a. and sb. [f. med.L. Antinomi the name of the sect (f. Gr. ἀντί against + νόμος law) + -AN.]
A. adj. Opposed to the obligatoriness of the moral law; of or pertaining to the antinomians.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. 1738, I. 295. Anabaptistical, Antinomian, Heretical, Atheistical Epithets.
1719. Waterland, Vind. Christ’s Div., Pref. Men … bred up (during the great Rebellion) in the Predestinarian and Antinomian Tenets.
1863. H. Rogers, Howe, x. 271. A fierce agitation of the whole Antinomian controversy.
B. sb. One who maintains that the moral law is not binding upon Christians, under the ‘law of grace.’ spec. One of a sect which appeared in Germany in 1535, alleged to hold this opinion.
1645. Pagitt, Heresiogr. (1662), 120. The antinomians are so called, because they would have the law abolished.
1762. Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), IV. lx. 484. The antinomians even insisted that the obligations of morality and natural law were suspended.
1857. Spurgeon, Park St. Pulpit, II. 132. I am rather fond of being called an Antinomian … the term is generally applied to those who hold truth pretty firm, and will not let it go.
