GRPL THREAD: Songs of Grace

[CARepubGal]

My inclusion from the OPC Trinity Hymnal:

Whate'er my God Ordains is Right

Whate'er my God ordains is right: Holy his will abideth; I will be still whate'er he doth; And follow where he guideth: He is my God: though dark my road, He holds me that I shall not fall: Wherefore to him I leave it all.

Whate'er my God ordains is right: He never will deceive me; He leads me by the proper path; I know he will not leave me: I take, content, what he hath sent; His hand can turn my griefs away, And patiently I wait his day.

Whate'er my God ordains is right: Though now this cup, in drinking, May bitter seem to my faint heart, I take it, all unshrinking: My God is true; each morn anew Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart, And pain and sorrow shall depart.

[The Grammarian]

Then why were you talking about "Free-Will"?

Who said I was talking about a "free-will"? I was talking about a free heart. Heart meaning the metaphorical center of one's being, including its volitional center.

Wesley has this to say about the state of the heart at Justification: On the contrary, a deep conviction that we are not yet whole; that our hearts are not fully purified; that there is yet in us a "carnal mind," which is still in its nature "enmity against God;" that a whole body of sin remains in our heart, weakened indeed, but not destroyed; shows, beyond all possibility of doubt, the absolute necessity of a farther change. -The Repentence of Believers by John Wesley That doesn't sound like a "heart" that "was free" at all.

First off, that's John Wesley, not Charles. Second, "The Repentance of Believers" was Wesley's sequel to "On Sin In Believers," which was brought about by the controversy of Lutherans and Calvinists' simul iustus simul peccator on the one side, and some antinomian extremists on the Moravian and Methodist side who said that believers were incapable of sinning. Albert Outler, one of the (if not the) 20th century's leading authority on Wesley, says in his introductory comment on the sermon in John Wesley's Sermons: An Anthology,

Wesley, caught in the controversy generated by these two polarities, came up with what he regarded as a valid third alternative. Its root notion was a distinction between 'sin properly so called' (i.e. the deliberate violation of a known law of God) and all 'involuntary transgressions' (culpable only if unrepented and knowingly repeated). This distinction already had a history in Catholic moral theory ('mortal' versus 'venial') and a special development among Anglican moralists as well.

Thus, there was an unstable tension between the claims that a Christian may be delivered from sin's bondage and that 'sin remains but no longer reigns. Wesley insisted on holding on to both traditions (sola fide and holy living) without forfeiting the essence of either. He weas concerned to face the dreadful realities of sin while never yielding to any defeatist notion that God's grace is intrinsically impotent to save souls 'to the utmost' in this life.

Second, John Wesley says this on the nature of the Christian upon regeneration:

[E]ven babes in Christ are in such a sense perfect, or 'born of God' (an expression taken also in divers senses) as, first, not to commit sin....Now the Word of God plainly declares that even those who are justified, who are born again in the lowest sense, do not 'continue in sin'...but that these, 'being made free from sin, are become the servants of righteousness,' (Rom. 6:15,18))....The very least which can be implied in these words is that the persons spoken of therein, namely all real Christians or believers in Christ, are made free from outward sin. (Christian Perfection.)

No, You started discussing the freeing of the Will. I was asking about the freeing of the Heart.

No, I was discussing the freedom of the heart, the metaphorical center of one's being, including its volitional center.

I can understand your reluctance. Your other comrades have had the same reluctance.

You know what they say about casting swine before pearls.

You know, it might just be easier for you guys to say that Charles simply got this one wrong -that he botched it.

It might be easier, but it wouldn't be true.

[drstevej]

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Saviour true,
No, I was found of thee.

Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea,
`Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but, O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord to thee;
For thou wert long before-hand with my soul,
Always thou lovedst me.

[Jean Chauvin]

I suggested that one to xzins (as well as "'Tis Not That I Did Choose Thee") here, but he was no taker.

Jean