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The New Mercersburg Review PHILIP SCHAFF MAY 091994 LIBRARY THE NEW MERCERSBURG REVIEW Journal of the Mercersburg Society Number 15 Spring 1994 'mE NEW MERCERSBURG REV I EW Journal of the Hercers~rg Society R. Howard Paine, ECi tor Officer s of t he Soci ety President Horace 'f. Allen, Jr. vice Pr esident R. Howa rd Paine Secretary J ohn C. Miller Treasurer James H. Gold Execut ive vice President Jeffr e y L. Roth Executive O*",d ttee Deborah R. ClatEi LS Linden J . De Aie Jo"m B. Payne Benjamin 'f . Gri ffin Harry G. Royer Th!.~ Mercersburg R~ i ew is published semi - annually t<y t~ Mercersturg SOC i ety. Editorial Office The New Mercersb.lrg Review 762 TamaraCk 'frail Reading. Pennsylvania 19607 6JQ'III-0679 THE NE W MERCERSBURG REVIE \~ Number 15 Spring 1994 CONTENTS Editorial introduction 1 R. Howard Paine 3 Bucer and Nevin: A New Loo~ at the German Reforme0 Tradition Dehorah Ra~ Clemens 28 As Firm as As~es : A Sermon Deborah RaMo Clemens 31 John Williamson Nevin and American Na t ionali sm Richar d E. Wentz 43 No t es on Nevin ' s Family II Jo!m R. Weiler 50 An Unexpected Find John R. Weiler 5J Address Delivered at the Memorial Service for Dr . John N. Nevin Emanuel V. Ge rhart 55 '!'he Mercersburg Lit urgical Controversy: A Call f or Objective Worship 'I'horras G . Wsh 62 The Churc'1 of "The Most beautiful and Peorfect Liturgical Service: " A Review Article Ben j amin GRiffin , EDITORIAL INl'RCOJcrICN Thumbing through previous issues of becorres aware of the focus whi ch defines the importance It serves as an organ for gathering and disseminating writings from a variety of scholar s. Also i t prcmotes study by inviting others to pursue new avenues of thought whi ch are opened up by SOI'I\E! of the writers. It certainly offers convincing evidence that our relatively small membership in the Society is a very productive group, for mst of the articles which are published in the Spring issues are the work of those who are affiliated wi th us closely. 'Ihis issue offers two writings by Del:orah Rahn Clerrens whose graduate study has been centered on Mercersburg concerns. The article on Bucer and. Nevin, written as a Festschrift for Dr. Howard Hageman, late president of the Society, p.rrsues SatE' new inSights into the influence of the strassburg reformer among our spiritual forebears. The parallels drawn with Mercersburg evoke further study along these lines. The sermon was delivered at the Ash Wednesday service at Lancaster Seminary at which our Society was invited to provide leadership last y~. We are grateful for permission to reprint the article by Richard Wentz in which he explores a p:>litical side of Nevin which has often been overlooked. ,John weiler continues his research into the descendants of John Nevin, many of whan were quite distinguished in their o..n right. '!his ti.Jre he turns his attention to son Robert Nevin who has a most interesting history. In the course of \'Ieiler' s search for material he has made the acquaintance of Nevin ' s great granddaughter wOCI has given him a collection of letters and ackl.resses which will be placed in the archives in the SChaff Library at Lancaster SEminary. '!he Gerhart eulogy which we have transcribed was taken froo the original in Gerhart ' s o..n handwriting and, as far as we Jmot...o, has never been printed before. The article by TIlom3.s Lush was presented at a theolcqical roundtable of the Mercersburg Asscx:iaticrl of the United OIurch of Christ and represents again the kind of interest that is still being fostered among parish ministers as well as more academic scholars. In a book review Ben Griffin brings to our attention a work of prohibitive oost which we may want to search for in a library. It deals with the Catholic A{:ostolic Olurch wOCIse liturgy had such a profound effect upon Philip Schaff during the ti.Jre that he and Nevin were engaged in the preparation of the Order of Worship of the Gennan RefoIneU Olurch, the work which caused so much of the controversy about which Lush has written. Q1e year henoe we shall be looking for material to be included in another Spring issue of '!he Review. We earnestly invite any aroong you wOCI read these words to submit material for consideration. R. Howard Paine, Editor I 8UCER AND NE.VIN A NEloi UXI( AT nIE GERMAN REFCRMJ:D 'mADITIOO DiliJrah RaM Clerens Ph.D. Candidate in Liturgics Drew University, 11adison, New Jersey ~1artin Bucer and John Nevin were not only separated by the massive Atlantic rut were kept apart by nearly three centuries of The former lived while Erasmus penned In Praise of Folly, while sculpted the Pieta, and while the Mona Lisa was imrortalized by DaVinci. '!he latter experienced the world of Harriet Beecher Stowe's ReIuir , /obnet, and Tchaikovsky. Sucer's world carre to went into the business of printing. It was torn by holy wars, reasant and shameful executions for heresies. Nevin's world was stnlggUng to adjust to the revelation in Darwin I s Origin of the Species and to the introduction of scientific theory. It was shattered by the Civil War and the shame of slavery. The O'lUrch of sixteenth century furore was embroiled in the terrors and the thrills of reforming. 