Historians have tended to define “covenant theology” with respect to the number of covenants employed, or whether or not the covenant can be viewed as the organizing principle in the theological system of a given writer. But it would be much more satisfactory to keep the discussion within the parameters legitimated by the scriptural usage of the concept, that is, as a divinely ordained means of portraying the nature of God’s relationship with man, particularly “the organic unity and progressiveness” of God’s saving purpose for his people throughout the history of mankind.

Andrew A. Woolsey, Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed Tradition to the Westminster Assembly, 21.