Victory Over Sin

It gathers books on the inward fight for holiness — mortifying sin, purity of heart, the affections set in order, and the way into the holiest. Its keynote is Romans 6:14, "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace": the shelf holds out real victory over indwelling sin, not by law-keeping but by the grace that reigns in the believer.

Among them are John Owen's "The Mortification of Sin," Jonathan Edwards's "Religious Affections," "Purity of Heart," John Wesley's "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection," Andrew Murray's "Holy in Christ," and "The Way into the Holiest" — works on the daily war against sin and the pursuit of a clean heart.

"For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" is the promise under the whole collection — that the Christian is not doomed to be ruled by sin, because grace has broken its dominion. It sets the fight for holiness not as a hopeless struggle under law but as a real victory made possible under grace.

John Owen's classic handbook on the daily, deliberate war against indwelling sin presses one charge in nine words: "be killing sin, or it will be killing you." Sin is never dormant, he warns, and must be put to death daily by the power of the Spirit, not merely managed — and the believer who ceases the work will find the work being done on him instead.

The setting-right of the inner affections, so that the heart itself is cleansed and not merely the outward life restrained. Edwards's "Religious Affections" tests what a truly changed heart looks like, and "Purity of Heart" and Wesley's "Plain Account" hold out the goal of a heart so filled with the love of God that sin loses its grip from the inside out.

Both are held together, but grace is the ground. The shelf calls for real, deliberate effort — mortifying sin, watching the heart, ordering the affections — yet insists that the power for it comes from union with Christ and the reign of grace, not from the believer's own strength. Andrew Murray's "Holy in Christ" and "The Way into the Holiest" locate the whole fight in Christ Himself.

John Owen's "The Mortification of Sin" is the classic entry, searching and practical; Andrew Murray's "The Way into the Holiest" sets the fight within union with Christ; and Edwards's "Religious Affections" tests whether the heart is truly changed. Together they map both the war and the ground of victory.

Because indwelling sin is the believer's lifelong enemy, and these writers neither despair of it nor excuse it — they hold out real victory, won daily, under grace. They answer both the defeated Christian and the presumptuous one with Romans 6:14: sin shall not have dominion, and the way to prove it is to keep killing it by the Spirit.