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covenant is all of it a promise, having no conditions for us to perform; for faith, repentance, and obedience, are not conditions on our part, but on Christ's; and that he repented, believed, and obeyed for us.

6. That sanctification is not a proper evidence of justification that our righteousness is nothing but the imputation of the righteousness of Christ—that a believer has no holiness in himself but in Christ only; and that the very moment he is justified, he is wholly sanctified, and he is neither more nor less holy from that hour to the day of his death.

Justification by faith not necessarily productive of good works, and righteousness imputed to such a faith, are the doctrines by which they are chiefly distinguished.

While the Unitarians place the whole of their religion in morality to the disregard of Christian faith, the Antinomians rely so on faith as to undervalue morality. Their doctrines at least have had that appearance; and it has been said, that their teachers have been thought to discharge the whole of their duty, if they inculcated the necessity of faith, and displayed the benefits of the new covenant. The manner in which they express themselves, may be seen in a review of Dr. Crisp's Sermons by Goree. -It is scarce, but in Sidney Col. Library, Cambridge.*

* Justice to Dr. Crisp requires it to be remarked here, that objectionable as he doubtless is, he has disavowed the

Both the Mystics and Antinomians conceive themselves free from sin. The Mystics become free from sin by the intimate union of their souls with God and Jesus Christ; the Antinomians, by having all their sins laid upon Jesus Christ.-The Mystic enthusiast does not purposely do any thing which we should call wrong;-the Antinomian does things wrong in themselves, but they are right, be cause he, a true Christian, does them; insomuch that if he was to steal, the crime commonly called theft, would, in him, lose its criminal nature.

But I am not aware that any set of Christians ever called themselves Antinomians; it is a term of opprobrium or reproach; I would not therefore vouch for the truth of all that has been said respecting them by their enemies, but must observe here, and candour obliges us to confess, that there have been some, who have been styled Antinomians, who cannot, strictly speaking, be ranked among them; notwithstanding 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 execu

interpretation put upon his doctrines, in a Sermon on Titus ii. v. 11. 12., where he insists on the necessity of personal holiness.

tion 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 expressions, whatever be the private sentiments of those who advance them, have a tendency to injure the minds, if not to hurt the morals, of others. It has indeed been alleged, that the principal thing they have had in view, was, to counteract those legal doctrines which have so much abounded among the selfrighteous: 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.

NUMBERS, COUNTRIES WHERE FOUND, WRITERS PRO AND CON., &c.-As those who assent to the above tenets still continue in the churches, or societies of Christians, to which they formerly belonged, (for I am not aware that they have any where formed themselves into a distinct sect,) it is difficult to ascertain either their numbers, or the countries where they are chiefly to be found. In London indeed, and a few other large towns in

England, as Leicester, Nottingham,* &c., there are a few chapels, whose members, from their professing, or being supposed to profess, such tenets, are usually called Antinomians; and it is generally understood that Mr. Huntington, a popular preacher in London,† is now at the head of the party in England and Wales.

It is said that there are many of them of a singular cast in Germany, and other parts of the continent; who condemn the moral law as a rule of life, and yet profess a strict regard for the interests of practical religion.

The fear of the bad tendency of Antinomianism among Christians occasioned its adherents to meet with severe checks from the friends of religion; their writings were condemned in 1643,

* In Leicester they had lately four chapels, and still have three; in Nottingham they have two.

† Minister of Providence Chapel, Titchfield Street. To do justice to the members of this denomination, (whose principles, I fear, are not yet well understood,) as well as to promote the object of my work, I took the liberty of addressing this gentleman by letter, intimating my intention of publishing on this subject, and requesting his assistance for this article, and that he would take the trouble of pointing out any erroneous ideas that the public might still entertain respecting any of their peculiar principles. As, therefore, most of my information on the subject of this article is from second hand, should I have here copied any of the mistakes of others, I shall sincerely regret it; at the same time I shall no doubt be considered the less blameable, that no notice was taken by Mr. H. of my intimation and request.

by the Committee of the Westminster General Assembly, and they surely have never been so numerous in any country as might be expected from the doctrines they inculcate, which are highly gratifying to the depraved wishes of proud and disobedient man.

Some of the chief of those who have been charged with favoring Antinomianism, since the time of Agricola, or at least whose works have had that tendency, are Dr. Crisp-Richardson-Saltmarsh -Hussey-Eaton-Town-Huntington, &c.

A more full account of their tenets may be seen in Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. p. 320, &c.Clark's Lives, p. 142.-Ursinus' Body of Divinity, p. 620.-Spiritual Magazine, vol. ii. p. 171.-Dr. Crisp's Sermons, entitled, Christ alone exalted, vol. i. p. 24, 29, 136, 143, 282, 298, 330; vol. ii. P. 144, 155.†-Saltmarsh on Free Grace, p. 92.

* We are told in Mr. Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, (p. 274, &c.) that they were reduced in England, in 1713, to three or four mean preachers, and chiefly by means of Bishop Bull and Dr. D. Williams.

The Bishop's refutation of Antinomianism is to be found in his Harmonia Apostolica, and its Defences; and that of Dr. W. who was an eminent Presbyterian divine, and founder of the Dissenter's Library in Red Cross Street, London, in his Gospel Truth, stated and vindicated.

† See most of the peculiar sentiments which appear to be taught in Dr. C.'s Sermons, in Mr. Fuller's edit. of Hannah Adams's View of Religions, under the art. Antinomians.

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