A History of the Moravian Church Part 16

We have now to notice, step by step, how Zinzendorf, despite his theories, restored the Moravian Church to vigorous life. His first move was dramatic. As he strolled one day on the sh.o.r.e of the Baltic Sea, he bethought him that the time had come to revive the Brethren's Episcopal Orders in Germany. He wished to give his Brethren a legal standing.

In Saxony he had been condemned as a heretic; in Prussia he would be recognized as orthodox; and to this intent he wrote to the King of Prussia, Frederick William I., and asked to be examined in doctrine by qualified Divines of the State Church. The King responded gladly. He had been informed that the Count was a fool, and was, therefore, anxious to see him; and now he sent him a messenger to say that he would be highly pleased if Zinzendorf would come and dine with him at Wusterhausen.

"What did he say?" asked His Majesty of the messenger when that functionary returned.

"Nothing," replied the messenger.

"Then," said the King, "he is no fool."

The Count arrived, and stayed three days. The first day the King was cold; the second he was friendly; the third he was enthusiastic.

"The devil himself," he said to his courtiers, "could not have told me more lies than I have been told about this Count. He is neither a heretic nor a disturber of the peace. His only sin is that he, a well-to-do Count, has devoted himself to the spread of the Gospel. I will not believe another word against him. I will do all I can to help him."

From that time Frederick William I. was Zinzendorf's fast friend. He encouraged him to become a Bishop of the Brethren. The Count was still in doubt. For some months he was terribly puzzled by the question whether he could become a Moravian Bishop, and yet at the same time be loyal to the Lutheran Church; and, in order to come to a right conclusion, he actually came over to England and discussed the whole th.o.r.n.y subject of Moravian Episcopal Orders with John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop soon relieved his mind. He informed the Count, first, that in his judgment the Moravian Episcopal Orders were apostolic; and he informed him, secondly, that as the Brethren were true to the teaching of the Augsburg Confession in Germany and the Thirty-nine Articles in England, the Count could honestly become a Bishop without being guilty of founding a new sect. The Count returned to Germany. He was examined in the faith, by the King's command, by two Berlin Divines. He came through the ordeal with flying colours, and finally, on May 20th, he was ordained a Bishop of the Brethren's Church by Bishop Daniel Ernest Jablonsky, Court Preacher at Berlin, and Bishop David Nitschmann {1737.}.

The situation was now remarkable. As soon as Zinzendorf became a Bishop, he occupied, in theory, a double position. He was a "Lutheran Bishop of the Brethren's Church." On the one hand, like Jablonsky himself, he was still a clergyman of the Lutheran Church; on the other, he was qualified to ordain ministers in the Church of the Brethren. And the Brethren, of course, laid stress on the latter point. They had now episcopal orders of their own; they realized their standing as an independent church; they objected to mere toleration as a sect; they demanded recognition as an orthodox church. "We design," they wrote to the Counts of Isenberg, "to establish a home for thirty or forty families from Herrnhut. We demand full liberty in all our meetings; we demand full liberty to practise our discipline and to have the sacraments, baptism and communion administered by our own ministers, ordained by our own Bohemo-Moravian Bishops." As the Counts agreed to these conditions the Brethren now laid out near the castle a settlement after the Herrnhut model, named it Herrnhaag, and made it a regular training-ground for the future ministers of the Church. At Herrnhut the Brethren were under a Lutheran Pastor; at Herrnhaag they were independent, and ordained their own men for the work. They erected a theological training college, with Spangenberg as head. They had a paedagogium for boys, with Polycarp Muller as Rector. They had also a flouris.h.i.+ng school for girls. For ten years this new settlement at Herrnhaag was the busiest centre of evangelistic zeal in the world. At the theological college there were students from every university in Germany. At the schools there were over 600 children, and the Brethren had to issue a notice that they had no room for more. The whole place was a smithy. There the spiritual weapons were forged for service in the foreign field. "Up, up,"

Spangenberg would say to the young men at sunrise, "we have no time for dawdling. Why sleep ye still? Arise, young lions!"

