The Lord's Supper in Nineteenth Century American Theology

This study traces the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper in its torturous journey through the fortunes of nineteenth century American theology. The scope of the project is limited in nature and designed to be an overview of the subject.

1. Historical Perspective

“Protestantism without Reformation” was Bonhoeffer’s succinct appraisal of the American Protestant church when he visited the United States in the 1930’s.He was right to a point; but it should be remembered that American Protestantism experienced a kind of Reformation, not the classical type of the sixteenth century to be sure, yet a rediscovery as drastic and as historically significant as its sixteenth century German and European matrix.

Only when the Protestant Reformation observed in its working out in the New World can one appreciate thetrue genius and vitality, the freshness, of an American Protestant Christianity.Therefore, for any positive consideration of the topic, “The Lord’s Supper in Nineteenth Century American Theology,” certain distinctive features peculiar to the American situation must be identified and delineated.

For example, emigrants to the New World, who had been caught in the European social, political, and religious whirlpool, brought many of their fatherland’s values, particularly those of the English Reformation.Parallel to these values was another equally important feature of the American character that developed early.This element reared its head in the form of antagonism to the Roman Catholic Church (“Popery”) and to the Church of England (“Anglicanism” or “Establishment”). Non Roman Catholic and Anglican religious refugees remembered all to well the stories their Non-Conformist ancestors had told of Roman and (or) of Anglican persecution in England. More recently, some of them had experienced the wrath of Canterbury firsthand and recently.

One puzzling note injects itself into this story.For the Dissenters in disagreeing with their religious past, that is, with the Church of England that opposed their Puritan heritage however remained loyal to English political ideology.Perhaps it never occurred to them that religion and politics mixed in sixteenth and seventeenth century England, and both ought to be rejected.Nearly two centuries later, and not without considerable loyalty and agony among the Americans, the issue of what governance to follow. At the outset of the American Revolution, the revolt from the tyranny of the king and his minions was condoned and encouraged by approximately twenty-five percent of the colonial population. That means approximately seventy-five percent of the population in the colonies was indifferent to the American Revolution orloyal to the Crown.

In spite of this divergence of opinion, on the whole, however, in America the religious aspect took precedence over the political. The late William Warren Sweet wrote:

Franklin H. Littell, commenting on Sweet’s assertion, reminds us “that Christianity in America reflected more fully the “left-wing” of the Reformation than it did the attitudes and practices of the state-church Reformation.”[3]

Though Protestant America had a sense of its roots that were planted deeply in the rich soil of European religious thought; though Protestant America borrowed specific denominational names (sooner or later), i.e., “Methodist,” “Presbyterian,” “Lutheran,” and “Puritan” or “Congregational,” from Continental church-establishments or societies; though Protestant America appropriated creeds and confessions from the Old World, American Protestants quicklyadopted a prolegomena (working method) of their very own and adapted the will and testament of their European theological heritage to fit new conditions and new situations.

The geographical and sociological structures in the New World forced a new approach on the fledgling churches in America.Europe had no wilderness; America did.The direction that “Errand into the Wilderness” took is the story of American church life and how this frontier life shaped doctrine and especially the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

The frontier offered a challenge and, at the same time, presentedan obstacle.As American Protestants began to wrestle with the vastness and complexity of the frontier,“The religion of the frontier, whether Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or Disciple, and no matter what its doctrinal basis, necessarily took much of the coloration of its environment.”[4]

The idea of “the coloration of its environment” should not be minimized so that today, in American Protestantism, the prevailing wind in the churches is measured more often than not by that frontier spirit. The frontier spirit lingers formidably in important denominations in American Protestantism and may account for a problem of self-identity for American Protestantism as a whole. Franklin Littell notes:

In spite of where we find ourselves today in the early years of the twenty-first century, American Protestant theology in the nineteenth century was home grown and drew some strength from Old World root stock.

Many writers of this period in American theology were learned and s wrote commendable and scholarly articles that required some knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, or German. Scholarly journals or the denominational press arose and journals and papers. Yet, in spite of the advent of media in service for the Church, amajority of Protestant clergy and laityin America thought or tacitly assumed, theology was a foreign word and was without meaning and totally empty of content.

On the other hand, if a Bible quiz were given to even the youngest member of a devout and church-going family, the passing grade would have been exceptionally high. Yet among the rank and file and those without a Bible or other Christian reading material, illiteracy was rampant.

In spite of scholarly journals and periodicals and articles, it seemsthe sum of Christian doctrine was reduced to selected passages from the New Testament, especially those relating to salvation and baptism.The history of doctrine and Christian thought suffered neglect. Only now and them would learned and literate clergy surface as in the case of John Williamson Nevin, an American-born theologian, and Philip Schaff, a German-born historian. Schaff held a doctoral degree from a Swiss university and had wrestled with European Reformation thought and the European theology of the nineteenth century America before coming to America. Both Nevin and Schaff wrote and gave rise to what has become known as the Mercersburg theology, the first distinctive and truly reformed theological movement in America.

The Incarnation of Jesus Christ was the center of the Mercersburg Theology.[6] Christology became the nucleus for understanding the Church. As nineteenth century Protestantism was burning its way across the frontier on the fire of conversion [7] but “Mercersburg Theology was primarily concerned with emphasizing the place of Jesus Christ in life. According to the Mercersburg theologians,Christology was. . . of extreme importance”[8] because its contribution to the American theological scene was its unitive principle.

The unitive principle of the Incarnation took the whole life of Jesus Christ seriously and “viewed Christ’s Life, death and teachings as an organic unity,”[9] leaning heavily on the fourth gospel and writings of Paul as sources. By giving full treatment to Christology, numerous possibilities presented themselves for theological interpretation. Nevin saw the Incarnation as the only fit and proper beginning of systematic theology; Schaff saw the Incarnation as “the proper starting point of church history.”[10]

With the incarnation as the proper center for both theology and church history, one major consequences of the “The Christology of the Mercersburg men was inevitably bound up with their conception of the church as the body of Christ on earth. For them Christ was the meaning of history and spiritual force still active in the world through his on-going Incarnation in the Christian Church.”[11] The next logical step in the Mercersburg Theology, if Nevin and Schaff were serious, was to attack the Memorialism ofLord’s Supper in American Protestantism. Nevin undertook the assignment in 1846, with the publication of The Mystical Presence.

In the Preface of The Mystical Presence. Nevin states his understanding of the Lord’s Supper and the church. He writes:

One readily sees the great value that Nevin and Schaff, the whole of the Mercersburg Theology itself, placed on the Church and the Eucharist, from the Incarnation as center.But American Protestantism had little or no appreciation for the Church or the sacraments as Nevin conceived them.This deflection troubled him.

Nevin hoped that The Mystical Presence would serve as a corrective to the deplorable Eucharistic conditions in America.In the first half of his work he opposed New England theology, the Puritans, the Presbyterians, the German and Dutch Reformed Churches, that is, he took on the whole gamut of nineteenth century American Protestant theology.He took Methodism to task for its practical and theoretical distrust of the usual means of grace.[15] He charged American Lutheranism with being “the most striking example” in refuting the Reformation Eucharistic doctrine.Nevin lamented, “The Lutheran Church, which was distinguished from other Protestant confessions, in the beginning, mainly by its high view of the Lord’s Supper, and the zeal it showed in opposition to what it stigmatized reproachfully as sacramentarian error”[16] in America “can hardly be recognized indeed as the same communion.” [17]

With prophetic insight Nevin said:

Nevin was not content to chastise the American churches only; he saved a good portion of his scorn for Europe where “open; rampant Rationalism” had overcome the old orthodoxy.[19] Though he made shambles of many theological structures, Nevin did not leave them as such. He was a builder; for immediately Nevin began a theological reconstruction that was based on the delicate relationship of the Incarnation, the Church, and the Eucharist.

