William Ames's complete system of Christian doctrine and ethics in numbered theses, first published in Latin as Medulla Theologiae in 1623 and here given in the 1642 London translation. Book I treats faith, from the nature of theology to the end of the world; Book II treats observance, from virtue and good works through the Ten Commandments to contentment.
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Book I, Faith (41 chapters); Book II, Observance (22 chapters)
Length
About 113,000 words · an 8-hour read
“The Marrow of Sacred Divinity” is William Ames's complete system of Christian doctrine and ethics, first published in Latin as Medulla Theologiae in 1623 and translated into English in 1642. It defines theology as “the doctrine of living to God” and divides it into two parts: faith, which runs from the nature of God through creation, sin, Christ, and the application of redemption to the church and the end of the world; and observance, which covers virtue, good works, and the whole duty commanded in the Ten Commandments. Every chapter is a set of short numbered theses backed by Scripture.
How the argument unfolds
01
The author's forewarning. Ames answers his critics before he begins. To those who want large volumes he says that many readers need “the nest itself, the very seat of the matter they are pursuing” shown to them without delay. To those who will call his style dry: “when my purpose is to teach, I think I should not say in two words what can be said in one.”
02
Theology is living to God. The definition that governs the whole work: “Theology is the doctrine of living to God.” Since life is the noblest of all acts and living to God belongs to the will, “theology is a practical, not a speculative, discipline.” Its two parts are faith and observance.
03
Faith as an act of the will. “Faith is a resting of the heart on God as the author of life and eternal salvation.” Not bare assent, which “may exist without any life in it,” but a receiving, a choosing, a cleaving: “to believe in God is, in believing, to cleave to God, to lean on God, to rest in God as our all-sufficient life and salvation.”
04
God: sufficiency and efficiency. “What may be known of God is his sufficiency and his efficiency.” Sufficiency covers his essence, attributes, and the three subsistences; efficiency covers omnipotence and the decree. Ames works through the divine ideas and rejects the notion of a “middle knowledge” in God as one that “cannot stand with the utter perfection of God.”
05
Creation, providence, covenant. The six days, the angels, and man as “the compendium and abridgment of all creatures.” Providence is conservation and governance, and the special governance of reasonable creatures takes the form of a covenant: “Do this, and thou shalt live; if thou do it not, thou shalt die the death,” sealed by the two trees.
06
The fall and its consequences. The devil's temptation is anatomized as a fallacy in seven devices, from the choice of the serpent to the abuse of God's own name. Then guilt, pollution, and punishment; spiritual and bodily death in their beginning and consummation; original sin as “a habitual exorbitancy of the whole nature of man”; and the propagation of sin by imputation and real communication.
07
Christ the Mediator. His person, with the two natures and the communication of properties; his calling and threefold office of prophet, priest, and king; satisfaction and merit within one obedience; his life, death, and exaltation. “Christ triumphed on the cross as on a field of victory, but in his exaltation as on a kingly throne and chariot of triumph.”
08
The application of redemption. “Redemption is as it were the matter, application the form, of our salvation.” The new covenant is set against the old in nine differences, and then predestination, calling, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification are each defined and unfolded in turn. Assurance of salvation “is not itself justifying faith, but a fruit of that faith.”
09
The church, Scripture, and ministry. The church mystical and instituted, a particular church being “a society of believers joined together by a special bond among themselves.” Scripture is “not a partial but a perfect rule of faith and life.” In the ministry “Hierarchy (holy rule) has no place. Rather, what belongs there is Hieroduly, or holy service,” and the chapter on preaching lays out a full method from doctrine to use to application.
10
Sacraments, discipline, the end. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, with the case for infant baptism and against transubstantiation; discipline as brotherly correction before excommunication; the administration of the covenant before and after Christ; and the end of the world, when “the ministry, sacraments, and discipline, together with the instituted churches themselves, will cease.”
