Moravian women's memoirs: their related lives, 1750-1820 - By Katherine M. Faull
- Memoirs of Moravian Women who settles in Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaZinzendorf and his group of prayer warriors not only gave themselves to night-and-day radical prayer, but they also gave their resources. They vowed to send the gospel to the nations, and that meant that some would surrender their life plans and go, while the rest would sacrifice their life wealth and give.
In their understanding of Christ’s call to discipleship, a Christian had four options—go, send, pray, or disobey.
There were three pillars in Zinzendorf’s Christianity: (1) His deep impressions of the suffering and work of Jesus, which ignited a fire in his heart to surrender and suffer any loss so that he might experience fellowship with Christ on the mission field.
He had a mighty vision of Christ; (2) His firm determination to do whatever it took to send and support others to go.
This passion to send others was seen in the night-and-day houses of prayer that he established and in the overgenerous acts of giving that marked the Moravians; (3) His unwavering zeal to call his fellow Christians to a higher standard of following Christ by challenging them to lay down their lives in mission; and in result, he had a unique ability to unite Christians from all denominations to join him in this mission.
While at the University of Halle, Zinzendorf was mentored by August Francke, a renowned revivalist and lay evangelist. His direct contact with Francke later proved decisive for his future ministry. On his campus, Zinzendorf began small groups of prayer.
Before he left Halle, he reported to Francke a list of seven organized night-and-day prayer meetings. Among these prayer groups, Zinzendorf made lifelong friends and co-laborers who developed a fraternity society called the “Order of the Mustard Seed.”
This band of brothers took a vow to God and each other, pledging that “none live for themselves.” And their core convictions revolved around the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. They surrendered themselves to a life of abandoned devotion to Christ, lovingkindness to people, and global proclamation of the gospel of Christ.
They would do whatever it took at whatever cost to send the gospel to the nations. They were so determined to share Christ with the unreached that many would eventually sell themselves into a life of slavery to reach slaves.
Others would take creative forms of work to help enrich the unreached regions and also so they could support themselves in mission. Some of those in the Order could not do missions, but they felt called to mobilize a prayerful people who would carry out their missionary zeal.
One time during communion he encountered Jesus as Lord and Master, and in response, Zinzendorf renewed his commitment to a life of obedience and surrender to King Jesus. This experience refreshed and strengthened him for the rest of his life.
Because he had such a love for the slain Lamb, Zinzendorf robustly defended the doctrine of justification by faith alone. He preached salvation in Christ alone. His theology inspired his missiology.
In the small town of Hernnhut where Zinzendorf lived, there was a great revival of unity in the summer of 1727. There was much disunity between denominations, but Zinzendorf and many others committed themselves to extraordinary, persevering prayer, crying out for revival.
In August, the Spirit fell. Following this outpouring, many children would pray for hours, sometimes even longer than the adults. Initially, some people thought they were in heaven, not on earth. Together they fell in love with their Savior.
In this visible tabernacle of God among men, there was nothing seen or heard but joy and gladness. This supernatural experience was the decisive impetus for the 100-year Moravian prayer movement. For 100 years in Herrnhut, they literally prayed night and day without stopping.
This encounter with the majesty of Christ electrified their desire to proclaim the Gospel where Christ had not been named, even if it meant martyrdom, simply because He is worthy.
Wherever the Moravian missionaries went in the world, they would set up 24-7 prayer stations, and from these prayer movements, missions exploded around the globe. It is said that the sun never set where there were no Moravians praying and preaching.
Implications for a Campus Mission Movement
The history surrounding Count Zinzendorf is a classic example of the Holy Spirit awakening students to the supreme worth of Jesus Christ. As in most campus mission movements, there was a passionate and persevering plea for a Christ awakening, accompanied with much repentance and brokenness.
Zinzendorf and his band of brothers sensed the burden of the Lord to seek His face for a greater manifestation of the glory of Jesus. When “God came down” (as many revivalists have described), He showed Himself strong and mighty to save.
God stood forth from His Word, with silencing authority. Zinzendorf and his brothers were seized with the passionate heart of the great I AM. With such a huge vision of God, Christ became their life. Zinzendorf said, “I have one passion: It is Jesus, Jesus only.”
Having come from noble backgrounds, their life plans to gather wealth and comfort quickly dissipated. They surrendered their lives under the lordship of Christ and vowed to spend themselves in declaring His glory among the nations.
As this groundswell of revival increased, so did the charity among believers as they together found unified desire to preach the gospel where Christ was not named. They brainstormed ways for creative forms of mission–self-sustainable platforms, business as mission, and even selling themselves into slavery to reach slaves.
There was a common agreement that if some could not go to the nations, they would passionately mobilize others, give sacrificially, and intercede night and day, as with the very fire of heaven. Truly, this movement was not concocted by worldly wisdom.
To the world, this Christ-obsession was utter foolishness. But to those who were being saved, it was the power of God.
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Moravian Revival
The Rev. John Greenfield, an American Moravian evangelist, published his book “Power On High” in 1927 on the 200th anniversary of the Moravian revival. The information in this article is from that book, now out of print. The Moravians, a refugee colony from Bohemia, settled on the estates of Count Nicholas Zinzendorf in Herrnhut, Germany, where a powerful revival began in 1727. It launched 100 years of continuous prayer and within 25 years 100 Moravians were missionaries, more than the rest of the Protestant church had sent out in two centuries.
