A History of the Moravian ChurchHutton, J. E. (Joseph Edmund)
Religion
A History of the Moravian Church
Hutton, J. E. (Joseph Edmund)
Moravian Church -- History
At last, exactly like Ingham in Yorkshire, he found that he had too many
irons in the fire, and determined to hand his societies over to the
care of the Moravian Church. He had met James Hutton, Zinzendorf,
Spangenberg, Boehler, and other Moravians in London, and the more he
knew of these men the more profoundly convinced he became that the
picture of the Brethren painted by John Wesley in his Journal was no
better than a malicious falsehood. At every point in his evidence, which
lies before me in his private diary and letters, John Cennick, to
put the matter bluntly, gives John Wesley the lie. He denied that the
Brethren practised guile; he found them uncommonly open and sincere.
He denied that they were Antinomians, who despised good works; he
found them excellent characters. He denied that they were narrow-minded
bigots, who would never acknowledge themselves to be in the wrong; he
found them remarkably tolerant and broad-minded. At this period, in
fact, he had so high an opinion of the Brethren that he thought they
alone were fitted to reconcile Wesley and Whitefield; and on one
occasion he persuaded some Moravians, Wesleyans and Calvinists to join
in a united love-feast at Whitefield's Tabernacle, and sing a common
confession of faith {Nov. 4th, 1744.}.[119] John Cennick was a man of the
Moravian type. The very qualities in the Brethren that offended Wesley
won the love of Cennick. He loved the way they spoke of Christ; he loved
their "Blood and Wounds Theology"; and when he read the "Litany of the
Wounds of Jesus," he actually, instead of being disgusted, shed tears of
joy. For these reasons, therefore, Cennick went to London, consulted the
Brethren in Fetter Lane, and besought them to undertake the care of his
Wiltshire societies. The result was the same as in Yorkshire. As long as
the request came from Cennick alone the Brethren turned a deaf ear. But
the need in Wiltshire was increasing. The spirit of disorder was growing
rampant. At Bath and Bristol his converts were quarrelling; at Swindon a
young woman went into fits and described them as signs of the New Birth;
and a young man named Jonathan Wildboar, who had been burned in the hand
for stealing linen, paraded the country showing his wound as a proof of
his devotion to Christ. For these follies Cennick knew only one cure;
and that cure was the "apostolic discipline" of the Brethren. He called
his stewards together to a conference at Tytherton; the stewards drew
up a petition; the Brethren yielded; some workers came down {Dec. 18th,
1745.}; and thus, at the request of the people themselves, the Moravians
began their work in the West of England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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