constituted local communities, guided by duly recognized leaders, essential to God’s saving activity? If the answer to that question is “No,” the so-called “Low Church view,” then that same church is but one of many instruments employed in the fulfilment of the divine mission. If the answer is “Yes,” the “High Church” view, then the normal means of God’s saving activity is the church, in which children are nurtured in the faith, and through which adults are brought to faith. Of course, those who answered in the affirmative recognized that our sovereign Triune God may choose to work outside of the strategy that has been put into play since the ascension of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. There will be individuals, like Saul on the road to Damascus, to whom Christ appears directly. However, those who answered in the affirmative held that, ever since the ascension of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, the Triune God normally worked in and through the church.
John Nevin and the Church Question76
While he never wrote a systematic ecclesiology, the fire in John Nevin’s belly was the church and her ministry.77 Throughout his prolific career, he provided the church with a long list of publications addressing numerous ecclesiological themes. This volume includes nine articles or books written from 1843 to 1858. The year 1843 marks the publication of the first edition of The Anxious Bench. It was written but three years after Nevin moved to Mercersburg to provide leadership for the struggling Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church. Nevin contributed seven articles that addressed, in some measure, the Church Question. The sermon On Catholic Unity (1845) represents his first major statement on the subject. Nevin delivered this defining document on Christian unity before the Joint Convention of the German Reformed Church and the Dutch Reformed Church in Harrisburg on August 8, 1844. Nevin preached The Church at the opening of the Synod of the German Reformed Church at Carlisle, PA on October 15, 1846; it was delivered in the wake of the “heresy trial” of Schaff and Nevin over the publication of The Principle of Protestantism, and was published at the request of Synod by the Publication Office of the German Reformed Church in 1847. In Antichrist (1848) Nevin affirms the centrality of the incarnation, defines the Antichrist in part as a denial of the organic and real link between the incarnate Christ and the Church, and offers his most searing critique of sectarianism. In The Sect System (1849) Nevin presents his review of History of the Religious Denominations in the United States, edited by John Winebrenner (1797–1860), an outspoken evangelical who had begun his ministry within the German Reformed Church. In Catholicism (1851) Nevin deliberates on the classic marks of the church while unpacking what the Apostles’ Creed means by “one, holy, catholic Church.”
In the spring of 1853, “the way was open for Dr. Nevin to retire from public life, and find that rest for his body and mind which, after thirteen years of the most intense mental activity, he needed more than anything else.”78 The “way” referred to by Appel was the move of Marshall College to Lancaster. Nevin had declined the invitation to move with the school and shared the reason for his decision in a private interview with this biographer, Theodore Appel:
Among other things he said that, as was well known, he was not satisfied with the present state of Protestantism and Romanism; that he had published his views freely; that he did not wish to burden the new institution with the odium or opposition which they had called forth; and that the College was most likely to do better under a new president to whom there could be no objection on account of his philosophy or theology, as was the case with himself.79
Interestingly, Emmanuel Gerhart, the systematician of Mercersburg Theology, was chosen as the school’s president.80 Appel couldn’t resist this comment on that decision: “Here, as in other things, the hand of Providence manifested itself in enabling the College to grow in its own likeness and image, without suffering any harm to its historical integrity.”81
While Nevin retired from his role as a professor, he continued to preach and write. In his sermon, “The Christian Ministry,” he offers a systematic portrait of the pastoral office. He delivered this sermon in November 1854 at Zion’s Church of Chambersburg during the installation of Bernard C. Wolff (1794–1870), Nevin’s successor as Professor of Theology. In 1857, he wrote an extensive review of a commentary on Ephesians by Charles Hodge, a book wherein Nevin’s former professor focuses on predestination and election. Nevin challenges Hodge’s presuppositions and, in the process, distinguishes both his understanding of election and the church from that of Hodge. In 1858, Nevin wrote “Thoughts on the Church.” This is the last of his publications focused on the church and its ministry, though he wrote articles in defense of the Provisional Liturgy.82
Through these nine texts Nevin encouraged German Reformed Christians, and all others who would listen, to return to “the historical Reformational faith in the visible Church as the true Body of Christ.”83 For Nevin, “the church is the vehicle by which the theanthropic life of Christ is carried forward through history and imparted to mankind.”84 The life of Christ is then imparted to each individual through union with Christ that takes place by and through the ministry of the church. In other words, the church is the primary source of spiritual grace and a place of life-long nurture and discipleship, and the pastoral office is a necessary medium of God’s salvific grace; the pastors who fill the office are called to serve as priests, clothed with apostolic authority.
1. See as examples, Canon, Lectures on Pastoral Theology; Hoppin, The Office and Work of the Christian Ministry; Murphy, Pastoral Theology.
2. Nevin, “Translator’s Introduction” to Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism, 54. The latest edition of Principle, with full editorial apparatus, has been recently published in the present series: Schaff, The Development of the Church: “The Principle of Protestantism” and other Historical Writings of Philip Schaff, ed. David R. Bains and Theodore Louis Trost, MTSS, vol. 3. This edition of Principle and What is Church History? will be used throughout.
3. For treatments of the “Church Question,” see Welch, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 1:190–232; Conser Jr., Church and Confession. Almost certainly Nevin was introduced to the concept by Schaff in the lectures that became Principle of Protestantism (October 1844). It does not appear in Nevin’s writing until the 1846 sermon, “The Church” (below, 156). Schaff discussed the question in What is Church History?, 237–38.
4. Nevin, “Introduction” to Schaff, Principle of Protestantism, MTSS, vol. 3, 54–5.
5. Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism, MTSS, vol. 3, 192, emphasis original.
6. For a brief history of the Reformed Church in the United States, see Gunnemann, The Shaping of the United Church of Christ, 167–182.
7. Richards, History of the Theological Seminary, 27.
8. Ibid.