In Section III of The Mystical Presence Nevin set forth his understanding of Reformed Eucharistic doctrine. “A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, SEALED and APPLIED to believers.”[20] In interpreting Calvinistic doctrine, as he understands it, Nevin is cautious in his definition of a sacrament. He says that a sacrament is “the conjunction of grace with an outward ordinance.[21]

The signs are one part; the other is found in “the invisible grace,” the sacramental or mystical grace that is joined by the signs. If it be a true sacrament, Nevin declares, “the ordinance must comprehend both.”[22] The symbols of bread and wine are the “outward signs,” accompanied by the “represented grace.”[23] This is the visible and mystical union, peculiar to the sacrament. “The invisible grace thus made present by sensible signs [bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist, water in Baptism] in the sacraments is, “Nevin believes, “Christ and the benefits of the new covenant.”[24] But the elements are not empty of meaning or just commemorative symbols,”[25] because bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper become more than elements: they “are pledge of his [Christ’s] actual presence and power.”[26]

This interpretation drew immediate suspicions and charges of Romanism. The accusations did not deter Nevin, for he said, ‘They [the elements] are bound... in [a] mystical, sacramental union, more intimately, we may say, that they would be if they were made... in the way of actual local comprehension.[27] The Holy Ghost makes the Eucharist “more than a commemoration of Christ’s death,”[28] for he give all “worthy receivers” the body and blood of Christ, with all his benefits, to the believer’s “spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.”[29]

In defining his thought on the Eucharistic doctrine in the reformed churches, Nevin emphasized that no new atonement was needed. “But,” he added “we do need to fall back perpetually on the one sacrifice for sin, which Christ had already made apron the cross…”[30]. Again, to American Protestant ears this had the sound of Romanism.

Nevin’s Christology, when measured in the light of the Incarnation, has a greater relevance for the church in its Eucharistic doctrine that might be supposed; for the church, i.e., the body of Christ, and the holy Eucharist are held in the perfect balance content may be called the Evangelical of the Incarnation Christology and the Sacramental of the Incarnation Christology.

III.Four Protestant Theologies in the nineteenth century

The Mystical Presence appeared in 1846. However, it was until 1848 before a significant reviews of the book appeared in America theological journals---“surely a commentary on the level of interest and competence in the subject in American Protestantism generally.”[31] Two scholars finally stepped forward: Tayler Lewis of Union College, Nevin’s old college friend, the brilliant lay theologian of the Dutch Reformed church; and Charles Hodge of Princeton, Nevin’s old teacher, whose fame in American theological circles was unexcelled.Lewis was sympathetic; Hodge was critical.[32]

In a lengthy article[33] Hodge challenged Nevin’s whole thesis, namely, “that a general deflection from the Reformation position was to be observed in American Protestantism.”[34]

Hodge and the so-called Princeton Theology held tight reins on the theological posture of reformed Protestant America during this era; therefore, no upstart (Mercersburg seminary) and the “Rationalistic European divines were going to upset the number one theological team in the country.Hodge could not stop the power plays that Nevin ran on historical evidence; but he could use deception with the same material.Hodge, who had no sense of historical contiguity or chronology, took his quotations and arguments when and where he choosed.It was not because he wanted to be dishonest in his scholarly endeavor: he did not know that such methods were not cricket.”[35] Moreover, he confessed in his review of Nevin’s two years because, he said, that he always found it hard to apply himself to books on such themes.“Though/very conservative in outward forms, he really had given up the meaning of both sacraments.”[36] Nichols said, “In this respect, in fact, he stood on the same religious and theological ground as a Baptist.”[37]

Neither Hodge nor Nevin began at the same point in history. Hence these two men rarely met on common ground. But whatever else may be said both sides agreed that “... the Holy Supper referred to the atoning sacrifice, to Jesus’ body as broken and his blood as shed for the remission of sins. It was a memorial of the cross and passion in which the benefit of the victory there won was made over the believing recipient. All Reformed confessions and theologians had been clear on this.”[38] But the American-oriented theologians and pastors, most of them entirely ignorant of the meaning of the creeds of church history, and, in some instances, distrustful of them altogether, appealed to the “current consensus” in the churches[39] rather than to the tradition of the Church Catholic.That “ consensus” was Zwinglian, not the Reformed Catholic view.While Nevin and Hodge and Hodge could agree on the essential theological meaning of the Supper, it was the historical evidence that separated them.

Hodge and most American Protestants never repudiated their historical understanding of the Lord’s Supper.Nevin did find, however, some limited individual support for his position among Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and others.[40] The Methodist Quarterly Review[41] never mentioned the Nevin-Hodge dispute, for as Nevin once remarked, “Methodism itself can hardly be said to make less account of the sacraments, practically or theoretically.”[42]

A.American Methodism

Nevin’s judgment of American Methodism was correct.But typical of American Protestantism, Methodism forgot her heritage, her roots in John Wesley’s Anglican “High-Church” views, which combined the Evangelical and the Sacramental.Wesley was nurtured in the Church of England and remained a faithful, life-long priest of that communion.As the “societies”[43] grew Wesley urged their members to attend communion and worship in the Anglican parish church. For he never intended these little bands to be more than preaching-houses.Wesley never intended to replace or even compete with the Established church. He viewed the Methodists as a body within the Church of England---however later (after his death) they became a separate entity. Moreover, he urged the members in the Methodist societies to schedule their preaching services, so that they would not interfere with parish services, a fair illustration of his intent and purpose.

A survey of American Methodism brings a poignant question: “How odes it happen, considering its Wesleyan roots, that American Methodist places so little value upon the sacraments?”[44] P S. Sanders, who is conversant with the early American Methodist literature and this problem especially, claim that the Revolutionary War is the pivotal point for discerning Methodism’s way in America.

Though Methodism was a latecomer to the colonies (first established congregation in 1766), compared to other denominations, the surrender of Cornwallis also meant the end of Wesley’s iron-rule in America. Francis Asbury, who came to the colonies be appointment of Wesley, must be said to rank first in influence in early American Methodism. He sought to keep the American branch joined to the Wesleyan trunk but the successful drive for independence from England, politically and economically, also meant a religious partition. To that “strange spirit” of American independence Wesley reluctantly acquiesced to the request of the Americans, and proceeded to transfer proper documents needed to establish the Methodist Episcopal church in America.

The now-famous Christmas Conference of 1784 marked the departure of American Methodism from its Wesleyan sister. One illustration of that division, central to this paper, was the theme of “A Pocket-Hymn Book,” a general collection of evangelistic hymns. Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury first published this collection in Philadelphia in 1790. As evangelistic hymns they largely were intended to emphasize the “heart-felt” religion. Thought the hymns were inadequate for regular worship and were never intended to be used for church worship, they became the hymnal of the church.[45]

When Wesley bade American Methodism “God’s speed,” he took great care to insure that while the American Church separated from the Wesleyan movement in England, nevertheless, American Methodist would have a full liturgical worship available and at their disposal.This he did when he sent the documents for the church in 1784.One historian of the church says that American Methodism was established on a liturgical basis and that basis was “The Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America,” sent over by Wesley, with other articles for church order, faith, and polity. These were adopted by the Christmas Conference and were ordered used in American Methodist worship.[46]

Members recently gained from the Church of England were inclined to use “The Sunday Service,” but a far larger majority of the church, “consisting of those who had no education in liturgical forms,” “(display an intense dislike for it.)” Under these conditions, no education in liturgical forms especially, it was only a few years before the “Sunday Service” was forgotten.[47]

Sanders concluded from his study of early Methodism in America that this denomination evolves as a church or sect but not as anticipated.This he attributed to Methodism’s lack of a doctrine of the Church.[48]

If one were to conclude the sacramental story in American Methodism at this juncture that story would be incomplete, for there are other factors that play upon this broad base that Sanders details in his extensive study.And these concepts come in the nineteenth century.

The Methodist Quarterly Review (1818-1931)[49] was the Methodist theological journal in the nineteenth century. Methodist theologians were given a sounding board in this quarterly publication. Apparently they were far more interested in the atonement and justification by faith tan in any other doctrines. In fairness, however, it should be pointed-out that they did range over many topics though these latter themes were of an infrequent nature. For instance, for every sacramental article there were approximately ten on the atonement; for every article on the Lord’s Supper there were three times as many on baptism, especially infant baptism. If there were infrequent contributions on the Lord’s Supper their infrequency was made less severe to the church’s life by the quality and content. Not only were the articles theologically sound but they reflected the mood of the church in its upper echelons.

