The Holy Spirit Quotes

“Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and living out the gospel in our souls”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Before the work of grace the heart is ‘stony.’ It can do no more than a stone can do to please God.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“When the Holy Spirit does his work of regeneration in the hearts of men he does not come on them with great powerful feelings and emotions which cannot be resisted. He does not possess men as evil spirits take possession of their victims.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“But the Spirit was not limited to doing surprising and extraordinary things. He was present in the Old Testament period in giving civil rule and government ... moral virtues ... physical strength ... and intellectual abilities.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“But of that day and hour no one knows neither the angels in heaven nor the Son but only the Father.’ We are not to think that the Son of God as he is God did not know the day or hour but only that his human nature did not know it because his divine nature had not chosen to reveal it to his human nature.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Clearly the Holy Spirit is not merely a quality to be found in the divine nature … He is a holy intelligent person.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“The end of this rule is merely and solely the edification of the church. All the power that the apostles themselves had, either in or over the church, was but unto their edification, 2 Cor. x. 8. And the edification of the church consists in the increase of faith and obedience in all the members thereof, in the subduing and mortifying of sin, in fruitfulness in good works, in the confirmation and consolation of them that stand, in the raising up of them that are fallen, and the recovery of them that wander, in the growth and flourishing of mutual love and peace; and whatever rule is exercised in the church unto any other end is foreign to the gospel, and tends only to the destruction of the church itself.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“It is the duty of a shepherd to know the state of his flock; and unless he do so he will never feed them profitably.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“In the last place, we plead the event, even in the days wherein we live; for the Holy Ghost doth continue to dispense spiritual gifts for gospel administrations in great variety unto those ministers of the gospel who are called unto their office according unto his mind and will.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“In brief, that which the whole parable teach-eth is, that wherever there is a ministry in the church that Christ owneth or regardeth, as used and employed by him, there persons are furnished with spiritual gifts from Christ by the Spirit, enabling them unto the discharge of that ministry; and where there are no such spiritual gifts dispensed by him, there is no ministry that he either accepteth or approveth.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“And it will one day appear that there is more glory, more excellency, in giving one poor minister unto a congregation, by furnishing him with spiritual gifts for the discharge of his duty, than in the pompous instalment of a thousand popes, cardinals, or metropolitans.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“A ministry devoid of spiritual gifts is a sufficient evidence of a church under a degenerating apostasy.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“But it is evident that this is the state of many churches in the world; which are therefore worldly and carnal, not spiritual or evangelical. Power, and force, and wealth,—the gifts, in this case, of another spirit,—under various pretences and names, are their life and glory; indeed their death and shame.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“testify by what means he would subdue the souls and consciences of men unto the obedience of Christ and the gospel, and by what means he would maintain his kingdom in the world. Now, this was not by force and might, by external power or armies, but by the preaching of the word, whereof the tongue is the only instrument. And the outward sign of this gift, in tongues of fire, evidenced the light and efficacy wherewith the Holy Ghost designed to accompany the dispensation of the gospel.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Wherefore, as grace is primarily given unto us for ourselves, and secondarily for the good of others; so gifts are bestowed in the first place for the edification of others, and secondly for our own spiritual advantage also.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“That profession which renders a church visible according to the mind of Christ, is the orderly exercise of the spiritual gifts bestowed on it, in a conversation evidencing the invisible principle of saving grace.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“They are neither natural nor moral, but spiritual endowments; for both their author, nature, and object, are respected herein. Their author is the Holy Spirit; their nature is spiritual; and the objects about which they are exercised are spiritual things.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Be it so, therefore, that these gifts we intend are not in themselves saving graces, yet are they not to be despised; for they are, as we shall show, the “powers of the world to come,” by means whereof the kingdom of Christ is preserved, carried on, and propagated in the world.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“for as gospel gifts are useless without attending unto gospel institutions, so gospel institutions are found to be fruitless and unsatisfactory without the attaining and exercising of gospel gifts.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“He is the Spirit of love; he is love. All his actings towards us and in us are fruits of love, and they all of them leave an impression of love upon our souls. All the joy and consolation we are made partakers of in this world arise from a sense of the love of God, communicated in an endearing way of love unto our souls. This requires a return of love and delight in all duties of obedience on our part. When instead hereof, by our negligence and carelessness, or otherwise, we fall into those things or ways which he most abhors, he greatly respects the unkindness and ingratitude which is therein, and is therefore said to be grieved by us.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“It belongs not unto my present purpose to declare the nature of that inheritance whereof the Holy Spirit is the earnest; in brief, it is the highest participation with Christ in that glory and honour that our natures are capable of.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“In the first way, it is the communication of the character or image that is on the seal unto the thing that is sealed, or that the impression of the seal is set unto. In answer hereunto, the sealing of the Spirit should consist in the communication of his own spiritual nature and likeness unto the souls of believers; so this sealing should materially be the same with our sanctification.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“And there is no small consolation in a due apprehension of that spiritual dignity which ensues hereon; for when they meet with the greatest troubles and the most contemptuous scorns in this world, a due apprehension of their acceptance with God, as being made kings and priests unto him, yields them a refreshment which the world knows nothing of, and which themselves are not able to express.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“But when this Holy Spirit doth, in and by his teaching, breathe into our hearts a holy, divine love unto and complacency in the things we are taught; when he enables us to taste how gracious the Lord is in them, rendering them sweeter unto us than the honey or the honeycomb; when he makes them our delight and joy, exciting and quickening the practical principles of our minds unto a compliance with them in holy obedience,—then have we that unction from the Holy One which will both sanctify and secure our souls unto the end.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“The anointing, then, of believers with the Spirit consists in the collation of him upon them to this end, that he may graciously instruct them in the truths of the gospel by the saving illumination of their minds, causing their souls firmly to cleave unto them with joy and delight, and transforming them in the whole inward man into the image and likeness of it.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Our unction, therefore, is the communication of the Holy Spirit, and nothing else.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“And this gives us a general rule, that the anointing with material oil under the Old Testament did prefigure and represent the effusion of the Spirit under the New, which now answers all the ends of those typical institutions.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit is said to be the divine, eternal, mutual love of the Father and the Son.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Faith keeps the soul at a holy distance from these infinite depths of the divine wisdom, where it profits more by reverence and holy fear than any can do by their utmost attempt to draw nigh unto that inaccessible light wherein these glories of the divine nature do dwell.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit

“Faith is most satisfied and cherished with what is infinite and inconceivable, as resting absolutely in divine revelation.”
― John Owen, The Holy Spirit