“Cursed be the man that shall encourage you to come to Christ with hopes of indulgence unto any one sin whatever.
I speak not this as though you could at once absolutely and perfectly leave all sin, in the root and branches of it; but only you are to do it in heart and resolution, engaging unto a universal mortification of all sin, as by grace from above you shall be enabled; but your choice must be absolute, without reserves, as to love, interest, and design;—God or the world,— Christ or Belial,— holiness or sin; there is no medium, no terms of composition, 2 Cor. 6:15–18.
As unto what you pretend of your pleasures, the truth is, you never yet had any real pleasure, nor do know what it is.
How easy were it to declare the folly, vanity, bitterness, poison of those things which you have esteemed your pleasures!
Here alone— namely, in Christ, and a participation of Him— are true pleasures and durable riches to be obtained; pleasure of the same nature with, and such as, like pleasant streams, flow down into the ocean of eternal pleasures above.
A few moments in these joys are to be preferred above the longest continuance in the cursed pleasures of this world. See Prov. 3:13–18.”
–John Owen, “Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ,” The Works of John Owen, Volume 1: The Glory of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1684/2000), 1: 431.
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