From the theological to the practical the route was circuitous. Methodism never forgot the Lord’s Supper because it was administered faithfully once each quarter or, in some stations, each month. But the general assumption on the part of the laity was that it was a memorial of Christ’s death rather than a sacramental mystery in which he was present through the Holy Spirit.

The first Methodist theology in America was an English import.Watson’s Theological Institutes were a full doctrinal and systematic treatment of the sacraments, particularly the Lord’s Supper. In Anglican dress, following the “Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England” closely, Watson explored the meaning of the Supper through the annals of the Established Church and concluded that Methodism was in line with the Anglicans.Watson was orthodox.With Wesley he had one minor disagreement, for Watson did no believe the Eucharist was converting ordinance.[50]

Watson’s Institutes were “the American Methodist theological textbook from 1825-75.”[51] Yet his work was not the only theology that American Methodists used during the nineteenth century. Miner Raymond of Garrett, John Miley of Drew, and Thomas O. Summers of Vanderbilt[52] were among Methodism’s first rank theologians.

“The Twenty-Five Articles of Religion: in The Methodist Church formed Summers’s outline.He gave each article a through treatment in this posthumous work.(His class lectures were collected and edited following his death and presented in Systematic Theology: A Complete Body of Wesleyan Arminian Divinity.)Summers borrowed heavily from the “Thirty-Nine Articles” and the Anglican catechisms; so he presented a mosaic of orthodox Anglicanism. “A sacrament,” he declared, “is an ordinance of divine institution.[It is] ordained by Christ himself, not by the Church.”[53]

He also defined the sacraments as “a means of grace, an instrument to convey the grace which [they] represent[ed]… [They were]... a means, not the means [of grace], as if there were no other.”[54] Even more enlightening was this statement:

Summers presents a look at the theology of late nineteenth century Methodism in America. But it remains for Philip Schaff to describe the Methodist attitude at the local level.“In worship,” he notes, “Methodism is not satisfied with the usual divinely ordained means of grace… It really little understands the use of the sacraments, though it adheres traditionally [to them]… It has far more confidence in subjective means and exciting impressions, than in the more quiet and unobserved but surer work of the old church system of educational religion.”[56]

B.The American Presbyterians.

Contrary to popular opinion Wesleyan Methodism is closer to Calvin and the Reformed tradition than one is often led to believe.[57] John C. Bowmer, quoting Maldyn, writes, “Wesleyan thought has followed in the main line of Calvin’s teaching of the Supper. . . .”[58] As early American Methodism repudiated its Wesleyan legacy; so American Presbyterianism rebelled against it Calvinistic heritage.

The Reformed tradition in America, represented by the Dutch and the German Reformed churches and the Presbyterian church, had fallen on evil days in the eyes of Nevin and Schaff; for these churches had confused the Reformed Eucharistic doctrine with that of nineteenth century America.Schaff described the Dutch Reformed church’s attitude toward the Supper as falling “entirely with in the reigning spirit of American Puritanism and Presbyterianism, which adopted, with few exceptions, the low Zwinglian theory in spite of Calvinistic teaching of all the Reformed confessions.”[59]

Nevin also found little to cheer him in the Presbyterian church.He lodged a similar complaint, with far less tact than Schaff, and documented his case rather well.Nevin noted that Zwingli’s theory was now rampant in America among Reformed peoples and their churches.The Calvinistic churches in turn were not even close to Calvin or to the “symbolical books of the first Calvinistic church.”[60] He formulated his case as one in which the sectarian (Puritan) view of the Lord’s Supper followed the Rationalist’s view in every point.[61] Neither Presbyterianism nor Rationalism appreciated the Holy Eucharist, Nevin lamented, nor do they have a true understanding of the Church.

Robert E. Thompson writes in the American Church History Series that in the nineteenth century, “The Lord’s Supper was administered four times a year, and the Edwardean test of communicants . . . now cam into very general acceptance. People came not so much to get grace, as to profess that they had it”.[62] Furthermore, he declared, “At the same time the Zwinglian theory of the simple commemoration became more common and reliance was placed simply upon ‘the hallowed associations; of the rite, and its adaptation for enforcing truth by striking symbol.”[63] Thompson attributed this early nineteenth century decline to early Puritanism, which always tended toward the Zwinglian view of the Supper.[64]

Into the arena stepped the Presbyterian theological giant of America, Charles Hodge of Princeton, of whom mention was made earlier in the paper.Hodge argued with Nevin (as detailed earlier) over the historical aspects of Reformed Eucharistic doctrine while the theological positions were very close.

Hodge defined the sacraments as: “(1.) Ordinances instituted by Christ. (2.) They are in their nature significant, baptism for cleaning; the Lord’s Supper of spiritual nourishment. (3.) They are designed to be perpetual.(4.) They were appointed to signify, to instruct; to seal, and thus to confirm and strengthen; to convey and apply, and thus sanctify...”[65]

Hodge thought that the Lutheran definition of the sacraments was in agreement with the Reformed tradition in all essential points;[66] but, as Nevin, he said that he could not follow Zwingli.Of Zwingli’s Eucharistic doctrine, Hodge wrote:It was “ the lowest doctrine concerning the sacraments of any of the Reformers.”He continued,“They [the sacraments] were to him [Zwingli] no more means of grace that the rainbow or the heaps of stone on the banks of the Jordan.”[67]

The Princeton theologian acknowledge that the sacraments were means of grace, that their efficiency did not reside in the elements, that their power did not “flow” from the person who administered them, that they were means of grace “so far as adults” were concerned, though they might “excite” others, and that “There [was] . . . a strict analogy, according to the Reformed doctrine, between the Word and the sacraments as means of grace.”[68] This analogous relationship was seen in that “both have in them a certain moral power” because of the truth which they brought to mind; that neither had anything inherent that gave any supernatural power to save or to sanctify; that all their supernatural efficiency was due to the attending co-operation of the Holy Spirit; and, lastly, that both were ordained by God as channels or means of the Spirit’s influence.[69]

The battle between Hodge and Nevin was fought on largely historical ground in answer to the question, “What was the doctrine of the Reformed church on the Lord’s Supper?”[70] Hodge charged his former pupil, Nevin, with being closer to Anglicanism or Lutheranism than to Calvin or the Reformed tradition.“Hodge particularly objected to the German influence which was evident in all of Nevin’s writing.”[71] The crusty Princetonian also intimated that Nevin followed Schleiermacherism, mysticism, Rationalism, and other spurious examples from nineteenth century Europe.

In the contest with Hodge, Nevin (with Ebrard’s blessing)[72] was no match.It was no battle, for as Nevin bemoaned, “The weight of his single name is with multitudes sufficient to outweigh any amount of favorable judgment on the other side.”[73]

As expected American Presbyterianism and the Reformed churches followed Hodge’s thinking rather than Nevin’s.But that hardly settled the issue. Toward the end of the nineteenth century the Presbyterian church was confronted with the old problem of sacraments; only the characters were changed to protect the deceased.If Nevin had sought to restore the proper Reformed Eucharistic position, Arthur Cushman McGiffert sought to jettison the doctrine altogether.

In 1898, the Pittsburgh Presbytery sent an overture to General Assembly.It thought that Cushman’s recently published work, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age(1897), was subversive to certain doctrinal positions of the Reformed faith, the Westminster Confession, and the whole of Evangelical Christendom.[74]

Glowing coals from the Briggs case were still much alive; General Assembly, with no recourse available, reluctantly took the overture but with a notable lack of enthusiasm.In a most pained effort the Assembly adopted the following conciliatory statement:

The “questionable” statements in McGiffert’s book were found in the footnotes. He commended one Perry Gardner (The Origin of the Lord’s Supper, 1893) for a “very suggestive pamphlet.” But McGiffert added something of his own. “…the fact Must recognize that it is not absolutely certain that Jesus himself actually instituted such a supper and directed hid disciples to eat and drink in remembrance of him.”[76]

The eschatological thought in the mind of Jesus, McGiffert acknowledged, gives a wholly different color to the matter; for the author thought that Jesus expected to return quite soon. If so, he noted, there would be little need for a continuation of his memory.                

