes through careful and slow nourishment by Christ. Rest on His promises to speak peace unto you.

• Men will sometimes speak peace unto themselves for one sin, and let another sin go on, undisturbed, corrupting, and festering in them. Their soul is wounded on behalf of this one sin, and it leads them to speak a false peace. This only puts their soul in more danger, as they think they have peace while another sin is taking root and killing him. 

• Men when speaking peace to themselves do not often humble themselves, but a true peace of God is humiliating. It breaks us down and melts our hearts. 

So when will He speak this peace? When can we take comfort in Him? When He wills it. He may bring peace the instant of its occurrence or later, trust and rest in Him. 

How do we know that God is speaking peace in us? Peace that is spoken by God cleanses and humbles you. It brings you down, that your eyes may be lifted up to Him. Further, as Christ asserted, the Sheep know His voice. For the elect, there is a secret instinct of faith, such that when Christ knocks, they rejoice and hear it (John 10:14, Song of Solomon 5:2). 

In sum, the ninth direction is to let God speak peace unto your Heart by His Will and Working, rather than speaking a false peace unto yourself.

Conclusion

With this, St. Owen gives nine particular directions for the mortification of sin in the lives of believers. In the last and final article of this series, St. Owen will set forward a few directions for preparing for the work of mortifying sin.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

1. The Mortification of Sin, St. John Owen, p. 88

2. Ibid, p. 93

3. Ibid, p. 95

4. Ibid, p. 97

5. Ibid, p. 102-103

6. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, Chapter 9

7. The Mortification of Sin, St. John Owen, p. 107

8. Ibid, p. 111-112

9. Ibid, p.114

10. Ibid, p. 117

11. Ibid, p. 118

12. Ibid

13. Ibid, p. 130

14. Ibid, p. 136

15. Ibid, p. 137