THE MORAVIANS IN FETTER LANE.
What virtue there is in an if. Without going as far back as the Book of
Genesis, and thinking what a different thing life would have been if the
mother of us all had not plucked and eaten
"The fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe,"
it is very obvious much depends upon the ifs. If Sir Robert Peel had
encouraged the advances of Disraeli, how different would have been the
state of politics in this country. If Louis Philippe had shot Louis
Napoleon when he had the power to do so, the Orleanists might have been
the rulers of France. If old George III. had had brains as well as
self-esteem and a stubborn will, what untold horrors might have been
averted from England and Ireland. If Balthazar Gerard had not fired his
pistol at William the Silent, Belgium at this time would have been as
intensely Protestant as it is now intensely Catholic. If John Wesley had
perished in the fire at Epworth Parsonage, where would have been the
Methodist Revival of the last century? And if Wesley himself had not
broken from the little band who met in Fetter Lane, what sect in England
would have equalled in numbers or usefulness that of the Moravians? Now,
in this teeming London they have but one place of worship, and that but
very indifferently filled. It does not even present the usual appearance
of a place of worship, and thus attract notice; the stranger passes it
by. Yet it is a place of surpassing interest, one of the hallowed spots
of London, where sinners have wept, where souls have rejoiced, where the
power and presence of God have been marvellously displayed. Let us go
there; we pass along a passage till we come into a very old-fashioned
meeting-house. There we shall find plenty of room. There are two
hundred communicants, and at certain times they are all present, but they
are scattered far and wide, and in general the place has a very deserted
look. The benches--there are no pews--are most uncommonly hard to sit
on. There are galleries, and in one of them there is an organ. The
place is neat and clean. The service itself calls for no especial
notice. It is much like that of other denominations. The liturgy is
exclusively that of the Moravians. The preaching is such as you may hear
elsewhere. Attached to the place is a skeleton Sunday-school. There is
light about the place, but it is not very powerful. It suggests more
that of the setting than of the rising sun. I confess I see no reason
why this should be the case, why the Moravianism, so powerful in many
places, so blessed in missionary efforts, should be so powerless here.
Moravianism is older than Lutheranism. It has an apostolical descent
more genuine than that of the English or the Romish Church.
Pre-eminently it may claim to have followed the leadings of Providence.
Nowhere is there a trace of the gradual elaboration of any plan dictated
by human wisdom. The leading men in the Ancient Unity, the emigrant
founders of Herrnhut, Count Zinzendorf himself, and those of his
fellow-labourers who were instrumental in introducing the Church into
England, were all led gradually and by a way which they knew not to
results they had not contemplated. As an anonymous writer, one of their
body, remarks, "What a striking proof is here afforded of the wisdom and
faithfulness of God! Surely it well becomes the members of a community
which has been so undeservedly favoured to inquire whether they, as
individuals and collectively, have faithfully improved the privileges
bestowed upon them."
But about the chapel. Turn to Baxter's Diary, and we find the place
mentioned there. He writes: "On January the 24th, 1672-3, I began a
Tuesday Lecture at Mr. Turner's church in New Street, near Fetter Lane,
with great convenience and God's encouraging blessing." It is, writes
Mr. Orme, that between Nevill's Court and New Street, now occupied by the
Moravians. It appears to have existed, though perhaps in a different
form, before the Fire of London. Turner, who was the first minister, was
a very active man during the Plague. He was ejected from Sunbury, in
Middlesex, and continued to preach in Fetter Lane till towards the end of
the reign of Charles II., when he removed to Leather Lane. Baxter
carried on the morning week-day lecture till the 24th of August, 1682.
The church which then met in it was under the care of Mr. Lobb, whose
predecessors had been Dr. Thomas Goodwin and Thankful Owen. This church
still exists, but on the opposite side of the way, under the care of the
Rev. J. Spurgeon. The Moravians came into possession of the building in
1740. They had previously met in Fetter Lane, but in a smaller room.
The present chapel was then known as the Great Meeting-house, or
Bradbury's Meeting-house. Tradition says that the place was once used as
a saw-pit, and as a place of asylum when the State Church was busy at the
work in which it has ever been untiring, no matter how remiss in other
matters--that of enforcing its rights real or fancied, and disregarding
those of other men. Tradition also says that the place was built, for
the same reason, with two modes of egress, that the good men in the
pulpit might have an additional chance of safety. It was in the meeting
that Emmanuel Swedenborg was for a time accustomed to worship. It was in
the old place that Whitefield and Wesley attended, and where, as Southey
writes, "they encouraged each other in excesses of devotion which, if
they found the mind sane, were not likely long to leave it so," but of
which Wesley writes in very different language. Let us hear what he
says. "About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in
prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried
out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were
recovered a little from that awe and amazement we broke out with one
voice, 'We praise Thee, O God! we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.'" "It
was a Pentecostal season indeed," wrote Whitefield. Let me add that it
was there, and not in the present meeting, that Wesley stood up and read
from a written paper such of their doctrines as he contemned, especially
that of there being no degrees of faith short of perfect assurance. He
had learnt much from the Moravians. They had found him a mere Ritualist,
they had left him a converted man, but he had outgrown his teachers, the
mild and loving and placid Germans of Fetter Lane. "I have borne with
you long," said he at the end of his discourse, "hoping you would turn;
but, as I find you more and more confirmed in the errors of your ways,
nothing now remains but that I should give you up to God. You that are
of the same judgment, follow me." When he had thus spoken he withdrew.
This breach was never healed, and from that day to this Moravianism has
never in this country, and especially in London, recovered from the blow.
It may also be said that the impulse given to the religious life of
England by the Moravians has tended naturally to their decrease. Their
speciality was to preach the atonement made for sin by the blood of
Jesus, and happiness in communion with Him. In the dark days, when they
came over, this doctrine was far less commonly believed than now, and in
proportion as it has been preached by Churchmen and Dissenters has there
been a decline of Moravian influence. In reality, what they came here to
do has been done by others who had learned how to do it from them. All
Evangelical sects teach now what they teach, and even where they now
break fresh ground it is found those whom they have influenced prefer to
take part with churches of a more native origin or British character. As
regards London the position of their chapel is very much against them.
An out-of-the-way situation is as undesirable in a spiritual, as in a
commercial point of view. In their church government they are
Episcopalian, and meet at certain great occasions in synod. At one time
they much favoured the lot, but now that is rarely used, and their
marriages are not arranged by it as was formerly the case. A bishop is
an elder appointed by the synod to ordain ministers of the church. The
latter are sent to a congregation, but it exercises a veto. The
congregation is ruled by a committee chosen by the communicants. They
claim not to be Dissenters; it was the opinion of Archbishop Potter they
were not. They trace their pedigree from Zinzendorf to Huss, from Huss
to the Greek monks, Theodorus and Cyril, who in the ninth century
introduced Christianity into Moravia and Bohemia. But after all they
chiefly glory in the fact of preaching, to use one of their own hymns--
"That whoe'er believeth in Christ's redemption
May find free grace and a complete exemption
From serving sin."