He went on to say that the Lord’s Supper was “not the institution of a memorial feast,” because Jesus’ shocking announcement of his impending death and his soon overcoming of evil for the disciple’s good would be a blessing rather than a bad omen.It could not be a memorial of such a glorious event.“To read into this simple and touching act---unpremeditated and yet summing up in itself the whole story of his life of service and of sacrifices...” Would be to make of this beautiful scene “subtle and abstruse doctrines.”[77]

From an investigation of the Synoptic accounts of the Lord’s Supper, McGiffert moved to the Pauline corpus.He believed that Paul in his understanding of the Supper saw it as “a memorial feast in which the death of the Lord, the central fact in Paul’s theology, was commemorated…”[78] For Paul, the author noted… the Lord’s Supper was a communion feast,” in which believers became united to their Lord and to each other.Christ’s body and blood, symbolized in the bread and wine, were those elements, which bind us to one another and to Christ.“Paul,” McGiffert asserted, found “in the Eucharist a symbolic representation of that real and vital union of the believer with the risen Saviour which was fundamental in his conception of the Christian life.”[79]

Much earlier in the nineteenth century, Samuel Miller presented a different view of liturgy in the Presbyterian Church. In his Manual of Presbytery (1842) Miller, in a chapter, “The Worship of the Presbyterian Church,” declared unequivocally that “Holy Scripture is the only safe guide”[80] in forming worship and that the Bible “is a fundamental principle of forming Presbyterian worship.”[81]

Christ is the Head of his Church, Miller enunciated, and if Scripture cannot be found to support, directly or fairly, the claims of “all human inventions and additions in the worship of God,”[82] that man-made device must be excluded from divine worship. “We think it perfectly evident that no forms of prayer, no prescribed liturgies, were used in the Apostolic Age of the Church,”[83] he asserted.

Miller defended his thesis with a limited knowledge of the Church Fathers. He cited Socrates,[84] Sozoman,[85] Augustine,[87] as authorities to support this claims.

C.The American Lutherans [91]

Charles P. Krauth, professor of theology in the evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary and professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy in the University of Pennsylvania, sought to recover the “lost heritage” of Luther and the Augsburg Confession.Krauth was one of the few who understood what Nevin was Saying.Nevin took American Lutheranism to task for repudiating its Founder and his Eucharistic doctrine.Krauth took Nevin’s condemnation seriously and wrote to revive Lutheranism’s historic position.

Krauth’s systematic text, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, is a treatment of four major doctrines that are central to Lutheran thought.The last of the quartet is the Holy Eucharist, which Krauth takes into a detailed study of Article X of the Augsburg Confession.

Without any hesitation (The author is aware of American Lutheranism shortcomings.) he blasts American Lutheranism’s Zwinglian concept of the Supper.“We cannot,” he states, “have sympathy with hat sic type of Reformed thought, whether in New England or elsewhere, which has fallen away from the original Spannung of the two great Protestant Confessions the Augsburg and the Westminster Confessions.”[92] Krauth is openly grieved that “Lutheranism, in the profound distinction which then belonged to it, has become an unmeaning memory of the dead past.”[93] He has little respect whatever for “the unhistorical spirit” of American Protestantism nor does he wish to see Lutheranism baptized (“Americanized”) in the New World idiom.[94]

Krauth lashed out against the uncritical nineteenth century Rationalism that labeled Luther’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper “Consubstantiation” or “Impanation.”[95] He affirmed that neither Luther nor the Lutheran church understood the “true presence” of Christ in the sacraments in either of these ways.On the contrary, he wrote:

Christ’s atonement is of the invisible world and is, Krauth writes, incomprehensible to us, “ who are visible.”In the same sense the sacramental presence of Christ applies to the atonement.“It is a most true presence,” he declares, “which applies what the atonement provided,” that is, justification and salvation.While “it is a most true presence,” it is, nevertheless, “not in the sphere of this life.”Krauth continues, “If presence means location; if sacramental is a convertible term with fleshy, earthly, natural, (as opposite of spiritual,) then the Lutheran Church would deny that there is a sacramental presence of Christ” in the Holy Eucharist.[97] The “true presence” as stated by Luther and the Augsburg Confession, Krauth reminds his readers and as he understands his tradition, is “a presence, not ideal, or feigned, but most true.”It is not “fleshy,” rather it is spiritual.It is “not after the manner of this earth,” but “ob the unseen world”---“the supernatural world.”This “true presence” is Lutheranism’s proper historical-theological-sacramental distinction, he declares, and will be “to the end of time,”“God helping her."[98]

Krauth held Reformed doctrine in high esteem but he was a theological realist;as he openly showed the divergence between the Reformed and the Lutheran churches.The Reformed Confessions, he observed, held that Christ’s presence in the sacrament was “mediated by the Holy Spirit. “The sacramental difference between Calvin and Luther, he explained, was that Luther knew Christ in the sacrament “through the divine nature in Christ’s own person;” and in the Eucharist,“Christ is present” because he is of the Godhead itself, being the Second Person of the Trinity.In the Lord’s Supper “the Godhead is of itself present” and “the humanity is rendered present through the Godhead.”[99]

In essence this characterized one position of nineteenth century American Lutheranism.As many of its Protestant cousins in America, the Lutheran churches diffused their thought across a broad theological spectrum.Krauth represented one branch; S.S. Schmucker, editor of “the Lutheran Observer” and a foe of Work appeared there is little doubt that he would have labeled the letter’s argument (as he did Nevin’s) as “Romanizing, Superstitious, and senseless.”[100]

Schaff charged Schumucker with adopting the widespread American Puritan or Zwinglian theory.“The Lutheran Observer” Editor, Schaff told a German audience in1854, had rejected the “substantial,” the “dynamic,” And the “virtual presence of the human nature of the Redeemer.”[101] Also Schaff noted and quoted Verbatim from one of Schmucker’s articles that “there is no real or actual presence of the glorified human nature of the savior, either substantial or influential, nor anything mysterious or superstitious in the Eucharist.”[102] Schaff said that in Germany this statement would be recognized as Zwinglian---nothing more!

One concluding word, an optimistic note, seems in order for Lutheranism in America.This church, as evidenced by Krauth, began earlier quest for its historical-theological past than most of nineteenth century American Protest churches or denominations.[103]

D.The American Congregationalists

Howard E. Hageman in the 1960 stone Lectures stated that New England Calvinism held the Divinity of Christ but apprehended little the Incarnation.The resurrection and ascension were articles of faith, but their bearings upon Christ’s present priesthood and upon his future kingship were only dimly seen.The prominent doctrinal topic of the New England pulpit dealt mainly with the death of Christ and its relationship to the forgiveness of sins.The manifestation of Christ’s grace was the preached word, not ordinances or sacraments, just simply the spoken word.The sermon was therefore the apex of worship.All else was incidental.When the Lord’s Table was spread the communicants ate and drank as if it were a mere commemorative act, a vivid way of bringing the Lord and his work into remembrance![104]

Philip Schaff typed Congregationalism as “an extreme Calvinism” that formed “the extreme left wing of orthodox Protestantism.”[105] (William Warren Sweet, fitting chronologically between Schaff and Hageman, arrived at the same conclusion.)

New England Calvinistic-Protestantism, Schaff thought, shared a hostility toward Rome with Calvin.The latter, who trembled at the thought of the Papacy, did retain a high concept of the Church.New England Theology destroyed any remnant of the high Church that might have remained after the voyage between England and the New World.

