This article offers some statistics from Heinrich Bullinger’s The Decades with a brief analysis as evidence that Bullinger must be understood as the forerunner, not the father, of federal theology, due to his discussion of the covenant doctrine is limited, inconsistent, exploratory, and slightly integrated with the rest of his theological thought. Having tested Baker and McCoy’s thesis that Bullinger’s doctrine of the covenant is an organizing and central principle in most of his published works (especially in The Decades), one arrives at the conclusion that their thesis is not totally accurate. One might observe that Bullinger cannot be considered …
Although the covenant was a relatively known theme among sixteenth-century early Reformers, Bullinger’s theology —as reflected in his treatise A Brief Exposition of the One and Eternal Testament or Covenant of God (hereafter Covenant of God) — develops further Zwingli’s notion of the covenant. Although we can’t say that the covenant is a central hermeneutical principle to understand all Bullinger’s theology, his development of the covenant offers some good insights. Testamentum as Covenant Due to the diversity of meanings, Bullinger starts clarifying his understanding of the term ‘testamentum.’ He understands ‘testamentum’ as an oath-based promise taking into account what Scripture …

