The Mystical Presence

"No single book on sacramental thought from nineteenth-century America has attracted more attention in the past half century than The Mystical Presence . . . This new edition by Linden J. DeBie and W. Bradford Littlejohn clarifies [Nevin's] importance by placing his work in its American context, showing his engagement with European theologians, and locating him in his own theological tradition . . . Nevin's work will continue to make a mark, and this new edition brings to bear the latest scholarship."

-E. Brooks Holifield

Emory University



"Karl Barth's commentary on Romans was not the first bomb to fall on the playground of theologians. John Williamson Nevin's The Mystical Presence had a similar effect on the nineteenth-century American church. His appeal for a return to the sacramental views of the sixteenth-century Reformed confessions was a voice in the wilderness in an era of decidedly low-church sympathies. This wonderful new edition clearly reveals the relevance of Nevin's controversial book in both his day and ours."

-Keith A. Mathison

Reformation Bible College



"This is an important book in an important new series. John Williamson Nevin carried forward Calvin's understanding of the Lord's Supper better than anyone else in America during the nineteenth century. His central emphasis on the eucharistic theme of 'union with Christ' still has much to teach us today. We now have his central writings on this topic in a handsome new edition. It deserves to be studied and savored by pastors and scholars alike."

-George Hunsinger

Princeton Theological Seminary



"Over a century ago, John Williamson Nevin planted an exotic seed in the ground of American Protestantism . . . [He] cultivated a high-church, liturgical and sacramental Protestantism that starkly contrasted with and sharply challenged the populist revivalism around him . . . By launching this excellent new edition of Nevin's works, Brad Littlejohn and his colleagues give us hope that it is finally time for the dead seed to grow into a tree. May it bear much fruit."

-Peter Leithart

New Saint Andrews College