14. Later English Reformers. 269
just before the time of Wesley, was in great degree the result of Antinomian teaching. Many affirmed that Christ had abolished the moral law, and that Christians are therefore under no obligation to observe it; that a believer is freed from the“ bondage of good works.” Others, though admitting the perpetuity of the [ 261 ] law, declared that it was unnecessary for ministers to exhort the people to obedience of its precepts, since those whom God had elected to salvation would,“ by the irresistible impulse of divine grace, be led to the practice of piety and virtue,” while those who were doomed to eternal reprobation“ did not have power to obey the divine law.”
Others, also holding that“ the elect cannot fall from grace nor forfeit the divine favor,” arrived at the still more hideous conclusion that“ the wicked actions they commit are not really sinful, nor to be considered as instances of their violation of the divine law, and that consequently they have no occasion either to confess their sins or to break them off by repentance.” 377 Therefore, they declared that even one of the vilest of sins,“ considered universally an enormous violation of the divine law, is not a sin in the sight of God,” if committed by one of the elect,“ because it is one of the essential and distinctive characteristics of the elect, that they cannot do anything that is either displeasing to God or prohibited by the law.”
These monstrous doctrines are essentially the same as the later teaching of popular educators and theologians,— that there is no unchangeable divine law as the standard of right, but that the standard of morality is indicated by society itself, and has constantly been subject to change. All these ideas are inspired by the same master-spirit,— by him who, even among the sinless inhabitants of heaven, began his work of seeking to break down the righteous restraints of the law of God.
The doctrine of the divine decrees, unalterably fixing the char-
377 McClintock and Strong ' s Cyclopædia, art. Antinomians( ed. 1871).