Justification Is for Distressed Sinners

Owen says this "To The Reader" in the beginning of his work The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (vol. 5, Banner of Truth, p. 3):

It is in vain to recommend the doctrine of justification unto them who neither desire nor endeavor to be justified. But where any persons are really made sensible of their apostasy from God, of the evil of their natures and lives, with the dreadful consequences that attend thereon, in the wrath of God and eternal punishment due unto sin, they cannot well judge themselves more concerned in any thing than in the knowledge of that divine way whereby they may be delivered from this condition. And the minds of such persons stand in no need of arguments to satisfy them in the importance of this doctrine; their own concernment in it is sufficient to that purpose. And I shall assure them that, in the handling of it, from first to last, I have had no other design but only to inquire diligently into the divine revelation of that way, and those means, with the causes of them, whereby the conscience of a distressed sinner may attain assured peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I lay more weight on the steady direction of one soul in this inquiry, than on disappointing the objections of twenty wrangling or fiery disputers.

I love that John Owen, world-class scholar though he was, was more of a pastor than anything else. As I've just begun reading this book on justification, I'm struck straightaway with Owen's concern that his defense and exposition of the doctrine not degenerate into ugly disputation, academic posturing, sophisticated distinctions, and one-upmanship. He wants sinners who know themselves to be sinners to walk in the path of peace and obedience, cleansed from their guilty consciences, freed from the power of canceled sin. The "Christian" academician (and pastor) in North America and Europe today should sit at his feet, get converted, and learn how to defend the faith and feed the lambs.