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Wasn't he an antinomian (or so it was alleged)?
That in respect of the rules of righteousness, or the matter of obedience, we are under the law still; or else we are lawless, to live every man as seems good in his own eyes, which I know no true christian dares so much as think; for Christ hath given no new law diverse from this, to order our conversation aright by
Thanks for the link; that is no antinomian.
Christ Alone Exalted by Tobias Crisp
"Antinomians, contending for faith of assurance, and leading men to be persuaded that God loveth every one, whom he commandeth to believe, with an everlasting love, and that ‘no man ought to call in question more whether he believe or no, than he ought to question the gospel and Christ,’ do with Libertines acknowledge a faith of assurance, but deny all faith of dependence on God through Christ, as if we were not justified by such a faith." – Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, 2:235.
I give you a select few quotes from Crisp that are cause for great conern:
"[Man] is first justified before he believes, then he believes that he is justified" Fifty-Two Sermons pp.86, 91. In fact to restrict justification to after man's believing is to bring to life the covenant of works again!! (See. "Christ Alone Exalted Volume III (1648)" pp.237-238). This goes along with his stress that there are no conditions to the covenant of grace which of course runs counter to the Puritan understanding that faith was a condition as expressed in the WLC.
"Even the most blameless walking according to God's law not only before, but after conversion is truly counted but loss and dung" (Seventeene Sermons p.6).
...the Westminster Assembly condemned Crisps works because they believed he was antinomian!
Going on to say "There is no person under heaven shall be saved till he have believed. This I grant; yet this will not make faith to be the condition of the covenant." This thereby demonstrates that he does not differ with Westminster regarding condition. He is rightfull sceptical of the term because of its abuse by Arminians.
See Larger Catechism, answer 32, "requiring faith as the condition to interest them in Him."
Concerning the quoted portion of Witsius, unlike Crisp, he qualified himself so as to show that Scripture "exhibits the form of the covenant of grace in a conditional style," and "in this sense some condition is to be admitted in the covenant of grace; inasmuch as it signifies a duty according to the will of God, to be performed by man, in a manner agreeable to the nature of that covenant, before he enter upon the possession of consummate salvation." (Chap. 14, sect. 9.) It is this apect of Christianity which Crispianity negates.
["Even the most blameless walking according to God's law not only before, but after conversion is truly counted but loss and dung" (Seventeene Sermons p.6).
I am sorry but I am unable to find this in Crisp's writings. Could you provide a reference?
This is the only reference I have for it. Sorry. I know it is somewhat confusing since there are several different editions of Crisp's works that people use--usuall with Gill's annotations.
...the Westminster Assembly condemned Crisps works because they believed he was antinomian!
Could you cite evidence?
Ernst Kevan in his "The Grace of Law" page 25 says, "The leaders of the Antinomian party were named in a petition to the House of Commons by the Westminster Assembly on 10 August, 1643, when the books they complained of were Crisp's 'Christ Alone Exalted...'". Kevan cites SW Carruthers' "Everyday Work of the Westminster Assembly" p. 86. I do not have the book ready at hand to cite for myself.
Crisp laid two foundations in the building that would rise into hypercalvinism in the next century.
David Parnham, "The Humbling of 'High Presumption': Tobias Crisp Dismantles the Puritan Ordo Salutis" Journal of Ecclesiastical History 56/2 (2005):50-74.
David Parnham, "The Covenantal Quietism of Tobias Crisp", Church History 75/3 (2006):511-541.
Furthermore, added to David Como's work on Antinomianism, two other recent works that are helpful are:
T. D. Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion and Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638. The University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Tim Cooper, Fear and Polemic in Seventeenth-Century England: Richard Baxter and Antinomianism. Ashgate Publishing Company, 2001.
God makes a covenant with the elect. God in that covenant promised to give the elect faith. Therefore faith is not a condition of the covenant but a blessing of it. That is all, in my opinion, Crisp means and that is how I interpret him.
In David Como's excellent book Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil War England , (pp.33-38) he lists 7 identifying features of what the Puritans understood to be "Antinomiansim". They are all well documented in the body of the book. These are...
1. "A propensity to argue that the Mosaic Law, including the Decalogue, was in some sense abolished, abrogated, or superseded for Christians." They always stressed that Christians would do good works (sometimes that even matched the teaching of the 10 commandments) spotaneously and freely but not because it was a rule.
2. "[an] aggressive polemical posture" against Puritan divinty which stressed sanctification through a rigorous use of the means of grace and such practices as strict Sabbath observance, fasting, and continuous repentance as the necessary outgrowth of and evidence of justification. Seeing sanctification and moral renovation as evidence of divine favor was termed "pharisaical" and savored of Rome.
3. "the propensity to use images and motifs common to puritanism to attack puritanism itself". Quite often they would borrow Puritan polemic against the Romanists for Rome's failure to understand justification and charge the puritans with the same thing in their teaching of sanctification.
4. "Against the strenuous active faith of mainstream puritanism, they stressed the total passivity of the believer". No human activity could have any bearing on assurance! Compare this the the chapter on assurance in the WCF.
5. While attempting to cry down human will and nature as impotent, antinomians ironically attributed to the saints a very exalted character that sometimes bordered on the supernatural (or a glorified state this side of eternity).
6. As believers were free from the law (in some sense) so were they free from sin in the sight of God. God, according to them, was incapable of seeing sin in his children. This was especially over and against what they viewed as the extreme and tortuous self-examination encouraged by Puritan divines.