But Schaff, the Mercersburg historian, detected a strange phenomenen in Congregationalism.He wrote: “where Calvin’s doctrine of predestination has prevailed, his view of the Eucharist” has given way to ‘the more meager and clearer common sense view of Zwingli“[106] Schaff sorrowfully stated that the Congregational doctrine of the Church and the sacraments---and their theories of history and tradition----approached German Rationalism rather than the Reformed Confessions.[107]

One contemporary Congregational theologian, commenting upon his church’s historic sacramental position, concludes that from its humble beginnings Congregationalism has steadfastly refused to build fellowship “about any center save the living God who reveals himself in Christ.”[108]

Congregational Christians, he believes, have never gone to the extreme of denying the use of forms in the Lord’s Supper. They, on the other hand, have stoutly resisted the use of any one form as “sacrosanct” Thinking of themselves as universal Christians and incorporating into their liturgical life any and all forms of an ecumenical faith, Congregationalists are openly hospitable to all Christians, Regardless of denomination. “This fellowship (around the Lord’s Table) is not exclusive,"[109] Horton explains.The Lord’s Supper means to Congregationalists “nourishing communion, the universal fellowship of all who love and serve the Lord Jesus.”[110] They believe that Holy Communion has no value apart from Christian fellowship, but as an “act of the fellowship of devout Christians it has great significance.”[111]

Horton concludes his presentation with an exciting ecumenical possibility:

Samuel French Stearns, a theological professor in the Bangor, Maine Congregational Seminary, writes in his discussion of Christian thought, Present Day Theology (1893), that Christ’s kingly work in the Church is through the Holy Spirit.“It is Christ’s presence among his disciples.” Sterns avers, “that makes the Church.”The Holy Spirit binds Christ to them and them to Christ and, in turn, to each other.The “ordinances” of the Church, the Word, the sacraments, and prayer “are made ‘real means of grace’ by his [the Holy Spirit’s] agency.”[113] This comment is the only mention of sacraments in Stern’s book, a four hundred page work.

Another contemporary commentator, Arthur A. Rouner, Jr., believes that his denomination draws its basis from “. . . irenic spirit of the whole Savoy meeting [166]. [114] In this conclave Congregational “saint,” he calls them, “proclaim to the world the great Congregational and Christian principle of freedom of the Lord’s Table.”[115] Expanding this principle, Rouner declares that the communion practice of Congregationalism, “which” he reminds us, “we share with the whole Protestant Reformed tradition, is, as in so mush else they did, an attempt to get back to the purity of the original New Testament practice.”[116]

For the early Congregationalists the Lord’s Supper was a “gospel” sacrament: it was a proclamation of the Gospel in visible form.Rouner claims: “... our fathers insisted that preaching of the Word must ... accompany the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.For the Lord’s Supper is an acting of the Gospel message, just as preaching is the speaking of that message.”[117]

In summary Rouner lists three positive elements found in his denomination’s view of the Eucharist:

The Congregational view of communion was, first, that is a “Gospel” sacrament.Their second belief was that in it Christ is ‘really’ present ---not physically nor just a memory. Their third conviction was that the Lord’s Table is a free table, and all who love him are welcome to sit down with him.[118]

E.Ecumenical Overtones

The openness of the “statement of Faith” of Congregational churches affords a solid beginning for ecumenical action.The Congregationalists afire a strong Calvinistic position on the work of the Holy Spirit, for their creed is always “subject to further revision.”[119]. Such a spirit and an openness on the Part of any church leads to reform within the whole Church.It makes us realize that we only have partial light and vision; that with the aid of the Holy Spirit, the broken body of Christ, his Church, can be healed; that the divisions that separate us are small when we become obedient to him who saves; and that we must be ready to learn more fully his will for his church and for us as our fathers learned in their time.

POSTSCRIPT

Three Introductory Theses Examined

1. Is the so called American Protestant theory of the Lords’s Supper

(a Zwinglian commemorative view?) essentially a Christological heresy?

Had Nevin followed his Incarnation theology to its end, no doubt he would have concluded that the Protestant churches of America were circumscribed by pernicious Christological heresy.The Puritan low-church doctrine had relegated the sacraments to a theological limbo.The American Protestant communions preached and taught only one part of the life of the Savior--- his death and atonement.Nevin could have secured the Christological heresy charge but he never pressed his point to its logical conclusion.

One unconscious motive, a valid one it seems, is: if he were to have pressed the indictment against American Protestantism, the same allegation to a somewhat lesser or modified degree perhaps could have been returned against the whole of Evangelical Christendom and of Roman Catholicism.It is a matter of historical, doctrinal, and theological record that the Western or Latin church, Protestantism’s spiritual mother, has overly emphasized the cross, the sacrificial act of Jesus Christ, and has take too lightly the Eastern or Greek emphasis on the resurrection and the ascension, that is, the Incarnation in its fullness.If Nevin’s accusation may be properly lodged against American Protestantism, the charge may be returned against the whole tradition of Western Christendom.

Secondly, Nevin’s chief complaint against American Protestantism was its virtual lack of any well-ordered doctrine or conception of the Church, which explained, in large measure, the several churches disinclination toward sacraments.The strong anti-Roman, anti-Anglican bias in early America was responsible for the negative attitude most Protestants had against any doctrine of the Church or of the sacraments.This prejudice naturally led to a more diffused doctrine of a High Church nature and its sacraments.

Schaff, Nevin, and the Mercersburg Theology, in the third place, took the Incarnation, the Church, and the sacraments seriously.This Theology understood the Church to be the real body of Christ, a continuing extension of the Incarnation in time and in space; and the Holy Eucharist, instituted by Christ, was not a commemorative act of his death and atonement but a real communion with him.This was the sacramental mystery that confused most Protestant Americans.Plainly, the Mercersburg Theology was about one hundred years ahead of its time.The Incarnation thesis and its implications were too objective for a subjective society.The Mercersburg Theology was stillborn, a casualty of the frontier spirit in American Protestantism.

For example, Binkley said that “the Mercersburg Theology held little sway outside the German Reformed church and was virtually ignored by the other denominations.”[120]. For English-speaking Protestants an internal quarrel among German-speaking Protestants was meaningless.

In conclusion, Nevin was out of step with the nineteenth century in American Protestantism.He was however and ecumenical pioneer, as was his co-laborer, Phillip Schaff.Both looked to Protestant America’s future: Nevin pessimistically, Schaff optimistically.Of the two, Schaff by background, training, and experience[121] perceived the genius of American Protestantism more clearly, more accurately, more prophetically than Nevin.Perhaps Schaff’s insight was bold reason why his monumental three-volume study, The Creeds of Christendom,[122] was written in America.

In the quest for the Reformation understanding of the Holy Eucharist are we doing justice to the spirit of the Reformation and to the so-called American theory?

The Reformation of the sixteenth century was an effort to purify the Roman church and to return it to the simplicity of the Apostolic Church, in faith and practice.“From the Reformation Into the nineteenth century,” John Dillenberger said, “churches came into being out of an earnest concern for theological integrity and cultural relevance.”[123]

Protestantism in America held essentially the same fundamentals as the European Reformation churches; although both naturally claimed different cultural orientations.The sixteenth century of Europe was dominated by medieval Roman Catholicism with its vanguard of saints, sacraments, and sacerdotalism.The Roman church permeated every fiber of culture; but, paradoxically, it contained little significance for the masses.In the Reformation Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli re-formed” the faith of a Catholic people, who, though they misunderstood the meaning of the Church and its sacramental life, had a limited knowledge of the Christian Faith.On the other hand, America “in her early years as a nation. . . was overwhelmingly unchurched and heathen.”[124] Littell estimates that as few as fiver percent of the population was officially tied to any church (compared with nearly seventy percent today).With a semi-heathen population, a widespread illiteracy of Christian doctrine, an expanding semi-barbaric frontier, and a new denominational vigor, there is small wonder that American Protestantism had any time o collect its theological bearings.Unfortunately, American theology did suffer a severe, prolonged drought during the nineteenth century when it was placed along side European scholarship of the same period!But whatever may be said one thing was sure: American theology had its work laid-out before it had time to grasp the apron-strings of its European Mother.

