Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T05:02:58.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Forgotten Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

George W. Richards
George W. Richards
Affiliation:
Theological Seminary of the Evangelical-Reformed Church, Lancaster, Pa.
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Perhaps I erred in choosing the title “A Forgotten Theology.” A theology that is vital and worthwhile will not be forgotten; it will be absorbed, and by absorption it fulfills its original purpose. Only in that way can it live and have part in theological progress. Furthermore, at the meeting of the American Society of Church History, December 27, 1911, in New York, I read a paper on “The Mercersburg Theology Historically Considered.” The present paper, thirty years later is a sequel to that of 1911. Some of the doctrines of the Mercersburg men, it seems to me, have been unconsciously revived in contemporary theological thought, especially as that is expressed in the reports of the Oxford and Edinburgh Conferences of 1937.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1940, pp. 37 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1940

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Papers of the American Society of Church History, (New York, 1908–1934) Second Series, III (1912), 119.Google Scholar

2 See The Mercersburg Review (Mercersburg and Lancaster, Pa., 1849–), XXIII (1876), 533.Google Scholar

3 See Amendments, Confession, of Faith, (1903)Google Scholar, chap. XXV, sec. vi.

4 Minutes and Letters of the Coetus of Pennsylvania, 1784–1798 (Philadelphia, 1903), 47.Google Scholar

5 Appel, Theodore, The Life and Work of John W. Nevin (Philadelphia, 1889), 704.Google Scholar

6 Foster, Frank H., A Genetic History of New England Theology (Chicago, 1907), 3.Google Scholar

7 Born 1643, died 1729; preached an epoch-making sermon on “The Inexcuseableness of Neglecting the Worship of God under a Pretence of Being in an Unconverted Condition,” 1707Google Scholar; Foster, , New England Theology, 37–38.Google Scholar

8 See also Bacon, Leonard W., A History of American Christianity (New York, 1897), 337, 388Google Scholar; Eiley, Woodbridge, Americain Philosophy (Reformed Church Publication Board, Philadelphia, 1903), 512.Google Scholar

9 Rauch was the philosopher, Nevin the theologian, and Schaff the historian; each became known through his writings to the scholars of the Old World and the New.

10 Dorner, Isaac A., History of Protestant neology, Particularly in Germany (Edinburgh, 1871), II, 347.Google Scholar

11 Der Kirchenfreund, I, 25.Google Scholar

12 Dorner, , History of Protestant Theology, II, 345–6.Google Scholar

13 Schaff, Philip, What Is Church History, 15.Google Scholar

14 Schaff, , The Principle of Protestantism, 156–163, 164Google Scholar; Der Kirchenfreund, I, 4–5.Google Scholar

15 Schaff, David S., Life of Philip Schaff (New York, 1897), 148, 155.Google Scholar

16 Bibliotheca Sacra (Andover, Oberlin and elsewhere, 1844- ) LXXVII (1920), 33.Google Scholar

17 See also theses 53–37, Theses for the Times, 1845.Google Scholar

18 Der Kirchenfreund, I, 9.Google Scholar

19 Preface to Nevin, , Anti-Christ or the Spirit of Sect and Schism (1848), 4.Google Scholar

20 Idem., 8–10.

21 Dr. Nevin's Appendix to his translation of Schaff, 's The Principle of Protestantism.Google Scholar

22 Theses for the Times.

23 Both the sermon of Dr. Nevin and the Theses of Dr. Schaff are appended to Schaff, 's tract entitled The Principle of Protestantism, (Chambersburg, Pa., Publication Office of the German Reformed Church, 1845).Google Scholar