After his suspension on June 25, 1629, by the High Commission for the charge of “doctrinal heterodoxy,” Robert Towne (1592–1663) desperately sought to meet with those “godly opponents” who had been criticizing his preaching, perhaps to explain himself.¹ He found a few ministers who agreed to meet with him, but they were, he said, among those “kinde of Ministers and Professors (who can set a fair gloss on all their doings, pretending much of God and for the Law) I have been brought into divers Courts, and into High Commission, where I was twice imprisoned.”² Towne stood behind the pulpit once more in the cold winter of 1629–30, where he would proclaim, “The Gospel, and not the Law was the seed and doctrine of our new birth, yea the Law did not sanctifie. . . which divers Ministers and others excepted against; and many affirmed that the Law was made effectual by Christ for that end.”³ From Towne’s pulpit, private disputation spilled over into public pulpit controversy.

England in the seventeenth century witnessed a rise in Antinomianism that overflowed into church courts across the country.⁴ The fear of Antinomianism lingered as approximately 120 divines pressed into Westminster Abbey in 1643.⁵ Even when Antinomians’ ideas faced suppression, their influence in London remained potent.⁶ With Antinomianism looming in the background, ministers at the Westminster Assembly wrestled with the pressing question: What is the relationship between the law and the Christian life? Like other Westminster divines, Anthony Burgess sought to answer this question, writing Vindiciae Legis (1647), which captures his pastoral concern that Antinomians were confusing the church on law and gospel.⁷ While difficult to define as a group, ministers detected several tenets of Antinomians. Burgess, in this treatise, focused on the “total abrogation of the law” that Antinomians argued for.⁸ Stephen Casselli provides an overview of Burgess’s work, placing the treatise in the historical context of the Antinomian controversy of the seventeenth century and showing its continuity with the theology of the Reformation.⁹ Casselli describes how Burgess rooted the law in God’s character, comparing the law that God gave to Adam with the law that God gave to Moses.¹⁰ David Parnham argues that the controversy between Burgess and Antinomians like John Eaton (1575–1641) and Tobias Crisp (1600–43) stemmed from both groups’ proximity to Puritans William Perkins (1558–1602) and Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), who were orthodox and reputable theologians at the time.¹¹ Parnham demonstrated that because Antinomians used the same language on grace as Perkins and Sibbes, who also held a strong distinction between law and gospel, this blurred the line between the orthodox and Antinomians, who both claimed to be proponents of free grace. Burgess, however, sought to resolve this tension, by drawing a hard line between “Puritan and antinomian.”¹²

While Casselli primarily uses Burgess’s ‘Catholic hermeneutic’ in Vindiciae Legis to refute the “Calvin versus Calvinists” thesis, he implicitly refutes the notion that Luther is at odds with the Reformed doctrine of law and gospel.¹³ This view portrays Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–64) as having two different understandings of law and gospel.¹⁴ Drawing from the work of Casselli, this essay argues that Burgess held both the Lutheran and Reformed views of law and gospel by distinguishing them narrowly, in continuity with Luther (and the Reformed), and broadly, for the specific purpose of refuting Antinomianism.

Reformed theologians before Burgess adopted the “Lutheran” version of the law-gospel distinction, that, as Luther asserted, “all of Scripture can be divided into two parts: command and promises.”¹⁵ Theodore Beza (1519–1605) followed Luther when he wrote,

We divide this Word into two principal parts or kinds: the one is called the ‘Law,’ the other the ‘Gospel.’ For all the rest can be gathered under the one or other of these two headings. . . . Ignorance of this distinction between Law and Gospel is one of the principal sources of the abuses which corrupted and still corrupt Christianity.¹⁶

Agreeing with Beza and Luther on the importance of distinguishing law and gospel, Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83) said, “The whole doctrine comprised in the sacred writings, is either concerning the nature of God, his will, his works, or sin, which is the proper work of men and devils. But all these subjects are fully set forth and taught, either in the law, or in the gospel.”¹⁷ Thus, early Reformed writers not only agreed with Luther that distinguishing law and gospel was important, but they also shared substantive agreement in how they articulated and understood that distinction.

