James Ussher (1581–1656), Archbishop of Armagh, was a significant Reformed theologian. Perkins’ study shows how Ussher drew on Catholic theological sources and integrated them into the development of the doctrine of the covenant of works. This covenant was a key descriptor of how God related to humanity before and after the fall into sin of Adam, the federal representative of all humanity.
Historically, Ussher is important since while ‘covenant theology’ is associated most closely with Puritanism, Ussher, in Ireland, was a conformist to the established English church. Perkins’ work shows that ‘there were thoroughly Reformed clergy who do not fit some descriptions of the radical puritans’ (p. 2). An effect of this recognition is that a more nuanced understanding of the doctrinal complexities of this period emerges.
The covenant motif was central for Ussher. He used it as a means of tying together several theological premises which were foundational for his overall theology. Ussher stood in the intellectualist tradition. Emerging from the medieval period and in opposition to voluntarism, Ussher prioritised mind over will: reason was more basic than choice. Thus, ‘the mind determines the will’ (p. 5). God's nature has the shaping power to govern the way the created order is constructed, and natural law reflects God's character in the created order. Aquinas exemplified the intellectualist paradigm. While voluntarism also appears in Reformed thought, Ussher was oriented in the Thomist direction.
Natural law was a link for Ussher to a covenant of works. God created humans in the divine image, reflecting the divine character in the ‘law of nature’ that God ‘hardwired into them’ (p. 6). God promised eternal life if Adam, representing all humanity as ‘head of humanity’, would obey and fulfill the divine law. Adam's success—or failure—determined the eternal outcome for all humanity.
Finding roots for a ‘covenant of works’ in early church and medieval traditions, Ussher organized the whole system in his ‘body of divinity’—his major treatise with that title, which ran through seven editions in the period from 1645 to 1677. While Reformed theology came to identify two covenants as God's means of working, those of works and grace, Ussher helped codify the covenant of works. This covenant bound God to Adam in the opportunity to earn eternal paradise for himself and posterity, while the covenant of grace was God's singular means of providing salvation in Christ throughout all eras of history. Ussher was the primary author of the Irish Articles (1615), the first Protestant confession to teach explicitly that God made a covenant of works with Adam. The Irish Articles became a source document for the Westminster Confession.
Ussher's use of covenant as a structuring idea for his whole theology is significant. Perkins thoroughly explores the content of the covenant of works in chapter 2. The idea that humanity owes absolute obedience to God as its Creator also means that God owes creatures nothing, in themselves. Yet God promised reward on the basis of Adam's obedience to the natural law. Ussher maintained that Adam had the strength to obey in his created nature (in contrast to the Catholic doctrine of the donum superadditum), and that the ‘penalty for breaking the covenant was eternal death’ (p. 78). Adam's obedience would be a paradigm for the obedience God requires in all dimensions of human existence. Theologically, this covenantal relationship was also paradigmatic for ‘how Ussher understood many other doctrines, particularly Christology and salvation’ (p. 84).
Perkins further explores the development of the covenant of works in other Reformed theologians, as well as the debates which the doctrine occasioned in chapter 3. This includes the views of William Perkins, Robert Rollock, and Thomas Cartwright. These varying viewpoints were important for the development of Reformed, federal theology. But Ussher's role was crucial in helping bring terms and categories of covenantal theology within ‘the confessional mainstream of Reformed theology’, particularly through the Irish Articles (p. 124). Core explorations of ‘The Covenant of Works and Predestination’ (ch. 4) and ‘The Covenant of Works and Christology’ (ch. 5) lead to Perkins’ final chapter on ‘The Covenant of Works and the Doctrines of Salvation (ch. 6).
Ussher linked covenant and predestination. Though the covenant of works ‘upheld man's responsibility for sin, it never diluted God's sovereignty. Instead, covenant and predestination were compatible and complementary doctrines that interlocked and mutually supported each other within the Reformed system’ (p. 163). ‘Predestination and covenant’, for Ussher were ‘simply two different ways to describe how the same God relates to humanity’ (p. 165). The covenant of works was linked to christology in that for Ussher, ‘Christ as the second Adam completed the obligation to fulfill the law on humanity's behalf and offered satisfaction to procure the remission of sin’ (p. 208). Since the covenant of works with the first Adam applied universally, ‘Christ as the second Adam made a universal satisfaction’ (p. 208). Faith is the instrument of salvation, linking persons to Christ ‘to receive all of the blessings that Christ earned in his role as mediator’ in justification (p. 242).
Perkins’ thorough and persuasive study shows that ‘Ussher was crucial in the developmental trajectory of the covenant of works’ (p. 256), as he ‘suffused the covenant of works motif throughout the entirety of his theological corpus’ (p. 266).
