AN'TINOWIANISM (Gk. 1.-i, anti, against cOpoc, nomos, law). The doctrine or opinion that Christians are freed from obligation to keep the law of God. It is generally regarded by the advocates of the doctrine of justification by faith as a monstrous abuse and perversion of that doctrine, upon which it usually professes to be based. From several passages of the New Testa ment, as Romans vi and 11. Peter ii : 18, 19, it would seem that. a tendency to antinominnism had manifested itself even in the apostolic age; and many of the Gnostic sects were really anti nomian, as were probably also some of the heret ical sects of the :Middle Ages; but the term was first used at the time of the Reformation, when it was applied by Luther to the opinions advo cated by John Agricola. Agricola had adopted the principles of the Reformation; but in 1527 he found fault with Melanclithon for recommend the use of the law, and particularly of the Ten Commandments, in order to produce convic tion and repentance, which he doemed inconsist ent with the Gospel. Ten years after, he main tained, in a disputation at NVittenberg, that as men are justified simply by the Gospel, the law is in no way necessary for justification nor for sanctification. The "Antinomian Controversy" of this time, in which Luther took a very active part, terminated in 1540 in a relractation by Agricola; but views more extreme than his were afterVard advocated by sonic of the English sec taries of the period of the Commonwealth; and, without being formally professed by a distinct sect, antinomianism has been from time to time reproduced with various modifications. It ought,
however, to be borne in tonal that the term antinomianism has no reference to the conduct, but only to the opinions of men; so that men who practically disregard and violate the known law of God, are not and it is certain enough that men really holding opin ions more or less antinomian have in many eases been men of moral life. It is also to be observed that the term antinomianism has been applied to opinions differing very much front each other. In its most extreme sense it denotes the rejection of the moral law as no longer binding upon Chris tians, and a power or privilege is asserted for the saints to do what they please without preju dice to their sanctity, it being maintained that to them nothing is sinful ; and this is represented as the perfection of Christian liberty. But be sides this extreme antinomianism, than which nothing can be more repugnant to Christianity. there is also sometimes designated by this term the opinion of those who refuse to seek or to see in the Bible any positive laws binding upon Christians, and regard them as left to the guid ance of Gospel principles and the constraint of Christian love; an opinion which, whatever may be thought of its tendency, is certainly not to be deemed of the same character with the other. Probably the antinomianism that does not arise out of a dislike of morality usually originates in mistaken notions of Christian liberty, or in confusion of views as to the relation between the moral law and the Jewish law of ceremonial ordinances.