Burgess, with the early Reformed writers, emphasized the importance of distinguishing law and gospel, agreeing with Luther’s perspective. Burgess stated, “He that knoweth how to distinguish between Law and Gospel, let him give thanks to God.”¹⁸ He recognized this distinction as essential for understanding truth and interpreting Scripture, noting that the law involves commands while the gospel offers God’s grace in Christ.¹⁹ He applied this understanding narrowly, using the Mosaic Covenant to highlight their differences. He claimed the law demands “perfect obedience”²⁰ and presents a “perfect righteousness,”²¹ while the gospel “offers pardon through Christ.”²² Thus, law and gospel oppose each other, especially in justification.

Burgess agreed with early Reformed writers on the law-gospel distinction if taken narrowly. In the bulk of his treatise, however, he developed a broad redemptive historical understanding of law and gospel due to his debate with Antinomianism. After surveying other views, he stated his view that “The Law (as to this purpose) may be considered more largely, as that whole doctrine delivered on Mount Sinai, with the preface and promises adjoined and all things that may be reduced to it.”²³  The corollary to the law in this broad sense is the gospel in its broad sense, which he described as “the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles.” ²⁴ In this broad sense, there was no debate that the Gospel “pressed the duty of mortification and sanctification, threatening those that do not so.”²⁵ In order to demonstrate that the law had not been abrogated for the Christian, he set out to prove that the Mosaic Covenant—broadly, when one considers its substance—was the same as the covenant of grace. He highlighted how “the Law” contained grace to accomplish this goal. When referring to the law in the large or broad sense, he explicitly stated that “it was a Covenant of grace.”²⁶ Burgess argued that the “Law,” broadly, served as a covenant of grace for Israel for several reasons. First, the parties of the covenant demonstrate the covenant to be a covenant of grace.²⁷ God covenanted with sinful Israel as their Father, and such an agreement would not have happened if the “Law” was a covenant of works. He cited Deuteronomy 6:4 to show that God was Israel’s personal God and Father, which became possible through grace.²⁸ Because God had a relationship with sinful Israel, broadly, the “Law” was not a covenant of works, as was made with Adam before the Fall. In this broad sense, the law was gracious because God covenanted with sinners, which Burgess implied was impossible under the covenant of works.

The second distinguishing characteristic Burgess noted in the Mosaic Covenant that confirmed it as a covenant of grace included the blessings and duties of the law.²⁹ The blessings were the remission of sins, for which the covenant of works allowed no provision upon transgression of the law.³⁰ The duty of the first commandment delivered at Sinai, according to Burgess, required faith in God.³¹ In other words, when Israel took upon themselves the obligation of obedience to the Ten Commandments, “the meaning was not that they would do it perfectly without sin or God’s grace for pardon when they broke the Law.”³² Because Israel was to trust God for his provision of forgiveness when they broke the law, they were in a covenant of grace, not a covenant of works.³³ This argument refuted the Antinomians, who argued the Mosaic Covenant only offered forgiveness for sins of ignorance, not other types of sins.³⁴ Broadly, the law embodied God’s gracious provision for forgiveness in the ceremonial law, which Burgess argued prefigured the forgiveness Christ would accomplish through his blood.³⁵ He concluded that if God commanded sacrifices in the law, then grace was included, though in an “obscure and dark manner.”³⁶ Even the types and shadows of the Old Testament that prefigured Christ exhibited grace to the old covenant saints. When Israel transgressed the ceremonial laws, they had a Mediator, something that is lacking in the covenant of works. Burgess argued that Moses was the typological mediator, while the ultimate Mediator was Christ.³⁷ The Antinomians placed the law exclusively “in the hands of Moses,” diminishing its importance in the Christian life.³⁸ He did not recommend distinguishing between Moses and Christ in this way, as did the Antinomians, because at Mount Sinai, the law was “in the hand of Christ.”³⁹ Because the Mosaic economy contained gracious elements like forgiveness, it was essentially the same as the new covenant.

