Chapter VII: Part 7

§ 167.8. =The Christian Life and Devotional Literature.=--Pietism
led to a powerful revival of religious life among the people,
which it sustained by zealous preaching and the publication of
devotional works. A similar activity displayed itself among the
orthodox. Francke began his charitable labours with seven florins;
but with undaunted faith he started his Orphanage, writing over
its door the words of Isaiah xl. 31. In faith and benevolence
Woltersdorff was a worthy successor of Francke; and Baron von
Canstein applied his whole means to the founding of the Bible
Institute of Halle. Missions too were now prosecuted with a zeal
and success which witnessed to the new life that had arisen in
the Lutheran church.--A remarkable manifestation of the pietistic
spirit of this age is seen in =The Praying Children in Silesia=,
A.D. 1707. Children of four years old and upward gathered in open
fields for singing and prayer, and called for the restoration of
churches taken away by the Catholics. The movement spread over
the whole land. In vain was it denounced from the pulpits and
forbidden by the authorities. Opposition only excited more and
more the zeal of the children. At last the churches were opened
for their services. The excitement then gradually subsided. It
was, however, long a subject of discussion between the pietists
and the orthodox; the latter denouncing it as the work of the
devil, the former regarding it as a wonderful awakening of God’s
grace.--Best remembered of the many devotional writers of this
period are Bogatsky of Halle, died A.D. 1774, whose “Golden
Treasury” is still highly esteemed;[503] and Von Moser, died
A.D. 1785, who lived a noble and exemplary life at Stuttgart
amid much sore persecution. The great need of simple explanation
of Scripture appears from the great sale of such popular
commentaries as those of Pfaff at Tübingen, 1730, Starke at
Leipzig, 1741, and the Halle Bible of S. J. Baumgarten, 1748.

§ 167.9. =Missions to the Heathen.=--The quickening of
religious life by pietism bore fruit in new missionary activity.
Frederick IV. of Denmark founded in his East Indian possessions
the Tranquebar mission in A.D. 1706, under Ziegenbalg and
Plutschau. Ziegenbalg, who translated the New Testament into
Tamil, died in A.D. 1719. From the Danish possessions this
mission carried its work over into the English Indian territories.
Able and zealous workers were sent out from the Halle Institute,
of whom the greatest was Chr. Fr. Schwartz, who died in A.D. 1798,
after nearly fifty years of noble service in the mission field.
In the last quarter of the century, however, under the influence
of rationalism, zeal for missions declined, the Halle society
broke up, and the English were allowed to reap the harvest
sown by the Lutherans. The Halle professor Callenberg founded
in A.D. 1728 a society for the conversion of the Jews, in the
interests of which Stephen Schultz travelled over Europe, Asia,
and Africa, preaching the Cross among the Jews. Christianity had
been introduced among the Eskimos in Greenland in the eleventh
century (§ 93, 5), but the Scandinavian colony there had been
forgotten, and no trace of the religion which it had taught any
longer remained. This reproach to Christianity lay sore on the
heart of Hans Egede, a Norwegian pastor, and he found no rest
till, supported by a Danish-Norwegian trading house, he sailed
with his family in A.D. 1721 for these frozen and inhospitable
shores. Amid almost inconceivable hardships, and with at first
but little success, he continued to labour unweariedly, and even
after the trading company abandoned the field he remained. In
A.D. 1733 he had the unexpected joy of welcoming three Moravian
missionaries, Christian David and the brothers Stach. His joy
was too soon dashed by the spiritual pride of the new arrivals,
who insisted on modelling everything after their own Moravian
principles, and separated themselves from the noble Egede, when
he refused to yield, as an unspiritual and unconverted man. Egede,
on the other hand, though deeply offended at their confounding
justification and sanctification, their contempt of pure doctrine,
and their unscriptural views and mode of speech, was ready to
attribute all this to their defective theological training.
He rewarded their unkindness, when they were stricken down in
sore sickness, with unwearied, loving care. In A.D. 1736 he
returned to Denmark, leaving his son Paul to carry on his work,
and continued director of the Greenland Mission Seminary in
Copenhagen till his death in A.D. 1758.[504]--Continuation,
§ 171, 5.

§ 168. THE CHURCH OF THE MORAVIAN BRETHREN.[505]

The highly gifted Count Zinzendorf, inspired even as a boy, out of fervent love to the Saviour, with the idea of gathering together the lovers of Jesus, took occasion of the visit of some Moravian Exultants to his estate to realize his cherished project. On the Hutberg he dropped the mustard seed of the dream of his youth into fertile soil, where, under his fervent care, it soon grew into a stately tree, whose branches spread over all European lands, and thence through all parts of the habitable globe. The society which he founded was called “The Society of the United Brethren.” The fact that this society was not overwhelmed by the extravagances to which for a time it gave way, that its fraternising with the fanatics, the extravagant talk in which its members indulged about a special covenant with the Saviour, and their not over-modest claims to a peculiar rank in the kingdom of God, did not lead to its utter overthrow in the abyss of fanaticism, and that on the slippery paths of its mystical marriage theory it was able to keep its feet, presents a phenomenon, which stands alone in church history, and more than anything else proves how deeply rooted founder and followers were in the saving truths of the gospel. The count himself laid aside many of his extravagances, and what still remained was abandoned by his sensible and prudent successor Spangenberg, so far as it was not necessarily involved in the fundamental idea of a special covenant with the Saviour. The special service rendered by the society was the protest which it raised against the generally prevailing apostasy. During this period of declension it saved the faith of many pious souls, affording them a welcome refuge, with rich spiritual nourishment and nurture. With the reawakening of the religious life in the nineteenth century, however, its adherents lost ground in Europe more and more, by maintaining their old onesidedness in life and doctrine, their depreciatory estimate of theological science, and the quarrelsome spirit which they generally manifested. But in one province, that of missions to the heathen, their energy and success have never yet been equalled. Their thorough and well-organized system of education also deserves particular mention. At present the Society of the Brethren numbers half a million, distributed among 100 settlements or thereabout.

