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The Beginnings of Puritan Covenant Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Jens G. Møller
Jens G. Møller
Affiliation:
Copenhagen
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Extract

The present interest in Puritanism has brought forth a large number of remarkable works dealing with the history of Puritanism as well as with puritan thought. Naturally enough, puritan covenant theology has also come in for treatment in many recent studies. However, English and American scholars have as a rule failed to contribute a satisfactory discussion of the idea of the covenant in puritan theologians. One principal reason for this failure is to be found in the fact that many of these scholars are primarily interested in sociology and less in theology. Another reason stems from the tendency to isolate the Puritans in England and New England from their English background as well as from their Continental forerunners and contemporaries. Interpretations which thus tend to neglect both theology and history necessarily lead to grave misunderstandings in the presentation of puritan covenant theology. The wellknown work of Perry Miller is typical in many respects. Miller presents his interpretation of the covenant in book IV under the general heading: Sociology! Although he seems to be aware of the existence of earlier covenant theology he tends to regard William Perkins as the inventor of the puritan concept of the covenant. In Miller's understanding covenant theology means essentially the puritan theologians' counter-action to tendencies within their own camp, viz., Arminianism and Antinomianism. This might be true for the period about 1650, but only then. Finally Miller regards covenant theology as implying a departure from essential Calvinism. This is also true to a certain extent but calls for a much more careful analysis than Miller's.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , April 1963 , pp. 46 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1963

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References

page 46 note 1 The New England Mind, the Seventeenth Century, New York 1939; reprint, Cambridge Mass., 1954.Google Scholar

page 46 note 2 This is commonly accepted and leads to statements such as this: ‘Although of the Calvinist family, the New England theology of the seventeenth century was not Calvinism’—but covenant theology (Morison)!

page 47 note 1 All the original sources to which I refer here are located either in Dr. William's Library, London or New College Library, London. I am obliged to the librarian of New College, Dr. G. F. Nuttall, for much useful advice.

page 47 note 2 1527. In Opera, ed. Schuler and Schulthess, 1835, v.

page 47 note 3 Op. cit., 71.

page 47 note 4 Op. cit., 69.

page 47 note 5 Op. cit., 71.

page 48 note 1 Op. cit., 73.

page 48 note 2 For an able exposition of Bullinger's covenant idea, see van, A. J. ‘t Hooft, De theologie van Heinrich Bullinger in betrekking tot de Nederlandsche Reformatie, Amsterdam 1888.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 ‘t Hooft, op. cit., 49.

page 48 note 4 Ed. 1569. The German original (1556) is entitled Summa Christlicher Religion.

page 48 note 5 Op. cit., 26 f.

page 48 note 6 ‘t Hooft, op. cit., 67.

page 48 note 7 ‘t Hooft, op. cit., 68.

page 48 note 8 ‘t Hooft, op. cit., 76 ff. Cf. Decades, ed. Parker Society, V (1852), 235 f.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 Commentary upon Genesis, ed. Calvin Translation Society, Edinburgh 1847, 443.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 Ibid., 445.

page 49 note 3 Institutio, II, x, 1.

page 49 note 4 II, x, 2. One of the shortcomings in the usual treatment of puritan covenant theology is illustrated by the fact that Perry Miller makes Ames the inventor of precisely this statement, and from hence draws far-reaching consequences (The Marrow of Puritan Divinity, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, xxxii, 268 f.). Ames is merely quoting Calvin, as every Calvinist theologian did (Medulla Theologiae, xxxviii, 1).

page 49 note 5 Institutio, III, xvii, 5. (Italics mine).

page 50 note 1 Institutio, II, xi, 8. Calvin discusses II Cor. iii.

page 50 note 2 It may be noted that the term ‘covenant’ is constantly employed in the Wycliffe Bible (taken over from the Vulgate) and, therefore, familiar to Englishmen even before the Reformation.

page 50 note 3 E.g. in his prologue to Romans.

page 50 note 4 Facsimile ed. by Pollard, A. W., Oxford 1926Google Scholar. The second ed. (with the variations from the first noted) in Doctrinal Treatises, etc., ed. Parker Society, Cambridge 1848Google Scholar (referred to as ‘Works, i’).

page 50 note 5 Cf., Mozley, J. F., William Tyndale, London 1937, 63.Google Scholar

page 51 note 1 Cf., Mozley, op. cit., 74, 203 and Works, i (Introductory note).

page 51 note 2 Works, i. 21.

page 51 note 3 Works, i. 23 ff.

page 51 note 4 Works, i. 23 f.

page 51 note 5 Works, i. 27.

page 51 note 6 Works, i. 409 and passim.

page 51 note 7 The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, Works, i. 105 f. Marginal note: ‘God hath made an everlasting covenant with us, that we should no more go astray after our good intent’. In this treatise Tyndale repeats Luther's Sermon von dem unrechten Mammon (Weimarer Ausgabe x, 3, 273 f.) up to page 71. The rest is Tyndale's own (57 pages). Cf. also Mozley, op. cit., 127.