Notes

1. David R. Como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil-War England (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 92–93.
2. Robert Towne, A Re-Assertion of Grace. Or Vindiciae Evangelii (1654), quoted in David R. Como, Blown by the Spirit, 92–93.
3. Como, Blown by the Spirit, 92–93.
4. Como, 73.
5. Stephen J. Casselli, Divine Rule Maintained: Anthony Burgess, Covenant Theology, and the Place of the Law in Reformed Scholasticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2015), 59.
6. Como, Blown by the Spirit, 74.
7. For more on how the Westminster Divines handled the question, see Whitney G. Gamble, Christ and the Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018).
8. Stephen J. Casselli, Divine Rule Maintained: Anthony Burgess, Covenant Theology, and the Place of the Law in Reformed Scholasticism (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2015), 199–200. Casselli also summarizes what David Como sees as the important tenets of seventeenth century Antinomianism and notes several characteristics of the period. A few examples include: they were decidedly “anti-legalism,” and they stressed the “total passivity of the believer.”
9. Casselli, Divine Rule Maintained.
10. Stephen J. Casselli, “God the Lawgiver According to the Westminster Divine Burgess,” Unio Cum Christo 4, no. 1 (2018): 99–115.
11. David Parnham, “Motions of Law and Grace: The Puritan in the Antinomian,” The Westminster Theological Journal 70, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 73–104.
12. Parnham, “Motions of Law and Grace,” 73–104.
13. Casselli, Divine Rule Mandated, 248.
14. R. Scott Clark, “Law and Gospel in Early Reformed Orthodoxy: Hermeneutical Conservatism in Olevianus’ Commentary on Romans,” in Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism: Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the Maturation of a Theological Tradition, ed. Jordan J. Ballor, David S. Sytsma, and Jason Zuidema (Leiden; Boston, MA: Brill, 2013), 309–10. Counter to Peter Lillback and Mark Garcia, R. Scott Clark argues there was not a “conscious departing from Luther on the law-gospel hermeneutic.”
15. Timothy J. Wengert, The Freedom of a Christian (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016).
16. Theodore Beza, The Christian Faith, trans. James Clark (East Sussex, UK: Focus Christian Ministries Trust, n.d.), 40.
17. Zacharias Ursinus and G. W. Williard, The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism (Cincinnati, OH: Elm Street Printing Company, 1888), 2–3.
18. Anthony Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS: A Vindication of the Moral Law and the Covenants (London: 1647), A3.
19. For more on the history of the Reformed use of the distinction, see R. Scott Clark, “Letter and Spirit: Law and Gospel in Reformed Preaching,” in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays By the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California, ed. R. Scott Clark (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2006). Clark shows that the Reformed were in continuity with using Luther’s law-gospel distinction. This essay seeks to show, without relaying the foundation, that Burgess followed his Reformed forefathers on this point, but with nuances for his historical context.
20. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 233.
21. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 258.
22. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 260.
23. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 233.
24. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 260.
25. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 260.
26. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 233.
27. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 234.
28. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 234.
29. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 234.
30. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 234.
31. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 235.
32. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 235.
33. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 235.
34. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 246–47. Burgess seems to believe that John Eaton in Honey Combe of Justification was referencing another Antinomian’s views rather than Eaton’s own view.
35. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 235.
36. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 235.
37. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 236.
38. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 236.
39. Burgess, VINDICIAE LEGIS, 236.

©Cliff Foster. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Cliff Foster

  

  Cliff Foster is a student at Westminster Seminary California, pursuing his MDiv. Passionate about sharing the gospel, he finds great joy in evangelism and engaging others with the truth of Scripture. When he is not studying, Cliff enjoys playing basketball. He is husband to Bre and father to their daughter, Amayah.

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