The writings of Baxter alone, show how unjust is the reproach that has sometimes been thrown on Protestant dissenters; that when the interests of Protestantism were exposed to imminent danger, they stood aloof, allowing the champions of the church of England to fight all its battles. The leading Nonconformists all took part in this controversy with Rome, as far as could be expected from men in their circumstances. But it would be unreasonable to look for the same efforts from persons deprived of their means of living, often separated from books, destitute of the means of procuring them, as from persons who were in possession of the dignified leisure and profusion of assistance, afforded by a wealthy establishment. But even under all these disadvantages, none of the dignified clergy wrote so voluminously, and few of them wrote so well on this subject, as Richard Baxter.

CHAPTER IX.

WORKS ON ANTINOMIANISM.

The Nature of Antinomianism—Its Appearance at the Reformation—Originated in Popery-Origin in England-The Sentiments of Crisp-Baxter's early Hostility to it-The chief Subject of his Confession of Faith '—Dr. Fowler-Baxter's Holiness the Design of Christianity'-' Appeal to the Light'—' Treatise of Justifying Righteousness’—Publication of Crisp's Works-Controversy which ensued-Baxter's Scripture Gospel Defended' -The Influence of his Writings and Preaching on Antinomianism-Leading Errors of the System.

AN inspired apostle, speaking of the law of God, declares that “it is holy, just, and good." It is a manifestation of the moral purity of the divine character, a statement of the relations which subsist between God and his creatures, with a view of the equitable claims to homage and obedience which those relations imply. While its every requirement breathes the perfect benevolence of its Author, the whole tends to promote the happiness of those who obey it.

Antinomianism is enmity to this law; hatred of its purity, opposition to its justice, or suspicion of its benevolence. In this naked form of the matter, it is scarcely probable that there is, under the profession of religion, a single Antinomian in the world. The sanity of that individual would be justly questionable who should maintain principles so incompatible with the common sense of mankind, and obviously subversive of the moral order of the universe.

The fact, however, is undoubted, that many persons have adopted views of the religion of Christ which virtually imply

a renunciation of regard to the divine law, and tend to the entire subversion of its authority. If in their own practice there is not a violation of its precepts, they are careful it should be understood that their conduct is not indebted to the law for regulation or purity, and that they deny its claims to any authority over them. They assert the freedom of believers in Christ, from the canon as well as from the curse of the law; and that if they do what is required, it is not because it is there enjoined, or because there is any longer danger of its penalty, but because grace secures provision for holiness, and makes the believer complete in Christ.

These views are alleged to be essential to the glory of the Gospel, to exalt the grace of Christ, and to be essentially necessary to Christian peace and comfort. Other sentiments are proscribed as legal, or anti-evangelical, expressive of low views of the Saviour, indicative of a state of bondage and servility of spirit, and inconsistent with Christian confidence and liberty. The parties are thus at issue on first principles. They occupy no common ground. The Scriptures are in vain appealed to, a large portion of them being virtually abrogated, and a system of interpretation adopted setting at defiance all rules, and destructive of all enlightened deductions.

It is worthy of attention that sentiments of the above description were associated at an early period with the Protestant Reformation. Agricola, one of the friends and coadjutors of Luther, publicly avowed opinions respecting the law, which Luther found it necessary to resist and expose. He perceived the tendency of such views, not only to bring reproach on the principles of the Reformation, but to open the flood-gates of impiety, and subvert the grace of Christ itself; which his vain, unsteady, and ill-taught associate, pretended greatly to honour. The zeal and enlightened efforts of Luther, however, though they counteracted, could not altogether eradicate the evil prin

ciples which were then disseminated, and in some quarters carried to the utmost excess of riot and profligacy.

To account for this, it is not sufficient to refer to the depravity of human nature, and a tendency to abuse the best things. Reference to the doctrines of the papal church, and to the prodigious revolution that took place in the minds of men, on the most important subjects, when the light of truth first burst in upon them, will enable us to solve in a satisfactory manner an apparently difficult problem, and to throw the disgrace of Antinomianism,-the opprobrium of Protestantism, on Popery itself.

On

Under that horrid system of delusion and unrighteousness, salvation is regarded as almost exclusively a human transaction, in which the Deity has a remote concern, but which must be, in a great measure, effected by man for himself, or in co-operation with his fellow mortals. The doctrines of the merit of good works, of the efficacy of penance, of the sacrifice of the mass offered by priestly hands, of the intercession of saints, and of the purification of purgatory, all tended to create the idea that redemption from sin and from wrath, with the cure of all the evils of our nature, belongs to man himself, and that the Almighty interferes in it only as he is acted upon by his creatures. God's part no room is left for the exercise of grace; all is ob tained as matter of rightful claim, or extorted by a system of barter and importunity. On the part of man, while the system seems to bring salvation within his own power, it really deprives him of every satisfactory hope of obtaining it. It either puffs him up with pride and self-conceit, derived from erroneous notions of his own virtues, or depresses him with despair of accomplishing his object by his own feeble and unaided efforts. The law (but the law degraded, obscured, and perverted) is the only part of religion recognised by Popery.

The German Reformer discovered at an early period of his career this grand flaw, the origo mali, of the whole system, or

mystery of iniquity. It had put God out of his own place in the administration of the world; had seated a usurper on his throne, and made man himself that usurper. In the economy of redemption, Luther discovered that God, and not the creature, is the main worker; that grace, not equity, is the great principle of the divine conduct towards fallen creatures; that by the deeds of the law, no flesh can be justified before God: and hence, that salvation by faith, not by works, is the grand subject of Christianity. The doctrine of gratuitous justification, he, therefore, contended for as the leading truth of the Gospel. As the ground of hope, he opposed it to every system of self-righteousness, to all supposed conformity to God's own law, and to every accommodation of that law to human imperfection. He regarded salvation as that which could not be purchased by human merit, or secured as the reward of any service or suffering of man.

So much importance did Luther attach to this doctrine, that he not only viewed it as the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ; he himself looked at the law with something like suspicion of its being unfriendly to the grace of Christ, Jealousy for the honour of the main principle of his system, led him frequently to employ language about the law, unguarded and dangerous in its tendency; and to speak both of James and his Epistle, as if he considered them inimical to his sentiments. Notwithstanding this, the general views of Luther were too enlightened and scriptural to consist with any important or practical error. He took care to obviate the inferences men might draw from some of his statements, by explanations, or caveats, that sufficiently mark the limits within which they must be understood.

Considering the number who adopted the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith, it would have been strange had they all made a judicious use of it. Unfortunately, some of those who received it with apparent joy, could see no other doctrine in the Bible. Convinced of the hopelessness of justification by the