7. A sense of assurance that was better than what puritans could offer.
I really appreciate Como's analysis because it makes us see that antinomianism was more complex and nuanced then the typical stereotype we have of them as mere libertines. As you read through Tobias Crisp's works you will find many of these standard antinomian themes.
I give you a select few quotes from Crisp that are cause for great conern:
"[Man] is first justified before he believes, then he believes that he is justified" Fifty-Two Sermons pp.86, 91. In fact to restrict justification to after man's believing is to bring to life the covenant of works again!! (See. "Christ Alone Exalted Volume III (1648)" pp.237-238). This goes along with his stress that there are no conditions to the covenant of grace which of course runs counter to the Puritan understanding that faith was a condition as expressed in the WLC.
Attacking mainstream Puritan preaching Crisp says of those who "fetch blood at the hearts of children with their causeless cautions, and then rejoice to see them in their spiritual afflictions, which methinks is an inhuman cruelty..." (Fiftw-Two Sermons p.411). This was his evaluation of the Puritan divinity and preaching many of us hold dear and biblical.
"Even the most blameless walking according to God's law not only before, but after conversion is truly counted but loss and dung" (Seventeene Sermons p.6).
"Righteousness is that which puts a man away from Christ" (Fifty-Two Sermons p.104). Many assume that Crisp speaks only about the unconverted sinner and this would ring true. But it must be borne in mind that Crisp and his colleagues were taking aim at those who sought after righteousness in sanctification as professing Christians.
Many more quotations could be multiplied. Notwithstanding the oft quoted statement from Twisse, in August 1643 the Westminster Assembly condemned Crisps works because they believed he was antinomian! Numerous Puritans who were very close to the debates lumped Crip in with Eaton and Traske and Towne. There is even much evidence that Crisp and his disciples were instrumental in publishing Eaton's works posthumously. Keep in mind that Eaton is called the father of English antinomianism. I would commend an article by Christopher Hill called "Dr Tobias Crisp, 1600-43" which can be found in his "Collected Essays" Volume 2.
THe fruits of ones discourse perpetrated by followers, cannot be blamed on the root. Crisp, who is a favorite of mine, could be reagrded as having hyper tendancies but he is not antinomian in the true historical sense of Agricola and his followers. Como sets up subjective straw men by creating new definitions for an antinmoian when in fact he is actually protecting the puritan image more than anything. So in fact he is saying that anyone who disagrees with the puritans on a myriad of things atumatically is classified an antinomian.
What crisp was actually fighting against was the experiential theology of Ames that became perverted into a morbid introspection stated in Como's point number 2. And he was correct in doing so. He was also fighting the extreme measure of ones assurance of salvation. Just as the cry of legalist is misused, so also is the cry of antinomian.
Where Crisp was blurry in my estimation was the 'Christ made sin" statements. He did tread some grey area there. But he definately was not an antinomian as Luther fought against in Agricola.
THe fruits of ones discourse perpetrated by followers, cannot be blamed on the root. Crisp, who is a favorite of mine, could be reagrded as having hyper tendancies but he is not antinomian in the true historical sense of Agricola and his followers. Como sets up subjective straw men by creating new definitions for an antinmoian when in fact he is actually protecting the puritan image more than anything. So in fact he is saying that anyone who disagrees with the puritans on a myriad of things atumatically is classified an antinomian.
What crisp was actually fighting against was the experiential theology of Ames that became perverted into a morbid introspection stated in Como's point number 2. And he was correct in doing so. He was also fighting the extreme measure of ones assurance of salvation. Just as the cry of legalist is misused, so also is the cry of antinomian.
Where Crisp was blurry in my estimation was the 'Christ made sin" statements. He did tread some grey area there. But he definately was not an antinomian as Luther fought against in Agricola.
I would highly commed to your reading the article which Marty suggested: David Parnham, "The Covenantal Quietism of Tobias Crisp", Church History 75/3 (2006):511-541.. It is superb. You are correct in that Crisp did set himself against the standard Puritan form of divinity in matters such as:
1. denial of conditions in the covenant of grace
2. removal of faith's "instrumental" role in justification.
3. down-playing of sanctified works as an evidence of justification.
4. A disproportionate weight to imputed righteousness versus infused.
However, to insist that only Agricola and the Libertines can be called "antinomian" is not fair historically. Like it or not there were numerous individuals who received the label "antinomian" in the 17th century who were not promoting libertinism. They may have disliked the term that their opponents used for them (as did many "puritans" originally!) but these individuals have certain defining traits that set them apart from mainstream puritanism. Como's list is helpful in my opinion and well documented.
Just as Anne Hutchinson was wrongly accused and excommunicated 100 years after, so is Crisp. And as Cotton betrayed her, many have betrayed the legacy of Crisp.
Just as Anne Hutchinson was wrongly accused and excommunicated 100 years after, so is Crisp. And as Cotton betrayed her, many have betrayed the legacy of Crisp.
Anne Hutchinson claimed immediate revelation from the Holy Spirit that allowed her to distinguish between legal preachers (the voice of John the Baptist) and preachers of grace. This was ultimately the fatal flaw that got her banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. David Hall has a work called "The Antinomian Controversy: 1636-1638 A Documentary History". There are transcripts of her civil and ecclesiastical trials which reveal some of the claims she was making.