And now the Count had a strange adventure, which spurred him to another step forward. As there were certain sarcastic people in Germany who said that Zinzendorf, though willing enough to send out others to die of fever in foreign climes, was content to bask in comfort at home, he determined now to give the charge the lie. He had travelled already on many a Gospel journey. He had preached to crowds in Berlin; he had preached in the Cathedral at Reval, in Livonia, and had made arrangements for the publication of an Esthonian Bible; and now he thought he must go to St. Thomas, where Friedrich Martin, the apostle to the negroes, had built up the strongest congregation in the Mission Field. He consulted the Lot; the Lot said "Yes," and off he set on his journey. The s.h.i.+p flew as though on eagle's wings. As they neared the island, the Count turned to his companion, and said: "What if we find no one there? What if the missionaries are all dead?"

"Then we are there," replied Weber.

"Gens aeterna, these Moravians," exclaimed the Count.

He landed on the island {Jan. 29th, 1739.}.

"Where are the Brethren?" said he to a negro.

"They are all in prison," was the startling answer.

"How long?" asked the Count.

"Over three months."

"What are the negroes doing in the meantime?"

"They are making good progress, and a great revival is going on. The very imprisonment of the teachers is a sermon."

For three months the Count was busy in St. Thomas. He burst into the Governor's castle "like thunder," and nearly frightened him out of his wits. He had brought with him a doc.u.ment signed by the King of Denmark, in which the Brethren were authorized to preach in the Danish West Indies. He had the prisoners released. He had the whole work in the Danish West Indies placed on a legal basis. He made the acquaintance of six hundred and seventy negroes. He was amazed and charmed by all he saw. "St. Thomas," he wrote, "is a greater marvel than Herrnhut." For the last three years that master missionary, Friedrich Martin, the "Apostle to the Negroes," had been continuing the n.o.ble work begun by Leonard Dober; and, in spite of the fierce opposition of the planters and also of the Dutch Reformed Church, had established a number of native congregations. He had opened a school for negro boys, and had thus taken the first step in the education of West Indian slaves. He had taught his people to form societies for Bible study and prayer; and now the Count put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to the work. He introduced the Herrnhut system of discipline. He appointed one "Peter" chief Elder of the Brethren, and "Magdalene" chief Elder of the Sisters. He gave some to be helpers, some to be advisers, and some to be distributors of alms; and he even introduced the system of incessant hourly prayer. And then, before he took his leave, he made a notable speech. He had no such conception as "Negro emanc.i.p.ation." He regarded slavery as a Divinely appointed system. "Do your work for your masters," he said, "as though you were working for yourselves. Remember that Christ has given every man his work. The Lord has made kings, masters, servants and slaves. It is the duty of each of us to be content with the station in which G.o.d has placed him. G.o.d punished the first negroes by making them slaves."

For the work in St. Thomas this visit was important; for the work at home it was still more so. As the Count returned from his visit in St.

Thomas, he saw more clearly than ever that if the Brethren were to do their work aright, they must justify their conduct and position in the eyes of the law. His views had broadened; he had grander conceptions of their mission; he began the practice of summoning them to Synods, and thus laid the foundations of modern Moravian Church life.

At the first Synod, held at Ebersdorf (June, 1739), the Count expounded his views at length {1739.}. He informed the Brethren, in a series of brilliant and rather mystifying speeches, that there were now three "religions" in Germany--the Lutheran, the Reformed and the Moravian; but that their duty and mission in the world was, not to restore the old Church of the Brethren, but rather to gather the children of G.o.d into a mystical, visionary, ideal fellows.h.i.+p which he called the "Community of Jesus." For the present, he said, the home of this ideal "Gemeine" would be the Moravian Church. At Herrnhut and other places in Saxony it would be a home for Lutherans; at Herrnhaag it would be a home for Calvinists; and then, when it had done its work and united all the children of G.o.d, it could be conveniently exploded. He gave the Moravian Church a rather short life. "For the present," he said, "the Saviour is manifesting His Gemeine to the world in the outward form of the Moravian Church; but in fifty years that Church will be forgotten." It is doubtful how far his Brethren understood him. They listened, admired, wondered, gasped and quietly went their own way.

