MERCERSBUTIG THEOLOGY is the name given to a philosophical representation of Christian doctrine emanating from the theological seminary of the German Reformed. church formerly located at Mercersburg, Penn., and especially from Dr. John W. Nevin,. one of the professors there. Critical students of theolog,y regard it as presenting sub stantially Schleierrnacher's views modified by American habits of thought and by faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures. It has its starting point in a peculiar psychological. themy concerning the person of Christ and the nature of man. This, theory determines the views expressed— I. Concerning the person of Christ. Dr. Nevin says that he had not oue life of the body and another of the soul; nor one life of his humanity- and another of his divinity. It is one life throughout, and it is in all respects a true human life. Christ is the arche typal man in whom the true idea of humanity is brought to view. He is the ideal man in whom only human nature is complete. The writers of the Aferc,ersburg Bedew teach that the incarnation is the proper completion of humanity and that the glorification of Christ was the full advancement of our human nature itself to the power of a divine life.
II. Concerning human nature. " The world in its lower view is not simply the out ward theater or stagoe on which man is set to act his part as a candidate for heaven. In the widest of its different forms of existence it is pervaded throughout with the power of a single life, which comes ultimately to its full sense aud force only in the human person." The world is an organic whole which completes itself in intin; and humanity is regarded throughout as a single grand fact which is brought to pass not at once, but in the way of history, unfolding always more its true interior sense. and reaching on to its final consummation. It is a universal property of life to unfold itself from within, by a self-organizing power, towards a certain end, which end is its own realization, or, in other words, the actual exhibition and actualization in outward form of all the elements. functions, powers, and capacities which potentially it includes. Thus life may be said to be all at its commencement which it can become in the end. Humanity is defined to be a generic life. Man is the inanifestation of this generic life in connection with a special corporeal organization, by which it is individualized and becomes personal. It was this generic humanity which sinned in Adcm, and thenceforth was corrupt in all the individual men in whom it was manifested. It ItiaS this generic humanity which Christ assumed into personal union with his divinity, not as two distinct substances, but so united as to become one generic human life. This purified humanity now develops itself by an inward force in the church, just as from Adain generic humanity was devel oped in his posterity. It is still, however, assnmed as the fundamental idea of the gospel that God and man in Christ are one. This generic humanity is only a form of tire life of
God. And as to its sinning in Adam, and being thenceforth corrnpt. sin and corruption are only imperfect developutent. God, the universal, li-fe principle, as Dr. Nevin calls it, so variously manifested in the different existences of this world, is imperfectly or insuf ficiently manifested in man generally, but perfectly in Christ, and through him ItItitnately in like perfection in his people.
III. Concerning justification. Dr. Nevin says: " Our nature reaches after a true and real union with the nature of God as the necessary complement and consummation of its own life, The idea whiclt it embodies can never be fully actualized under any other form. The incarnation is the proper completion of humanity. CII7ist is the true ideal man. The word became flesh—not a single man only as one among many, but flesh ' or humanity in its universal conception. How else mild he be the prihciple of a general life, the originof a new order of existence for the human world as such? How else could the value of his mediatorial work be made over to us in a real way, by a true imputation, and not a legal fiction only ?" " Christianity is a life, not only as revealed at first in Clirist, but as continued also in the church. It flows over from Christ to his. people, always in this form. They do not simply bear his name and acknowledge his doctrine. They are so united to him as to have part in the substance of his life itself." " By the hypostatical union of the two nafures in the person of Jesus Christ, our human ity as fallen in Adam was exalted again to a new and imperishable divine life." " The object of the incarnation was to couple the human nature in real union with the logos as a permanent source of life." " The new life of which Christ is the source and organic principle is in all respects a true human life ;" "not a new humanity, wholly dissevered from that of Adam, but the humanity of Adam itself, only raised to a higher character, and filled with new meaning and power, by its union with the divine nature." "Christ's life, as now described, rests not in his separate person, but passes over to his people." He communicates his own life substantially to the soul on which Ile acts, causing it to grow into his very nature. " This is the mystical union, the basis of our whole salvation; the only medium by which it is possible for us to have an interest in the grace of" Christ under any other view." With his substance, his life, his divine human nature, thus communicated to the soul, come his merit, his holiness, his power, his glory. These are predicates of the nature which becomes ours, constituting our personal life and character. Even the resurrection is to be effected, not by the power of Christ operating ab extra, as when he raised Lazarus froin the dead, but by a LICNV divine eletnent.