I would say the outward administration works an inward reality in the heart of the elect. Put more simply, the outward administration effects an inward application.
Discussing Covenant: Covenant Defined
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While outward administrations are tied to inward effects in the regenerate believer, are all inward covenantal effects the consequence of outward administrations? Also, as not all those subject to the outward administrations are subject to the inward effects, shouldn't these effects be be considered separate administrations?
No, not all inward effects are consequences of outward administration. God is free to work outside of ordinary means.
However, that doesn't mean inward effects wrought outside of outward administration are themselves administrations. Administration is governance, a governing framework. Administrative frameworks are outward things, inherently. They are the "visible stuff", so to speak. As an example, the CEO and administrative officers, the vision documents, the conditions of employment are all administrative. Outward mechanisms intended to achieve particular inward ideals. The success of achieving inward ideals doesn't make that achievement a separate administration. It means the administration achieved the ideal.
In addition, the ideal achieved without an external framework means the ideal was achieved outside of administration, not that the ideal becomes the administration.
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I'm not sure what you mean by achieving inward ideals. I don't think inward changes are achieved as much as they are administered to us by the Holy Spirit on the basis of the Covenant of Grace.
By inward, or internal, administrations I would refer to regeneration, circumcision of the spirit, sanctification, assurance, etc., and by outward, or external, administrations I would refer to the sacraments, discipleship, communion of the saints, etc. I don't mean that inward administrations happen outside of God's ordinary means.
You seem to take administration as a synonym for the church itself, in a sense like an "administration" as a formation of government; while I have always understood the term to refer to some thing which is administered, perhaps as a government in the sense that government is a service tended to by ministers, but more generally to those works whereby a covenant is enacted by its administrators.
I'm not sure the sense influenced by modern political terminology is quite in line with the way the term has been used historically by English theologians. For example, Mathew Henry, in his commentary on the Covenant of Grace as revealed to Abraham (Gen 17:7-14), wrote,
"The covenant of grace is everlasting. It is from everlasting in the counsels of it, and to everlasting in the consequences of it; and the external administration of it is transmitted with the seal of it to the seed of believers, and the internal administration of it by the Spirit of Christ's seed in every age."
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Northern Crofter
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"Administration" can be a noun or a verb. In the following paragraph it is used as a verb (the parallel being "work," another word with verb/noun uses):
Well a deverbal noun precisely, but am I getting the wrong idea from the bit about "outside of ordinary means" (like WCF 25.2?) and the next paragraph comparing administration to a governing framework together with its officers, vision documents, and conditions of employment? Wouldn't this mean that the outward administration is exactly the church? Why else should administration be defined as something inherently outward?
I was just giving an example re: government. That’s all. In historic CT, when we talk about administration we mean the outward means by which the covenant is structured/expressed/presented. The fault is mine for assuming the definition instead of explaining more. So, the covenant is worked in the heart by the Spirit for the elect, but the covenant itself uses outward or visible means to do this. It’s not just “the church”, though the officers of the church are part of the administration. Word, prayer, and sacrament are the outward means by which the covenant is administered.
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