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Puritan Responses to Antinomianism in the Context Of Puritan Responses to Antinomianism in the Context of Reformed Covenant Theology: 1630 – 1696 Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Christopher Earl Caughey 1 Summary This thesis analyzes the way in which six seventeenth-century puritans from both sides of the Atlantic responded to antinomians—those accused of rejecting divine law—and the methods these six puritans used in their responses. In his book Blown by the Spirit (2004), David Como has divided seventeenth-century antinomians into two camps: “inherentists/perfectionists” and “imputationists.” The former were mystical and held esoteric beliefs, while the latter were more theological—even citing Martin Luther in their support. While this thesis does not focus on either group of antinomians, the six puritans whose microhistories are studied tended to focus their response on the imputationists. T.D. Bozeman has argued in The Precisianist Strain (2004) that a strict moralism and rigorous pietism permeated the puritan community and provoked the imputationists to an “antinomian backlash.” This thesis will employ the microhistories of John Cotton, Edward Fisher, John Owen, John Bunyan, Samuel Petto and Herman Witsius in an analysis of the controversy surrounding the antinomian backlash. Part of what makes these six figures so helpful in this analysis is their liminal status within the puritan community. Cotton, Owen and Petto were Independents and Bunyan was a Baptist—all outside the communions which tended to be in powerful positions like the Presbyterians and the Anglicans. Fisher probably held membership, but not office, in a Presbyterian church. Finally, Witsius was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church and became an outside voice in the controversy only because a group of English puritans asked him to mediate their own conflict over antinomianism. Though the majority report among puritan theologians was that the Mosaic covenant which God made with Israel was simply one of many administrations of the 2 one covenant of grace, this thesis has found that all six of the figures above believed that the Mosaic covenant was, in some sense, a covenant of works. The distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace was the way the Calvinist wing of the Reformation developed Luther’s breakthrough regarding the sharp contrast between the law and the gospel. The law and the covenant of works were based upon the principle of justice so that curses were meted out for disobedience and rewards were bestowed for obedience. The gospel and the covenant of grace were based upon the principle of grace which meant that God freely gave believers salvific blessings on the basis of Jesus’ perfectly obedient life, sacrificial death and victorious resurrection. The significance of these six figures’ view of the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works is that it provided them with a method to protect believers from the legalism, moralism and pietism that had provoked the antinomian backlash. Since the Ten Commandments had been imbedded in a covenant of works, those commandments could no longer threaten curses or promise rewards to believers who were no longer under the Mosaic covenant. Yet these six puritans also held that the substance of the Ten Commandments continued to bind all people—especially Christians—because the were the reflection of the character of the unchanging God and because they were written on the hearts of human creatures created in God’s image. Thus, Cotton, Fisher, Owen, Bunyan, Petto and Witsius all had what they perceived to be correction to offer the imputationist antinomians. 3 Antinomianism in the Trans-Atlantic World: 1630-1696: By Chris Caughey Contents Introduction 6 Chapter 1: John Cotton (1585-1652) and the New England Antinomian Controversy of 1636-1638 44 Chapter 2: Edward Fisher (1626-1648) and the Mixed Reception oF The Marrow of Modern Divinity 74 Chapter 3: John Owen (1616-1683) on the Mosaic Covenant and the Law 101 Chapter 4: John Bunyan (1628-1688), Variegated Antinomianism and the Appropriation oF Luther 129 Chapter 5: Samuel Petto (1624-1711) on the Conditionality of the Mosaic Covenant 169 Chapter 6: Herman Witsius (1636-1708): Mediator of the Antinomian Controversy oF the 1690s 201 Conclusion 227 References 247 4 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the instruction, encouragement and support of a number of people. