RISE, PROGRESS, HISTORY, &C.-The Solifidian, or Antinomian heresy, which asserts, that nothing is required in man's salvation but faith in Christ, and which took its rise from a misunderstanding and perversion of some passages of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, was one of the first that disturbed the Christian Church, insomuch that St. Augustin says, that not only the Epistle of St. James, but likewise those of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, were written to guard the faithful against its pernicious influences.-And so many have been the heresies since the Apostolic age, in the composition of which this opinion has been a prime ingredient, that there perhaps has never yet been a time wherein the state of the Christian Church was such as not to require her ministers to urge the doctrine of St. James, that faith without works is dead, or to warn their people against turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

Modern Antinomianism may be traced to the period of the Reformation. Its founder was John Agricola, a Saxon divine, a cotemporary, a countryman, and at first a disciple of Luther.He was of a restless temper, and wrote against Melancthon; and having obtained a professorship at Wittemberg, he first taught Antinomianism there, about the year 1535. The Papists, in their disputes with the Protestants of that day, carried the merit of good works to an extravagant length; and this induced some of their opponents, as is too often the case, to run into the opposite ex

*De Fide et Operibus, cap. 14.

treme. The doctrine of Agricola was in itself obscure, and perhaps represented worse than it really was by Luther, who wrote with acrimony against him, and first styled him and his followers Antinomians; perhaps thereby "intending," as Dr. Hey conjectures, "to disgrace the notions of Agricola, and make even him ashamed of them."* Agricola stood in his own defence, and complained that opinions were imputed to him which he did not hold.

About the same time, Nicholas Amsdorf, Bishop of Nuremberg, fell under the same odious name and imputation, and seems to have been treated more unfairly than even Agricola himself.-The Bishop died at Magdeburg in 1541, and some say that his followers were called for a time after his

name.

This sect sprung up among the Presbyterians in England, during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell,† when, as we have been told by Bishop Horne, "it was in all its glory," and extended its

* Norrisian Lects. vol. iii. p. 39. Even Luther himself was called an Antinomian, but that was against what is now the 11th article of the Church of England, whereas the Antinomians are so against the 7th article:-and hence two kinds of Antinomians, viz. 1. Those who reject the law of Moses:—and, 2dly, Those who have too high notions of the efficacy of faith.

↑ Dr. Mosheim, who remarks that the judgment formed of the Antinomians by the other Presbyterian communities, is that they are "a more rigid kind of Calvinists, who per

system of libertinism much farther than Agricola did. Its doctrine seems to have been embraced in the last century also, by some of Mr. Whitfield's preachers and others;* and if it be not yet so "rampant" as the Bishop feared it would be, it still prevails there to the present day, and is even said to be increasing, as well as in the principality of Wales.

DISTINGUISHING TENETS.-The supporters of the Popish doctrines deducing a considerable por

vert Calvin's doctrine of absolute decrees to the worst purposes, by drawing from it conclusions highly detrimental to the interests of true religion and virtue." Eccles. Hist. vol. v. p. 411.

There are doubtless many who still conceive Antinomianism to be nothing more than "Calvinism run to seed;" and that all Calvinists who rise above Calvin himself in their religious sentiments, particularly with respect to Election and Reprobation, are in danger of becoming Antinomians. But however this may be, there cannot be a doubt that no speculative sentiments ought to be carried to such a height as to endanger, even in appearance, the sacred interests of morality.

* "Not many years passed, before Wm. Cudworth and James Relly separated from Mr. Whitfield. These were properly Antinomians; absolute avowed enemies to the law of God, which they never preached, or professed to preach, but termed all Legalists who did. With them, preaching the law was an abomination. They had nothing to do with the law. They would preach Christ, as they called it; but without one word either of holiness or good works. Yet these were still denominated Methodists, although differing from Mr. Whitfield both in judgment and practice, abundantly more than Mr. W. did from Mr. Wesley." Encycl. Britan. vol. xi. p. 630. Art. Methodists.

tion of the arguments on which they rested their defence from the doctrines of the old law, Agricola, in the height of his zeal for reformation, was encouraged by the success of his master, Luther, ittack the very foundation of their arguments, and to deny that any part of the Old Testament was intended as a rule of faith or of practice to the disciples of Christ. Thus, he not only rejected the moral authority of even the ten commandments; but he and his followers, conceiving some of the expressions in the writings of the Apostles in too literal a sense, produced a system, which appears in many respects scarcely consistent with the moral attributes of the Deity; and he is said to have set aside the law, meaning thereby, the whole religion of Moses.

He is said to have taught that the law ought not to be proposed to the people as a rule of manners, nor used in the Church as a means of instruction; and of course that repentance is not to be preached from the Decalogue, but only from the Gospel;-that the Gospel alone is to be inculcated and explained, both in the churches and the schools of learning; and that good works do not promote our salvation, nor evil works hinder it.

Some of his followers in England, in the 17th century, are said to have expressly maintained,— that as the elect cannot fall from grace, nor forfeit the divine favour, the wicked actions they commit are not really sinful, nor are they to be considered as instances of their violation of the divine law, and

that consequently they have no occasion either to confess their sins, or to break them off by repentance. According to them, it is one of the essential and distinctive characters of the elect, that they cannot do any thing displeasing to God, or prohibited by the law.*

That the justification of sinners is an immanent and eternal act of God, not only preceding all acts of sin, but the existence of the sinner himself, is the opinion of most of those, who are styled Antinomians, though some suppose, with Dr. Crisp, that the elect were justified at the time of Christ's death.

The other principal doctrines which at present bear the appellation of Antinomian, are said to be as follow:

1. That justification by faith is no more than a manifestation to us of what was done before we had a being.

2. That men ought not to doubt of their faith, or question whether they believe in Christ.

3. That by God's laying our iniquities upon Christ, and our being imputed righteous through him, he became as completely sinful as we, and we as completely righteous as Christ.

4. That believers need not fear either their own sins or the sins of others, since neither can do them any injury.

5. That the new covenant is not made properly with us, but with Christ for us; and that this

* Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. v. p. 412.