11
Observance and virtue. Book II. “Observance is what performs the will of God with subjection to his glory.” Virtue is “a habit by which the will is inclined to do well,” and “no discipline can teach virtue except theology.” Against the doctrine of the mean: “The love of God is not praised for avoiding excess, but for being most ardent. Here the measure is beyond measure.”
12
Religion, justice, contentment. The two tables. Under religion: faith, hope, charity, hearing the word, prayer, oaths, lots, instituted worship, and the Lord's Day. Under justice: the duties owed to a neighbor, ending with contentment, “a virtue by which the mind rests in the portion God has given it.” No one keeps the law exactly, yet Christ's yoke is easy, because its lightness is found “in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, together with the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Key themes
Theology is practical. The whole system rests on one definition: “Theology is the doctrine of living to God.” Ames draws the consequence at once: “Nothing in theology fails to be referred to the last end, or to the means pertaining to that end, and all such matters directly tend to practice.”
Faith seated in the will. Ames locates faith in the will rather than the understanding. “Since faith is also the first act of life by which we live to God in Christ, it must consist in union with God, which a mere assent given to the truth about God can never accomplish.”
Method and brevity. The numbered theses are deliberate. Ames says that “when definite rules are laid down, the reader always has, so to speak, a marked place at every step where he may set his foot.” Each chapter defines its subject in a sentence and then draws out its parts and consequences.
Two covenants. The covenant of works, “Do this, and thou shalt live,” and the new covenant, which “requires no condition properly so called, nothing going before it; rather, it requires only what follows after or comes between, and this is itself given by grace.”
Ethics belongs to theology. Ames refuses to separate moral philosophy from divinity. Right reason, “if we mean absolute rightness, can be found nowhere but in Scripture, and it does not differ from the will of God revealed for the direction of our life.”
A Brief Forewarning of the Author, Concerning His Purpose
Although I do not claim to grasp in my mind every thought of those who might speak ill of this work, I foresee several objections that this effort of mine (which certainly proceeds from a very good intent) will run into, as the temper of the world goes. I mean to address the chief of them briefly.
Some, and indeed not unlearned readers, dislike this whole manner of writing: that the sum of theology should be compressed into so short a work. They would rather have large volumes in which they can dwell at leisure, or wander freely. I would ask them to consider that not everyone has the leisure, or the vast learning, to hunt the partridge through mountains and woods. Many people’s circumstances require instead that the nest itself, the very seat of the matter they are pursuing, be shown to them without further delay.
Some do not object to this method, provided the chief heads are handled rhetorically, but they think that each particular point need not be pressed so precisely. Yet when speech runs on like a swift stream, though it catches up many things of every sort, you can hold onto only a little of it, catch only a little of it, and find no place to rest steadily. But when definite rules are laid down, the reader always has, so to speak, a marked place at every step where he may set his foot.
There will also be some who condemn the care given to method and logical form as fussy and burdensome. To them I wish a sounder judgment, since they remove the art of understanding, judgment, and memory from the very things that almost alone deserve to be understood, known, and committed to memory.
On the other side, there will be no shortage of those who demand greater rigor from the art of logic. I could not fully satisfy them even if I wished, given my own limitations, and I would not wish to satisfy them fully even if I could, out of consideration for the weakness of others. I expect there will be no small number who think that publishing such an outline as this, after so many labors by learned men in the same field, is superfluous, merely repeating what has already been done. I would readily share that opinion, if anything of this kind already existed that pleased everyone in every respect.
Still, I do not mean this to be taken as though I ever hoped for any such perfection from this writing of mine. But I am not without hope that two or three readers, or so, may come upon this work of mine and find here something better suited to instruct them and stir them up to piety than they have found in the more learned writings of others. If that hope does not fail me, I will consider the labor well spent.
I expect to be blamed for obscurity by those less skilled in these matters. I would ask them to learn from what is said of Cyrus: that the diffused brightness of the sun’s beams is not so pleasant through large windows. Certainly a contracted light, though it may seem small, illuminates more (if a person comes close and observes) than light that is, as it were, scattered by too much spreading out.
