ALMYGHTIE and mercyfull God, of whose onely gifte it cometh that thy faythfull people doe unto thee true and laudable service; graunte we beseche thee, that we may so runne to thy heavenly promises, that we faile not finally to attayne the same; through Jesus Christe our Lorde.

The bit about ‘running to thy heavenly promises’ must have been smoothed out by someone a bit embarrassed at such enthusiasm in 1662 which is when your version first appears. This collect is a response to the Epistle designated in the 1549 Prayerbook, from Galatians 3 (“But the scripture concludeth all things under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ should be given unto them that believe.”), the Gospel which is the parable of the Good Samaritan (which I presume inspired the bit about true and laudable service), and the Psalm which I think gives the running-towards-God attitude (109: ‘Lord, what love have I unto
thy law : all the day long is my study in it. ‘).

Further digging online reveals that most of this collect corresponds to the traditional Catholic liturgy: “Omnipotens et misericors Deus, de cujus munere venit, it tibi a fidelibus tuis digne et laudabiliter serviatur: tribue. quaesumus, nobis, it ad promissiones tuas sine offensione curramus.” Cranmer gives a literal translation of this, down to the last clause where he substitutes ‘that we faile not finally to attayne the same’ for ‘without offence’. The other change he introduces is the ‘only’ which has provoked comment above: I think that given C16th English grammar this could equally mean ‘from whom alone’ or ‘only by one particular gift’. Probably the ‘modern translation’ would be ‘it is only through your gift that…’

I think both his changes make the collect more ‘protestant’ (by mid-C16th standards) than the original in theological terms, especially the second one.

One thing I love about Cranmer’s collects is that they keep the principle of tying up with multiple elements of the readings/psalms for the day: if you change the lectionary, you get a bit lost sometimes.

(I found the Latin collect here http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/ and this is a great website for finding Anglican service books through the ages http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/)

As for What Would Cramner Do: conduct services “in suche a language and ordre, as is moste easy and plain for the understandyng, bothe of the readers and hearers.” (He’s also a big fan of doing away with the multitude of confusing books that people can’t find their way around as well.)

Someone must have had a lot of time on their paws to convolute the poor language thus.

Clarifying the second half by introducing a dreaded split infinitive would be the least of improvements, too. Serving here&now to not-avoid heaven? Er…

Collects are not poems.

What about lex orandi, lex credendi?

Well, call me a Pelagian if you must, but I ask again, do we really believe this?

If I’m wrong about “only” – and it’d be a matter of the way the sentence sounded rather than anything else – then I’d start asking you if the “only gift” could be the Incarnation, ‘cos that’s your comfort zone, not mine.