Antinomian Hyper-Calvinism versus the Law and the Gospel:
A New Focus Interview with George M. Ella
Q. The 18th century controversy regarding Hyper-Calvinism and Antinomianism seems to have emerged again in recent years and, although your book William Huntington: Pastor of Providence has been welcomed by many, a few voices maintain that you have opened old wounds and should have let …
Posts Tagged Antinomian
Men Not Gods
Sep 9
… sedition, tyranny, lawlessness and obnoxiousness in them. Furthermore, Rutherford is treated by Antinomian politico-religious extremists as a saintly martyr for being punished for crimes condemned by all civilized societies though Rutherford’s own case-law justice was arbitrary and merciless. When Cromwell’s Westminster Assembly sat, each member had Rutherford’s Lex Rex in his hands. This first major work of the Enlightenment, published 150 years before Tom Paine’s similar ideas, …
Harmon on Fuller
Nov 7
… Calvinists although they were both Sublapsarians. Fuller grew up in an extreme High-Calvinist, Antinomian and Johnsonian church and pastored it for some time. His Hyper-Calvinistic teaching that the full gospel was for believers only never left him and would have shocked Gill who believed in preaching the whole gospel to all. He certainly shocked Huntington, a free-offer man in the Marrow Men sense. It was sturdy Dan Taylor of the New Connection who warned Fuller that he had departed from …
… opposite was the case in the bitter debate concerning the Law which came to be referred to as the Antinomian Controversy. William Huntington (1745-1813), who took the side of the Law as God’s eternal standard, had a mere few months’ schooling and before becoming a pastor, was a coalman’s labourer. Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) who took up the cudgels for an abolition of the Covenant of Works and a Law emptied of its condemning and commanding power, was raised on a farm, received very little …
… Chapters 6-7: The Fullerite fear of William Huntington
Oliver calls Huntington an Antinomian, defining Doctrinal Antinomianism as the belief that the law plays no part in the believer’s life and Practical Antinomianism as the belief that Christians are freed from all codes of conduct. However, Huntington stresses using the law lawfully and argues that the book of the law will be opened at the Day of Judgement as the deciding test of those who are under the law to the Devil …
… privilege and tradition before the law. Our present churches are sadly engaged in yet another Antinomian-Neonomian controversy and as this controversy was also rampant in Lady Huntingdon’s day, it would have helped readers to understand the modern problem if Mrs Cook had explained Lady Huntingdon’s part in the 18th century debate. The authoress merely mentions in a footnote that “some have even accused the Countess herself” of being an Antinomian. It would have been opportune to …
… and thus disagrees with him strongly, though he finds Saltmarsh a godly man and certainly no Antinomian. He is less critical of Crisp but still finds little in him concerning the question of union with Christ under debate. Hussey is not even mentioned in the work. Perhaps Muller, with Hussey at the back of his mind, is misunderstanding Gill when speaking on exhorting to repentance where Gill is arguing for the right kind of exhortation not for a suppression of it. He is saying that …
Robert Oliver on Huntington
Aug 15
… however, concluding from this exposition that human responsibility is not required must be an Antinomian indeed. Natural abilities are not the custodians of faith but God-given responsibilities through God-given grace are. God’s eternal standards, reflected in his eternal Law, also reflect His eternal nature and the eternal nature of His Son. These eternal standards are now our eternal standards. They were never recognised as such before we were saved as we could never attain them to …
… are under the gospel. There was no law-gospel mishmash for him! Wesley told Hervey that he was an Antinomian. Bannerism would agree but they claim not to be Arminians themselves but reformed men. Think too of Whitefield and Romaine on actual justification. It was Whitefield’s sermon on justification which sealed Hervey’s salvation but this sermon is Antinomian to modern hunters of Hyper-Calvinists. Romaine has already been thrown out by the Banner. Did not Iain deny in a Banner article …