At the second Synod, held at the Moor Hotel in Gotha, the Count explained his projects still more clearly {1740.}, and made the most astounding speech that had yet fallen from his lips. "It is," he declared, "the duty of our Bishops to defend the rights of the Protestant Moravian Church, and the duty of all the congregation to be loyal to that Church. It is absolutely necessary, for the sake of Christ's work, that our Church be recognized as a true Church. She is a true Church of G.o.d; she is in the world to further the Saviour's cause; and people can belong to her just as much as to any other." If these words meant anything at all, they meant, of course, that Zinzendorf, like the Moravians themselves, insisted on the independent existence of the Moravian Church; and, to prove that he really did mean this, he had Polycarp Muller consecrated a Bishop. And yet, at the same time, the Count insisted that the Brethren were not to value their Church for her own sake. They were not to try to extend the Church as such; they were not to proselytize from other Churches; they were to regard her rather as a house of call for the "scattered" in all the churches;[94] and, above all, they must ever remember that as soon as they had done their work their Church would cease to exist. If this puzzles the reader he must not be distressed. It was equally puzzling to some of Zinzendorf's followers. Bishop Polycarp Muller confessed that he could never understand it. At bottom, however, the Count's idea was clear. He still had a healthy horror of sects and splits; he still regarded the Brethren's Church as a "Church within the Church"; he still insisted, with perfect truth, that as they had no distinctive doctrine they could not be condemned as a nonconforming sect; and the goal for which he was straining was that wheresoever the Brethren went they should endeavour not to extend their own borders, but rather to serve as a bond of union evangelical Christians of all denominations.

Next year, at a Synod at Marienborn, the Count explained how this wonderful work was to be done {1740.}. What was the bond of union to be?

It was certainly not a doctrine. Instead of making the bond of union a doctrine, as so many Churches have done, the Brethren made it personal experience. Where creeds had failed experience would succeed. If men, they said, were to be united in one grand evangelical Church, it would be, not by a common creed, but by a common threefold experience--a common experience of their own misery and sin; a common experience of the redeeming grace of Christ; and a common experience of the religious value of the Bible. To them this personal experience was the one essential. They had no rigid doctrine to impose. They did not regard any of the standard creeds as final. They did not demand subscription to a creed as a test. They had no rigid doctrine of the Atonement or of the Divinity of Christ; they had no special process of conversion; and, most striking of all, they had no rigid doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. They did not believe either in verbal inspiration or in Biblical infallibility. They declared that the famous words, "all Scripture is given by inspiration of G.o.d," must be taken in a free and broad way.

They held that, though the Bible was inspired, it contained mistakes in detail; that the teaching of St. James was in flat contradiction to the teaching of St. Paul; and that even the Apostles sometimes made a wrong application of the prophecies. To them the value of the Bible consisted, not in its supposed infallibility, but in its appeal to their hearts.

"The Bible," they declared, "is a never-failing spring for the heart; and the one thing that authenticates the truth of its message is the fact that what is said in the book is confirmed by the experience of the heart." How modern this sounds.

But how was this universal experience to be attained? The Count had his answer ready. He had studied the philosophical works of Spinoza and Bayle. He was familiar with the trend of the rationalistic movement. He was aware that to thousands, both inside and outside the Church, the G.o.d whom Jesus called "Our Father" was no more than a cold philosophical abstraction; and that many pastors in the Lutheran Church, instead of trying to make G.o.d a reality, were wasting their time in spinning abstruse speculations, and discussing how many legions of angels could stand on the point of a needle. As this sort of philosophy rather disgusted Zinzendorf, he determined to frame a theology of his own; and thereby he arrived at the conclusion that the only way to teach men to love G.o.d was "to preach the Creator of the World under no other shape than that of a wounded and dying Lamb." He held that the Suffering Christ on the Cross was the one perfect expression and revelation of the love of G.o.d; he held that the t.i.tle "Lamb of G.o.d" was the favourite name for Christ in the New Testament; he held that the central doctrine of the faith was the "Ransom" paid by Christ in His sufferings and death; and, therefore, he began to preach himself, and taught his Brethren to preach as well, the famous "Blood and Wounds Theology."