The dryness of the style and the harshness of certain words will likewise draw blame from the same readers. But I openly profess that I practice this heresy: when my purpose is to teach, I think I should not say in two words what can be said in one, and that the key to be chosen is the one that opens best, even if it is made of wood, when no golden key serves as well.
Finally, if there are any who wish to see certain practical matters, especially those that follow here, explained at greater length, I hope to satisfy them later (God willing) in a separate treatise. I have some inclination toward such a work already, concerning the questions usually called cases of conscience.
If there are any who still find fault, or wish for other things, I would ask them kindly to share their thoughts with me. Such thoughts would supply welcome material either for a fitting defense or for due correction.
The Nature of Theology
Theology is the doctrine of living to God: “the words of eternal life” (John 6:68); “the words of this life” (Acts 5:20); “reckon yourselves to be alive to God” (Rom 6:11).
2. It is called a doctrine not because the names of intelligence, science, wisdom, art, or prudence do not also belong to it (all of these are found in every accurate discipline, and especially in theology), but because this discipline does not arise from nature and human invention, as others do, but from divine revelation and institution: “Doctrine shall proceed from me” (Isa 51:4); “from Heaven: why did you not then believe him?” (Matt 21:25); “we know that God spoke to Moses” (John 9:29); “the Gospel is not according to man, for neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but by revelation” (Gal 1:11–12), (John 6:45).
3. The principles of other arts, being inborn in us, may be polished and perfected by sense, observation, experience, and induction. But the solid principles of theology, however they may be perfected by study and effort, are not in us by nature: “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you” (Matt 16:17).
4. Every art consists of rules directing some act of the creature. Since life is the noblest of all acts, theology can properly concern nothing other than life.
5. The creature’s life is most perfect when it comes nearest to the living and life-giving God. So the nature of theology’s life is to live to God.
6. Men live to God when they live according to the will of God, to the glory of God, God working inwardly in them: “that he might live after the will of God,” “according to God” (1 Pet 4:2 and 4:6); “that I may live to God: Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:19–20); “that the life of Jesus might be manifest in our bodies” (2 Cor 4:10); “Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by life or death” (Phil 1:20).
7. This life, as to its essence, remains one and the same from its beginning to eternity: “he that believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36, John 5:24); “life eternal remaining in him” (1 John 3:15).
8. This life contains both living happily and living well, yet eu zēn, to live well, is more excellent than eudaimonein, to live happily. What ought chiefly and finally to be regarded is not blessedness, which concerns our own benefit, but goodness, which is referred to God’s glory. So theology is better defined by the good life in which we live to God than by a blessed life in which we live to ourselves, as the apostle names it by a synecdoche: “the doctrine according to God lives” (1 Tim 6:3).
9. This life is a spiritual act of the whole man, by which he is carried toward enjoying God and doing according to his will. Since it is clear that these things belong to the will, it follows that the proper and primary subject of theology is the will: “from the heart come the actions of life” (Prov 4:23); “give me your heart” (Prov 23:26).
10. Since this life and will is truly and properly our most perfect practice, it is evident of itself that theology is a practical, not a speculative, discipline. It is practical not merely in the common sense in which other disciplines have their eupraxia, their well-doing, as their end, but in its own distinctive and special manner, above all other disciplines.
11. Nothing in theology fails to be referred to the last end, or to the means pertaining to that end, and all such matters directly tend to practice.
12. This practice of life is so perfectly contained in theology that no precept universally true concerning living well, found in the disciplines of household government, morality, political government, or lawmaking, fails to properly belong to theology.
13. Theology is therefore the supreme and most noble of all arts, the masterpiece, proceeding in a special manner from God, treating of God and divine matters, and leading man to God. In this respect it may fittingly be called theozoia or theourgia (a living to God, or a working to God), as well as theologia (a speaking of God).