§ 168.1. =The Founder of the Moravian Brotherhood=, Nic. Ludwig
Count von =Zinzendorf= and Pottendorf, was born in Dresden in
A.D. 1700. Spener was one of his sponsors at baptism. His father
dying early, and his mother marrying a second time, the boy,
richly endowed with gifts of head and heart, was brought up by
his godly pietistic grandmother, the Baroness von Gersdorf. There
in his earliest youth he learned to seek his happiness in the
closest personal fellowship with the Lord, and the tendency of
his whole future life to yield to the impulses of pious feeling
already began to assert itself. In his tenth year he entered the
Halle Institute under Francke, where the pietistic idea of the
need of the _ecclesiolæ in ecclesia_ took firm possession of his
heart. Even in his fifteenth year he sought its realization by
founding among his fellow students “The Order of the Grain of
Mustard Seed” (Matt. xiii. 31). After completing his school
course, his uncle and guardian, in order to put an end to his
pietistic extravagances, sent him to study law at the orthodox
University of Wittenberg. Here he had at first to suffer a sort
of martyrdom as a rigid pietist swimming against the orthodox
current. His residence at Wittenberg, however, was beneficial
to him in freeing him unconsciously of the Halle pietism,
which had restrained his spiritual development. He did indeed
firmly maintain the fundamental idea of pietism, _ecclesiolæ
in ecclesia_, but in his mind it gained a wider significance
than pietism had given it. His endeavours to secure a personal
conference, and where possible a union, between the Halle
and Wittenberg leaders were unsuccessful. In A.D. 1719 he
left Wittenberg and travelled for two years, visiting the most
distinguished representatives of all confessions and sects. This
too fostered his idea of a grand gathering of all who love the
Lord Jesus. On his return home, in A.D. 1721, at the wish of his
relatives he entered the service of the Saxon government. But a
religious genius like Zinzendorf could find no satisfaction in
such employment. And soon an opportunity presented itself for
carrying out the plan to which his thoughts and longings were
directed.[506]

§ 168.2. =The Founding of the Brotherhood=, A.D. 1722-1727. The
Schmalcald, and still more the Thirty Years’ War, had brought
frightful suffering and persecution upon the Bohemian and
Moravian Brethren. Many of them sought refuge in Poland and
Prussia. One of the refugees was the famous educationist J. Amos
Comenius, who died in A.D. 1671, after having been bishop of the
Moravians at Lissa in Posen from 1648. Those who remained behind
were, even after the Peace of Westphalia, subjected to the
cruellest oppression! Only secretly in their houses and at the
risk of their lives could they worship God according to the faith
of their fathers; and they were obliged publicly to profess their
adherence to the Romish church. Thus gradually the light of the
gospel was extinguished in the homes of their descendants, and
only a tradition, becoming ever more and more faint, remained
as a memory of their ancestral faith. A Moravian carpenter,
Christian David, born and reared in the Romish church, but
converted by evangelical preaching, succeeded in the beginning
of the eighteenth century in fanning into a flame again in some
families the light that had been quenched. This little band of
believers, under David’s leading, went forth in A.D. 1722 and
sought refuge on Zinzendorf’s estate in Lusatia. The count was
then absent, but the steward, with the hearty concurrence of
the count’s grandmother, gave them the Hutberg at Berthelsdorf
as a settlement. With the words of Psalm lxxxiv. 4 on his lips,
Christian David struck the axe into the tree for building the
first house. Soon the little town of Herrnhut had arisen, as
the centre of that Christian society which Zinzendorf now sought
with all his heart and strength to develop and promote. Gradually
other Moravians dropped in, but a yet greater number from far and
near streamed in, of all sorts of religious revivalists, pietists,
separatists, followers of Schwenckfeld, etc. Zinzendorf had no
thought of separation from the Lutheran church. The settlers were
therefore put under the pastoral care of Rothe, the worthy pastor
of Berthelsdorf (§ 167, 6). To organize such a mixed multitude
was no easy task. Only Zinzendorf’s glorious enthusiasm for
the idea of a congregation of saints, his eminent organizing
talents, the wonderful elasticity and tenacity of his will,
the extraordinary prudence, circumspection, and wisdom of his
management, made it possible to cement the incongruous elements
and avoid an open breach. The Moravians insisted upon restoring
their old constitution and discipline, and of the others, each
wished to have prominence given to whatever he thought specially
important. Only on one point were they all agreed, the duty of
refusing to conform to the Lutheran church and its pastor Rothe.
The count, therefore, felt obliged to form a new and separatist
society. Personally he had no special liking for the old Moravian
constitution; but the lot decided in its favour, while the idea
of continuing a pre-Reformation martyr church was not without a
certain charm. Thus Zinzendorf drew up a constitution with old
Moravian forms and names, on the basis of which the colony was
established, August 13th, A.D. 1727, under the name of the United
Brotherhood.