And now, at a Synod held in London, the Brethren cleared the decks for action, and took their stand on the stage of history as a free, independent Church of Christ {1741.}. The situation was alarming. Of all the Protestant Churches in Europe, the Church of the Brethren was the broadest in doctrine and the most independent in action; and yet, during the last few years, the Brethren were actually in danger of bending the knee to a Pope. The Pope in question was Leonard Dober. At the time when Herrnhut was founded, the Brethren had elected a governing board of twelve Elders. Of these twelve Elders, four Over-Elders were set apart for spiritual purposes; and of these four Over-Elders, one was specially chosen as Chief Elder. The first Chief Elder was Augustin Neisser, and the second Martin Linner. As long as the office lay in Linner's hands, there was no danger of the Chief Elder becoming a Pope. He was poor; he was humble; he was weak in health; and he spent his time in praying for the Church and attending to the spiritual needs of the Single Brethren.

But gradually the situation altered. For the last six years the office had been held by Leonard Dober. He had been elected by Lot, and was, therefore, supposed to possess Divine authority. He was General Elder of the whole Brethren's Church. He had become the supreme authority in spiritual matters. He had authority over Zinzendorf himself, over all the Bishops, over all the members of the Pilgrim Band, over all Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut, over the pioneers in England and North America, over the missionaries in Greenland, the West Indies, South Africa and Surinam. He had become a spiritual referee. As the work extended, his duties and powers increased. He was Elder, not merely of the Brethren's Church, but of that ideal "Community of Jesus" which ever swam before the vision of the Count. He was becoming a court of appeal in cases of dispute. Already disagreements were rising among the Brethren. At Herrnhut dwelt the old-fas.h.i.+oned, sober, strict Moravians. At Herrnhaag the Brethren, with their freer notions, were already showing dangerous signs of fanaticism. At Pilgerruh, in Holstein, another body were being tempted to break from the Count altogether. And above these disagreeing parties the General Elder sat supreme. His position had become impossible. He was supposed to be above all party disputes; he was the friend of all, the intercessor for all, the broad-minded ideal Brother; and yet, if an actual dispute arose, he would be expected to give a binding decision. For these manifold duties Dober felt unfit; he had no desire to become a Protestant Pope; and, therefore, being a modest man, he wrote to the Conference at Marienborn, and asked for leave to lay down his office. The question was submitted to the Lot. The Lot allowed Dober to resign. The situation was now more dangerous than ever. The Brethren were in a quandary. They could never do without a General Elder. If they did they would cease to be a true "Community of Jesus,"

and degenerate into a mere party-sect. At last, at a house in Red Lion Street, London, they met to thrash out the question. For the third time a critical question was submitted to the decision of the Lot {Sept.

16th, 1741.}. "As we began to think about the Elders.h.i.+p," says Zinzendorf himself, in telling the story, "it occurred to us to accept the Saviour as Elder. At the beginning of our deliberations we opened the Textbook. On the one page stood the words, 'Let us open the door to Christ'; on the other, 'Thus saith the Lord, etc.; your Master, etc.; show me to my children and to the work of my hands. Away to Jesus! Away!

etc.' Forthwith and with one consent we resolved to have no other than Him as our General Elder. He sanctioned it.[95] It was just Congregation Day. We looked at the Watchword for the day. It ran: 'The glory of the Lord filled the house. We bow before the Lamb's face, etc.' We asked permission.[96] We obtained it. We sang with unequalled emotion: 'Come, then, for we belong to Thee, and bless us inexpressibly.'" As the story just quoted was written by the poetic Count, it has been supposed that in recording this famous event he added a spiritual flavour of his own.

But in this case he was telling the literal truth. At that Conference the Brethren deliberately resolved to ask Christ to undertake the office which had hitherto been held by Leonard Dober; and, to put the matter beyond all doubt, they inscribed on their minutes the resolution: "That the office of General Elder be abolished, and be transferred to the Saviour."[97] At first sight that resolution savours both of blasphemy and of pride; and Ritschl, the great theologian, declares that the Brethren put themselves on a pedestal above all other Churches. For that judgment Moravian writers have largely been to blame. It has been a.s.serted again and again that on that famous "Memorial Day" the Brethren made a "special covenant" with Christ. For that legend Bishop Spangenberg was partly responsible. As that G.o.dly writer, some thirty years later, was writing the story of these transactions, he allowed his pious imagination to cast a halo over the facts; and, therefore, he penned the misleading sentence that the chief concern of the Brethren was that Christ "would condescend to enter into a special covenant with His poor Brethren's people, and take us as his peculiar property." For that statement there is not a shadow of evidence. The whole story of the "special covenant" is a myth. In consulting the Lot the Brethren showed their faith; in pa.s.sing their resolution they showed their wisdom; and the meaning of the resolution was that henceforth the Brethren rejected all human authority in spiritual matters, recognized Christ alone as the Head of the Church, and thereby became the first free Church in Europe.

