The Necessity, Nature, and Means of It — John Owen · Complete and Unabridged
Originally published 1656 · Complete and unabridged · Paperback & Kindle
"Be killing sin, or it will be killing you." No sentence in Puritan literature is quoted more often — and few books have done more to teach Christians how.
Published in 1656 while its author was Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, The Mortification of Sin is John Owen's searching, practical classic on the lifelong work of putting sin to death. Preaching on the Apostle's charge — "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Romans 8:13) — Owen traces indwelling sin to its root, exposes the counterfeit "mortifications" that only move sin from one room of the heart to another, and lays open the one power that can truly kill it: the Spirit of Christ, applied by faith.
Nearly four centuries on, no book on the subject has replaced it. Every serious writer on the Christian life — from the Puritans to our own day — still sends readers back to this one.
The competition, then, is not the title but the edition. The best-selling paperback abridges Owen's text; the cheap reprints flatten his voice. This Old Glory Press edition gives you the book complete and unabridged — every chapter, his own preface, his Greek restored in the notes — lightly modernized in spelling only, and freshly typeset for a reading copy you will keep.
"Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin, or it will be killing you."
— John Owen, The Mortification of Sin
About the Author
John Owen · 1616–1683
John Owen (1616–1683) was the foremost theologian of English Puritanism — Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, chaplain to the Commonwealth, and author of some of the richest practical divinity ever written in English.
He wrote across the whole range of Christian doctrine and life, from the towering Communion with God and The Glory of Christ to the searching pastoral trilogy on indwelling sin — Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, Of Temptation, and The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin. Of these, The Mortification of Sin has been the most loved and the most read, a book to which Christians have returned in every generation since.
Read the full biography of John Owen →The Mortification of Sin is John Owen's classic on how the believer puts indwelling sin to death by the power of the Holy Spirit. Published in 1656 and preached on Romans 8:13 — "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" — it traces sin to its root, exposes the counterfeit "mortifications" that only move sin from one room of the heart to another, and directs the reader to the one power that truly kills it: the Spirit of Christ, applied by faith. It is the source of the most quoted sentence in Puritan literature: "Be killing sin, or it will be killing you."
John Owen (1616–1683) was the foremost theologian of English Puritanism — Dean of Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, chaplain to the Commonwealth, and author of some of the richest practical and doctrinal divinity ever produced in English, including On the Mortification of Sin, On Temptation, The Glory of Christ, and Communion with God.
The best-selling Banner of Truth Puritan Paperback is an abridged and modernized text. This Old Glory Press edition is complete and unabridged — all fourteen chapters and Owen's own preface to the reader — lightly modernized in spelling only, so his vocabulary and cadence are left as he wrote them. It also restores Owen's Greek in the footnotes with transliteration and sense, and opens with a new reader's introduction to Owen and his book.
Owen is a searching and demanding writer, but this edition is made to help the reader: it opens with a warm introduction that places Owen and his book in view and shows how to read him, adds an analytical table of contents and chapter arguments, keeps his Greek in the footnotes with translation, and is freshly typeset in a classic Cormorant Garamond for comfortable reading — not a scanned reprint.