'I1le Olurch of nineteenth century America toyed wi th the techniques of the Great Awakenings. Bucer and Nevin shared very little in ccmron except for strikingly similar theolOCJies . My objective is to ccmpare and oontrast the central doctrines of these two great divines; to look t:eyond the scx:io-cultural peculiarities of the times; an::l then to dare to suggest that the similarities t:etween these men indeed are not (X)incidental but are in fact traceable through a definite liturgical and catechetical line. BUCER'S LIFE Martin Bucer was oorn in Schlettstadt Germany in 1491. Educated as a D:::minican, he became familiar with the thought of Erasmus and Humanism. In 1518 exposure to the great Hartin Luther set his head spinning. Young Bucer was enthralled with the forthright solid Biblical teachings of the man fran Wittenberg. Luther articulated everything Bucer had secretly been thinking. After being privileged to meet with Luther in a private audience Bucer was on a course of no return. Fran this day on he was a fellow pioneer on the trail to Reform. He managed to get himself dismissed fran the D:minicans and then expelled fran his Wissemb:::lurg parish for radical preaching. It was here IOClSt likely that Buoer rehearsed and polished his radicalism. In the free city of Strassburg, thanks to the Reforned Matthew Ze11 ' s invitation, Bucer found asylum. strassb.rrg, a city in the German (!'lOW French) Alsace and Lorraine region, was a strategic location during this perioo of the Reformation . It was at a crossroad of political, econanic, and religious activities for roost of all European nations . As one of the largest cities in the Holy Ratlan ~ire , Strassburg was a natural incubator for new thought and an ideal place for experimentatioo. With its nearly independent polity the local magistrates and the people exercised discipline. Because of its liberal abrosphere farrous dissidents such as Ziegler, Carlstadt, Denck, Sattler, Marpeck, SC~wenkfeld, HofflMll, Frank, and Servetus all at one time or another checked in. The municipal tolerance was in no way as accannodating as is known to the rrodern AlTerican, rut strassburg was gracious enough to prefer exiling rabble rousers to beheading, hanging, or torching them. In this electric environrrent Bucer quickly rose to be the undisputed leader of the l ocal Reformation. He gained general respect through his ample teaching, 3 chi basic conciliatory nature and. prolific writing. Ie organized public ~~ls:developed gpvernmental poliCY, and unified the people by Producing an evangelical liturgy. 'lbroughout his dynami~career Bucer managed to exert, direct i nfluence on Farel, calvin, and Poullain. Farel was exposed to Bucer s tal ents early on having served in s trassburg in 1525 . In 1530 he p.rrposefully returned t o this city in order to study f onus of worship. He adap~ Buc~r 's f~nns for the ~crarrent of Baptism and the service for Olristian marnage. Calv~n and Paulla1n l::orrOlred rrajor liturgical passages frem Bucer's 1539 Strassburg f orm for Holy G:mnunion. Most OCI~le of these are the fucharistic pr~yer and the order for confession of sins. 'Ihroogh calvin and Farel the ent1re Huguenot church bore Bucer ' s illlprint. Via Galvin and Paullain, Bucer left his mark en all Fhglish, Scottish, and Dutch Presbyterianism. '!he m::rnentum kept ooilding. Ignited with a zeal for Protestant union, &.leer became a central figure in a lmost all theological colloquies l:etween the great giants of the Reformation comnunions. Under the Landgrave of Hesse ' s direction he organized and mediated in the farrous t-mburg Collcquy of 1529 between the 6 Lutherans and the Zwinglians. Nor" he finnly believed that wther and Zwingli themselves would eventually care to accord Ellcharistically. For the next two de::ades Bncer s lavishly worked to interpret the words of these giants so that opposing camps could care to r ecognize a bit of the truth in theJll . Both would agree , he hoped, in the concept of Olrist being really present in the SUpPer: Spiritually. i\long with capito he penned the COnfessio Tetrapolitana which set forth a Eucharistic dcx:;trine ascribed by four surrounding German cities.
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