§ 168.3. =The Development of the Brotherhood down to Zinzendorf’s
Death=, A.D. 1727-1760.--With great energy the new society
proceeded to found settlements in Germany, Holland, England,
Ireland, Denmark, Norway, and North America, as well as among
German residents in other lands. In A.D. 1734, Zinzendorf
submitted to examination at Tübingen as candidate for license,
and in A.D. 1737 received episcopal consecration from the Berlin
court preacher, Jablonsky, who was at the same time bishop of
the Moravian Brethren, which the same prelate had two years
previously granted to Dr. Nitschmann, another member of the
society. The efforts of the Brethren to spread their cause now
attracted attention. The Saxon government in A.D. 1736 sent to
Herrnhut a commission, of which Löscher was a member. But in
A.D. 1736, before it submitted its report, which on the whole
was favourable, Zinzendorf quitted the country, probably by the
elector’s command at the instigation of the Austrian government,
which objected to the harbouring of so many Bohemian and Moravian
emigrants. Like all those at this time persecuted on account
of religion he took refuge in Wetterau (§ 170, 2). With his
little family of pilgrims he settled at Ronneburg near Büdingen,
founded the prosperous churches of Marienborn and Herrnhaag, and
travelled extensively in Europe and America. This period of exile
was the period when the society was most successful in spreading
outwardly, but it was also the period when it suffered most from
troubles and dissensions within. It was bitterly attacked by
Lutheran theologians, and much more venomously by apostates from
its own fold. The Brethren at this time afforded only too much
ground for misunderstanding and reproach. To this period belongs
the famous fiction of a special covenant, the Pandora-box
of all other absurdities; the development of the count’s own
theological views and peculiar form of expression in his numerous
works; the composition and introduction of unsavoury spiritual
songs, with their silly conceits and many blasphemous and even
obscene pictures and analogies; the market-crier laudations of
their church, the not always pure methods of propaganda, the
introduction of a marriage discipline fitted to break down all
modest restraints; and, finally, the so-called _Niedlichkeiten_,
or boisterous festivals. Even the pietists opposed these
antinomian excesses. Tersteegen, too (§ 169, 1), whose mystic
tendency inclined him strongly toward pietist views, reproached
the Herrnhuters with frivolity. This polemic, disagreeable as it
was, exercised a wholesome influence upon the society. The count
became more guarded in his language, and more prudent in his
behaviour, while he set aside the most objectionable excrescences
of doctrine and practice that had begun to show themselves in the
community. At last, in A.D. 1747, the Saxon government repeated
the edict of banishment so far as the person of the founder
was concerned, and when, two years later, the society expressly
accepted the Augsburg Confession, it was formally recognised
in Saxony. In this same year, A.D. 1749, an English act of
parliament recognised it as a church with a pure episcopal
succession on equal terms with the Anglican episcopal
church.--Zinzendorf continued down to his death to direct the
affairs of this church, which hung upon him with childlike
affection, reflecting his personality, not only in its
excellences, but also in all its extravagances. He died in
A.D. 1760 in the full enjoyment of that blessedness which his
fervent love for the Saviour had brought him.

§ 168.4. =Zinzendorf’s Plan and Work.=--While Zinzendorf
received his first impulse from pietism, he soon perceived its
onesidedness and narrowness. He would have no conventicle, but
one organized community; no ideal invisible, but a real visible
church; no narrow methodism, but a rich, free administration of
the Christian spirit. He did not, in the first instance, aim at
the conversion of the world, nor even at the reformation of the
church, but at gathering and preserving those belonging to the
Saviour. He hoped, however, to erect a reservoir in which he
might collect every little brooklet of living water, from which
he might again water the whole world. And when he succeeded in
organizing a community, he was quite convinced that it was the
Philadelphia of the Apocalypse (iii. 7 ff.), that it introduced
“the Philadelphian period” of church history, of which all
prophets and apostles had prophesied. His plan had originally
reference to all Christendom, and he even took a step toward
realizing this universal idea. In order to build a bridge
between the Catholic church and his own community, he issued, in
A.D. 1727, a Christo-Catholic hymn-book and prayer-book, and had
even sketched out a letter to the pope to accompany a copy of his
book. He also attempted, by a letter to the patriarchs and then
to Elizabeth, empress of Russia, to interest the Greek church
in his scheme, dwelling upon the Greek extraction of the church
of the Moravian Brethren (§ 79, 2). His gathering of members,
however, was practically limited to the Protestant churches. All
confessions and sects afforded him contingents. He was himself
heartily attached to the distinctive doctrines of the Lutheran
church. But in a society whose distinctive characteristic it was
to be the gathering point for the pious of all nationalities,
doctrine and confession could not be the uniting bond. It could
be only a fellowship of love and not of creed, and the bond
a community of loving sentiment and loving deeds. The inmost
principle of Lutheranism, reconciliation by the blood of Christ,
was saved, indeed was made the characteristic and vital doctrine,
the one point of union between Moravians, Lutherans, and Reformed.
Over the three parties stood the count himself as _ordinarius_;
but this gave an external and not a confessional unity. The
subsequent acceptance of the Augsburg Confession, in A.D. 1749,
was a political act, so as to receive a civil status, and
had otherwise no influence. Instead then of the confession,
Zinzendorf made the =constitution= the bond of union. Its forms
were borrowed from the old Moravian church order, but dominated
and inspired by Zinzendorf’s own spirit. The old Moravian
constitution was episcopal and clerical, and proceeded from
the idea of the church; while the new constitution of Herrnhut
was essentially presbyterial, and proceeded from the idea of
the community, and that as a communion of saints. The Herrnhut
bishops were only titular bishops; they had no diocese, no
jurisdiction, no power of excommunication. All these prerogatives
belonged to the united eldership, in which the lay element
was distinctly predominant. Herrnhut had no pastors, but
only preaching brothers; the pastoral care devolved upon the
elders and their assistants. But beside these half-Lutheran and
pseudo-Moravian peculiarities, there was also a Donatist element
at the basis of the constitution. This lay in the fundamental
idea of absolutely true and pure children of God, and reached
full expression in the concluding of a =special covenant= with
the Saviour at London on Sept. 16th, A.D. 1741. Leonard Dober for
some years administered the office of an elder-general. But at
the London synod it was declared that he had not the requisite
gifts for that office. Dober now wished to resign. While in
confusion as to whom they could appoint, it flashed into the
minds of all to appoint the Saviour Himself. “Our feeling and
heart conviction was, that He made a special covenant with His
little flock, taking us as His peculiar treasure, watching over
us in a special way, personally interesting Himself in every
member of our community, and doing that for us perfectly which
our previous elders could only do imperfectly.”

§ 168.5. Among the =numerous extravagances= which Zinzendorf
countenanced for a time, the following may be mentioned.

1. The notion of the motherhood of the Holy Spirit. Zinzendorf
described the holy Trinity as “man, woman, and child.”
The Spirit is the mother in three respects: the eternal
generation of the Son of God, the conception of the Man
Jesus, and the second birth of believers.

2. The notion of the fatherhood of Jesus Christ (Isa. ix. 6).
Creation is ascribed solely to the Son, hence Christ is our
special, direct Father. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
is only, “in the language of men, our father-in-law or
grandfather.”

