Christ and : Federal in Orthodoxy

R. Scott Clark

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, scholars have questioned whether Reformed Orthodoxy represented a corruption of, a reaction to, or an authentic development of the early Reformed theology of (1491–1551), (1504–75), and (1509–64).1 This approach sees a movement from a vital movement to an institutional cor- ruption of that vitality.2 In the middle of the nineteenth century, Heinrich Heppe (1820–79) pioneered the second of these approaches,3 portraying Reformed covenant or federal theology as a Melanchthonian reaction to Calvin’s alleged predestinarian dogmatism.4 A third approach finds two competing traditions with Reformed theology, one gracious and cove- nantal and the other conditional, legal, and federal.5 The fourth approach,

1 For a concise survey of the older approach to Reformed orthodoxy see Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: and Predestination in Reformed Theology From Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids, 1986; repr., 1988), 1–13. For a survey of the secondary lit- erature on the rise and development of Reformed to the early 1980s see A. Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Thought (Oxford, 1990), 22–36. 2 See N. Diemer, Het Scheppingsverbond met (Het Verbond Der Werken) (Kampen, 1935); Brian G. Armstrong, Calvin and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth-Century France (Madison, 1969); R.T. Kendall, Calvin and Eng- lish to 1649 (Oxford, 1979); Alan C. Clifford, Atonement and : English 1640–1790: An Evaluation (Oxford, 1990), 69–105. 3 The terms “covenant” and “federal” will be used interchangeably in this essay. 4 observed, however, that Heppe later revised his view. In 1879 he con- cluded that covenant theology arose in Switzerland. See Geerhardus Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” in Redemptive and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. Richard B. Gaffin (Phillipsburg, 1980), 235. See Heinrich Heppe, Geschichte des Pietismus und der Mystik in der Reformiertem Kirche (Leiden, 1879). See Lyle D. Bierma, “The Role of Covenant Theology in Early Reformed Orthodoxy,” Sixteenth Century Journal 21 (1990): 453–62; Bierma, “Federal Theology in the Sixteenth Century: Two Traditions?,” Westminster Theological Journal 45 (1983): 304–21; Bierma, German Calvinism in the Confessional Age: The Covenant Theology of Caspar Ole- vianus (Grand Rapids, 1996), 141–84; Bierma, “Law and Grace in Ursinus’ Doctrine of the Natural Covenant: A Reappraisal,” in Protestant Scholasticism. Essays in Reassessment, ed. Carl R. Truman and R. Scott Clark (Carlisle, 1999), 96–110. 5 Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1939), 365–97; Leonard J. Trinterud, “The Origins of Puritanism,” Church History 20 (1951): 37–57; J.B. Torrance, “Covenant Or Contract? A Study of the Theological Background of in the Seventeenth Century,” Scottish Journal of Theology 23 (1970): 51–76. 404 r. scott clark applying the historiographical model of Heiko A. Oberman (1930–2001) to the study of Reformed Orthodoxy,6 sees Reformed theology as developing organically from the Reformation to post-Reformation Orthodoxy.7 This essay is most sympathetic with the fourth approach and argues that Reformed Orthodoxy saw federal or covenant theology as a ­redemptive-historical way of expressing substantially the same Reforma- tion theology taught in their dogmatic works and confessional symbols.8 Christ was as central to the federal theology of orthodoxy as he was to sixteenth-century Reformed theology. The difference was more a matter of context than substance. The first generation writers were establish- ing a Reformed church. Reformed Orthodoxy consolidated those gains in ecclesiastical confessions and articulated that theology in an increas- ingly complex and demanding intellectual context. The Reformed ortho- dox were facing increasingly complex challenges from Socinianism and other forms of rationalism, for example, René Descartes (1596–1650) and

Peter A. Lillback’s approach has elements of the discontinuity and continuity arguments as he sees the covenant of works in Calvin’s theology. See Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of : Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids, 2001), 277–304. Among those arguing a more organic, developmental historiography see Geerhardus Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation. The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos, ed. R.B. Gaffin (Phillipsburg, 1980), 234–67 (available at http://www.biblicaltheology.org/dcrt.pdf ); Lyle D. Bierma, “Federal Theology in the Sixteenth Century: Two Traditions?,” Westminster Theological Journal 45 (1983), 304–21; R. Scott Clark and Joel R. Beeke, “Ursinus, Oxford and the Westminster Divines,” in The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century: Essays in Remembrance of the 350th Anniversary of the Publication of the Westminster Confession of , ed. (Ross-Shire, UK, 2003), 1–32; R. Scott Clark, and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ (Edinburgh, 2005). 6 E.g. see Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (1963; repr., Durham, N.C., 1983); Oberman, Forerunners of the Refor- mation Illustrated By Key Documents, trans. Paul L. Nyhus (London, 1967), 3–65; Oberman, The Dawn of the Reformation (Edinburgh, 1992). 7 See Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology From Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids, 1986, 1988); Muller, Post-­Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, Ca. 1520 to Ca. 1725, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (Grand Rapids, 2003). 8 See also Clark, Caspar Olevian, 137–91. On the complexity and development of cov- enant theology in Reformed Orthodoxy see Richard A. Muller, “The Federal Motif in Sev- enteenth-Century Arminian Theology,” Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 62 (1982), 102–22; Muller, “The Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law in Seventeenth- Century Reformed Orthodoxy: A Study in the Theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus à Brakel,” Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994): 75–101; Mulller, “Divine Covenants, Absolute and Conditional: John Cameron and the Early Orthodox Development of Reformed Cov- enant Theology,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 17 (2006): 11–56; Muller, “Toward the Pactum Salutis: Locating the Origins of a Concept,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 18 (2007): 11–66.