John Humphrey Noyes on Law
from "Religious Experience of John Humphrey Noyes," ed G.W. Noyes (NY, 1923).

The other principle, which was at this time incorporated in Noyes's conception of salvation from sin, was that of freedom from law. In the earlier letters describing his new experience Noyes scarcely mentioned the law, but for a time he instinctively avoided the self-condemnation which his former attitude toward the law would have brought upon him. During his strange experience in New York City in May 1834 he suddenly found himself in a desperate battle with legality. He began to see that the law, if allowed its former authority, was an intolerable burden; worse yet, it interfered with sympathetic relations between man and God, and thus undermined the very citadel of justification. By a struggle which cost him not only severe suffering but nearly all his friends, he won the victory over legality in his own heart. When he returned to New Haven a few months later, he found that Boyle and Dutton under the influence of the legalist, Amos Smith, had already lost their sense of justification and were on the point of abandoning their claim of salvation from sin. Noyes girded himself again for a battle with legality, and at last succeeded in releasing his comrades from their captivity. Notwithstanding these partial victories, during the entire period while he was connected with The Perfectionist at New Haven the standard of salvation from sin was constantly endangered by the machinations and attacks of legalists. Under these circumstances Noyes was compelled to study intently the relation of the law to the gospel of salvation from sin. The starting-point of his investigation was the assertion of Paul, "Ye are not under the law, but under grace." From this and the whole tenor of the New Testament on the subject he argued that union with Christ gave complete freedom from law. His conclusions were

published in two articles in The Perfectionist, which can only be summarized here:

"The Perfectionist" November 20, 1834

Righteousness can only be wrought in one of two ways: either by independent obedience to an external precept, or by yielding the powers to the energy and direction of God by faith in Christ. Before Christ came, by whom the righteousness of faith was revealed, legality was not, neither could it be, necessarily evil. On the contrary the preceptive law was an institution of God, and the righteousness which it wrought was encouraged and regarded by him. The law stands in the same relation to the gospel as John the Baptist to Christ. So far as legalists adopt the confession of John the Baptist, "he must increase but I must decrease," "There cometh after me one, the laces of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose," all is right. But when the law stands side by side with the gospel, when John the Baptist commences competition with Christ, then all is wrong.

"The Perfectionist" November 20, 1834

The new covenant gives liberty from external law. This is implied in the contrast presented between the old and the new dispensation. The new covenant is "not according to the covenant" made with the house of Israel by the mediation of Moses. Under the old covenant the law was written on tables of stone. Under the new it is written in the heart. "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." External law of necessity supposes internal depravity. A law that men shall eat or sleep would be ridiculous, simply because all men are sufficiently disposed to eat and sleep. If men were sufficiently disposed to love God with the whole heart, a law requiring them to do so would be equally ridiculous. This disposition God promises by the new covenant to secure; and his promise abolishes his statute. Under the old covenant God said: "Do according to all I command you, and ye shall live." Under the new covenant, where its powers are fully developed, he may safely say: "Do as you please: for I promise that your pleasure shall be mine. I will write my law upon your hearts."

Noyes believed that these two doctrines, security and freedom from law, presented the central idea of the gospel of Christ, namely, salvation from sin by the power of God without the law. But he found that they were exceedingly liable to be misconceived and perverted, and he later restated them with a view to bringing out more clearly their limitations and safeguards.