[en] A systematic procedure to consistently formulate a field theoretical, QCD bound state problem with a fixed number of constituents is outlined. The approach entails applying the Hamiltonian flow equations, which are a set of continuous unitary transformations, to a QCD motivated Hamiltonian with a confining interaction. The method is developed in detail for gluodynamics in the Coulomb gauge to obtain an effective block-diagonal Hamiltonian appropriate to a reduced Fock space with a fixed number of dynamical gluons. Standard many-body techniques are used to numerically diagonalize this Hamiltonian in a constituent two gluon Fock space. The calculated gluon condensates and glueball masses are in good agreement with QCD sum rule and lattice results. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society