A Book Worth Studying: Our Own Sinful Hearts

Most men love to hear the doctrine of grace, of the pardon of sin, of free love....But to be breaking up the fallow ground of their hearts, to be inquiring after the weeds and briars that grow in them they delight not so much, though this be no less necessary than the other. This path is not so beaten as that of grace, nor so trod in, though it be the only way to come to a true knowledge of grace itself.

It may be some who are wise and grown in other truths may yet be so little skilled in searching their own hearts that they may be slow in the perception and understanding of these things. But this sloth and neglect is to be shaken off if we have any regard unto our own souls....This, I say, will lead us to meekness, compassion, readiness to forgive, to pass by offenses....[But those refusing to do so] are only fit to delude themselves, to disquiet families, churches and all relations whatsoever.

- John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation, p. 283