Instead of bowing to any human authority they proceeded now to manage their own affairs; they elected by Lot a Conference of Twelve, and thus laid the foundations of that democratic system of government which exists at the present day. They were thrilled with the joy of their experience; they felt that now, at length, they were free indeed; they resolved that the joyful news should be published in all the congregations on the same day (November 13th); and henceforward that day was held in honour as the day when the Brethren gained their freedom and bowed to the will and law of Christ alone.

And now there was only one more step to take. As soon as the Synod in London was over, Count Zinzendorf set off for America in pursuit of a scheme to be mentioned in its proper place; and as soon as he was safely out of the way, the Brethren at home set about the task of obtaining recognition by the State. They had an easy task before them. For the last ninety-four years--ever since the Peace of Westphalia (1648)--the ruling principle in German had been that each little king and each little prince should settle what the religion should be in his own particular dominions. If the King was a Lutheran, his people must be Lutheran; if the King was Catholic, his people must be Catholic. But now this principle was suddenly thrown overboard. The new King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, was a scoffer. For religion Frederick the Great cared nothing; for the material welfare of his people he cared a good deal. He had recently conquered Silesia; he desired to see his land well tilled, and his people happy and good; and, therefore, he readily granted the Brethren a "Concession," allowing them to settle in Prussia and Silesia {Dec. 25th, 1742.}. His att.i.tude was that of the practical business man. As long as the Brethren obeyed the law, and fostered trade, they could wors.h.i.+p as they pleased. For all he cared, they might have prayed to Beelzebub. He granted them perfect liberty of conscience; he allowed them to ordain their own ministers; he informed them that they would not be subject to the Lutheran consistory; and thus, though not in so many words, he practically recognized the Brethren as a free and independent Church. For the future history of the Brethren's Church, this "Concession" was of vast importance. In one sense it aided their progress; in another it was a fatal barrier. As the Brethren came to be known as good workmen, other magnates speedily followed the king's example; for particular places particular "concessions" were prepared; and thus the Brethren were encouraged to extend their "settlement system." Instead, therefore, of advancing from town to town, the Brethren concentrated their attention on the cultivation of settlement life; and before many years had pa.s.sed away they had founded settlements at Niesky, Gnadenberg, Gnadenfrei, and Neusalz-on-the-Oder.

Thus, then, had the Brethren sketched the plan of all their future work.

They had regained their episcopal orders. They had defined their mission in the world. They had chosen their Gospel message. They had a.s.serted their freedom of thought. They had won the goodwill of the State. They had adopted the "settlement system." They had begun their Diaspora work for the scattered, and their mission work for the heathen; and thus they had revived the old Church of the Brethren, and laid down those fundamental principles which have been maintained down to the present day.

Meanwhile their patriotic instincts had been confirmed. As Christian David had brought Brethren from Moravia, so Jan Gilek brought Brethren from Bohemia; and the story of his romantic adventures aroused fresh zeal for the ancient Church. He had fled from Bohemia to Saxony, and had often returned, like Christian David, to fetch bands of Brethren. He had been captured in a hay-loft by Jesuits. He had been imprisoned for two years at Leitomischl. He had been kept in a dungeon swarming with frogs, mice and other vermin. He had been fed with hot bread that he might suffer from colic. He had been employed as street sweeper in Leitomischl, with his left hand chained to his right foot. At length, however, he made his escape (1735), fled to Gerlachseim, in Silesia, and finally, along with other Bohemian exiles, helped to form a new congregation at Rixdorf, near Berlin. As the Brethren listened to Gilek's story their zeal for the Church of their fathers was greater than ever; and now the critical question was, what would Zinzendorf say to all this when he returned from America?

