My interest in reading Trelcatius stems from the work of Richard Muller, who not only cites Trelcatius throughout his four volume Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, but who has also analyzed Trelcatius' doctrine of God [see Richard A. Muller, "Unity and Distinction: The Nature of God in the Theology of Lucas Trelcatius, Jr.," Reformation & Renaissance Review 10/3 (December 2008): 315-341]. I am currently reading his loci on the office of Christ and the doctrine of the covenant.
Given the significant debate in recent years over the nature of the mosaic covenant, and specifically whether or not or in what way that covenant is a republication of the covenant of works, Trelcatius' exposition of the covenant and its historical administration is illustrative of one of the number of ways in which historic Reformed theology delineated the relationship between the covenant of grace and its various administrations.
Having distinguished the covenant from that general covenant that God made with nature (a universal and temporal covenant, he says), as well as the covenant that God made with man in his state of innocence, Trelcatius states that the covenant with which he is concerned is "that covenant, which God entered into with man after his fall, by his special grace." This covenant is one only, he says, for there is only one way of salvation. Yet, this covenant is diversely administered. He thus distinguishes between the substance of the covenant and its diverse forms of administration made known "from the outward manner and circumstances."
The covenant that God entered into with corrupt man is, according to its substance, "the free disposition of God, whereby he promises eternal salvation, by the death of his Son, to the glory of his grace." After making a number of distinctions in an effort to further define the covenant, Trelcatius gets to the business of delineating the various administrations of this one covenant. Generally, the covenant is distinguished according to its times into two periods: the one of Christ to be exhibited, the other of Christ already exhibited. In this first period, the covenant was administered in diverse ways, or according to the manner of three ages.
- According to the manner of promise. From Adam's fall to Abraham, "God expounded no less evidently than briefly, the whole manner of the covenant in that promise" of Gen 3:15.
- According to the manner of covenant. From the time of Abraham to Moses, the promise published in Gen 3:15 was restrained to Abraham and his posterity.
- According to the manner of a testament.
By his death, moreover, Christ abrogated this old testament and brought in the new testament. Trelcatius, in fact, argues that Christ abrogated both parts of the old testament: the first because the Law's requirement of perfect obedience is removed, the second because "the body succeeds the shadows; the truth, the figures; the thing signified, the signs, and sacrifices." In these two ways the Law (or old testament) is abrogated by the Gospel (or new testament).
Clearly the old testament or the Law (Trelcatius' terms), or the old covenant, or the mosaic covenant -- or whatever you want to call it -- is unique. While it is an administration of God's single covenant of grace, it is also subordinate to that covenant, both pedagogically and typologically. What is more, while Trelcatius does not use the term republication, the terminology he employs to describe the "legal and conditional" part of the "old testament" echoes his earlier description of that "special covenant" which God entered into with "our first parents in that state of integrity." This covenant contained "a special trial or examination of obedience," to which was attached "both the promise of a life supernatural, and a threat of a double death." Such a covenant was addressed to our first parents in their state of integrity, and thus a strict republication after the fall is impossible. Nevertheless, the publication of the same law, the same condition of perfect obedience, the same promise of life, and the same threat of death after the fall, to sinners in the state of corruption, is intended, not to be a trial or examination of obedience, but rather to serve as a schoolmaster to Christ, thus serving the ends or purposes of the covenant of grace. That is, on Trelcatius' terms, the Law, including its legal condition of perfect obedience and its promise of eternal life, is intended to drive sinners to Christ, who alone by his death has satisfied the condition and earns the promise.
Somewhere in all of this is a lesson for Reformed Christians today. Regardless of what one thinks of the doctrine of republication, Moses isn't the end of the story...
7 comments:
nice find. Have you read Petto?
or the new book on him by Brown?
No and no. It is on a long list of books to look at some day.
I am in the process of editing a piece I hope to get published -- it is on the early orthodox exegesis of Gal. 4:24, specifically how Rollock and Perkins elicited from this passage the distinction between the covenants of works and grace.
Interested in reading it?
Oh, and the 17th cent. English translation is available in EEBO, as is the 1604 Latin.
Excellent to see you back up and running, Stefan.
Am I reading this correctly: Trelcatius did not argue that the Mosaic covenant republished the covenant of works as part of the temporal or national covenant - works being the standard by which Israel as a nation would retain the blessings of God? But he did argue that a republication (of sorts - he used different words) existed as a pedagogical tool to lead Israel to the gospel?
Stefan, send it!
I think you are reading Trelcatius correctly, Tom. My read is that he argued that the old testament or Law was pedagogical and typological. He doesn't flesh that out beyond what I have indicated in the original post.
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