page 52 note 1 Works, i. 17.

page 52 note 2 Works, i. 113.

page 52 note 3 3 Works, i. 417.

page 52 note 4 Works, ii (ed. Parker Society 1849), 6.Google Scholar

page 52 note 5 Works, ii. 4.

page 52 note 6 A Brief Declaration of the Sacraments (probably written in 1533 or 1534, see Mozley, op. cit., 260 and note): Works, i. 357.

page 53 note 1 Works, i. 350—Tyndale has been discussing the sacraments in the Old Testament, especially according to Gen. xvii.

page 53 note 2 Works, i. 403. This passage did not occur in the 1530 preface, but first in the 1534 edition of the translation of the Pentateuch. Cf. the introduction in William Tyndale's Five Books of Moses called the Pentateuch, ed. Mombert, J. I., New York, London 1884.Google Scholar

page 53 note 3 Works, i. 468. The Parker Society edition is here, as elsewhere, rather inaccurate. Cf. the reprint, ed. Wallis, N. H., Cambridge 1938.Google Scholar

page 53 note 4 Works, i. 496.

page 53 note 5 Works, i. 470.

page 53 note 6 Works, i. 471. Which in fact he has, but not so in the Cologne Fragment or the 1526 edition.

page 53 note 7 Works, i. 470.

page 54 note 1 Dickens, A. G., Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558, Oxford 1959, 11 and passim. Dickens shows how Robert Plumpton came under the spell of Tyndale's 1534 Prologue (132 ff.).Google Scholar

page 54 note 2 Cf. Mozley, op. cit., 179 ff.

page 54 note 3 I have examined a copy of 1549 (in New College Library) which omits the N.T. prologue from 1534 and the covenant-notes to Mt. v-vii, but renders the O.T. prologue in the 1534 version. Another copy (Becke's revision of 1549 in Dr. Williams's Library) gives the O.T. prologue in the 1530 version, but has the covenant-note and the 1534 N.T. prologue.

page 54 note 4 Cf. McLelland, J. C., The Visible Words of God, Edinburgh/London 1957, chaps, iiGoogle Scholar and v. And see Martyr's Loci communes, London 1576: loci classis secundae, locus xvi: De similitudine et dissimilitudine veteris et novi Foederis.

page 54 note 5 Scripta Anglicana, Basel 1577, 32. (Italics mine).

page 55 note 1 Dodsley, R., Old English Play, 4th ed. by Hazlitt, W. C., London 1874, I. 293.Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 Works, ed. Parker Society, i. 210.

page 55 note 3 ‘Unto the Christian Reader’ in Early Writings, ed. Parker Society 1843, 255. Cf. the Bullinger quotation above. W. M. S. West traces the influence of Bullinger on Hooper's theology in ‘John Hooper and the Origins of Puritanism’, in The Baptist Quarterly, xv (1954) and xvi (1955). But he exaggerates when he calls the covenant idea ‘the framework within which Hooper set his thought’. In fact, ‘Unto the Christian Reader’ provides the only explicit covenant teaching in Hooper. It is West himself who, through an unscientific and misleading presentation of Hooper's theology, sets this in the framework of the covenant idea.

page 56 note 1 ‘A Meditation upon the Ten Commandments’ in Godly Meditations (published posthumously in 1562), printed in Bradford, Writings: Sermons, Meditations, &c., ed. Parker Society, 149.

page 56 note 2 Ibid., 322–3 (my italics). It is highly probable that the anonymous author bases his argumentation on Tyndale or on Matthew's Bible. As Scripture-proof for his position he refers, for instance, to the parable of the ten talents. On Mt. xxv. 29 Tyndale notes in the margin (1534): ‘Couenaunt’ (and likewise to vv. 40 and 46). If the anonymous writer is Henry Hart (this suggestion is made in the Parker Soc. ed., 318 n.2) it is interesting that this author has written a book with the suggestive title: A Godly exhortation to all such as professe the Gospell, wherein they are by the swete promises therof provoked and styrred up to follow the same in living, and by the terrible threats feared from the contrary (London 1549, see Dictionary of National Biography, s.v.).

page 56 note 3 Bradford, ed. cit., 326 f.

page 56 note 4 Garrett, C. H., The Marian Exiles, Cambridge 1938, 41.Google Scholar

page 57 note 1 Cf. Martin, C., Les Protestants Anglais réfugiés à Genève au temps de Calvin 1555–1560, Genève 1915, 153 f.Google Scholar

page 57 note 2 B. F. Westcott, A General View of the History of the English Bible, London/Cambridge 1368, 125 f. I use an edition of 1576.

page 57 note 3 Who is sometimes said to be related to Calvin by marriage, see Dictionary of National Biography, s.v.

