the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Antinomians
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or Those who maintain that the law is of no use or obligation under the gospel dispensation, or who hold doctrines that clearly supersede the necessity of good works. The Antinomians took their origin from John Agricola, about the year 1538, who taught that the law is no way necessary under the Gospel; that good works do not promote our salvation, nor ill one's hinder it; that repentance is not to be preached from the decalogue, but only from the Gospel. This sect sprang up in England during the protectorate of Cromwell, and extended their system of libertinism much farther than Agricola did. Some of them it is said, maintained, that, if they should commit any kind of sin, it would do them no hurt, nor in the least affect their eternal state; and that it is one of the distinguishing characters of the elect that they cannot do any thing displeasing to God.
It is necessary, however, to observe here, and candour obliges us to confess that there have been others, who have been styled Antinomians, who cannot, strictly speaking, be ranked with these men: nevertheless, the unguarded expressions they have advanced, the bold positions they have laid down, and the double construction which might so easily be put upon many of their sentences, have led some to charge them with Antinomian principles. For instance; when they have asserted justification to be eternal, without distinguishing between the secret determination of God in eternity, and the execution of it in time; when they have spoken lightly of good works, or asserted that believers have nothing to do with the law of God, without fully explaining what they mean: when they assert that God is not angry with his people for their sins, nor in any sense punishes them for them, without distinguishing between fatherly corrections and vindictive punishment: these things, whatever be the private sentiments of those who advance them, have a tendency to injure the minds of many.
It has been alleged, that the principal thing they have had in view, was, to counteract those legal doctrines which have so much abounded among the self-righteous; but, granting this to be true, there is no occasion to run from one extreme to another. Had many of those writers proceeded with more caution, been less dogmatical, more explicit in the explanation of their sentiments, and possessed more candour towards those who differed from them, they would have been more serviceable to the cause of truth and religion. Some of the chief of those who have been charged as favouring the above sentiments are, Crisp, Richardson, Saltmarsh, Hussey, Eatom, Town, &c. These have been answered by Gataker, Sedgwick, Witsius, Bull, Williams, Ridgley, Beart, De Fleury, &c.
See also Bellamy's Letters and Dialogues between Theron, Paulinus, and Aspasio; with his Essay on the Nature and Glory of the Gospel; Edwards' Chrispianism, unmasked.
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Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Antinomians'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/a/antinomians.html. 1802.
