THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
vindicated the doctrines of the Reformation on the basis of historical development, in decided opposition to Romanism and Puseyism on the one hand, and also to rationalism and sectarianism on the other. The Mercersburg school was charged with transcendentalism, mysticism, and Romanizing tendencies, but all these charges gradually subsided. A regular heresy trial was held at the synod of York in 1S45, and again at two subsequent synods; but in each case the Mercersburg professors were acquitted by an almost unanimous vote.
Mercersburg theology taught that the divinehuman person of Jesus Christ is the primordial truth of Christianity, both of revelation and redemption. From the Christ-idea, as the fundamental principle, are to be developed all scriptural doctrines. Issue was taken with the high Calvinistic principle of a twofold unconditional predestination, as well as with the contrary Arminian principle of free will, and no less decidedly, also, with the Roman system, which starts from the idea of the Church as a visible and centralized organization. Mercersburg was the first theological school in America to propound and vindicate what has since been called the " Christocentric " idea of Christianity. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, is the second Adam, the head of a regenerate human race. Born in him and of him, by the Holy Spirit, believers are his members. He, glorified in heaven, and they, though still in the flesh on earth, together constitute one mystical body, a spiritual organism. This is the Christian Church, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Of supernatural origin, invested with divine authority, possessing spiritual powers adequate to the fulfilment of her mission, instinct with heavenly life, and destined to overcome her enemies, she is the communion in which men may obtain salvation and eternal life. The Church, extending through all ages, and destined to embrace all nations, is ever identical with herself, having one Lord, one faith, one baptism; yet different phases of the fulness of her spiritual life, including doctrine and morals, cultus and ecclesiastical polity, appear at different epochs in her history. Hence no statements of doctrine formulated in any past age need be final, and no form of organization can be fixed and unchangeable. The Church modifies doctrinal formulas according to her progress in the knowledge of Christian truth, and adjusts her organization to the advanced status of her life and to her altered connections with the world. Christ perpetuates his mediatorial office by an order of chosen men, who, by the laying-on of hands, are duly invested with divine authority to speak in his name, to dispense the sacraments, and to bear rule as undershepherds over the flock. At the same time, Mercersburg always taught the general priesthood of the laity and the equality of ministers.
The sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are not empty forms, but the significant signs and seals of God's covenant with us. They are means of grace which become efficacious by faith alone. By baptism, the subject is received into the covenant. The Lord's Supper is the commemoration of the once crucified but now glorified Christ,
and the communion of his body and blood, wherein, by the impartation of his own divine-human fulness, he nourishes his people unto everlasting life. The contrary opinion, which then largely prevailed in the American churches, that baptism is only the empty symbol of forgiveness and of the new birth and the Lord's Supper merely a celebration of the crucifixion of Christ, was sharply criticized. Mercersburg found fault with the common style of extemporaneous public prayer, and advocated a revival, in a modernized form, of the liturgical church-service of the Reformation period. The result was, A Liturgy, or Order of Christian Worship (Philadelphia, 1858), prepared by Schaff, Nevin, Harbaugh, Gerhart, and others, and a book of common prayer, entitled An Order of Worship for the Reformed Church (1866). Both, however were merely optional, and not intended to supersede free prayer. A new German hymn-book was also prepared by Dr. Schaff (1859), which is now generally used in the German congregations of the Reformed Church.
The Mercersburg movement was Christological, and in close sympathy with the positive Evangelical theology of Protestant Germany, though necessarily modified by American surroundings and wants.
At present, the peculiar characteristics of the Mercersburg school are no longer distinctive, because similar Christological tendencies have since sprung up, and taken root in other denominations; hence former issues have been superseded. The formation of the General Synod in 1863 settled the doctrinal differences which had divided the church into two parties. See Reformed Church. E. V Gerhar^.
Bibliography: F. A. Rauch, Psychology, New York, 1846; J. W. Nevin, The Anxious Bench, Chambersburg, 1843; The Mystical Presence, a Vindication of the Reformed or Calvinistic Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, Philadelphia, 1846; idem, The History and Genius of the Heidelberg Catechism, Chambersburg, 1847, and his Introduction to the triglot tercentenary ed. of the Heidelberg Catechism, New York, 1863; idem, Antichrist; or, the Spirit of Sect and Schism, New York, 1848; P. Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism as Related to the Present State of the Church, Chambersburg, 1845; idem, What is Church History t .1 Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development, Philadelphia, 1846; E. V. Gerhart, in Bibliotheca Sacra, Jan., 1863, pp. 1-78; idem, Institutes of the Christian Religion, New York, 1891; H. Harbaugh, Christological Theology, Philadelphia, 1864; T.G.Apple, The Theology of the German Reformed Church, in the Proceedings of the Second General Council of the Presbyterian Church, held in Philadelphia, 1880, Philadelphia, pp. 484-497. Consult also The Mercersburg Review, vols, i.-xii., 1849-60; Der deutsche Kirchenfreund, 1848-54; German Reformed Messenger; Minutes of the German Reformed Synod, from 1843 to 1866; The Provisional Liturgy, Philadelphia, 1858; The Order of Worship for the Reformed Church, ib. 1867.
MERCY, SISTERS OF: The name of several religious congregations of women in the Roman Catholic Church.
1. Institute of Our Blessed Lady of Mercy: A congregation founded by Catherine Elizabeth McAuley (q.v.). The beginnings of this order go back to 1827 when the founder, then forty years of age, and having recently inherited a large fortune, established in Dublin (on the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, Sept. 24) an institution for the harboring of destitute women and orphans and for the aid of