Part 6 (1/2)

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 Tubingen 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 Loscher 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 Budingen, 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 a.n.a.logies; 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.

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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 _const.i.tution_ 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 const.i.tution was episcopal and clerical, and proceeded from the idea of the church; while the new const.i.tution 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 t.i.tular bishops; they had no diocese, no jurisdiction, no power of excommunication. All these prerogatives belonged to the united elders.h.i.+p, 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 a.s.sistants. But beside these half-Lutheran and pseudo-Moravian peculiarities, there was also a Donatist element at the basis of the const.i.tution. This lay in the fundamental idea of absolutely true and pure children of G.o.d, 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.”

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 G.o.d, 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.

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.”

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 Buddaeus, 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 a.s.sistants.h.i.+p in the theological faculty at Halle, and appointed school inspector of the Orphanage; but very soon offence was taken at the brotherly fellows.h.i.+p 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 const.i.tution was revised and perfected.

Zinzendorf's monarchical prerogative was surrendered to the elders.h.i.+p, 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 G.o.d; as a family of G.o.d, with Jesus as its head.” In the fourth section of the ”Historical Account of the Const.i.tution 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 flouris.h.i.+ng Moravian settlements in Wetterau were destroyed and their members banished, in A.D. 1750, by the reigning prince, Count von Isenburg-Budingen, 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 G.o.d'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 inst.i.tute by inward regeneration from certain overthrow.

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 G.o.d-Man, so that the relation of the Father and of the Holy Spirit to redemption is scarcely even nominal; and the redemption of the G.o.d-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 pa.s.sed 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 subst.i.tutionary 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d, and thus tended to foster a kind of religious sentimentalism.

9. _The peculiarities of wors.h.i.+p 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 was.h.i.+ng 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.

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 const.i.tution_, 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 members.h.i.+p, 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 members.h.i.+p 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.

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 n.o.blest 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, Lieberkuhn, who also visited the Jews in England and Bohemia, and was honoured by them with the t.i.tle of ”rabbi.”(63)

-- 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 p.r.o.nounced, 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.

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.) inst.i.tuted 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 Luttke, 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 pa.s.sed over. Luttke 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 theologicae_ 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 Doctrinae de Gratia, quam vera ref. confitetur Ecclesia, c.u.m 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 n.o.blest 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.(64)-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.

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 _Venerable 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Wurttemberg (-- 167, 4), and in Reformed Switzerland in J. A. Turretin of Geneva.

3. _The Dutch Reformed Church._-Toward the end of the seventeenth century, in consequence of threats on the part of the magistrates, the pa.s.sionate 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 t.i.tle 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 fellows.h.i.+p should not be withheld. In consequence of this, the magistrates of Groningen 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 Groningen, which p.r.o.nounced 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.

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.(65) 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 s.h.i.+p 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 h.e.l.l, 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 a.s.sociation 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 l.u.s.ts.

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 _role_ 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.