CHAPTER VIII. -- THE SIFTING TIME, 1743-1750.

As the Count advanced towards middle age, he grew more domineering in tone, more n.o.ble in his dreams, and more foolish in much of his conduct.

He was soon to s.h.i.+ne in each of these three lights. He returned from America in a fury. For two years he had been busy in Pennsylvania in a brave, but not very successful, attempt to establish a grand "Congregation of G.o.d in the Spirit"; and now he heard, to his deep disgust, that his Brethren in Europe had lowered the ideal of the Church, and made vulgar business bargains with worldly powers. What right, he asked, had the Brethren to make terms with an Atheist King?

What right had they to obtain these degrading "concessions?" The whole business, he argued, smacked of simony. If the Brethren made terms with kings at all, they should take their stand, not, forsooth, as good workmen who would help to fatten the soil, but rather as loyal adherents of the Augsburg Confession. At Herrnhaag they had turned the Church into a business concern! Instead of paying rent to the Counts of Isenburg, they now had the Counts in their power. They had lent them large sums of money; they held their estates as security; and now, in return for these financial favours, the Counts had kindly recognized the Brethren as "the orthodox Episcopal Moravian Church." The more Zinzendorf heard of these business transactions, the more disgusted he was. He stormed and rated like an absolute monarch, and an absolute monarch he soon became. He forgot that before he went away he had entrusted the management of home affairs to a Board of Twelve. He now promptly dissolved the Board, summoned the Brethren to a Synod at Hirschberg, lectured them angrily for their sins, reduced them to a state of meek submission, and was ere long officially appointed to the office of "Advocate and Steward of all the Brethren's Churches." He had now the reins of government in his hands {1743.}. "Without your foreknowledge," ran this doc.u.ment, "nothing new respecting the foundation shall come up in our congregations, nor any conclusion of importance to the whole shall be valid; and no further story shall be built upon your fundamental plan of the Protestant doctrine of the Augsburg Confession, and that truthing(sp.)it in love with all Christians, without consulting you."

He proceeded now to use these kingly powers. He accused the Brethren of two fundamental errors. Instead of trying to gather Christians into one ideal "Community of Jesus," they had aimed at the recognition of the independent Moravian Church; and instead of following the guidance of G.o.d, they had followed the dictates of vulgar worldly wisdom. He would cure them of each of these complaints. He would cure them of their narrow sectarian views, and cure them of their reliance on worldly wisdom.

For the first complaint he offered the remedy known as his "Tropus Idea." The whole policy of Zinzendorf lies in those two words. He expounded it fully at a Synod in Marienborn. The more he studied Church history in general, the more convinced he became that over and above all the Christian Churches there was one ideal universal Christian Church; that that ideal Church represented the original religion of Christ; and that now the true mission of the Brethren was to make that ideal Church a reality on G.o.d's fair earth. He did not regard any of the Churches of Christ as Churches in this higher sense of the term. He regarded them rather as religious training grounds. He called them, not Churches, but tropuses. He called the Lutheran Church a tropus; he called the Calvinistic Church a tropus; he called the Moravian Church a tropus; he called the Pilgrim Band a tropus; he called the Memnonites a tropus; and by this word "tropus" he meant a religious school in which Christians were trained for members.h.i.+p in the one true Church of Christ. He would not have one of these tropuses destroyed. He regarded them all as essential. He honoured them all as means to a higher end. He would never try to draw a man from his tropus. And now he set a grand task before the Brethren. As the Brethren had no distinctive creed, and taught the original religion of Christ, they must now, he said, regard it as their Divine mission to find room within their broad bosom for men from all the tropuses. They were not merely to restore the Moravian Church; they were to establish a broader, comprehensive Church, to be known as the "Church of the Brethren"; and that Church would be composed of men from every tropus under heaven. Some would be Lutherans, some Reformed, some Anglicans, some Moravians, some Memnonites, some Pilgrims in the foreign field. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, he now revived the old Brethren's ministerial orders of Presbyter, Deacon and Acoluth; and when these men entered on their duties he informed them that they were the servants, not merely of the Moravian Church, but of the wider "Church of the Brethren." If the Count could now have carried out his scheme, he would have had men from various Churches at the head of each tropus in the Church of the Brethren. For the present he did the best he could, and divided the Brethren into three leading tropuses. At the head of the Moravian tropus was Bishop Polycarp Muller; at the head of the Lutheran, first he himself, and then, later, Dr. Hermann, Court Preacher at Dresden; and finally, at the head of the Reformed, first his old friend Bishop Friedrich de Watteville, and then, later, Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.[98] His scheme was now fairly clear. "In future,"