3. In reference to our Lord’s life on earth, Zinzendorf
delighted in using terms of contempt, in order to emphasize
the depths of His humiliation.

4. In like manner he uses reproachful terms in speaking of the
style of the sacred Scriptures, and the inspired community
prefers a living Bible.

5. The theory and practice of mystical marriage, according to
Ephesians v. 32. The community and each member of it are
spiritual brides of Christ, and the marriage relation and
begetting of children were set forth and spiritualized in
a singularly indelicate manner.

§ 168.6. =Zinzendorf’s greatness= lay in the fervency of his
love of the Saviour, and in the yearning desire to gather under
the shadow of the cross all who loved the Lord. His weakness
consisted not so much in his manifested extravagances, as in his
idea that he had been called to found a society. To the realizing
of this idea he gave his life, talents, heart, and means. The
advantages of rank and culture he also gave to this one task.
He was personally convinced of his Divine call, and as he
did not recognise the authority of the written word, but only
subjective impressions, it is easily seen how he would drift into
absurdities and inconsistencies. The end contemplated seemed to
him supremely important, so that to realize it he did not scruple
to depart from strict truthfulness.--Zinzendorf’s writings,
over one hundred in number, are characterized by originality,
brilliancy, and peculiar forms of expression. Of his 2,000 hymns,
mostly improvised for public services, 700 of the best were
revised and published by Knapp. Two are still found in most
collections, and are more or less reproduced in our English hymns,
“Jesus still lead on,” and “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.”

§ 168.7. =The Brotherhood under Spangenberg’s
Administration.=--For its present form the Brotherhood is indebted
to its wise and sensible bishop, =Aug. Gottl. Spangenberg=, who
died A.D. 1792. Born in 1704, he became personally acquainted
with Zinzendorf in 1727, after he had completed his studies at
Jena under Buddæus, and continued ever after on terms of close
intimacy with him and his community. Through the good offices
of G. A. Francke, son and successor of A. H. Francke, he was
called in Sept., 1732, to the office of an assistantship in the
theological faculty at Halle, and appointed school inspector of
the Orphanage; but very soon offence was taken at the brotherly
fellowship which he had, not only with the society of Herrnhut,
but also with other separatists. The misunderstanding that
thus arose led in April, 1733, to his deprivation under a royal
cabinet order, and his expulsion by military power from Halle.
He now formally joined the communion of the Brethren. The first
half of his signally blessed ministry of sixty years among the
Moravians was chiefly devoted to foreign mission work, both in
their colonies abroad and in their stations in heathen lands.
In Holland in 1734, in England and Denmark in 1735, he obtained
official permission for the founding of Moravian colonies in
Surinam, in the American state of Georgia, and in Santa Cruz,
the forming and management of which he himself undertook, besides
directing the mission work in these places. Returning from
America in 1762, he won, after Zinzendorf’s death, so complete
an ascendency in the church in every respect, that he may well
be regarded as its second founder. At the Synod of Marienborn,
in A.D. 1764, the constitution was revised and perfected.
Zinzendorf’s monarchical prerogative was surrendered to the
eldership, and Spangenberg prudently secured the withdrawal of
all excrescences and extravagances. But the central idea of a
special covenant was not touched, and Sept. 16th is still held as
a grand pentecost festival. In the fifth section of the statutes
of the United Brethren at Gnaden, 1819, it distinguishes itself
from all the churches as a “society of true children of God; as
a family of God, with Jesus as its head. ” In the fourth section
of the “Historical Account of the Constitution of the United
Brethren at Gnaden, 1823,” the society is described as “a company
of living members of the invisible body of Jesus Christ;” and in
its litany for Easter morning, it adds as a fourth particular to
the article of the creed: “I believe that our brothers _N. N._,
and our sisters _N. N._ have joined the church above, and have
entered into the joy of the Lord.” The synod of A.D. 1848
modified this article, and generally the society’s distinctive
views are not made so prominent. This liberal tendency had
dogmatic expression given to it in Spangenberg’s “_Idea Fidei
Fratrum_.” Only a few new settlements have been formed since
Zinzendorf’s death, and none of any importance; while the
hitherto flourishing Moravian settlements in Wetterau were
destroyed and their members banished, in A.D. 1750, by the
reigning prince, Count von Isenburg-Büdingen, on account of
their refusing to take the oath of allegiance.--After the first
attempt to establish societies among the German emigrants in
Livonia and Esthonia in A.D. 1729-1743 had ended in the expulsion
of the Herrnhuters, these regions proved in the second half of
the century a more fruitful field than any other. They secured
there a relation to the national church such as they never
attained unto elsewhere. They had in these parts formally
organized a church within the church, whose members, mostly
peasants, felt convinced that they had been called by the Lord’s
own voice as His chosen little flock, a proceeding which caused
infinite trouble, especially in Livonia, to the faithful pastors,
who perceived the deadly mischief that was being wrought, and
witnessed against them from God’s word. This protest was too
powerful and convincing to be disregarded, and now, not only
too late, but also in too half-hearted a way, Herrnhut began,
in A.D. 1857, to turn back, so as to save its Livonian institute
by inward regeneration from certain overthrow.

§ 168.8. =The doctrinal peculiarities of the Brotherhood= cannot
be quite correctly described as un-Lutheran, or anti-Lutheran.
Bengel smartly characterized them in a single phrase: “They
plucked up the stock of sound doctrine, stripped oft what was
most essential and vital, and retained the half of it,” which not
only then, but even still retains its truth and worth. Salvation
is regarded as proceeding purely from the Son, the God-Man,
so that the relation of the Father and of the Holy Spirit to
redemption is scarcely even nominal; and the redemption of the
God-Man again is viewed one-sidedly as consisting only in His
sufferings and death, while the other side, that is grounded on
His life and resurrection, is either carefully passed over, or
its fruit is represented as borrowed from the atoning death. Thus
not only justification, but sanctification is derived exclusively
from the death of Christ, and this, not so much as a forensic
substitutionary satisfaction, although that is not expressly
denied, but rather as a Divine love-sacrifice which awakens
an answering love in us. The whole of redemption is viewed as
issuing from Christ’s blood and wounds; and since from this mode
of viewing the subject God’s grace and love are made prominent
rather than His righteousness, we hear almost exclusively of
the gospel, and little or nothing of the law. All preaching
and teaching were avowedly directed to the awakening of pious
feelings of love to God, and thus tended to foster a kind of
religious sentimentalism.