Another important difference between the European and American Reformations lies in the intellectual climate.Luther, Erasmus, Melanchton, Zwingli, Calvin, and others were trained in the leading universities of Europe.The humanistic education of Melanchthon, Erasmus, and Zwingli, on one hand and the Roman Catholic training of Luther and Calvin, on the other gave the classical Reformation a much needed depth, breadth, and theological equilibrium.By contrast, the first American colonists brought few astute theological minds---nothing to compare with the Reformers!Poor communication almost cut the intellectual bridge between the New World and England (or Europe); although what few books that did come from England were voraciously read.The seventeenth-eighteenth century Americans realized the need for college and university training; so Harvard (1636), Yale (1701), and Princeton (1746) were organized.But their influence---even in the nineteenth century---was confined largely to the East coast

Alexis de Tocqueville observed, after his visit to America in the early nineteenth century, that America was “the country in the world where philosophy was least studied.”[125] Henry Steele Commanger wrote of Tocqueville’s “generalization” that the same could be said of “some score of ancient nations.”Nevertheless, he continued, “it is... true that from Thomas Jefferson to William James the philosophical hall of fame could, without censure, dispense with any American figure except Emerson.”[126]

Commanger, speaking of the denominational confusion which was part of nineteenth century American Protestantism, declared that “denominations multiplied but rather as organizations than as dogmas, and the average American was no more capable of distinguishing between Methodist and Presbyterian theologies than between Republican and Democratic principles---an incapacity which neither embarrassed him nor qualified his zeal.”[127]

The “zeal” of which Commanger spoke was that of conversion.American theology, beginning most fully with Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakenings, dealt with what it knew best, experience.The theology of the Christian Church since the Apostolic Age witnessed to the American theological position of experience.Paul, Augustine, Luther, Wesley--- a procession of countless numbered and unnumbered saints testified in viable support to Christian experience.

Philip Rieff’s introductory essay to Adolf Harnack’s book, Outlines of the History of Dogma, wrote: “The Culture that the Church has generally confronted listens best to apology and personal confession.”[128] Nineteenth century America had a theology of “personal confession.” Countless thousands of men women, and youth, “the Priesthood of all Believers,” had a “heart-felt” religious experience. Consequently, the frontier heard their confessions that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Though Protestant America was more interested in a subjective religion---conversion, experience, Bible-reading, prayer, singing, love-feasts, and camp-meetings---than in a objective religion, these Christians looked upon life as a sacrament. Courage, determination, and, above all, a great faith in God gave these “disinherited” Christians of the frontier a stability to withstand drought, famine, disease, Indians, and death. To these simple believers communion with God was found in every joy and sorrow of life. But if they emptied the Lord’s Supper of meaning, making it only a commemorative act, they experienced means of grace in other forms. Most notable among these was the love-feast, which often began the extended revivals or camp-meetings. More than a few diaries or journals from some nineteenth century parson or circuit rider tells how the people did not destroy the means of grace as such but they did open their lives to new forms, new methods, new ways of experiencing the Holy Spirit.

American theologians reflected the earnestness in American church life. As opposed to their European counterparts, nineteenth century American theologians were part of the frontier sprit and rightly mirrored the “consensus” of the church.European divines who seldom troubled themselves with the church life in their society did not reflect the mood of the Church around them.It could be charged that too often they did not speak to the Church; whereas American theologians spoke for their respective denomination, not as official representatives; but they spoke from direct, voluntary involvement within the active life and participation in special churches or congregations. Often, these same active theologians and their theological reputations gave them considerable influence in the life of the denomination and its ecclesiastical machinery.

In some great sense, American Protestant theologians in the nineteenth century are important in three ways: (1) They reflect the American church spirit and its movement.(2) They speak an initial theological word to the divided churches of the frontier (though few possessed a genuine ecumenical concern).(3) That they dare “theologize” at all tells something.

Schaff sensed the on-coming profundity of the American scene when he wrote:

The American Protestant denominationsclosed the nineteenth century more divided on many issues than when the century had begun. Though it was notintentionally, their theological understanding of the Lord’s Supper was remarkably uniform and the observance was normally in agreement.

The twentieth and twenty-first fragmented nature of American Protestantism unveils an assorted paradox of New World Christianity: Nineteenth century American Protestantism was too busy being the Church to have the time to define the meaning of the Church. The recovery of the biblical doctrine of “Priesthood of all Believers” in America rose again during the nineteenth century.

As the frontier moved westward the churches spread the Gospel by the side of the farmer and the merchant.The “missionary swell” that rode this westward tide was carried by the humble, dedicated Christians---ministers and laymen.This mighty river, however, left in its wake a phenomenon, a theological vacuum.As the Gospel went with the pioneers toward the Pacific there was no rearguard to build upon that which had been claimed. In fact, an established churchly life, complete with sacramental forms, was more often that not held in despair.By the time the evangelistic tide had moved on ---though at frequent and planned intervals revivals were held---the churches in a community began to feel inadequate to the daunting task of a more urban and increasingly educated and sophisticated laity. Even then, vast segments of a vital Protestant Christianity lived on farms and in rural village and towns throughout America in the twentieth century.

In a sense, Protestant Christianity was called upon to minister to an increasing gap between laity in large cities and towns and laity who lived in sedate and rural areas. The uneasiness of the late nineteenth century and the continuing fragmentation of twentieth century American Protestantism may be observed if one looks for evidence in the late nineteenth century.

Late nineteenth century theological journals clearly trace this uneasiness in churches.A perusal of any one of several scholarly publications reveals that embarrassing questions are asked about the nature of the Church, its ministry, and its sacramental life.To be sure these soundings are only echoes but nevertheless the intellectual sonar is beginning to uncover tell-tale signs within Church.

One example of this probing is The Methodist Quarterly Review that evidences a limited sacramental concern. The Lord’s Supper is mentioned infrequently; baptism receives more attention other than finding ways of defeating opponents, namely, the denominations that preached and taught and practices immersion as the sole means of baptism.

No doubt the latter becomes more useful in fighting Methodism’s chief frontier rivals, the Baptist and the “Capabilities.”The printed articles are surprisingly of high caliber, though nothing close to advocating an urgent need to cover the meaning of the Lord’s Supper or even it regular (other than quarterly observance) or a more responsible liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.There emerged, however, among some parts of Methodism’s hierarchy, however darkly, the need for further strengthening of the church’s life through sacramental recovery.There is no small truth in the fact that when a church moves from a voluntary society to a sacramental community that its awareness and appreciation for other denominations increases.One result of the increasing awareness of what we have in common is the rise of an appreciation of the meaning and reality of “the holy catholic church,” as the Apostles’ Creed expresses so clearly. As the sense of the catholicity of the Church began to be recovered among some Protestants, an Ecumenical Church began to dawn upon those who in their lostness find commonness. Some of those who began the quest for a more ecumenical awareness would be appalled at the excesses of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches, surrendering the claims of the Gospel for less claims of social justice and the like.

Lefferts A. Loetscher’s presidential address to the American Society of Church History explains thatmany of the same ecclesiastical problems that separate us separated them now. Yet Emil Brunner, the Zurich theologian, warned against such exclusiveness that raised itself up in the nineteenth century and threatens the twentieth century. He wrote:

The same providentia Dei which permitted the growth of the Church or churches has brought into being totally new forms of Christian communion wherein any hint at classic traditional ecclesiastical form has been consciously avoided. We must therefore be prepared for the possibility that it might be the will of God eventually to destroy the ancient churchly framework of the Ecclesia or at least--- as is now happening to complete it by structures of a very different order... We must be open and try to ensure that we do not oppose the divine intention by any self-willed prior ecclesiasticism.[130]

In conclusion, nineteenth century American Protestantism leaves us with two vivid impressions: (1) The Church must be relevant to the society and culture in which it seeks to witness.Nineteenth century American Protestants were innovators and very relevant to those they preached and cared for!

