# Augustine and the covenant of works



## Reformed Covenanter (Dec 17, 2019)

While Augustine of Hippo did not use the exact phrase “covenant of works” in the below extract, he clearly believed in the substance of the doctrine. It is interesting that he makes the below statement in his polemics with the Pelagians, which gives the lie to the Shepherdite/Federal Visionist slander that the doctrine is Pelagian: ...

For more, see Augustine and the covenant of works.

Reactions: Informative 1


----------



## Reformed Covenanter (Dec 17, 2019)

Also relevant: Augustine of Hippo: The law promises eternal life as the reward of perfect obedience, but not to sinners.

Reactions: Informative 1


----------



## brandonadams (Dec 18, 2019)

Not only did he affirm a covenant of works with Adam, he also believed that the Mosaic covenant was a temporal covenant of works for carnal blessings, distinct from the new covenant.



> “But the law is not of faith: but The man that doeth them shall live in them.” (Gal 3:12) Which testimony, quoted by the apostle from the law, is understood in respect of temporal life, in respect of the fear of losing which, men were in the habit of doing the works of the law, not of faith; because the transgressors of the law were commanded by the same law to be put to death by the people.
> A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians.
> Book IV Chapter 10.—Of the Praise of the Law.





> In that testament, however, which is properly called the Old, and was given on Mount Sinai, only earthly happiness is expressly promised. Accordingly that land, into which the nation, after being led through the wilderness, was conducted, is called the land of promise, wherein peace and royal power, and the gaining of victories over enemies, and an abundance of children and of fruits of the ground, and gifts of a similar kind are the promises of the Old Testament. And these, indeed, are figures of the spiritual blessings which appertain to the New Testament; but yet the man who lives under God’s law with those earthly blessings for his sanction, is precisely the heir of the Old Testament, for just such rewards are promised and given to him, according to the terms of the Old Testament, as are the objects of his desire according to the condition of the old man. But whatever blessings are there figuratively set forth as appertaining to the New Testament require the new man to give them effect. And no doubt the great apostle understood perfectly well what he was saying, when he described the two testaments as capable of the allegorical distinction of the bond-woman and the free,—attributing the children of the flesh to the Old, and to the New the children of the promise: “They,” says he, “which are the children of the flesh, are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” (Rom 9:8) The children of the flesh, then, belong to the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; whereas the children of the promise belong to the Jerusalem above, the free, the mother of us all, eternal in the heavens. (Gal 4:25, 26) Whence we can easily see who they are that appertain to the earthly, and who to the heavenly kingdom. But then the happy persons, who even in that early age were by the grace of God taught to understand the distinction now set forth, were thereby made the children of promise, and were accounted in the secret purpose of God as heirs of the New Testament; although they continued with perfect fitness to administer the Old Testament to the ancient people of God, because it was divinely appropriated to that people in God’s distribution of the times and seasons.
> A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius.
> Chapter 14.—Examination of This Point. The Phrase “Old Testament” Used in Two Senses. The Heir of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament There Were Heirs of the New Testament.





> As then the law of works, which was written on the tables of stone, and its reward, the land of promise, which the house of the carnal Israel after their liberation from Egypt received, belonged to the old testament [covenant], so the law of faith, written on the heart, and its reward, the beatific vision which the house of the spiritual Israel, when delivered from the present world, shall perceive, belong to the new testament [covenant].
> A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter.
> Chapter 41.—The Law Written in the Heart, and the Reward of the Eternal Contemplation of God, Belong to the New Covenant; Who Among the Saints are the Least and the Greatest.



Many more relevant quotes found here http://www.1689federalism.com/augustine-proto-1689-federalist/

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 1


----------

