The Upper Register Blog

When the sermons of Tobias Crisp (d. 1643) were reprinted in 1690, they were attacked by legalists like Richard Baxter as antinomian. This sparked the Crispian or Neonomian Controversy in England. The legalists not only attacked Crisp and his defenders but also implied that imputation leads to license. In response, the classic doctrine of justification by faith was defended by a Presbyterian minister named Robert Traill in A Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine concerning Justification from the Unjust Charge of Antinomianism (1692). I love this particular quote:

But do not some abuse the grace of the gospel and turn it into wantonness? Answer:  Yes, some do, ever did, and still will do so. But it is only the ill-understood and not believed doctrine of grace that they abuse. The grace itself, no man can abuse, for its power prevents its abuse. Let us see how Paul, that blessed herald of this grace (as he was an eminent instance of it) deals with this objection (Rom. 6:1, etc.). How does he prevent this abuse? Is it by extenuating what he said (Rom. 5:20), that grace abounded much more where sin had abounded? Is it by mincing grace smaller so that men may not choke upon it or have too much of it? Is it by mixing something of the law with it, to make it more wholesome? No, but only by plainly asserting the power and influence of this grace, wherever it really is, as he does at length in that chapter. This grace is all treasured up in Christ Jesus, offered to all men in the gospel, poured forth by our Lord in the working of faith, and drunk in by the elect in the exercise of faith. And it becomes in them a living spring, which will, and must, break out and spring up in all holy conversation.

Robert Traill, Justification Vindicated (Puritan Paperbacks, Banner of Truth, 2002), p. 41.