Owen: Gospel Doctrine, Gospel Experience

John Owen:

When the heart is cast into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth; . . . when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the things abides in our hearts; when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for--then shall we be garrisoned, by the grace of God, against all the assaults of men.

And without this all our contending is, as to ourselves, of no value. What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ is God, but have no sense of sweetness in my heart from hence that he is a God in covenant with my soul? . . . Let us, then, not think that we are any thing the better for our conviction of the truths of the great doctrines of the gospel . . . unless we find the power of the truths abiding in our own hearts and have a continual experience of their necessity and excellency in our standing before God and our communion with him.

--quoted in J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, 217-18