§ 168.9. =The peculiarities of worship among the Brethren=
were also directed to the excitement of pious feeling; their
sensuously sweet sacred music, their church hymns, overcharged
with emotion, their richly developed liturgies, their restoration
of the _agape_ with tea, biscuit, and chorale-singing, the
fraternal kiss at communion, in their earlier days also washing
of the feet, etc. The daily watchword from the O.T. and doctrinal
texts from the N.T. were regarded as oracles, and were intended
to give a special impress to the religious feelings of the day.
As early as A.D. 1727 they had a hymn-book containing 972 hymns.
Most of these were compositions of their own, a true reflection
of their religious sentiments at that period. It also contained
Bohemian and Moravian hymns, translated by Mich. Weiss, and
also many old favourites of the evangelical church, often sadly
mutilated. By A.D. 1749 it had received twelve appendices and
four supplements. In these appendices, especially in the twelfth,
the one-sided tendency to give prominence to feeling was carried
to the most absurd lengths of caricature in the use of offensive
and silly terms of endearment as applied to the Saviour.
Zinzendorf admitted the defects of this production, and had
it suppressed in 1751, and in London prepared a new, expurgated
edition of the hymn-book. Under Spangenberg’s presidency
Christian Gregor issued, in A.D. 1778, a hymn-book, containing
542 from Zinzendorf’s book and 308 of his own pious rhymes. He
also published a chorale book in A.D. 1784. Among their sacred
poets Zinzendorf stands easily first. His only son, Christian
Renatus, who died A.D. 1752, left behind him a number of sacred
songs. Their hymns were usually set to the melodies of the Halle
pietists.

§ 168.10. In regard to the =Christian life=, the Brotherhood
withdrew from politics and society, adopted stereotyped forms of
speech and peculiar usages, even in their dress. They sought to
live undisturbed by controversy, in personal communion with the
Saviour. Their separatism as a covenanted people may be excused
in view of the unbelief prevailing in the Protestant church, but
it has not been overcome by the reawakening of spiritual life
in the Church. As to their =ecclesiastical constitution=, Christ
Himself, as the Chief Elder of the church, should have in it the
direct government. The leaders, founding upon Proverbs xvi. 33
and Acts i. 26, held that fit expression was given to this
principle by the use of the lot; but soon opposition to this
practice arose, and with its abandonment the “special covenant”
theory lost all its significance. The lot was used in election of
office-bearers, sending of missionaries, admission to membership,
etc. But in regard to marriage, it was used only by consent
of the candidates for marriage, and an adverse result was not
enforced. The administration of the affairs of the society
lay with the conference of the united elders. From time to
time general synods with legislative power were summoned. The
membership was divided into groups of married, widowed, bachelors,
maidens, and children, with special duties, separate residences,
and also special religious services in addition to those common
to all. The church officers were bishops, presbyters, deacons,
deaconesses, and acolytes.

§ 168.11. =Missions to the Heathen.=--Zinzendorf’s meeting with
a West Indian negro in Copenhagen awakened in him at an early
period the missionary zeal. He laid the matter before the church,
and in A.D. 1732 the first Herrnhut missionaries, Dober and
Nitschmann, went out to St. Thomas, and in the following year
missions were established in Greenland, North America, almost
all the West Indian islands, South America, among the Hottentots
at the Cape, the East Indies, among the Eskimos of Labrador,
etc. Their missionary enterprise forms the most brilliant and
attractive part of the history of the Moravians. Their procedure
was admirably suited to uncultured races, and only for such. In
the East Indies, therefore, they were unsuccessful. They were
never wanting in self-denying missionaries, who resigned all from
love to the Saviour. They were mostly pious, capable artisans,
who threw themselves with all their hearts into their new work,
and devoted themselves with affectionate tenderness to the
advancement of the bodily and spiritual interests of those
among whom they laboured. One of the noblest of them all was the
missionary patriarch Zeisberger, who died in A.D. 1808, after
toiling among the North American Indians for sixty-three years.
These missions were conducted at a surprisingly small outlay. The
Brethren also interested themselves in the conversion of the Jews.
In A.D. 1738 Dober wrought among the Jews of Amsterdam; and with
greater success in A.D. 1739, Lieberkühn, who also visited the
Jews in England and Bohemia, and was honoured by them with the
title of “rabbi.”[507]

§ 169. THE REFORMED CHURCH BEFORE THE “ILLUMINATION.”

The sharpness of the contest between Calvinism and Lutheranism was moderated on both sides. The union efforts prosecuted during the first decades of the century in Germany and Switzerland were always defeated by Lutheran opposition. In the Dutch and German Reformed Churches, even during the eighteenth century, Cocceianism was still in high repute. After it had modified strict Calvinism, the opposition between Reformed orthodoxy and Arminian heterodoxy became less pronounced, and more and more Arminian tendencies found their way into Reformed theology. What pietism and Moravianism were for the Lutheran church of Germany, Methodism was, in a much greater measure, and with a more enduring influence, for the episcopal church of England.