The Parts of Theology
1. There are two parts of theology: faith and observance. So Paul writes, “Hold the express form of wholesome words, which you have heard from me, with faith and love” (2 Tim 1:13), and “having faith and a good conscience” (1 Tim 1:19). So too the Psalm: “Trust in the Lord, and do good” (Ps 37:3). Paul’s own theology consisted of these same two parts: “I believe all things that are written, and have hope in God; I exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense” (Acts 24:14–16).
The same two parts made up Abraham’s theology: “Abraham believed Jehovah” (Gen 15:6); “Walk before me continually, and be perfect” (Gen 17:1). Christ requires the same of his disciples, when, beyond faith, he requires that they observe all things he has commanded them (Matt 28:20). Paul treats the same two parts in the Epistle to the Romans, where it is plain that the whole sum of theology is contained. And finally, he wills that this same sum be taught in the churches: “These things I will that you affirm, that those who have believed God might be careful to go before others in well-doing” (Titus 3:8).
2. A true distribution of any art must arise from the nature of its object, and this distribution has that property. The beginning and first act of spiritual life, which is theology’s proper object, is faith. The second act, the operation flowing from that first principle, is observance. So these two are necessarily the genuine parts of theology, and no other part need be sought.
3. In the Old Testament, fittingly for that legal and servile condition, theology is sometimes divided instead into the fear of God and the keeping of his commandments, as in Ecclesiastes 12:13: “The sum of all is: fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” But faith is included here by way of metonymy under the fear of God, as appears from Proverbs 3:5–7: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart… fear the Lord, and depart from evil.”
4. In practice and exercise these two parts are always joined together, but in nature and in the precepts governing them they are distinct.
5. They are likewise distinguished in the order of nature: faith holds first place, and spiritual obedience the second. No living action can be brought forth unless a principle of life has first been begotten within.
Faith
1. Faith is a resting of the heart on God as the author of life and eternal salvation, so that by him we may be freed from all evil and obtain all good: “Let him lean upon Jehovah the Holy One of Israel in Faith” (Isa 10:20); “Roll your way upon Jehovah, and trust in him” (Ps 37:5); “Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah, and whose confidence Jehovah is” (Jer 17:7).
2. To believe commonly means an act of the understanding yielding assent to testimony. But because the will is moved by this assent, and reaches out to embrace the good thus allowed, faith fittingly describes this act of the will too, and must be understood this way here. It is a receiving: “As many as received him, who believe” (John 1:12).
3. Faith is carried toward the good it makes ours; it is an act of choosing, an act of the whole person. Neither of these belongs to a mere act of the understanding: “He that comes to me, he that believes in me” (John 6:35).
4. So although faith always presupposes knowledge of the gospel, there is no saving knowledge in anyone (differing from the knowledge found in some who will not be saved) except what follows this act of the will and depends on it (John 7:17; John 8:31–32; 1 John 2:3).
5. The true Christian faith that has its place in the understanding always leans on a divine testimony, as divine. Yet this testimony cannot be received without a devout inclination of the will toward God: “He that receives his testimony has sealed that God is true” (John 3:33); “He was strengthened in Faith, giving glory to God” (Rom 4:20).
6. Faith is not less certain or more doubtful for resting only on testimony. It is more certain by nature than any human science, because it is carried to its object under a formal character of infallibility, though because of the imperfection of the habit from which faith flows, the assent of faith in this or that person often appears weaker than the assent of scientific knowledge.
7. God is the object of faith, not as considered in himself, but as by him we live well: “We hope in the living God, who is the preserver of all men, especially of those that believe” (1 Tim 4:10).
8. Christ as Redeemer is the mediate object of faith, but not the highest, for we believe in God through Christ, to live to God through Christ (Rom 6:11); “We have trust through Christ to God-ward” (2 Cor 3:4); “Through him believing in God” (1 Pet 1:21).
