He has read much more John Owen than I and in the introduction to his recent book, John Owen and English Puritanism, he explains that one of the ways to mortify sin is to read Owen:
My own sense in preparing this book is that biography is an especially demanding medium that continually refuses to permit intellectual shortcuts: at times, when I was overwhelmed by the demands of reading Owen’s millions of words in their very different contexts, I felt that he could not die soon enough. (20)
Sometimes when I read Owen, I think I can’t die soon enough.
So Owen’s affect on Gribben and me is opposite, either to wish the Puritan or the reader dead.
Wait, doesn’t that make me holier?
Old Life 