§ 169.1. =The German Reformed Church.=--The Brandenburg dynasty
made unwearied efforts to effect a =union= between the Lutheran
and Reformed churches throughout their territories (§ 154, 4).
Frederick I. (III.) instituted for this purpose in A.D. 1703 a
_collegium caritativum_, under the presidency of the Reformed
court preacher Ursinus (ranked as bishop, that he might officiate
at the royal coronation), in which also, on the side of the
Reformed, Jablonsky, formerly a Moravian bishop, and, on the part
of the Lutherans, the cathedral preacher Winkler of Magdeburg and
Lüttke, provost of Cologne-on-the-Spree, took part. Spener, who
wanted not a made union but one which he himself was making, gave
expression to his opinion, and soon passed over. Lüttke after a
few _sederunts_ withdrew, and when Winkler in A.D. 1703 published
a plan of union, _Arcanum regium_, which the Lutheran church
merely submitted for the approval of the Reformed king, such a
storm of opposition arose against the project, that it had to
be abandoned. In the following year the king took up the matter
again in another way. Jablonsky engaged in negotiations with
England for the introduction of the Anglican episcopal system
into Prussia, in order by it to build a bridge for the union with
Lutheranism. But even this plan failed, in consequence of the
succession of Frederick William I. in A.D. 1713, whose shrewd
sense strenuously opposed it.--The vacillating statements of
the _Confessio Sigismundi_ (§ 154, 3) regarding =predestination=
made it possible for the Brandenburg Reformed theologians to
understand it as teaching the doctrine of particular as well as
universal grace, and so to make it correspond with Brandenburg
Reformed orthodoxy. The rector of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in
Berlin, Paul Volkmann, in A.D. 1712, interpreted it as teaching
universal grace, and so in his _Theses theologicæ_ he constructed
a system of theology, in which the divine foreknowledge of the
result, as the reconciling middle term between the particularism
and universalism of the call, was set forth in a manner
favourable to the latter. The controversy that was aroused over
this, in which even Jablonsky argued for the more liberal view,
while on the other side Barckhausen, Volkmann’s colleague, in
his _Amica Collatio Doctrinæ de Gratia, quam vera ref. confitetur
Ecclesia, cum Doctr. Volkmanni_, etc., came forward under the
name of _Pacificus Verinus_ as his most determined opponent, was
put a stop to in A.D. 1719 by an edict of Frederick William I.,
which enjoined silence on both parties, without any result having
been reached.--One of the noblest mystics that ever lived was
=Gerhard Tersteegen=, died A.D. 1769. He takes a high rank as a
sacred poet. Anxious souls made pilgrimages to him from far and
near for comfort, counsel, and refreshment. Though not exactly a
separatist, he had no strong attachment to the church.[508]--The
prayer-book of =Conrad Mel=, pastor and rector at Hersfeld in
Hesse, died A.D. 1733, continues to the present day a favourite
in pious families of the Reformed communion.

§ 169.2. =The Reformed Church in Switzerland.=--=The Helvetic
Confession=, with its strict doctrine of predestination and its
peculiar inspiration theory (§ 161, 3), had been indeed accepted,
in A.D. 1675, by all the Reformed cantons as the absolute
standard of doctrine in church and school; but this obligation
was soon felt to be oppressive to the conscience, and so
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the kings of England and
Prussia repeatedly interceded for its abrogation. In Geneva,
though vigorously opposed by a strictly orthodox minority, the
_Vénérable Compagnie_ succeeded, in A.D. 1706, with the rector
of the Academy at its head, J. A. Turretin, whose father had
been one of the principal authors of the formula, in modifying
the usual terms of subscription, _Sic sentio, sic profiteor,
sic docebo, et contrarium non docebo_, into _Sic docebo quoties
hoc argumentum tractandum suscipiam, contrarium non docebo,
nec ore, nec calamo, nec privatim, nec publice_; and afterwards,
in A.D. 1725, it was entirely set aside, and adhesion to the
Scriptures of the O. and N.T., and to the catechism of Calvin,
made the only obligation. More persistent on both sides was the
struggle in Lausanne; yet even there it gradually lost ground,
and by the middle of the century it had no longer any authority
in Switzerland.--The =union efforts= made by the Prussian dynasty
found zealous but unsuccessful advocates in the chancellor Pfaff
of Lutheran Württemberg (§ 167, 4), and in Reformed Switzerland
in J. A. Turretin of Geneva.

§ 169.3. =The Dutch Reformed Church.=--Toward the end of the
seventeenth century, in consequence of threats on the part
of the magistrates, the passionate violence of the =dispute
between= Voetians and Cocceians (§ 162, 5) was moderated; but
in the beginning of the eighteenth century the flames burst
forth anew, reaching a height in 1712, when a marble bust of
Cocceius was erected in a Leyden church. An obstinate Voetian,
Pastor Fruytier of Rotterdam, was grievously offended at this
proceeding, and published a controversial pamphlet full of the
most bitter reproaches and accusations against the Cocceians,
which, energetically replied to by the accused, was much more
hurtful than useful to the interests of the Voetians. At last
a favourable hearing was given to a word of peace which a highly
respected Voetian, the venerable preacher of eighty years of
age, _J. Mor. Mommers_, addressed to the parties engaged in
the controversy. He published in A.D. 1738, under the title of
“_Eubulus_,” a tract in which he proved that neither Cocceius
himself nor his most distinguished adherents had in any essential
point departed from the faith of the Reformed church, and that
from them, therefore, in spite of all differences that had
since arisen, the hand of fellowship should not be withheld.
In consequence of this, the magistrates of Gröningen first of
all decided, that forthwith, in filling up vacant pastorates, a
Cocceian and Voetian should be appointed alternately; a principle
which gradually became the practice throughout the whole country.
At the same time also care was now taken that in the theological
faculties both schools should have equal representation. But
meanwhile also new departures had been made in each of the two
parties. Among the Voetians, after the pattern formerly given
them by Teellinck (§ 162, 4), followed up by the Frisian preacher
Theod. Brakel, died A.D. 1669, and further developed by Jodocus
von Lodenstein of Utrecht, died A.D. 1677, mysticism had made
considerable progress; and the Cocceians, in the person of
Hermann Witsius, drew more closely toward the pietism of the
Voetians and the Lutherans. The most distinguished representative
of this conciliatory party was F. A. Lampe of Detmold, afterwards
professor in Utrecht, previously and subsequently pastor in
Bremen, in high repute in his church as a hymn-writer, but best
known by his commentary on John.--These conciliatory measures
were frustrated by the publication, in A.D. 1740, of a work by
=Schortinghuis= of Gröningen, which pronounced the Scriptures
unintelligible and useless to the natural man, but made fruitful
to the regenerate and elect by the immediate enlightenment of the
Holy Spirit, evidenced by deep groanings and convulsive writhings.
It was condemned by all the orthodox. The author now confined
himself to his pastorate, where he was richly blessed. He died in
A.D. 1750. His notions spread like an epidemic, till stamped out
by the united efforts of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities
in A.D. 1752.

