The law contains the natural covenant, established by God with humanity in creation, that is, it is known by humanity by nature, it requires perfect obedience to God, and it promises eternal life to those who keep it and threatens eternal punishment to those who do not. 36: What is the difference between the law and gospel?Ī. It should be noted that in his Larger Catechism, posthumously published (apparently against his wishes), Ursinus does speak using the classic distinction of creation and redemption covenants, the former requiring perfect obedience, the later requiring faith in God’s promise:
What is more, the absence of the term “covenant of works” in the Heidelberg Catechism has led many to argue that Reformed theology can be maintained intact without reference to (or affirmation of) this pre-lapsarian covenant. In recent years, mostly surrounding the debate over covenant theology in the Reformed tradition (e.g., the Federal Vision), some have either neglected the law/gospel contrast evident in Ursinus, or tried to down-play that distinction as some “Lutheran” remnant of his training under Philip Melanchthon. I had been wanting to look into this for some time and now the Puritan Hard Drive made my inquiry that much easier! I searched the volume for “covenant” and slogged through the 156 references tagged in the search. The impetus for this post was a search of Zacharias Ursinus’ Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechismwhich has been OCR’d as part of the Puritan Hard Drive. Of late, other responsibilities have kept me from blogging about my review copy of the Puritan Hard Drive, but as the drive kept staring at me from my bookshelf, I finally carved out a few minutes to look something up and decided to do a little musing, in addition to showing yet another great use for the Puritan Hard Drive.
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