9. The sentences of Scripture, or the promises, contain and present an object of faith, and are called the object of faith by a metonymy of the adjunct. The good that is proposed to be obtained, as such, is the end and effect of faith, not properly its object.
But that on whose power we rest, in obtaining that good, is faith’s proper object: “We preach Christ” (1 Cor 1:23); “I determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 2:2); “God in Christ” (2 Cor 5:19).
10. With this divine faith, which looks to the will of God and our own salvation, we must not simply believe any man, but God above all: “Every man is a liar” (Rom 3:4); “that your faith consist not in the wisdom of men” (1 Cor 2:5).
11. So the authority of God is the proper and immediate ground of all truth to be believed in this way. This is the source of that solemn phrase the prophets everywhere use, “the Word of the Lord,” “Thus says the Lord.”
12. Hence, the final ground of faith, as it presents a thing to be believed, rests on the authority of God, or divine revelation: “If you first know this, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation,” and so on 2 Peter 1:20–21; “We know that God spoke to Moses” (John 9:29). But the final ground of faith, as it names the act of believing, rests on the operation and inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit: “That none can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3 and 12:11).
13. This faith, by which we not only believe there is a God, or give credit to God, but believe in God, is true and proper confidence. It is confidence not in the sense of a certain, absolute persuasion of good to come, but in the sense of choosing and grasping a sufficient and fit means, one on which such persuasion and expectation can be founded. In this sense men are said to put confidence in their wisdom, power, friends, and riches: “They believed not in God nor trusted in his salvation” (Ps 78:22).
14. This is declared everywhere in those phrases of Scripture that unfold the true nature of solid faith: nishan al, “to lean upon,” as in Isaiah 10:20, and nishan el, in Proverbs 3:5; likewise batach and sha’on, the Hebrew terms rendered “trust,” in Isaiah 50:10, and batach in Proverbs 3:5; sa’ad, “to be stayed,” in Psalm 71:6; and the Greek pisteuein epi or eis, “to believe upon” or “into,” as in Romans 10:11.
15. So to believe in God is, in believing, to cleave to God, to lean on God, to rest in God as our all-sufficient life and salvation: “by cleaving to him, for he is your life” (Deut 30:20).
16. Hence that general assent which the Papists count as faith is not faith, because by their own admission it may exist without any life in it (Jas 2:17).
17. But that special assent by which we resolve that God is our God in Christ is not the first act of faith, but an act flowing from faith. There is no greater certainty of this truth in you than in another, nor a truer grasp of it in you than in another, before you have specially applied yourself to God by faith: “Being justified by Faith, we have peace toward God, we glory in God” (Rom 5:1–2).
18. Since faith is also the first act of life by which we live to God in Christ, it must consist in union with God, which a mere assent given to the truth about God can never accomplish.
19. Further, since someone about to believe, out of a sense of their misery and lack of any deliverance in themselves or in others, must cast themselves upon God in Christ as a sufficient and faithful Savior, they cannot do this by any mere assent of the understanding, but only by a consent of the will.
20. Although Scripture sometimes counts a mere assent to the truth about God and Christ as true faith (John 1:50), a special confidence is always included. So wherever saving faith is spoken of, either confidence in the Messiah is presupposed and only its determination or application to the person of Christ is being declared, or confidence is described through that assent as an effect through its cause: “He that believes in me shall live: do you believe this? He says, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are that Christ, that Son of God who should come into the world” (John 11:25–26).
21. But where confidence is said to be a fruit of faith, this is true of confidence as it looks to God for what is still to come, where it is simply a firm hope. As it regards God in Christ offering himself in the present, however, it is faith itself. This is why Scripture gives saving faith titles such as pepoithēsis and parrhēsia, persuasion and boldness (2 Cor 3:4; 2 Cor 5:6–8; Eph 3:12; 1 Pet 1:13; 1 John 5:13–14), plerophoria, a full persuasion (Rom 4:21; Col 2:2), and hypostasis, the substance (Heb 11:1).