he said, "we are all to be Brethren, and our Bishops must be Brethren's Bishops; and, therefore, in this Church of the Brethren there will henceforth be, not only Moravians, but also Lutherans and Calvinists, who cannot find peace in their own Churches on account of brutal theologians."

His second remedy was worse than the disease. The great fault in Zinzendorf's character was lack of ballast. For the last few years he had given way to the habit of despising his own common sense; and instead of using his own judgment he now used the Lot. He had probably learned this habit from the Halle Pietists. He carried his Lot apparatus in his pocket;[99] he consulted it on all sorts of topics; he regarded it as the infallible voice of G.o.d. "To me," said he, in a letter to Spangenberg, "the Lot and the Will of G.o.d are simply one and the same thing. I am not wise enough to seek G.o.d's will by my own mental efforts.

I would rather trust an innocent piece of paper than my own feelings."

He now endeavoured to teach this faith to his Brethren. He founded a society called "The Order of the Little Fools," {June 2nd, 1743.} and before very long they were nearly all "little fools." His argument here was astounding. He appealed to the well-known words of Christ Himself.[100] As G.o.d, he contended, had revealed His will, not to wise men, but to babes, it followed that the more like babes the Brethren became, the more clearly they would understand the mysteries of grace.

They were not to use their own brains; they were to wish that they had no brains; they were to be like children in arms; and thus they would overcome all their doubts and banish all their cares. The result was disastrous. It led to the period known as the "Sifting Time." It is the saddest period in the history of the Brethren's Church. For seven years these Brethren took leave of their senses, and allowed their feelings to lead them on in the paths of insensate folly. They began by taking Zinzendorf at his word. They used diminutives for nearly everything.

They addressed the Count as "Papa" and "Little Papa"; they spoke of Christ as "Brother Lambkin";[101] and they described themselves as little wound-parsons, cross-wood little splinters, a blessed troop of cross-air[102] birds, cross-air little atoms, cross-air little sponges, and cross-air little pigeons.

The chief sinner was the Count himself. Having thrown his common sense overboard, he gave free rein to his fancy, and came out with an exposition of the Holy Trinity which offended the rules of good taste.

He compared the Holy Trinity to a family. The father, said he, was G.o.d; the mother was the Holy Ghost; their son was Jesus; and the Church of Christ, the Son's fair bride, was born in the Saviour's Side-wound, was betrothed to Christ on the Cross, was married to Christ in the Holy Communion, and was thus the daughter-in-law of the Father and the Holy Ghost. We can all see the dangers of this. As soon as human images of spiritual truths are pressed beyond decent limits, they lead to frivolity and folly; and that was just the effect at Herrnhaag. The more freely the Brethren used these phrases, the more childish they became.

They called the Communion the "Embracing of the Man"; and thus they lost their reverence for things Divine.

But the next move of the Count was even worse. For its origin we must go back a few years in his story. As the Count one day was burning a pile of papers he saw one slip flutter down to the ground untouched by the fire {1734.}. He picked it up, looked at it, and found that it contained the words:--

"Oh, let us in Thy nail-prints see Our pardon and election free."

At first the effect on Zinzendorf was healthy enough. He regarded the words as a direct message from G.o.d. He began to think more of the value of the death of Christ. He altered the style of his preaching; he became more definitely evangelical; and henceforth he taught the doctrine that all happiness and all virtue must centre in the atoning death of Christ.

"Since the year 1734," he said, "the atoning sacrifice of Jesus became our only testimony and our one means of salvation." But now he carried this doctrine to excess. Again the cause was his use of the Lot. As long as Zinzendorf used his own mental powers, he was able to make his "Blood and Wounds Theology" a power for good; but as soon as he bade good-bye to his intellect he made his doctrine a laughing-stock and a scandal.