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor Crawford Gribben for his probing criticism of my work, and yet his belief in my abilities. He has pushed me to become a better writer and a more careful thinker. I am also grateful to Darryl Hart and Michael Horton who wrote recommendations for my application to Trinity College Dublin. Drs. Hart and Horton have been profoundly influential on my own thinking, and I hope I can be at least half the scholars they are. I owe a debt to Tim Cooper who was kind enough to meet with me to discuss my work while he was visiting Dublin. He has also been available to answer questions and evaluate ideas since then. I would also like to thank Mark Karlberg for his encouragement to pursue puritan studies, and his suggestion of Herman Witsius as a subject of study. Dr. Karlberg and I share in common the mentorship of the late Dr. Meredith G. Kline, who has formed my thinking more than any other human being. I would also like to thank Rev. Michael Brown who has published a great deal on puritans and who was an encouragement to me as I worked on my thesis. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Rev. Doug McMasters who helped me tremendously in my efforts to contextualize the puritans I studied. Finally, I owe my deepest gratitude to my wife Tiffany. Though it was not possible for her and our daughters to accompany me to Ireland, she insisted that I go and pursue doctoral studies. She encouraged me on a daily basis, even as she carried on with work, helping kids with homework, and many other life tasks—all as a single parent. She deserves a degree for putting me through. 5 Introduction A seventeenth century English clergyman named Thomas Edwards received many letters reporting the bad behavior of adherents of the many sects which had sprung up in the chaos of the civil wars. Two in particular stand out. In December 1645, a concerned person wrote with a report of a recent scandalous baptism. The sacrament had been administered by a minister associated with one of the recently established Baptist churches, and the baptismal candidate had been a naked woman. Feeling modest, the woman attempted to cover herself with her hands while waiting for the minister to finish his baptismal prayer before she entered the water. The minister told the woman that holding her hands downward was an “unseemly sight.” After all, this was an ordinance of Jesus Christ, and so she should put her hands where her heart was – lifted up to heaven. Six months later Edwards received a report about a different kind of baptismal incident. A company of soldiers, led by a Captain Beamant and quartered at Yakesly in Huntingtonshire, had seen a child being carried through the town to the church in order to be presented for baptism. The lieutenant of the company, an opponent of infant baptism, quickly ordered two of his men to impede the baptismal procession and guard the entrance to the church. Not yet content, some of the soldiers entered the church building and filled the baptismal font with urine. Then they went to a local stable, stole a horse and led it back into the church where they proceeded to baptize it, instead of the child.1 1 Thomas Edwards, Gangraena: Or a Catalogue and Discovery of Many of the Errours, Heresies, Blasphemies and Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of This Time, Vented and Acted in England in These Last Four Years: As Also, a Particular Narration of Divers Stories, Remarkable Passages, Letters; an Extract of Many Letters, All Concerning the Present Sects; Together With Some Observations Upon, and Corollaries From all the Fore-Named Premisses, (London: 1645), pp. 54-57; The third part of Gangraena. Or, A new and higher discovery of the errors, heresies and blasphemies, and insolent proceedings of the sectaries of these times, (London: 1646), p. 68. 6 Such stories were understandably troubling to many devout seventeenth- century Christians. That is precisely why Thomas Edwards cataloged reports of these outrages in Gangraena, a book which began as an 800-page single volume and grew to a three-volume set that still failed to record everything that concerned him. Though Edwards was a Church of England curate, his goal had been to foment widespread, popular opposition to every church and sect outside of the Presbyterian system which he supported. But his project failed. Although Gangraena became a best-selling text, it did not have its intended effect. Presbyterian discipline never exercised effective social control in England, and the antinomian sects continued to spawn new leaders, books and followers.2 One of the most notable opponents of the spread of antinomianism was Richard Baxter. A contemporary of Edwards’s, Baxter was not only consumed with the practice of Christianity, but was also a controversialist. Baxter regarded antinomianism as perhaps the worst of all possible belief systems, because he was sure that it produced the deleterious opposite of Christianity, namely, immorality. As Baxter saw it, the classical Protestant doctrine of justification was the necessary theological foundation for antinomianism, especially the forensic doctrine of imputation, which, if its increasing prominence in denominational confessions of faith is any indication, was growing in popularity throughout the seventeenth- century. The doctrine of forensic imputation argued for the imputation of Adam’s sin to all subsequent humanity, the imputation of believers’ sins to Christ on the cross, and the imputation of Christ’s perfect obedience to believers.
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