Sunday Hymn: Not What My Hands Have Done

Not what my hands have done
Can save my guil­ty soul;
Not what my toil­ing flesh has borne
Can make my spir­it whole.
Not what I feel or do
Can give me peace with God;
Not all my pray­ers and sighs and tears
Can bear my aw­ful load.

Thy work alone, O Christ,
Can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,
Can give me peace with­in.
Thy love to me, O God,
Not mine, O Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark un­rest,
And set my spir­it free.

Thy grace alone, O God,
To me can par­don speak;
Thy pow­er alone, O Son of God,
Can this sore bond­age break.
No oth­er work, save Thine,
No mean­er blood will do;
No strength, save that which is di­vine,
Can bear me safe­ly through.

I bless the Christ of God;
I rest on love di­vine;
And with un­fal­ter­ing lip and heart
I call this Sav­ior mine.
His cross dis­pels each doubt;
I bu­ry in His tomb
Each thought of un­belief and fear,
Each lin­ger­ing shade of gloom.

I praise the God of grace;
I trust His truth and might;
He calls me His, I call Him mine,
My God, my joy and light.
In Him is on­ly good,
In me is on­ly ill;
My ill but draws His good­ness forth,
And me He lov­eth still.

’Tis He who sav­eth me,
And free­ly par­don gives;
I love be­cause He lov­eth me,
I live be­cause He lives.
My life with Him is hid,
My death has passed away,
My clouds have melt­ed in­to light,
My mid­night in­to day.

—Horatius Bonar

Theological Term of the Week: Augustinianism

Augustinianism

The theological position that since the fall, all people have been corrupted by original sin, and are unable to love God or follow his commands. It is only by God’s gracious work that anyone can truly obey God or excercise faith in him, so human salvation is a work of God from start to finish.

• From the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6:

Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof.



1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. 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. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

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

4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

• From Outlines of Theology by A. A. Hodge, on the Augustinian view of grace:

If nevertheless man in his present state, wills and does good, it is merely the work of grace. It is an inward, secret, and wonderful operation of God upon man. It s a preceding as well as an accompanying work. By preceding grace, man attains faith, by which he comes to an insight of good, and by which power is given him to will the good. He needs cooperating grace for the performance of every individual good act. As man can do nothing without grace, so he can do nothing against it. It is irresistible. And as man by nature has no merit at all, no respect at all can be had to man’s moral disposition, in imparting grace, but God acts according to his own free will.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is Augustinianism?
2. Matthew Barrett: The Battle of the Will, Part 1: Pelagius and Augustine
3. Monergism:  Comparing Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, and Augustinianism
4. A. A. Hodge: A Comparison of Systems: Pelagianism, Semipelagianism, and Augustinianism

Related terms:

• Pelagianism
• Semi-Pelagianism

Filed under Reformed Theology

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Sunday Hymn: Let Us Plead for Faith Alone

Let us plead for faith alone
Faith which by our works is shown;
God it is who jus­ti­fies,
Only faith the grace ap­plies.

Active faith that lives with­in,
Conquers hell and death and sin,
Hallows whom it first made whole,
Forms the Sav­ior in the soul.

Let us for this faith con­tend,
Sure sal­va­tion is the end;
Heaven al­rea­dy is be­gun,
Everlasting life is won.

Only let us per­se­vere
Till we see our Lord ap­pear,
Never from the Rock re­move,
Saved by faith which works by love.

—Charles Wesley