22. Some place true faith partly in the understanding and partly in the will, but this is not precisely said, since faith is one single virtue and produces acts of a single kind, not partly acts of knowledge and partly of affection (1 Cor 13:13). Rather, that solid assent given to the promises of the gospel is called faith, and also confidence: partly because it begets faith as a general assent, and partly because it flows from confidence as a special and solid assent grasping the actual possession of grace already obtained. In this way it rests upon confidence of the heart as a middle term, or third argument, from which alone such a conclusion can be drawn, for example: “He that believes, I am sure he shall be saved.” Experience also teaches that this particular assurance of the understanding is sometimes lacking for a time in those who nevertheless have true faith hidden in their hearts.
Questions
What is The Marrow of Sacred Divinity about?+
It is a complete summary of Christian theology arranged in numbered theses. Book I, on faith, moves from the nature of theology through God, creation, providence, sin, Christ, the application of redemption, the church, Scripture, ministry, and sacraments, to the end of the world. Book II, on observance, treats obedience, virtue, and good works, then works through the duties of religion and justice as they are laid out in the Ten Commandments.
What does Ames mean by “theology is the doctrine of living to God”?+
That theology exists for the sake of life, not speculation. Men live to God “when they live according to the will of God, to the glory of God, God working inwardly in them.” Because this living is an act of the will, Ames makes the will the proper subject of theology and calls theology practical “in its own distinctive and special manner, above all other disciplines.”
Is this the same book as Ames's Medulla Theologiae or The Marrow of Theology?+
Yes. Ames wrote the work in Latin as Medulla Theologiae, first published in 1623 and enlarged in 1627. This edition is the English translation printed at London in 1642 under the title The Marrow of Sacred Divinity, with the text given in modern English. The Marrow of Theology is the title used by later English versions of the same work.
How is the book organized?+
Into two books that follow Ames's division of theology into faith and observance. Book I has 41 chapters and Book II has 22. Every chapter opens with a definition and proceeds by short numbered theses, each supported by Scripture references, so a reader can find any doctrine and see how it connects to what comes before and after it.
What does Ames say about faith and assurance?+
He defines faith as a resting of the heart on God and places it in the will. Faith is called justifying, in his words, “when by it we rely upon Christ for remission of sins and for salvation.” Assurance is distinct: “assurance of salvation is not itself justifying faith, but a fruit of that faith,” and a true believer may for a time, going by feelings, think he neither believes nor is reconciled to God.
What is Ames's view of the church and its ministry?+
The church instituted by Christ is “parochial, made up of one congregation,” joined by a covenant for the constant exercise of the communion of saints. Particular churches may confederate in classes and synods but no church depends on another. Ministers are elders of one congregation, and the right to call a minister belongs to the church he is to serve.
Does the book cover ethics as well as doctrine?+
Yes, and Ames argues that it must. Book II treats virtue, good works, and every duty toward God and neighbor under the two tables of the law, including chapters on prayer, oaths, the Lord's Day, chastity, commutative justice, veracity, and contentment. He holds that “no discipline can teach virtue except theology.”
Who was William Ames?+
William Ames (1576 to 1633) was an English Puritan theologian, educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, who left England for the Netherlands in 1610, advised at the Synod of Dort, and taught theology at the University of Franeker from 1622. He wrote the Marrow there, and his work became a standard text among the Puritans of England and New England.
William Ames was an English Puritan theologian, born at Ipswich in Suffolk in 1576 and educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where William Perkins was among his teachers. His refusal to conform to the ceremonies of the Church of England cost him his place at Cambridge, and in 1610 he left for the Netherlands. He served as an adviser at the Synod of Dort in 1618 and 1619, and from 1622 held the chair of theology at the University of Franeker, where he wrote the Medulla Theologiae (The Marrow of Sacred Divinity) and De Conscientia, on cases of conscience. He died at Rotterdam in 1633. His writings shaped Reformed theology in the Netherlands, England, and New England.
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