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
But this Act was of no use to the English Brethren. The great question
at issue was, what standing were the Brethren to hold in England? On the
one hand, as members of a foreign Protestant Church they were entitled
to religious liberty; and yet, on the other hand, they were practically
treated as Dissenters, and had been compelled to have all their
buildings licensed. As they were still accused of holding secret
dangerous principles, they now drew up another "Declaration," had it
printed, sent it to the offices of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Lord Chancellor, and the Master of the Rolls, and inserted it in the
leading newspapers. At all costs, pleaded the Brethren, let us have a
public inquiry. "If any man of undoubted sense and candour," they said,
"will take the pains upon himself to fix the accusations against us
in their real point of view, hitherto unattainable by the Brethren and
perhaps the public too, then we will answer to the expectations of the
public, as free and directly as may be expected from honest subjects of
the constitution of these realms." The appeal led to nothing; the man
of sense and candour never appeared; and still the suffering Brethren
groaned under all sorts of vague accusation.
At last, however, Zinzendorf himself came to the rescue of his Brethren,
rented Northampton House in Bloomsbury Square,[125] and brought the whole
matter to a head. For the second time he took the advice of Oglethorpe
and Thomas Penn; and a deputation was now appointed to frame a petition
to Parliament that the Brethren in America be exempted, not merely from
the oath, but also from military service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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