Johannes Cocceius

1603-1669. German theologian. Educated at Hamburg and Franeker, he taught at Bremen, Franeker, and Leyden. He studied under Maccovius and William Ames.* In his works, based upon considerable knowledge of oriental languages, he tried to present theology on a purely biblical basis, and although a Calvinist, he objected to the Calvinist orthodoxy of his day. His major work, Summa doctrinae de Foedere et Testamento Dei (1648), presents an outline of the scriptural teaching of salvation. He pictures the relationship between God and man, both before and after the Fall, in the form of a covenant. In Eden there was a covenant of works which promised salvation for obedience, but when man sinned it was no longer valid. Then the covenant of works was replaced by a covenant of grace which offered salvation as a gift of God. This covenant originated in an agreement between the Father and Son and is realized in a succession of historical steps culminating in the kingdom of God. In this way Cocceius was able to introduce the ideas of the history of salvation and of millennialism into scholastic Reformed theology.