Twentieth century Christians regret that their spiritual forefathers abandoned many classical Reformation practices, doctrines, and sacramental emphases and seek to rectify what modern consider grave omissions. Today’s Protestantism is fragmented into Evangelical and Liberal in ways unlike the nineteenth divisions. But as I observe, today’s Evangelicals have adapted the older frontier methods and theology to a modern frontier of seekers and the lost. The modern frontier of contemporary Evangelical lifeinvolves television and film and radio and music. Whether this form of Evangelicalism has sustaining power will be determined if these congregations, some massive in numbers of attenders, become more than servants of an institution. Rather the new converts need to be grounded in a knowledge of the Bible and a through grounding in church history and Christian doctrine and theology in order to serve as apologists to a world growing in unbelief and stark cynicism of all institutions and belief systems.

The urgent first order of business for today’s denominations and churches is to know the past. To know from where the Church has come helps to know where the Church is headed. History does instruct the wise and keep them from becoming foolish.

On the other hand, if Christians fail to apprehend their historical rights they will crucify the Christ afresh on a cross of irresponsibility. Protestant Churches must look to the range of thought and forms of worship and liturgy and prayers and hymns and sermon method and content and the textbooks associated with Reformation of the sixteenth century and with American Protestantism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in order to deal constructively withe the twenty-first century world.

Our spiritual fathers in Europe and in America adapted and appropriated forms and methods within the dynamic context of faith---and did so with responsible fearlessness! So we must ever be willing to understand them faithfully and yet move beyond them with a living Faith that moves toward an uncertain but sure future and trust God in all our ways.

Bibliography

Bates, Ernest S., American Faith: Its Religious, Political, Economic Foundations. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1940.

Binkley, Luther J., The Mercersburg Theology. Manheim, Pa.: Sentinel Printing House, 1953

Brunner, Emil, The Misunderstanding of the Church, trans. by Harold Knight. London: Lutterworth Press, 1952.

Buckley, J.M., A History of the Methodists in the United States, (American Church History Series, vol. 5). New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1896.

Cell, George Croft, The Rediscovery of< John Wesley. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1935.

Commanger, Henry Steele, The American Mind. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952.

Curran, Francis X., Major Trends in American Church History. New York: The American Press, 1946.

Deschner, John, personal correspondence of September 15, 1962.

Dillenberger, John, “Church Union: Theology and Culture,” Theology Today, XIX (October, 1962), 391-401.

Hageman, Howard G., Pulpit and Table. Richmond; John Knox press, 1962.

Hardon, John A., The Protestant Churches of America. Westminster: Maryland, 1957.

Harnack, Adolf, Outlines of the History of Dogma, trans. by Edwin Knox Mitchell, Boston and Beacon Hill: Beacon Press, 1957.

Hodge, Charles, Systematic Theology, vol. III., New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and     Co.; London and Edinburgh: T. Nelson and Sons, 1873.

Horton, Walter M., Our Christian Faith. Chicago and Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1945.

Krauth, Charles P. The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology. Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House, 1871.

Littell, Franklin H., From State Church to Pluralism. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1962.

Loetscher, Lefferts A., The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954

McGiffert, Arthur Cushman, A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897.

Miller, Samuel, “Presbyterianism the truly Primitive and Apostolic Constitution of the Church of Christ,” (Manual of Presbytery,) Edinburgh: John Johnstone; London: R. Groombridge, 1842

Methodist Quarterly Review, 1860.

Nevin, John W., The Mystical Presence. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippencott and Company, 1846.

Nichols, James H., Romanticism in American Theology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961.

TheOxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. By F.L. Cross,; London, New York, and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Sanders, Paul S., An Appraisal of John Wesley’s Sacramentalism in the Evolution of Early American Methodism. (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1954).

_______., “The Sacraments in Early American Methodism,” Church History , XXVI, (December, 1957), 355-371.

Scharff, Philip, America: A Sketch of Its Political, Social, and Religious Character. ed. By Perry Miller, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961.

_______., The Creeds of Christendom, 6th ed., 3 vols., New York and London: Harper and Bros., 1931.

Seeburg, Reinhold, Text - Book of the History of Doctrines, trans. by Charles E. Hay, 3rded., complete in 2 vols., Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1956.

Shipley, Davis C., class lectures in Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, 1959-1960.

Stearns, Lewis French, Present Day Theology. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893.

Summers, Thomas O., Systematic Theology: A Complete Body of Wesleyan Arminian Divinity, ed. by John J. Tigert, vol. II., Nashville: The Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1888.

Sweet, William W., The Story of Religion in America, 1st ed., New York and London:Harper and Bros., 1939.

Thompson, Robert E., A History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States, (American Church History Series, vol. 6), New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1895.

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[1] William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America. 1st edition. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1939, 2.

[2] Franklin H. Littell, From State Church to Pluralism, (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1962), xvi.

[3] Ibid., p. xix.

[4] Ernest S. Bates, American Faith: Its Religious, Political, and Economic Foundations, (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., Inc., 1940), p.329.

[5] Littell, op. cit., p. ix.

[6] Phillip Schaff, America, ed. By Perry Miller,(Cambridge: The Belknap Press Of Harvard University Press, 1961), p.xii.

[7] Francis X. Curran, Major Trends in American Church History, (New York: The American Press, 1946), p.11

[8] Luther J. Binkley, The Mercersburg Theology, (Manheim, Pa.: Sentinel Printing House, 1953), p.39

[9] Ibid., p.39

[10] Ibid., p.39

[11] Ibid., p. 39. (Cf. Phillip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, (New York: Harper and Bros., 1877), vol. III, passim.)

[12] John W. Nevin, The Mystical Presence, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippencott and Company, 1846), p. 3.

[13] Ibid., p. 5

[14] Ibid., p. 105.

[15] Ibid., p. 106. My Th.M. thesis at Princeton Theological Seminary shows that Nevin was correct in his observation. I read the nearly century long The Methodist Quarterly Review and its predecessors and successors and discovered that baptism was a more important topic than the Lord’s Supper but for a practical reason. Methodists wanted to refute the Baptists on their doctrine of believer’s baptism Had Methodists understood that a biblical and adequatedoctrine of the church and its role and in the practice of baptism [sprinkling or pouring or immersion] would have been a great devise to deploy in debates with frontier Baptists. On the other hand, and given the frontier and practical spirit of the time,Methodists found hymns and prayers and class meeting and camp meetings or revivals as of greater source of immediate grace than observance of the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper was soon reduced to a quarterly observance or at the close of the camp-meeting or revival.

[16] Ibid., p. 105.

[17] Ibid., p. 105.

[18] Ibid.,p. 106.

[19] Ibid., p. 105.

[20] Ibid., p. 178.

[21] James H. Nichols, Romanticism in American Theology, (Chicago; The University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 94.

[22] Nevin, op. cit ., p. 178.

[23] Ibid., p. 178.

[24] Ibid., p. 178

[25] Ibid., p. 178. (Cf. Binkley, op. cit., pp. 95-96.)

[26] Ibid., p. 179.

[27] Ibid., p. 179.

[28] Ibid. p. 179.(cf. binkey, op. cit., p.97)

[29] Ibid. p. 179

[30]Ibid. p. 180.

[31] Nichols, op. cit., p. 88.

[32] Ibid., p. 88

[33] See Hodge’s book-length review in Biblical Repository, April 1848.

[34] Nichols, op. cit., pp. 91-91.Nevin in his book demonstrated Reformation any doubt that the evidence of the early Church and of the fusillade began with his review (April, 1848), Nevin had engaged in debate with several lesser known figures in American theology.After 1846, and especially in 1848 and thereafter, American Protestant theologians began to fight hard but they also began to surrender historical ground century by century to Nevin; for it was soon apparent that their “left-wing” approach was too weak against the Mercersburg Theology.From the days of early New England Puritanism until Nevin’s day (and after!) the Zwinglian “commemorative” view held sway over the theological posture of American theology.Nevin argued that Zwingli never held any influence in Reformed Eucharistic doctrine (Cf. Binkley, op. cit., p. 95f.) but American Protestants would not admit so much---and it mattered really little if Zwingli did or did not fall within the Reformed camp.But on historical evidence presented by Nevin it was soon apparent that the Americans were out of the main stream of Reformation thought.To “nail down” the case even more so for Nevin and Mercersburg Theology there was the precision intellectual power of Schaff that supported him; but nineteenth century European scholarship was backing both Nevin and Schaff to the man.Hodges and most of Protestant America’s handling of these aspects will be seen later under the section devoted to Presbyterianism.

