The Ninth Sunday after Trinity, Original Sin, and Free Will

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

The Collect.

GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

‎1. An Augustinian Collect, as previously noted (and as noted elsewhere), yet take the measure of this heady, if not fatuous, blog.

2. http://www.rtbp.wordpress.com/ re: "The Antinomy of Human Free-Will and Divine Omnipotence."

3. Clearly, clear-headed Anglicans need "reform" again.

4. On this matter, we pray with our goodly, Biblical and Godly Prayer Book (unlike some of the brash Puritans, like John Knox):

The Second Collect at Evening Prayer.

O GOD, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed; Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give; that both our hearts may be set to obey thy commandments, and also that by thee, we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

And also regarding the denial and those Anglican Clergy who deny, mitigate or minimize original sin and its disablements, vis a vis Article IX (Original Sin) and X (Free Will), let us pray:

The Third Collect, for Aid against all Perils.

LIGHTEN our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

5. We would do well to upgrade and amplify the Articles with consideration from the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, to wit (http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/):

Chapter VI

Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and the Punishment thereof

I. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptations of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit.[1] This their sin, God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.[2]

II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God,[3] and so became dead in sin,[4] and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.[5]

III. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed;[6] and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.[7]

IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good,[8] and wholly inclined to all evil,[9] do proceed all actual transgressions.[10]

V. This corruption of nature, during this life, does remain in those that are regenerated;[11] and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.[12]

VI. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto,[13] does in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner,[14] whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God,[15] and curse of the law,[16] and so made subject to death,[17] with all miseries spiritual,[18] temporal,[19] and eternal.[20]