Antinomian doctrines by Baxter - Chaff from wheat

Status
Not open for further replies.

Solparvus

Puritan Board Senior
Another post concerning Baxter. Sorry guys, I may not be off the Baxter bandwagon for a while.

What is below comes from Baxter's directions to new and weak Christians in the section where he warns against antinomianism. I understand that Baxter got off in his Neonomian trajectory In overreaction to the antinomianism he had witnessed while an army chaplain. In the section Baxter lists a number of antinomian doctrines. Some truly are antinomian, though others I'm wondering if he might be misunderstanding a real Gospel.

I'm asking because I'd like to repost this on my blog, though I want to make sure the whole of it is sound in itself.

Now, these were all originally in one block of text. It's me that broke them out into paragraphs.

Antinomian doctrines:
  1. The moral law is abrogated, and that the Gospel is no law; (and if there be no law, there is no governor or government, no duty, no sin, no judgment, no punishment, no reward
  2. that the elect are justified before they are born, or repent, or believe;
  3. that their sin is pardoned before it is committed, that God took them as suffering and fulfilling all the law in Christ, as if it had been they that did it in him:
  4. that we are justified by faith only in our consciences:
  5. that justifying faith is but the believing that we are justified:
  6. that every man must believe that he is pardoned, that he may be pardoned in his conscience; and this he is to do by a Divine faith, and that this is the sense of the article, ‘ I believe the forgiveness of sins,” that is, that my sins are forgiven; and that all are forgiven that believe it:
  7. that it is legal and sinful to work or do any thing for salvation:
  8. that sin once pardoned need not be confessed and lamented, or at least we need not ask pardon of sin daily, or of one sin oft:
  9. that castigations are no punishments;
  10. and yet no other punishment is threatened to believers for their sins;
  11. and, consequently, that Christ hath not procured them a pardon of any sin after believing, but prevented all necessity of pardon :
  12. and therefore they must not ask pardon of them, nor do any thing to obtain it:
  13. that fear of hell must have no hand in our obedience, or restraint from sin.
  14. And some add, that he that cannot repent or believe, must comfort himself that Christ repented and believed for him: (a contradiction.)”
#1 is truly antinomian in the first part, but I suspect neonomian in the second part. Or might there be a sense even in orthodox theology that this latter statement is false? If you want to say that the Gospel is a new set of legal conditions, then dead-wrong. But it's also wrong to say that the Gospel comes with no commands. Faith itself is commanded.

#3 I'm not sure what to think. When the Spirit applies Christ's redemption then certainly we have died and rose with Christ. Is he saying the antinomian heresy is that the elect before believing have participated in his death? Makes sense if you take it as a statement in conjunction with #2 and #4.

Thoughts welcome on any and all of these, and if any of them smells like he's mistaken Gospel truth for antinomianism. Would prefer not to debate the man himself right now.
 
Jake, Have you read "The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification" (Walter Marshall)? Chapter 6 especially deals with this issue. If you have the edition with the introduction by Joel Beeke, Beeke is very specific in how to deal with the error of Baxter. I don't have time to go through it right now (I read the book some time ago) but I did find it helpful personally.

I mentioned some time back that Richard Sibbes is wonderful in dealing with difficult pastoral issues. Sibbes is emphatic in his advice that we need to get Justification and Sanctification in their correct Biblical balance. In that light I am unconvinced that Baxter is pastorally helpful.
 
Jake, Have you read "The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification" (Walter Marshall)? Chapter 6 especially deals with this issue. If you have the edition with the introduction by Joel Beeke, Beeke is very specific in how to deal with the error of Baxter. I don't have time to go through it right now (I read the book some time ago) but I did find it helpful personally.

I mentioned some time back that Richard Sibbes is wonderful in dealing with difficult pastoral issues. Sibbes is emphatic in his advice that we need to get Justification and Sanctification in their correct Biblical balance. In that light I am unconvinced that Baxter is pastorally helpful.

Bypassing Baxter on this one. Some of the above is antinomian, but he has a tendency to mistake some Gospel doctrines as antinomianism. Let the chaff disappear. He's not safe here.

Reading my copy of Marshall... with Beeke's introduction.
 
Last edited:
@RPEphesian - William Cunningham has a useful discussion concerning Richard Baxter's value as an apologist in his Theological Lectures, Lecture XVII, pp 224ff.

Thank you, I will look at this. His reasoning with the unconverted at the very outset of Christian Directory is stunning, so I can see his use in apologetics.