page 57 note 4 Cf. the Autobiography of Richard Baxter (Reliquiae Baxterianae): ‘it pleased God to instruct and change my father, by the bare reading of the Scriptures in private’ (Everyman ed., 4.).

page 57 note 5 Works, London 1614, pag. missing.

page 57 note 6 Printed as ‘Appendix V’ in The Remains of Edmund Grindal, ed. Parker Society 1843, 482 f. (Italics mine).Google Scholar

page 58 note 1 As in the case of Robert Sanderson: see McAdoo, H. R., The Structure of Caroline Moral Theology, London/N.Y./Toronto 1949, 28.Google Scholar

page 58 note 2 I have not been able to examine some yet earlier systematic works, e.g. Edmund Bunny's: see the bibliography in Dictionary of National Biography, s.v.

page 58 note 3 This work is the same as The Summe of Sacred Divinitie listed under John Downham in bibliographies, etc. The real author was Sir Henry Finch, a puritan barrister, educated in Cambridge at about the same time as Fenner and Perkins. Published originally in 1599 (?1589), a revised version was printed in 1613, and again (with additions) by John Downham under the title The Summe &c. (no date). The Short Title Catalogue is very inaccurate as far as this work is concerned.

page 58 note 4 Marginal reference in Works, London 1620–1631, I. 234b.Google Scholar

page 59 note 1 Sacra Theologia, first ed. (no date), 88.

page 59 note 2 Without pag. in his Opera Theologica Omnia, 1644.

page 59 note 3 Works, i. pag. missing.

page 59 note 4 Fenner puts the covenant in the same place under the general heading of the execution of God's decree, and so does the anonymous writer and Cartwright in A methodicall Short Catechisme (hereafter referred to as Cartwright I) printed in the numerous editions of Dod and Cleaver, A Plaine and Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandements. This is a differently organised version of ‘A shorte Chatechisme’, which is printed in Cartwrightiana (Elizabethan Nonconformist Texts, I) ed. Peel, and Carlson, , London 1951, 159 ff. (hereafter referred to as Cartwright II). Peel is not aware of the existence of Cartwright's catechism in the work of Dod and Cleaver.Google Scholar

page 59 note 5 Works, i. 32a.

page 60 note 1 Works, i. 32a.

page 60 note 2 See my article ‘Melanchthons naturretslære og føderalteologiens gerningspagt in Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift, 1961, 79 ff. for a fuller treatment.

page 60 note 3 Works, i. 32a.

page 60 note 4 Works, i. 70b.

page 60 note 5 Op. cit., 88 f.

page 61 note 1 Cartwright II, 159.

page 61 note 2 Sacred Doctrine, 223.

page 61 note 3 The contemporary Scot, Rollock, Robert, in A Treatise of Gods Effectual Calling (1603, Lat. original 1597), ed. Woodrow Society, Edinburgh 1849 (Select Works of Robert Rollock i), 33.Google Scholar

page 61 note 4 Sacred Doctrine, 226.

page 62 note 1 Works, i. 70b.

page 62 note 2 Sacred Doctrine, 283.

page 62 note 3 Ibid., 307.

page 62 note 4 Ibid., 308.

page 62 note 5 A touching illustration of the importance of this aspect of ‘Puritan faith and experience’ will be found in a letter from Cromwell (1655) in The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, by Carlyle, T., ed. Lomas, S. C., London 1904, II. 451–2 (letter CXCIX).Google Scholar

page 62 note 6 Works, i. 72b.

page 62 note 7 Sacred Doctrine, 364.

page 62 note 8 Cf. Nuttall, G. F., The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience, 2nd. ed. Oxford 1947, chap. vi. The answer to the question: why did the Puritans tend to disregard the ordinances? is more complex than Nuttall suggests (op. cit., 91 f.).Google Scholar

page 63 note 1 Works, i. 76a.

page 63 note 2 Op. cit., 360.

page 63 note 3 Cartwright I.

page 63 note 4 Institutio, II, vii, 14.

page 64 note 1 Institutio, IV, xiii, 6.

page 65 note 1 Works, i. 74a.

page 65 note 2 A Reformed Catholike, in Works, i. 583 f.

page 65 note 3 An Exposition on the 119. Psalme, Works, London 1612, v. 477. The text is in disorder here.

page 65 note 4 Of the Good Education of Children, op. cit., 279.

page 65 note 5 Exposition of the XVI. Psalme, op. cit., 326.

page 66 note 1 A Reformed Catholike, op. cit., i. 583 f.

page 66 note 2 An Exposition on the 119. Psalme, op. cit., v. 480.

page 66 note 3 Two Elizabethan Diaries by Richard Rogers and Samuel Ward, ed. Knappen, M. M., Chicago 1953 (Studies in Church History, ii), 64.Google Scholar

page 66 note 4 Op. cit., 66.

page 66 note 5 Op. cit., 67.

page 66 note 6 Op. cit., Introduction, 8.

page 66 note 7 Op. cit., 80. He does not tell us the contents of this covenant.