2. The Doctrinal Errors of Antinomianism.
For example, If such a principle as this be asserted for a truth before the world, That men need not fear that any, or all the sins they commit, shall do them any hurt;[3] let the author, or any man in the world, warn and caution readers (as the Antinomian author of that expression hath done) not to abuse this doctrine, it is to no purpose: the doctrine itself is full of dangerous consequents, and wicked men have the best skill to infer and draw them forth, to cherish and countenance their lusts; that which the author might design for the relief of the distressed, quickly turns itself into poison, in the bowels of the wicked; nor can we excuse it, by saying any gospel-truth may be thus abused; for this is none of that number, but a principle that gives offence to the godly, and encouragement to the ungodly. And so much as to the rise and occasion of Antinomian errors.
The Doctrinal Errors of Antinomianism 2. In the next place, let us view some of the chief doctrines commonly called Antinomian, amongst which there will be found a Πρωτον ψευδος, the radical and most prolific error, from which most of the rest are spawned and procreated.
Error 1. I shall begin with the dangerous mistake of the Antinomians in the doctrine of justification. The article of justification is deservedly stiled by our Divines, Articulus stantis, vel cadentis religionis, the very pillar of the Christian religion.
In two things, however, I must do the Antinomians right: (1.) In acknowledging, that though their errors about justification be great and dangerous, yet they are not so much about the substance as about the mode of a sinner's justification; an error far inferior to that of the Papists, who depress the righteousness of Christ, and exalt
their own inherent righteousness in the business of justification. (2.) I am bound in charity to believe, that some among them do hold those errors but speculatively, whilst the truth lies nearer {556} their hearts, and will not suffer them to reduce their own opinions into practice. Now as to their errors about justification, the most that I have read do make Justification to be an immanent and eternal act of God; and do affirm, the elect were justified before themselves or the world had a being.[4] Others come lower, and affirm, The elect were justified at the time of Christ's death. With these Dr. Crisp harmonizes.
Error 2. That justification by faith is no more but a manifestation to us of what was really done before we had a being. Hence Mr.
Saltmarsh thus defines faith, It is, saith he, a being persuaded more or less of Christ's love to us; so that when we believe, that which was hid before doth then appear. God (saith another) cannot charge one sin upon that man who believes this truth, That God laid his iniquities upon Christ.
Error 3. That men ought not to doubt of their faith, or question, Whether we believe, or no: Nay, That we ought no more to question our faith than to question Christ. Saltmarsh of Free Grace, p. 92, 95.
Error 4. That believers are not bound to confess sin, mourn for it, or pray for the forgiveness of it; because it was pardoned before it was committed; and pardoned sin is no sin. See Eaton's Honeycomb, p.
446, 447.
Error 5. They say. That God sees no sin in believers, whatsoever sins they commit. Some of them, as Mr. Town and Mr. Eaton speak out and tell us, That God can see no adultery, no lying, no blasphemy, no cozening in believers; for though believers do fall into such enormities, yet all their sins being pardoned from eternity, they are no sins in them. Town's Assertions, p. 96, 97, 98. Eaton's
Honeycomb, chap. 7. p. 136, 137. with others of a more pernicious character than these.
Error 6. That God is not angry with the elect, nor doth he smite them for their sins; and to say that he doth so is an injurious reflection upon the justice of God. This is avouched generally in all their writings.
Error 7. They tell us. That by God's laying our iniquities upon Christ, he became as completely sinful as we, and we as completely righteous as Christ. Vide Dr. Crisp, p. 270.
Error 8. Upon the same ground it is that they affirm, That believers need not fear either their own sins, or the sins of others; for that neither their own, nor any other men's sins can do them any hurt, nor must they do any duty for their own salvation.
Error 9. They will not allow the new covenant to be made properly with us, but with Christ for us; and that this covenant is all of it a promise, having no condition on our part. They do not absolutely deny that faith, repentance, and obedience are conditions {557} in the new covenant; but say, They are not conditions on our part, but Christ's; and that he repented, believed, and obeyed for us.
