Federal Theology of Thomas Boston, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 1999 by Karlberg, Mark W

The Federal Theology of Thomas Boston. By A. T. B. McGowan. Rutherford Studies in Historical Theology. Edinburgh: Paternoster, 1997, 228 pp., n.p.

The reading of Andrew McGowen's book, what began initially as a doctoral study under Professor James Torrance, is both a delight and a disappointment. Generally speaking, the author evinces a solid grasp of the rudiments of Reformed theology, as surveyed in his treatment of the writings of the important Scottish minister and theologian Thomas Boston (1676-1732). From the standpoint of vigorous academic scholarship, however, McGowen's discussion is at times shallow. The work suffers from a lack of adequate interaction with the secondary literature on the historical development of covenant theology, particularly interaction with the numerous critical studies that have appeared in the last two decades or so. As a popular treatment, however, McGowen's book should find a useful niche.

The "Foreword" by Sinclair Ferguson is a rather curious piece of writing. Both McGowen and Ferguson studied under James Torrance, yet they arrived at contrary assessments of federal theology. This fact is not brought out by Ferguson. Rather, one is given the impression that these two are in basic agreement. Comparison of the present study with Ferguson's doctoral dissertation proves otherwise; see his "The Doctrine of the Christian Life in the Teaching of Dr. John Owen" (2 vols., Ph.D. thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1979). The difference between these two writers can be stated this way: whereas McGowen is highly critical of the Torrance school, Ferguson is sympathetic. The Torrance school objects vigorously to federal theology's doctrine of the twofold covenants. The chief issue in this debate is whether or not the contrast between the two covenants, the "covenant of works" in creation and the "covenant of grace" in redemption, is biblically warranted.

In the course of surveying Boston's teaching on the subject of the application of redemption (what in the science of dogmatics has been designated the ordo salutis, the order of salvation, in distinction from historia salutis, the history of salvation), McGowen convincingly demonstrates that the views of Scottish divine Thomas Boston were in full accord with traditional Calvinistic teaching. After reviewing Boston's doctrine of the covenants, McGowen proceeds to a discussion of Boston's understanding of Christ's person and work. In sum: "Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, entered into a covenant with God on behalf of the elect. As a public person, or federal head, he stood where Adam stood and succeeded where Adam failed. He rendered to God full and perfect obedience thus fulfilling the conditions of the covenant of grace, namely, his seed, the elect. For the elect the covenant is absolute and not conditional, resulting in justification by the righteousness of Christ" (p. 15).

How, more precisely, did scholastic Reformed orthodoxy (of which Boston is representative) conceive of the relationship between the "covenant of works" and the "covenant of grace"? The answer to this question is not as simple as some might suppose. The modern interpreter must address the vexing question whether or not revived scholasticism in seventeenth Reformed Protestantism was, at all points, a help or hindrance in the theological enterprise. Specifically, was the reintroduction of scholastic distinctions and terminology justified in every instance? Problematic also was appeal to the rational "proofs" for the existence of God. Interaction with the important studies of Richard Muller, among others, would have enriched McGowen's argument.

Basic to understanding the contrasting covenants ("works" and "grace") is the Protestant doctrine on "Law" and "Gospel." Apart from a proper understanding and application of the antithetical principles of law and grace, i.e. "Law and Gospel," the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith (alone) and the Reformed doctrine of the covenants are unintelligible. It was this concern that became the focal issue in the Marrow controversy. In that debate Boston and several others came to the defense of teaching found in The Marrow of Modern Divinity, a treatise written about a century earlier. That publication was the centerpiece in the dispute, the work which Donald MacLeod correctly identified as "quintessential Federal Theology" (p. xvi). McGowen suggests that Boston "was himself one of the finest popular exponents of that theological perspective, establishing it among the common people by his influential volume, The Fourfold State" (p. 206). He maintains that "Boston believed that the parallel between Adam and Christ was the key to understanding the Christian faith" (p. 25, emphasis mine).

Serving as a leitmotif in his book, McGowen argues that the covenant of works "is an act of God's grace" (p. 4). He says: "It is of the utmost importance to grasp the fact that even the first covenant was an act of condescension and grace" (p. 5). "In other words," explains McGowen, "God was not obliged to give man anything, but out of the riches of his grace he entered into this covenant and promised a great and eternal benefit, upon condition of obedience. To regard the covenant of works, then, as a matter of putting law before grace is simply to misunderstand the nature of the covenantat least as Boston taught it" (p. 11). This formulation of the biblical covenants, however, is subject to criticism. The modern interpreter must reckon with the fact that remnants of Roman theology, notably, distinctions that were speculative in origin, found a place in Reformed theology, beginning as early as the late sixteenth century.