The Oxford Methodists : $b Memoirs of the Rev. Messrs. Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton, with biographical notices of othersTyerman, L. (Luke)
History
The Oxford Methodists : $b Memoirs of the Rev. Messrs. Clayton, Ingham, Gambold, Hervey, and Broughton, with biographical notices of others
“This species of fanaticism first broke out at Herrnhaag, in
the year 1746, and, from thence, spread into several other
congregations. Many were carried away by it, for it seemed to
promise a certain joyous perfection, representing believers as
innocent, playful children, who might be quite at their ease
amidst all the trials and difficulties incident to the present
life. The effect produced was such as might be expected. The
more serious members of the church (and these after all formed
the major part) bitterly lamented an evil, which they could not
at once eradicate. Others, considering the malady as incurable,
withdrew from its communion. The behaviour of such as were most
infected with this error, though not immoral and criminal,
was yet highly disgraceful to their Christian profession. Had
not God in mercy averted the impending danger, a spirit of
religious levity and antinomianism might, by degrees, have
sapped the very foundation of the Brethren’s Church, and
completed her ruin.”
What part Gambold took in this affair at Herrnhaag, and with what
results, we have no means of knowing; but certain it is, that, this
pestiferous lusciousness spread to England, and, for many a long year
afterwards, disgraced the Moravian hymns, and justly exposed the
Moravians themselves to the censures and taunts of both friends and
foes. It would be easy to quote instances illustrative of this, from
the English Moravian Hymn Book, “published chiefly for the Use of the
Congregations in Union with the Brethren’s Church,” in 1754; but the
reader would not be edified by such quotations.
The Moravians in England, when compared with the Methodists, could hardly
be considered a prosperous community. From the first, a considerable
number of their members belonged to other churches; and, in 1749,
an effort was made to multiply such extra-ecclesiastical adherents,
by instituting what was called an English Tropus, the object being
to provide a means whereby the members of other communities, and,
notably, of the Church of England, might be enrolled in the Moravian
Brotherhood, without severing themselves from the churches of which
they already formed a part. This was one of the subjects discussed at a
synod held in London in the above-mentioned year; and, to facilitate the
matter, Gambold addressed the following letter “To Papa, _i.e._ Count
Zinzendorf,” the beginning of which, to mention nothing else, shows how
far even Gambold had fallen into the offensive use of the adulatory
language of Moravian sycophants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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