in Ecclesiastical History, certain heretics who maintain that the law is of no use or obligation under the gospel dispensation, or who hold doctrines that clearly supersede the necessity of good works and a virtuous life. The Antinomians took their origin from John Agricola about the year 1538, who taught that the law is Antinous nowise necessary under the gospel; that good works do not promote our salvation, nor ill ones hinder it; that repentance is not to be preached from the decalogue, but only from the gospel.

This sect sprung up in England during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, and extended their system of libertinism much farther than Agricola, the disciple of Luther. Some of their teachers expressly maintained, that as the elect cannot fall from grace, nor forfeit the divine favour, the wicked actions they commit are not really sinful, nor are to be considered as instances of their violation of the divine law; and that, consequently, they have no occasion either to confess their sins or to break them off by repentance. According to them, it is one of the essential and distinctive characters of the elect, that they can do nothing which is either displeasing to God or prohibited by the law.

The doctrine of Agricola was in itself obscure, and perhaps represented worse than it really was by Luther, who wrote with acrimony against him, and first styled him and his followers Antinomians. Agricola stood on his own defence, and complained that opinions were imputed to him which he did not hold. Nicholas Amsdorf fell under the same odious name and imputation, and seems to have been treated more unfairly than even Agricola himself.