Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/631

Rh ANTINOMIANISM

565

ANTIKOMIANISM

can be traced in the teaching of the earlier heresies. Certain of the Gnostic sects — possibly, for example, Marcion and his followers, in their antithesis of the Old and New Testament, or the Carpocratians, in their doctrine of the inditTerence of good works and their contempt for all human laws — held Antinomian or quasi-Antinomian views. In any case, it is gen- erally understood that Antiiiomianism was professed by more than one of the Gnostic schools. Several passages of the New Testament writings are quoted m support of the contention that even as early as Apostolic times it was found necessary to single out and combat this heresy in its theoretical or dogmatic, as well as in its grosser and practical, form. The indignant words of St. Paul in his Epistles to the Romans and to the Ephesians (Hom., iii, 8, 31, vi, 1; Epli.. V. 6), as well as tfiose of St, I'eter in the Second Epistle (II Pet,, ii, 18, 19), seem to lend direct evi- dence in favour of this view. Forced into a some- what doubtful prominence by the "slanderers" against whom the .\postle found it necessary to warn the faithful, persisting spasmodically in several of the Cinostic bodies, and possibly also colouring some of the tenets of the Albigenses, Antinomiamsm reap- peared definitely, as a variant of the Protestant doc- trine of faith, early in the history of the German Keforniation. At this point it is of interest to note the sharp controversy tnat it provoked between the leader of the reforming movement in (lerinany and his disciple and fellow townsman, Johannes Agricola. Sehnitter, or Schneider, sometimes known as the Magister Islcbius, was born at Eisleben in 1492, nine years after the birth of Luther. He studied, and afterwards taught, at Wittenberg, whence, in 1525, he went to Frankfort with the intention of teaching and establisliing the Protestant religion there. But shortly afterwards he returned to his native town, where he remained until 1536, teaching in the school of St. Andrew, and drawing considerable attention to himself as a preacher of the new religion hy the courses of sermons that he delivered in the Nicolai Church. In 1536 he was recalled to Wittenberg and given a chair in the University. Then the Antino- mian controversy, which had really begvm some ten years previously, broke out afresh, with renewed vigour and bitterness. .'Agricola, who w;u5 undoubt- edly anxious to defend and justify the novel doctrine of his leader upon the subject of grace and justifica- tion, and who wished to separate the new Protestant view more clearly and distinctly from the old Cath- olic doctrine of faith ami good works, taught that only the unregenerate were under the obligation of the law, whereas regenerate Christians were entirely absolved and altojjether free from any such obliga- tion. Though it IS highly probable that he made Agricola responsible for opinions which the latter never really held, Luther attacked him vigorously in six di.ssertation3, showing that "the law gives man the consciousness of sin, and that the fear of the law- is both wholesome and necessary for the preserva- tion of morality and of divine, as well as human, in- stitutions"; and on several occasions .\gricola found himself obliged to retract or to modify his Antino- mian teaching. In 1.540 Agricola, forced to this step by Luther, who had secured to this end the as- sistance of the Elector of IJrandenburg, definitely recanted. But it was not long before the weari.some controversy was reopened by Poach of Erfurt (15.56). This led ultimately to an authoritative and a com- plete statement, on the part of the Lutherans, of the teaching upon the subject by the Gemian Protestant leaders, in the fifth and si.xth articles of the "For- mula Concordia'". St. Alphonsus Liguori states that after Luther's death Agricola went to Berlin, commenced teaching his blasphemies again, and diecl there, at the age of seventy-four, withoiit any sign of repentance; also, that Florinundus calls the" Anti-

nomians "Atheists who believe in neither God nor the devil. " So much for the origin and growth of the Antinomian heresy in the Lutheran body, .\mong the high Calvinists al-so the doctrine was to be found in the teaching that the elect do not sin by the com- mission of actions that in themselves are contrary to the precepts of the moral law, while the Anabaiitists of Munster had no scruple in putting these theories into actual practice.

From Germany Antinomianism soon travelled to England, where it was publicly taught, and in some cases even acted uimn, by many of the sectaries during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The state of religion in England, as well as in the Colonies, imme- diately preceding and during this troublesome period of historj'. was an extraordinary one, and when the indeixjndents obtained the upper hand there was no limit to the vagaries of doctrines, imported or in- vented, that found so congenial a soil in which to take root and spread. Many of the religious contro- versies that then arose turned naturally u[X)n the doc- trines of faith, grace, and justification which occupied so prominent a place in contemporary thought, and in these controversies Antinomianism frequently fig- ured. A large number of works, tracts, and sermons of this j>eriod are extant in which the fierce and intol- erant doctrines of the sectaries are but thinly veiled under the copious quotations from the Scriptures that lend so peculiar an effect to their general style. In the earlier part of the .seventeenth century. Dr. Tobias Crisp, Rector of Brinkwater (b. 1600), was accused, in company with others, of holding and teaching similar views. His most notable work is "Christ Alone Exalted" (1643). His opinions were controverted with some ability by Dr. Daniel ^^'il- liams, the founder of the Dissenters' Library, In- deed, to such an extent were extreme Antinomian doctrines held, and even practised, as early as the reign of Charles I, that, after Cudworth's sermon against the .\ntinomians (on I John, ii, 3, 4) was preached before the Commons of England (1647), the Parliament wjjs obliged to pass severe enactments against them (1648). Anyone convicted on the oaths of two witne.s.ses of maintaining that the moral law of the Ten Commandments was no rule for Chris- tians, or that a believer need not repent or pray for pardon of sin, was bound publicly to retract, or, if he refused, be imprisoned until he found sureties that he would no more maintain the same. Shortly before this date, the heresy made its appearance in America, where, at Boston, the Antinomian opin- ions of Mrs. Ann Hutchinson were formally con- demned by the Newtown Synod (1636).

Although from the seventeenth century onward Antinomianism does not appear to be an official doc- trine of any of the more important Protestant sects, at least it has undoubtedly been held from time to time either by individual members or by sections, and taught, botli by implication and actually, by the religious leatlers of several of these bodies. Cer- tain forms of Calvinism may seem capable of bear- ing an -Vntinomian construction. Indeed it has been said that the heresy is in reality nothing more than "Calvinism run to seed". Mosheim regarded the Antinomians as a rigid kind of Calvinists who, dis- torting the doctrine of absolute decrees, drew from it conclusions dangerous to religion and morals. Count Zinzendorf (1700-60), the founder of the Hermhuters, or Moravians, was accused of .-Vntino- mianism by Bengel, as was William Huntingdon, who, liowever, took pains to disclaim the imputation.

Hut po.ssibly the most noteworthy instance is that of the Plymouth Brethren, of whom some are quite frankly .\ntinoinian in their doctrine of justification and sand ificat ion. It is their constant assertion that the law is not the rule or standard of the life of the Christian, Here again, as in the case of .\g-