Saltmarsh of Free Grace, p. 126, 127.
Error 10. They speak very slightingly of trying ourselves by marks and signs of grace. Saltmarsh often calls it a weak, low, carnal way; but the New-England Antinomians, or Libertines, call it a fundamental error, to make sanctification an evidence of justification: that it is to light a candle to the sun; that it darkens our justification; and that the darker our sanctification is, the brighter our justification is. See their book entitled, Rise, Reign. Error 72.
In this breviate, or summary account of Antinomian doctrines, I have only singled out, and touched some of their principal mistakes and errors into which some of them run much farther than others. But I look upon such doctrines to be in themselves of a very dangerous nature, and the malignity and contagion would certainly spread
much farther into the world than it doth, had not God provided two powerful antidotes to resist the malignity, viz.
1. The scope and current of scripture.
2. The experience and practice of the saints.
(1.) These doctrines run cross to the scope and current of the scriptures, which constantly speak of all unregenerate persons
(without exception of the very elect themselves, during that state) as children of wrath, even as others, without Christ, and under condemnation. [Eph. 2.3,12, Rom. 5.18.] They [the Scriptures] frequently discover God's anger, and tell us his castigatory rods of affliction are laid upon them for their sins.
They represent sin as the greatest evil; most opposite to the glory of God and good of the saints; and are therefore filled with cautions and threatenings to prevent their sinning.
They call the saints frequently and earnestly, not only to mourn for their sins before the Lord; but to pray for the pardon and remission of them in the blood of Christ.
They give us a far different account of saving faith, and do not place it in a persuasion more or less of Christ's love to us, or a manifestation in our consciences of the actual remission of our sins before we had a being; but in receiving Christ as the gospel offers him for righteousness and life.
They frequently call the people of God to the examination and trial of their interest in Christ by marks and signs: and accordingly furnish them with variety of such marks from the divers parts or branches of sanctification in themselves.
They earnestly and every where press believers to strictness and {558} constancy in the duties of religion, as the way wherein God
would have them to walk. They infer duties from privileges; and therefore the Antinomian dialect is a wild note which the generality of serious Christians do easily distinguish from the scripture-stile and language.
(2.) The experience and practice of the saints recorded in scripture, as well as our contemporaries, or those whose lives are recorded for our imitation, do greatly secure us from the spreading malignity of Antinomianism. Converse with the living, or read the histories of dead saints, and you shall find, that in their addresses to God they still bless and praise him, for that great and wonderful change of state which was made upon them when they first believed in Christ, and on their believing passed from death to life; freely acknowledged before God, they were before their conversion equal in sin and misery with the vilest wretches in the world: they heartily mourn for their daily sins, fear nothing more than sin, no afflictions in the world go so near their hearts as sin doth: they can mourn for the hardness of their hearts, that they can mourn no more for sin. They acknowledge the rods of God that are upon them, are not only the evidences of his displeasure against them for their sins, but the fruits of their uneven walking with him; and that the greatest of their afflictions is less than the least of their iniquities deserve. They fall at their Father's feet as oft as they fall into sin, humbly and earnestly suing for pardon through the blood of Christ. They are not only sensible that God sees sin in them, but that he seeth such and so great evils in them, as makes them admire at his patience, that they are not consumed in their iniquities. They find cause enough to suspect their own sincerity, doubt the truth of their faith, and of their graces; and are therefore frequent and serious in the trial and examination of their own states by scripture marks and signs. [2
Peter 1.2-12.] They urge the commands and threatenings, as well as the promises, upon their own hearts to promote sanctification; excite themselves to duty and watchfulness against sin; they also encourage themselves by the rewards of obedience, knowing their labour is not in vain in the Lord [1 Cor. 15.58]: and all this while they look not for that in themselves, which is only to be found in Christ; nor for that in