[35] This unhistorical approach explained his and most of Protestant America’s neglect of the Lord’s Supper but other important Christian doctrines, e.g. the Church, the Incarnation, etc.

[36] Nichols, op. cit., p.95.

[37] Ibid., p. 95.Nichols is correct in asserting that Nevin could hold his position against the Baptists if need be.Though Hodge could not claim as much for his stance, it must be said in his defense that his views did rise above those of the Baptists who practiced “close communion” or “closed communion.”Hodge would welcome any person.Of course, he may have done so because the Supper held little meaning for him.

[38] Ibid., p. 95.

[39] Ibid., pp. 86-87.

[40] Ibid., p. 93.

[41] The Methodist Quarterly Review (1818-1931) was a quarterly publication of The Methodist Church. Its contents were scholarly.

[42] Nevin, op. cit., p. 109.

[43] Wesley is rightly called “The Founder of Methodism,” though the “society” principle existed in England and elsewhere over one hundred years before Wesley.This writer thanks David C. Shipley for this incisive comment made while the former was a student in Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, 1959-1960.

[44] Paul S. Sanders, “An Appraisal of John Wesley’s Sacramentalism in the Evolution of Early American Methodism,” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Union Theological Seminary, New York), p. 355.

[45] Ibid., 361.

[46] J.M Buckley, A History of the Methodist in the United States, American Church History Series, vol. 5, (New York: The Christian Press, 1896, 346.

[47] Ibid. p. 246. Buckley (quoting Lee’s History of the Methodists, 107.) Lists this explanation for the deterioration in Methodist worship that comes from Emory’s History of the Discipline, p.80: “Extra services of the Sabbath, especially love-feasts, frequently consumed time needed for liturgy’s, so that it gradually fell into disuse, “Wesley’s “Sunday Service” and others in bibliography.)

[48] Sanders, op. cit., ,370.

[49] See footnote 41, page 15.

[50] Richard Watson, Theological Institutes, vol. III, (New York: J. Emory and B. Waugh, for the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1828),426-427.

[51] Professor John Deschner, professor of theology, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas in personal correspondence, September 15, 1962.

[52] I acknowledge my debt to John Deschner for this observation.

[53] Thomas O. Summers, Systematic Theology: A Complete Body of Wesleyan Arminian Divinity, ed. by John J. Tigert, vol. II, (Nashville: The Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1888), p. 295.

[54] Ibid., p. 295.

[55] Ibid., p. 198.

[56] Schaff, America, p. 142.

[57] George Croft Cell, The Rediscovery of John Wesley, (New York: Henry Hold and Co., 1935), passim.

[58] John C. Bowmer, The Lord’s Supper in Methodism, 1791-1960, (London: The Epworth Press, 1961), p. 52.

[59] Schaff, op. cit. (America), p. 124

[60] Nevin, op. cit., p. 117

[61] Ibid., p. 70.

[62] Robert E. Thompson, A History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States, American Church History Series, Vol. 6 (New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1895), p. 90.

[63] Ibid., p. 90.

[64] Ibid., p. 99.

[65] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. III, (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, and Co., London & Edinburgh: T. Nelson and Sons, 1873), p. 487.

[66] Ibid. p. 488.

[67] Ibid. p. 488.

[68] Ibid., pp. 499-502

[69] Ibid., Pg. 502

[70] Nichols, op. cit., p. 89.

[71] Binkley, op. cit., p. 99(quoting Hodge’s article in Biblical Repository, April, 1848).

[72] Nichols, op. cit., p. 88. Nichols writes that about the time the Nevin-Hodge controversy broke J.H.A. EBRARD, the professor in Zwingli’s old chair in Zurich, published an 800 page work on the sacraments, which Nevin used to good advantage.

[73] Ibid., p. 88.

[74] Lefferts A. Loetscher, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954), p. 72.

[75] Ibid., p. 73.

[76] Arthur Cushman McGiffert, A History of Christianity in the Apostolistic Age, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), pp. 68-69

[77] Ibid., p. 60.

[78] Ibid., pp. 539-540.

[79] Ibid., p. 540.

[80] Samuel Miller, “Presbyterianism the truly Primitive and Apostolic Constitution of the Church of Christ,” in Manual of Presbytery, (Edinburgh: John Johnstone; London: R. Groombridge, 1842), p. 111.

[81] Ibid., p. 111.

[82] Ibid., p. 113.

[83] Ibid., p. 115.

[84] Socrates ©. 380-450 A.D.) was an historian of the Greek church. See The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, (here-after cited as Oxford), ed. By F.L. Cross, (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 1267.

[85] Sozoman (early 5th cent.) was a church historian, and a contemporary of Socrates. He supported the spread of Christianity among the Americans, Saracens, and Goths. “Though orthodox in intention, he revealed little understanding of the issues at stake in the dogmatic controversies of his time.” Oxford, p. 1277.

[86] Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippos and designated a “Doctor of the Church” Oxford, pp. 106-108.

[87] Basil ©. 330-379) was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers, and a brother to Gregory of Nyssa.Oxford, p. 138.

[88] Miller, op. cit. p. 119.

[89] Ibid., p. 119.

[90] Ibid., p. 123.

[91] See Schaff’s America fir a concise, pointed treatment of the three major divisions of American Lutheranism, pp. 144-159.

[92] Charles P. Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, (Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House, 1871) p. 158.

[93] Ibid., p. 158.

[94] Ibid., p. 158.

[95] Ibid., p. 341.

[96] Ibid., pp. 460. (italics his).

[97] Ibid., pp. 460-461.

[98] Ibid., pp. 460-461.

[99] Ibid., p.365.

[100] Schaff, America, p. 154.

[101] Ibid.,p .154.

[102] Ibid.,p .154.

[103] Ibid.,p .155.

[104] Howard G. Hageman, Pulpit and Table, (Richmond:John Know Press, 1962), (quoted from Edward Irving, Collected Writings, vol. I, (London, 1864)), p. 84.

[105] Schaff, America, p. 107.

[106] Ibid., p. 108.

[107] Ibid. p. 108.

[108] Walter M. Horton, Our Christian Faith, (Chicago and Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 19 45), p. 132

[109] Ibid., p. 132.

[110] Ibid., p. 132.

[111] Ibid., p. 64.

[112] Ibid., p. 64.

[113] Lewis French Sterns, Present Day Theology, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Son’s 1893), p. 411.

[114] Arthur A. Rouner, Jr., The Congregational Way of Life, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1960), p. 35.

[115] Ibid., p. 131.

[116] Ibid., p. 131

[117] Ibid ., p. 131

[118] Ibid ., p. 131

[119] Horton, op. cit., p. 132.

[120] Binkley, op. cit., p. 110.

[121] Schaff, America, p. xii.Perry Miller, editor of the latest edition of America, writes in the “Editor’s Introduction” that Schaff was born in 1819 at Chur in Switzerland.“(He would delight in asserting, ‘I am a Swiss by birth, a German by education, and an American by choice.’)”

[122] Phillip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, in three vols., (6th edition; New York and London, Harper and Bros., 1931).

[123] John Dillenberger, “Church Union: Theology and Culture,” Theology Today, XIX (October, 1962), p. 391.

[124] Littell, op. cit., p. xx.

[125] Henry S. Commanger, The American Mind. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952), p. 27.

[126] Ibid., p. 27.

[127] Ibid.,p. 127.

[128] Adolf Harnack, Outlines of the History of Dogma, trans. by Edwin Knox Mitchell, (Beacon Hill, Boston: Beacon Hill Press, 1957), no page number.See “Instructions” by Philip Rieff.

[129] Littell, op.cit., p. xv.

[130] Emil Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church, trans. By Harold Knight, (London: Lutterworth Press, 1952), p. 118.

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