“No doubt God had wise ends in permitting the _Unitas Fratrum_ to
appear, just as the people of God began to unite together; but we
cannot fathom His designs. Very probably we should have been now
a very different people from what we are, had we had only our own
countrymen to cope with. We should then have set the plain gospel of
Christ against what is palpably another gospel. But this subtle poison
has more or less infected almost all among us. We would put gospel
heads on bodies ready to indulge unholy tempers. Although as a society
we stand as clear of joining with the Beast as any other, yet we have
not purged out all his leaven; the antinomian leaven is not yet cast
out. All our preaching at first was pointed at the heart; and in
almost all our private conversation, ‘Do you feel the love of God in
your heart? Does His Spirit reign there? Do you walk in the Spirit? Is
that mind in you which was in Christ?’ were frequent questions among
us. But while these preachers to the heart were going on gloriously
in the work of Christ, the false apostles stepped in, laughed at all
heart work, and laughed many of us out of our spiritual senses; for,
according to them, we were neither to see, hear, feel, nor taste the
powers of the world to come, but to rest contented with what was
done for us seventeen hundred years ago. ‘The dear Lamb,’ said they,
‘has done all for us; we have nothing to do, but to believe.’ Here
was a stroke at the whole work of God in the heart! And ever since,
this German spirit has wrought among us, and caused many to rest
in a barren, notional faith, void of that inward power of God unto
salvation.”
One of the Moravians themselves, who had been the physician in one
of their religious houses, and had also been a preacher among them
both at home and abroad, and who, with his wife, still attended their
services, informed Wesley of his own knowledge of sensual abominations
practised by the brethren and sisters at Leeds and Bedford, which,
though referred to in Wesley’s Journal, we shall not pollute our pages
by printing. No wonder, after Wesley had committed the man’s statement
to writing, and had submitted it to him for his own correction, he
should exclaim in a burst of sorrowful indignation, “Was there ever
so melancholy an account? and what is human nature! How low are they
fallen, who were once burning and shining lights, spreading blessings
wherever they came!”
Wesley has oft been blamed for speaking far too harshly of his old
Moravian friends; but those who blame him are either ignorant of facts
like those alluded to above, or they wickedly wink at their existence.
Moravianism in England, in 1751, had become, to a great extent, a
luscious morsel of antinomian poison; and it was a painful knowledge of
this distressing fact, which led Wesley to adopt the course he did.
One pamphlet, published at the close of 1750, has not been mentioned,
though there is little doubt that Wesley was its author. His name
does not appear; but that was not unusual, for many of his tracts and
pamphlets were printed without his name, or with his initials only.
The preface is dated “London, October 2, 1750,” though Wesley then had
retired for a month to Kingswood, for the purpose of writing books.
The style is his to a nicety, and the most incredulous will find it
difficult to doubt that Wesley was the writer. The pamphlet was not
published in his own edition of his collected works in 1771; but
that is not conclusive evidence against its authenticity, for other
pamphlets were similarly omitted, as, for instance, his “Extract of
Zinzendorf’s Discourses,” seventy-eight pages, and his Zinzendorf’s
Hymns, twelve pages. Its title is as follows: “The Contents of a Folio
History of the Moravians, or United Brethren, printed in 1749, and
privately printed and sold under the title of ‘_Acta Fratrum Unitatis
in Anglia_,’ with suitable remarks. Humbly addressed to the Pious of
every Protestant Denomination in Europe and America. By a Lover of the
Light. London: 1750.” 12mo, 60 pages. On the title page there is the
following text:— “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are
the servants of corruption.”
Rightly to understand the merits of this peculiar and now extremely
scarce publication, it is necessary to look back upon the Moravian
history of the previous five years.
As early as 1746, Zinzendorf was anxious to have the Moravians legally
acknowledged by the British parliament, and to secure for them a
legal standing. To accomplish this, he, with effrontery worthy of a
better cause, made friends with Potter, the archbishop of Canterbury;
with Sherlock, bishop of London; with Thomas Penn, the proprietor of
Pennsylvania; and with General Oglethorpe, governor of Georgia. He
succeeded in bringing the cause of the Brethren before the king’s privy
council, and, in 1747, contrived to get an act through parliament,
exempting the Moravians, in British North America, from taking oaths.
But even this was not enough to satisfy Zinzendorf’s ambition. In
this act there was only a _tacit_ and _indefinite_ acknowledgment
of his church. He wished for more, and, in order to get it, agreed
with his friends to petition that the Moravians in England might have
the same exemption, as those in the American colonies; and that they
should have the further privilege of not bearing arms. The petition
stated, that the Brethren were descended from the ancient Bohemian
and Moravian church; that, in their doctrinal views, they followed
the Augsburg Confession of 1530, and the synod of Berne in 1532; that
they consisted of the _threefold_ union of Moravians, Lutherans, and
Reformed, or, in other words, the three principal sections of the
protestant church; that their proper ecclesiastical title was “_Unitas
Fratrum_”; and that, in support of these pretensions, they could
adduce, before a parliamentary committee, not fewer than one hundred
and thirty-five different documents.
Strangely enough, a committee of the House of Commons was appointed,
with Oglethorpe for its chairman. The report of the committee was
read and ordered to be printed; and Oglethorpe was commissioned to
draw up a bill, founded upon the report presented, and to bring it
before the house. The bill passed the House of Commons on the 18th
of April, 1749. On being introduced into the House of Lords, the
lord chancellor objected to almost every line of it; and especially
against the power vested in Zinzendorf, as the _Advocatus Fratrum_, in
ecclesiastical matters,—a power authorising him, though a foreigner,
to enjoin upon the bishops and ministers of the Church of England to
give certificates, that the parties holding them were members of the
_Unitas Fratrum_, which certificates the British authorities were to
accept as legal. Zinzendorf, in a conversation with Lord Halifax, had
said: “Against the will of the king, I would not like to press the
matter; but a _limitation of the act_ I will not accept. Everything or
nothing! No modifications!” This was German swagger. Finding the lord
chancellor earnest in his objection, he was fain, rather than lose his
bill, to leave out the words which put the bishops and clergy of the
Church of England beneath his power, and proposed the following as a
substitute: “that the _verbal declaration_ of the individual, together
with the certificate of a bishop or minister of the Brethren, shall be
sufficient proof of membership.” With this alteration, the bill became
law, on the 12th of May, 1749. By this act of parliament, Zinzendorf
gained the following points:—
1. The _Unitas Fratrum_ were acknowledged as an ancient protestant
episcopal church.
2. Those of its members, who scrupled to take an oath, were exempted
from doing so on making a declaration in the presence of Almighty God,
as witness of the truth.