This perversion and abuse of free grace and Christian liberty, is justly chargeable (though upon different accounts) both upon wick- ed and good men. Wicked men corrupt it designedly, that by entitling God to their sins, they might sin the more quietly and securely. So the devil instigated the Heathens to sin against the light find law of nature, by representing their gods to them as drunken and lascivious deities. So the Nicolaitans, and the school of Simon, and after them the Gnostics, and other Heretics in the very dawning of gospel-light and liberty, began presently to loose the bond of restraint from their lusts, under pretence of grace and liberty. The Etiani * blushed not to teach. That sin, and perseve-
• Mgust. de Hce.es. Tom. 6. Hara. 51,
OF ANTlNOMIANIaM. 55S
ranee hi sin, could hurt the salvation qf'none^ so that they would enu brace their pri7iciples.
How vile and abominable inferences the Manicha?ans, Valen- tinians, and Cerdonites drew from the grace and liberty of the gospel, in the following ages, I had rather mourn over than recite ; and if we come down to thejiftcenth century, we shall find the Li- bertines of those days as deeply drenched in this sin, as most that went before them. Calvin * mournfully observes, That under pre- tence of Christian liberty, they trampled all godliness under foot \ the vile courses their loose opinions soon carried them into, plainly discovered for what intents and purposes they wer? projected arid calculated : and he that reads the preface to that grave and learned Mr. Thomas Gataker's book, intitled, GoiTs eye upon Israel, will find, That some Antinomians of our days are not much behind the worst and vilest of them. One of them cries out. Away with the law, away with the law, it cuts off a man''s legs, and then bids him walk. Another saith. It is as possible Jbr Christ himself to sin, as for a child of God to sin. That if a man, by the Spirit, know him- self to be in a state of grace, though he be drunk or commit murder y God sees no sin in him. With much more of the same bran, which I will not transcribe.
But others there are, whose judgments are unhappily tainted and leavened with those loose doctrines ; yet being in the main godly persons, they dare not take liberty to sin, or live in the neglect of known duties, though their principles too much incline that way ; but though they dare not, others will, who imbibe corrupt notions from them ; and the renowned piety of the authors wrll be no an- tidote against the danger, but make the poison opei'ate the more powerfully, by receiving it in such a vehicle. Now it is higlily probable, such men as these might be charmed into such dangerous opinions, upon such accounts as these :
1. It is like some of them might have felt in themselves the an- guish of a perplexed conscience under sin, and not being able to live with these terrors of the law, and dismal fears of conscience, might too hastily snatch at those doctrines which promise them re- lief and ease, as I noted before in the fifth Cause of my Treatise of Errors. And that this is not a guess at random, will appear from the very title page of Mr. Saltmarsh's book of free-grace, where (as an inducement to the reader to swallow his Antinomian doctrine) he shews him this curious bait.
It is (saith he) an experiment of Jesus Christ upon one who hath been in the bondage of a troubled conscience, at times, for the space
Call, adversus Libert, c. 8.
554 THE SECOND APPENDIX.
of about Urhe year 9^ tUl now upon a dearer discovery of Jesus Christ m the gospel, ^r.
2. Others have been induced to espouse these opinions from the excess of their zeal against the errors of the Papists, who have no- toriously corrupted the doctrine of justification by free grace; de- cried impidcd, and exalted inherent righteousness above it. The Papists have designedly and industriously sealed up the scriptures from the people, lest they should there discover those sovereign and effectual remedies, Avhich God hath provided for their dis- tressed consciences, in the riches of his own grace, and the merito- rious death of Christ; and so all their masses, pilgrimages, auri- adar confessions, with all their dear indulgencies, should lie upon their hands as stale and cheap commodities. Oh, (said Stephen Gardiner) let not this gap of free grace be opened to the people.
But as soon as the light of reformation had discovered the free grace of God to sinners, (which is indeed the only effectual remedy oi distressed consciences) and by the same light the horrid cheats of the man of sin were discovered ; all good men, who w^ere en- lightened by the reformation, justly and deeply abhorred Popery, as the enemy of the grace of God and true peace of conscience, and fixed themselves upon the sound and comfortable doctrines of justi- fication by faith through the alone righteousness of Christ. Mean- while, thankfully acknowledging, that they who believe, ought also to maintain good works. But others there were, transported by an indiscreet zeal, who have almost bended the grace of God as far too much the other way, and have both spoken and written many things very unbecoming the grace of God, and tending to looseness and neglect of duty.
3. It is manifest, that others of them have been ingulphed and sucked into those dangerous quicksands of Antinomian errors, by separating the Spirit from the written word. If once a man pretend the Spirit without the scriptures to be his rule, whither will not his own deluding fancies carry him, under a vain and sinful pretence of the Spirit "^
In the year 1528, when Helsar, Traier, and Seekler, were con- futed by Hallerus ; and their errors about oaths, magistrates and p^do-baptism, were detected by him and by Colveus at Bern, that w^hich they had to say for themselves was, That the Spirit taught them otherwise titan the tetter of the Scriptures speah. So danger- ous it is to separate what God hath conjoined, and father our own fancies upon the Holy Spirit.
4. And it is not unlike, but a comparative weakness, and inju- diciousness of mind, meeting with a fervent zeal for Christ and his glory, may induce others to espouse such taking, and plausible, though pernicious docliines ; tliey are not aware of the dangerous
OF ANTINOAIIANISM. , 555
eonsequents of the opinions they embrace, and what looseness may be occasioned by them : I speak not of occasions taken, but given, by such opinions and expressions ; a good man will draw excellent inferences of duty from the very same doctrine. Instance that of the shortness of time, from whence the apostle infers abstinence, strictness, and diligence, 1 Cor. vii. 29. but the Epicure infers all manner of dissolute and licentious practices, " Let us eat and drink, " for to-niorrow we shall die,"" 1 Cor. xv. 22. The best doctrines arc this way liable to abuse.