# Jan Rohls "Reformed Confessions" strange take



## py3ak (Dec 9, 2021)

I've owned Jan Rohls' _Reformed Confessions: Theology from Zurich to Barmen_ (John Hoffmeyer, trans.) for some time, but not referred to it much. The first chapter reviews the development of Reformed confessional writings, and contains this unexpected statement:


> Jacob Alting and Abraham Heidanus rejected as unbibilical [_sic_] the idea of a covenant of works, but Herman Witsius gave it further elaboration in the interest of emphasizing the independence of human beings as covenant partners. The law that is given to human beings in the covenant of works is the natural law that is anchored in their conscience and identical with the Decalogue. The covenant of grace is nothing other than the mere restitution of the covenant of works broken by the Fall.



It so happens I've been reading Witsius' _Economy of the Covenants _and this doesn't line up at all with my own impressions of the work. This leaves me with two questions. Is the rest of the book likely to be on the same level of reliability? And then, apart from reliance on secondary sources and persistence in approaching a text from a different standpoint than its own, what explanation is there for this kind of remark?


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## py3ak (Dec 10, 2021)

Perhaps the Columbia Series in Reformed Theology does not constrain much attention from those used to the bracing breezes of Robert Bolton, or the smooth stones from ancient Brooks.


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## Μαρτιν (Dec 11, 2021)

Hi, i have read it in my first year at university for a dogmatics course. Its a great introduction if I remembered correctly. But as always read primary sources besides a book like this.

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