“The federal theology exerts a regulative influence in determining the question of the salvability of the race, apart from the remedial provisions of the gospel. It definitely reveals the doctrine, that God has never dealt with human beings except through covenant methods, and that justification has never been made possible to man save through the vicarious obedience of a federal head. How then can a sinner be justified? The covenant of works, as a covenant of life, is shattered, and naught issues from its ruins but the thunder of its penalty preluding the trump of doom. Its federal head as himself condemned, and he who would now turn to it for hope presents the mournful spectacle of a dying man seeking life from Adam’s grave. There is no hope but through the vicarious obedience of the second Adam, which grounds the bestowal of the blessings that are promised to faith by another and better covenant.” — John L. Girardeau, The Federal Theology: Its Import and Its Regulative Influence (1884)