§ 169.4. =Methodism.=--=In the episcopal church of England= the
living power of the gospel had evaporated into the formalism of
scholastic learning and a mechanical ritualism. A reaction was
set on foot by =John Wesley=, born A.D. 1703, a young man of
deep religious earnestness and fervent zeal for the salvation
of souls. During his course at Oxford, in A.D. 1729, along with
some friends, including his brother Charles, he founded a society
to promote pious living.[509] Those thus leagued together were
scornfully called Methodists. From A.D. 1732, =George Whitefield=,
born in A.D. 1714, a youth burning with zeal for his own and his
fellow men’s salvation, wrought enthusiastically along with them.
In A.D. 1735 the brothers Wesley went to America to labour for
the conversion of the Indians in Georgia. On board ship they met
Nitschmann, and in Savannah Spangenberg, who exercised a powerful
influence over them. John Wesley accepted a pastorate in Savannah,
but encountered so many hindrances, that he decided to return to
England in A.D. 1738. Whitefield had just sailed for America, but
returned that same year. Meanwhile Wesley visited Marienborn and
Herrnhut, and so became personally acquainted with Zinzendorf. He
did not feel thoroughly satisfied, and so declined to join the
society. On his return he began, along with Whitefield, the great
work of his life. In many cities they founded religious societies,
preached daily to immense crowds in Anglican churches, and when
the churches were refused, in the open air, often to 20,000
or even 30,000 hearers. They sought to arouse careless sinners
by all the terrors of the law and the horrors of hell, and by
a thorough repentance to bring about immediate conversion. An
immense number of hardened sinners, mostly of the lower orders,
were thus awakened and brought to repentance amid shrieks and
convulsions. Whitefield, who divided his attentions between
England and America, delivered in thirty-four years 18,000
sermons; Wesley, who survived his younger companion by twenty-one
years, dying in A.D. 1791, and was wont to say the world was
his parish, delivered still more. Their association with the
Moravians had been broken off in A.D. 1740. To the latter, not
only was the Methodists’ style of preaching objectionable, but
also their doctrine of “Christian perfection,” according to
which the true, regenerate Christian can and must reach a perfect
holiness of life, not indeed free from temptation and error,
but from all sins of weakness and sinful lusts. Wesley in turn
accused the Herrnhuters of a dangerous tendency toward the errors
of the quietists and antinomians. Zinzendorf came himself to
London to remove the misunderstanding, but did not succeed.
The great Methodist leaders were themselves separated from one
another in A.D. 1741. Whitefield’s doctrine of grace and election
was Calvinistic; Wesley’s Arminian.--From A.D. 1748 the =Countess
of Huntingdon= attached herself to the Methodists, and secured an
entrance for their preaching into aristocratic circles. With all
her humility and self-sacrifice she remained aristocrat enough
to insist on being head and organizer. Seeing she could not
play this _rôle_ with Wesley, she attached herself closely to
Whitefield. He became her domestic chaplain, and with other
clergymen accompanied her on her travels. Wherever she went she
posed as a “queen of the Methodists,” and was allowed to preach
and carry on pastoral work. She built sixty-six chapels, and in
A.D. 1768 founded a seminary for training preachers at Trevecca in
Wales, under the oversight of the able and gentle John Fletcher,
reserving supreme control to herself. After Whitefield’s death,
in A.D. 1770, the opposition between the Calvinistic followers
of Whitefield and the Arminian Wesleyans burst out in a much more
violent form. Fletcher and his likeminded fellow labourers were
charged with teaching the horrible heresy of the universality of
grace, and were on that account discharged by the countess from
the seminary of Trevecca. They now joined Wesley, around whom the
great majority of the Methodists had gathered.

§ 169.5. The Methodists did not wish to separate from
the episcopal church, but to work as a leaven within it.
Whitefield was able to maintain this connexion by the aid of
his aristocratic countess and her relationship with the higher
clergy; but Wesley, spurning such aid, and trusting to his great
powers of organization, felt driven more and more to set up
an independent society. When the churches were closed against
him and his fellow workers, and preaching in the open air was
forbidden, he built chapels for himself.[510] The first was
opened in Bristol, in A.D. 1739. When his ordained associates
were too few for the work, he obtained the assistance of lay
preachers. He founded two kinds of religious societies: The
_united societies_ embraced all, the _band societies_ only the
tried and proved of his followers. Then he divided the _united
societies_ again into _classes_ of from ten to twenty persons
each, and the _class-leaders_ were required to give accurate
accounts of the spiritual condition and progress of those under
their care. Each member of the _united_ as well as the _band
societies_ held a _society ticket_, which had to be renewed
quarterly. The outward affairs of the societies were managed by
_stewards_, who also took care of the poor. A number of local
societies constituted a _circuit_ with a superintendent and
several itinerant preachers.[511] Wesley superintended all
the departments of oversight, administration, and arrangement,
supported from A.D. 1744 by an annual conference. Daily preaching
and devotional exercises in the chapels, weekly class-meetings,
monthly watchnights, quarterly fasts and lovefeasts, an
annual service for the renewing of the covenant, and a great
multiplication of prayer-meetings, gave a special character
to Methodistic piety. Charles Wesley composed hymns for their
services. They carefully avoided collision with the services
of the state church. The American Methodists, who had been up
to this time supplied by Wesley with itinerant missionaries, in
A.D. 1784, after the War of Independence, gave vigorous expression
to their wish for a more independent ecclesiastical constitution,
which led Wesley, in opposition to all right order, to ordain for
them by his own hand several preachers, and to appoint, in the
person of Thomas Coke, a superintendent, who assumed in America
the title of bishop. Coke became the founder of the Methodist
Episcopal Church of America, which soon outstripped all other
denominations in its zeal for the conversion of sinners, and
in consequent success. The breach with the mother church was
completed by the adoption of a creed in which the Thirty-nine
Articles were reduced to twenty-five. At the last conference
presided over by Wesley, A.D. 1790, it was announced that they
had in Britain 119 circuits, 313 preachers, and in the United
States 97 circuits and 198 preachers. After Wesley’s death,
in A.D. 1791, his autocratic supremacy devolved, in accordance
with the Methodist “Magna Charta,” the _Deed of Declaration_
of A.D. 1784, upon a fixed conference of 100 members, but its
hierarchical organization has been the cause of many subsequent
splits and divisions.[512]

