Cranmer

Here is a good article entitled, Thomas Cranmer: God Must Intervene for Salvation, by Justin Holcomb. Thomas Cranmer is one reformer who seems to be a bit overlooked. The article is informative in giving some information on Cranmer but also in its challenge to think about what drives us. Here is a great excerpt:

In an interview about Cranmer, Ashley Null summarizes powerfully humanity's problem:According to the Thomas Cranmer's anthropology, what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. The mind doesn't direct the will. The mind is actually captive to what the will wants, and the will itself, in turn, is captive to what the heart wants. The trouble with human nature is that we are born with a heart that loves ourselves over and above everything else in this world, including God. In short, we are born slaves to the lust for self-gratification. That's why, if left to ourselves, we will always love those things that make us feel good about ourselves, even as we depart more and more from God and his ways. Therefore, God must intervene in our lives in order to bring salvation. Working through Scripture, the Holy Spirit first brings a conviction of sin in a believer's heart, then he births a living faith by which the believer lays hold of the extrinsic righteousness of Christ.

It is a helpful excerpt underscoring a reality that many are not attune to, which is, that our will and heart drive us more than our thinking. It is our passions that get the best of us and it is our minds that attempt to expunge our guilt (justify). This is not to say that we don’t employ our minds, to the best of our abilities, saturating it in truth, the truth of Scripture, to combat our passions that can set our lives aflame. However, as Cranmer has suggested, it is primarily a supernatural act of the Spirit that works in us not only to justify but also to sanctify.