Synopsis: The Mystical Presence (1846), John Williamson Nevin's magnum opus, was an attempt to combat the sectarianism and subjectivism of nineteenth-century American religion by recovering the robust sacramental and incarnational theology of the Protestant Reformation, enriched with the categories of German idealism. In it, he makes the historical case for the spiritual real presence as the authentic Reformed doctrine of the Eucharist, and explains the theological and philosophical context that render the doctrine intelligible. The 1850 article "The Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the...

Synopsis: Coena Mystica contains the never-before-reprinted text of John Williamson Nevin's response to Charles Hodge's devastating critiques of his 1846 magnum opus, The Mystical Presence. Initially appearing in twelve issues of the little-known Weekly Messenger of the German Reformed Church and almost entirely neglected by historians since, Nevin's response included the full text of Hodge's article, with his rejoinders interspersed every few pages. These articles, in addition to providing a lively and illuminating debate on the roots of Reformed eucharistic theology, take the disputants...

The Incarnate Word contains a selection of the key writings on the doctrines of Christology produced by the theologians of Mercersburg Seminary during the middle of the nineteenth century. Despite the seminary's small stature and marginal position within American religious life, these texts represent some of the most profound wrestlings with the doctrine of the person of Christ that appeared in antebellum America, engaging the latest in German theological scholarship as well as the riches of the Christian tradition. As such, they command more than mere historical interest, providing rich...

Born of Water and the Spirit presents essays on the sacraments by the three major representatives of ""Mercersburg Theology,"" John Nevin, Philip Schaff, and Emanuel Gerhart. It focuses on Mercersburgs doctrine of baptism and Christian nurture, attempts to correct putative deficiencies of the major Reformed trajectories (e.g., New England and Princeton), and vigorously critiques the anti-sacramental animus of revivalistic evangelicalism. Mercersburg understood baptism as initiating a person (adult or infant) into the sacramental life of the church. Baptism and Eucharist were objective,...

Philip Schaff, the founder of church history in America, was widely celebrated in his later career. Soon after his arrival from Germany, however, his Principle of Protestantism (1845) was stiffly denounced for its favorable attitude toward Roman Catholicism, harsh critique of denominationalism, and theory of historical progress leading to a church that would be both Evangelical and Catholic. Charles Hodge's review of the book provided the most cogent analysis of its implications for American Christianity. Schaff further clarified his understanding of progress in What Is Church History? (1846)...

The mid-nineteenth century is a gold mine for contemporary scholars interested in American Protestant ecclesiology. There one will find the extensive writings of John Nevin who came to the notice of the theological world with The Anxious Bench, a critique of the ""quackery"" of Protestant revivalism. Influenced by a critical appropriation of cutting-edge contemporary German theology, he came to believe that the church was not ""invisible,"" but the visible manifestation of Jesus Christs incarnate life. Christians were to pursue unity, not in external institutional arrangements, but as unity...