Would you have anything on a profitable use of Christian Directory overall? Some amazing things in this volume, but as shown from the OP, there are some tinctures of his theology scattered in. I can't help but think his frequent mention of "consent" is related to his peppercorn rent analogy and that his references to perseverance or mortification are connected to an influence on making faith to be a saving one.

Baxter is an enigma. None of us would imbibe his view on justification, yet he's valued as a gift to the church in some of his works, of which it seems acknowledged the Christian Directory to be the magnum opus.
 
Would you have anything on a profitable use of Christian Directory overall?

I do not, off the top of my head, know any sources that have analysed the text in great detail. I think there was something in the Puritan Reformed Theological Journal relatively recently that considered Richard Baxter's views of the slave-trade as set forth in A Christian Directory.

As for reading that tome, Gary North's advice on reading massive books is too the point here: You read a really big book in the same way that you would eat an elephant - in small chunks. Read about 5-10 pages a day/week and you will slowly start to make your way through it. I finished reading it over a decade ago. I believe it took me 3 1/2 years to do so via mostly just reading a small portion of it on each Lord's Day.
 
Another post concerning Baxter. Sorry guys, I may not be off the Baxter bandwagon for a while.

What is below comes from Baxter's directions to new and weak Christians in the section where he warns against antinomianism. I understand that Baxter got off in his Neonomian trajectory In overreaction to the antinomianism he had witnessed while an army chaplain. In the section Baxter lists a number of antinomian doctrines. Some truly are antinomian, though others I'm wondering if he might be misunderstanding a real Gospel.

I'm asking because I'd like to repost this on my blog, though I want to make sure the whole of it is sound in itself.

Now, these were all originally in one block of text. It's me that broke them out into paragraphs.

Antinomian doctrines:
  1. The moral law is abrogated, and that the Gospel is no law; (and if there be no law, there is no governor or government, no duty, no sin, no judgment, no punishment, no reward
  2. that the elect are justified before they are born, or repent, or believe;
  3. that their sin is pardoned before it is committed, that God took them as suffering and fulfilling all the law in Christ, as if it had been they that did it in him:
  4. that we are justified by faith only in our consciences:
  5. that justifying faith is but the believing that we are justified:
  6. that every man must believe that he is pardoned, that he may be pardoned in his conscience; and this he is to do by a Divine faith, and that this is the sense of the article, ‘ I believe the forgiveness of sins,” that is, that my sins are forgiven; and that all are forgiven that believe it:
  7. that it is legal and sinful to work or do any thing for salvation:
  8. that sin once pardoned need not be confessed and lamented, or at least we need not ask pardon of sin daily, or of one sin oft:
  9. that castigations are no punishments;
  10. and yet no other punishment is threatened to believers for their sins;
  11. and, consequently, that Christ hath not procured them a pardon of any sin after believing, but prevented all necessity of pardon :
  12. and therefore they must not ask pardon of them, nor do any thing to obtain it:
  13. that fear of hell must have no hand in our obedience, or restraint from sin.
  14. And some add, that he that cannot repent or believe, must comfort himself that Christ repented and believed for him: (a contradiction.)”
#1 is truly antinomian in the first part, but I suspect neonomian in the second part. Or might there be a sense even in orthodox theology that this latter statement is false? If you want to say that the Gospel is a new set of legal conditions, then dead-wrong. But it's also wrong to say that the Gospel comes with no commands. Faith itself is commanded.

#3 I'm not sure what to think. When the Spirit applies Christ's redemption then certainly we have died and rose with Christ. Is he saying the antinomian heresy is that the elect before believing have participated in his death? Makes sense if you take it as a statement in conjunction with #2 and #4.

Thoughts welcome on any and all of these, and if any of them smells like he's mistaken Gospel truth for antinomianism. Would prefer not to debate the man himself right now.
A lot of them are not too helpful outside self examination of intent... I think of it more in the context of hyper grace, not presumption of justification unto salvation..... which can be so inward it’s ignoring fruit of the spirit.
 
I do not, off the top of my head, know any sources that have analysed the text in great detail. I think there was something in the Puritan Reformed Theological Journal relatively recently that considered Richard Baxter's views of the slave-trade as set forth in A Christian Directory.

As for reading that tome, Gary North's advice on reading massive books is too the point here: You read a really big book in the same way that you would eat an elephant - in small chunks. Read about 5-10 pages a day/week and you will slowly start to make your way through it. I finished reading it over a decade ago. I believe it took me 3 1/2 years to do so via mostly just reading a small portion of it on each Lord's Day.

From what I can see he's not made you a heretic. Anything on sorting out wheat and theological chaff in the practical writings?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top