§ 169.6. =Theological Literature=--=Clericus=, of Amsterdam, died
A.D. 1736, an Arminian divine, distinguished himself in biblical
criticism, hermeneutics, exegesis, and church history. =J. J.
Wettstein= was in A.D. 1730 deposed for heresy, and died in
A.D. 1754 as professor at the Remonstrant seminary at Amsterdam.
His critical edition of the N.T. of A.D. 1751 had a great
reputation. =Schultens= of Leyden, died A.D. 1750, introduced a
new era for O.T. philology by the comparative study of related
dialects, especially Arabic. He wrote commentaries on Job and
Proverbs. Of the Cocceian exegetes we mention, =Lampe= of Bremen,
died A.D. 1729, “Com. on John,” three vols., etc., and =J. Marck=
of Leyden, died A.D. 1731, “Com. on Minor Prophets.” In biblical
antiquity, =Reland= of Utrecht, died A.D. 1718, wrote “_Palæstina
ex vett. monum. Illustr. Antiquitt. ss._;” in ecclesiastical
antiquity, Bingham, died A.D. 1723, “Origines Ecclest.; or,
Antiquities of the Christian Church,” ten vols., 1724, a
masterpiece not yet superseded. Of English apologists who
wrote against the deists, =Leland=, died A.D. 1766, “Advantage
and Necessity of the Christian Revelation;” =Stackhouse=, died
A.D. 1752, “History of the Bible.” Of dogmatists, =Stapfer= of
Bern, died A.D. 1775, and =Wyttenbach= of Marburg, died A.D. 1779,
who followed the Wolffian method. Among church historians,
=J. A. Turretin= of Geneva, died A.D. 1757, and =Herm. Venema= of
Franeker, died A.D. 1787.--The most celebrated of the writers of
sacred songs in the English language was the Congregationalist
preacher =Isaac Watts=, died A.D. 1748, whose “Hymns and Spiritual
Songs,” which first appeared in A.D. 1707, still hold their
place in the hymnbooks of all denominations, and have largely
contributed to overthrow the Reformed prejudice against using
any other than biblical psalms in the public service of praise.

§ 170. NEW SECTS AND FANATICS.

The pietism of the eighteenth century, like the Reformation of the sixteenth, was followed by the appearance of all sorts of fanatics and extremists. The converted were collected into little companies, which, as _ecclesiolæ in ecclesia_, preserved the living flame amid prevailing darkness, and out of these arose separatists who spoke of the church as Babylon, regarded its ordinances impure, and its preaching a mere jingle of words. They obtained their spiritual nourishment from the mystical and theosophical writings of Böhme, Gichtel, Guyon, Poiret, etc. Their chief centre was Wetterau, where, in the house of Count Casimir von Berleburg, all persecuted pietists, separatists, fanatics, and sectaries found refuge. The count chose from them his court officials and personal servants, although he himself belonged to the national Reformed church. There was scarcely a district in Protestant Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands where there were not groups of such separatists; some mere harmless enthusiasts, others circulated pestiferous and immoral doctrines. Quite apart from pietism Swedenborgianism made its appearance, claiming to have a new revelation. Of the older sects the Baptists and the Quakers sent off new swarms, and even predestinationism gave rise to a form of mysticism allied to pantheism.

§ 170.1. =Fanatics and Separatists in Germany.=--Juliana =von
Asseburg=, a young lady highly esteemed in Magdeburg for her
piety, declared that from her seventh year she had visions and
revelations, especially about the millennium. She found a zealous
supporter in Dr. J. W. Petersen, superintendent of Lüneburg.
After his marriage with Eleonore von Merlau, who had similar
revelations, he proclaimed by word and writing a fantastic
chiliasm and the restitution of all things. He was deposed in
A.D. 1692, and died in A.D. 1727.[513] =Henry Horche=, professor
of theology at Herborn, was the originator of a similar movement
in the Reformed church. He founded several Philadelphian societies
(§ 163, 9) in Hesse, and composed a “mystical and prophetical
bible,” the so called “Marburg Bible,” A.D. 1712. Of other
fanatical preachers of that period one of the most prominent
was =Hochmann=, a student of law expelled from Halle for his
extravagances, a man of ability and eloquence, and highly
esteemed by Tersteegen. Driven from place to place, he at last
found refuge at Berleburg, and died there in A.D. 1721. In
Württemberg the pious court chaplain, =Hedinger=, of Stuttgart,
died A.D. 1703, was the father of pietism and separatism. The
most famous of his followers were =Gruber= and =Rock=, who,
driven from Württemberg, settled with other separatists at
Wetterau, renouncing the use of the sacraments and public worship.
Of those gathered together in the court of Count Casimir, the
most eminent were =Dr. Carl=, his physician, the French mystic
=Marsay=, and =J. H. Haug=, who had been expelled from Strassburg,
a proficient in the oriental languages. They issued a great
number of mystical works, chief of all the Berleburg Bible,
in eight vols., 1726-1742, of which Haug was the principal
author. Its exposition proceeded in accordance with the threefold
sense; it vehemently contended against the church doctrine of
justification, against the confessional writings, the clerical
order, the dead church, etc. It showed occasionally profound
insight, and made brilliant remarks, but contained also
many trivialities and absurdities. The mysticism which is
prominent in this work lacks originality, and is compiled from
the mystico-theosophical writings of all ages from Origen down
to Madame Guyon.