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Commentary from THE ANNOTATED
BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYEREdited by JOHN HENRY BLUNT
Rivingtons, London, 1884
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
[assumes the 1662 lections]
This day sets forth the principle that the obligation of the old law
is heightened under the New Dispensation: as also that the stricter obligation
of the new law is accompanied by a proportionate increase in the grace
by which the duty of obedience to God may be fulfilled. Christ's
law extends to the wilful conception of an act as well as to the act itself,
and accounts the one a sin as well as the other. But Christ's death
and resurrection extend themselves to the sacrament of Baptism, making
it the means of a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness: and
thus endowing Christians with a power to fulfil the requirements of His
law which otherwise they could not possess. The power of Christ against
sin becomes thus not only a power external to the soul, but an inward capacity,
the practical use or disuse of which is at the will of those to whom it
is given.
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