The Holy Ghost came upon us and in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst. From that time scarcely a day passed but what we beheld His almighty workings amongst us.
A modern Pentecost
A Moravian historian wrote that Church history abounds in records of special outpourings of the Holy Ghost, and verily the thirteenth of August 1727, was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We saw the hand of God and His wonders, and we were all under the cloud of our fathers baptized with their Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon us and in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst. From that time scarcely a day passed but what we beheld His almighty workings amongst us. A great hunger after the Word of God took possession of us so that we had to have three services every day, viz. 5.0 and 7.30 a.m. and 9.0 p.m. Every one desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control. Selflove and self-will, as well as all disobedience disappeared and an overwhelming flood of grace swept us all out into the great ocean of Divine Love.
No one present could tell exactly what happened on that Wednesday morning, 13 August 1727 at the specially called Communion service. They hardly knew if they had been on earth or in heaven. Count Nicholas Zinzendorf, the young leader of that community, gave this account many years later:
We needed to come to the Communion with a sense of the loving nearness of the Saviour. This was the great comfort which has made this day a generation ago to be a festival, because on this day twenty-seven years ago the Congregation of Herrnhut, assembled for communion (at the Berthelsdorf church) were all dissatisfied with themselves. They had quit judging each other because they had become convinced, each one, of his lack of worth in the sight of God and each felt himself at this Communion to be view of the noble countenance of the Saviour. O head so full of bruises, So full of pain and scorn. In this view of the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, their hearts told them that He would be their patron and their priest who was at once changing their tears into oil of gladness and their misery into happiness. This firm confidence changed them in a single moment into happy people which they are to this day, and into their happiness they have since led may thousands of others through the memory and help which the heavenly grace once given to themselves, so many thousand times confirmed to them since then .
Zinzendorf described it as ‘a sense of the nearness of Christ’ given to everyone present, and also to others of their community who were working elsewhere at the time.
The congregation was young. Zinzendorf, the human leader, was 27, which was about the average age of the group.
The Moravian brethren had sprung from the labors and martyrdom of the Bohemian Reformer, John Huss. They had experienced centuries of persecution. Many had been killed, imprisoned, tortured or banished from their homeland. This group had fled for refuge to Germany where the young Christian nobleman, Count Zinzendorf, offered them asylum on his estates in Saxony. They named their new home Herrnhut, ’the Lord’s Watch’. From there, after their baptism in the Holy Spirit, they became evangelists and missionaries.
Fifty years before the beginning of modern Foreign Missions by William Carey, the Moravian Church had sent out over 100 missionaries. Their English missionary magazine, Periodical Accounts, inspired William Carey. He threw a copy of the paper on a table at a Baptist meeting, saying, ‘See what the Moravians have done! Cannot we follow their example and in obedience to our Heavenly Master go out into the world, and preach the Gospel to the heathen?’
That missionary zeal began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Count Zinzendorf observed ’ The Saviour permitted to come upon us a Spirit of whom we had hitherto not had any experience or knowledge. … Hitherto we had been the leaders and helpers. Now the Holy Spirit Himself took full control of everything and everybody’.
When the Spirit came.
Prayer precedes Pentecost. The disgruntled community at Herrnhut early in 1727 was deeply divided and critical of one another. Heated controversies threatened to disrupt the community. The majority was from the ancient Moravian Church of the Brethren. Other believers attracted to Herrnhut included Lutherans, Reformed, and Baptists. They argued about predestination, holiness, and baptism.
The young German nobleman, Count Zinzendorf, pleaded for unity, love and repentance.
Converted in early childhood, at four years of age he composed and signed a covenant: ‘Dear Saviour, do Thou be mine, and I will be Thine.’ His life motto was, ‘I have one passion: it is Jesus, Jesus only.’
Count Zinzendorf learned the secret of prevailing prayer. He actively established prayer groups as a teenager, and on leaving college at Halle at sixteen he gave the famous Professor Francke a list of seven praying societies he had established. After he finished university his education was furthered by travel to foreign countries.
Everywhere he went, his passion for Jesus controlled him. In the Dusseldorf Gallery of paintings he was deeply moved by a painting of the crucifixion over which were the words:
Hoc feci pro te;
Quid facis pro me?
This have I done for thee;
What hast thou done for me?
At Herrnhut, Zinzendorf visited all the adult members of the deeply divided community. He drew up a covenant calling upon them ’to seek out and emphasize the points in which they agreed’ rather than stressing their differences. On 12 May 1727, they all signed an agreement to dedicate their lives, as he dedicated his, to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Moravian revival of 1727 was thus preceded and then sustained by extraordinary praying. A spirit of grace, unity and supplications grew among them.
On 16 July, many of the community covenanted together on their own accord to meet often to pour out their hearts in prayer and hymns.
On 5 August, the Count spent the whole night in prayer with about twelve or fourteen others following a large meeting for prayer at midnight where great emotion prevailed.
On Sunday, 10 August, Pastor Rothe, while leading the service at Herrnhut, was overwhelmed by the power of the Lord about noon. He sank down into the dust before God. So did the whole congregation. They continued till midnight in prayer and singing, weeping and praying.
On Wednesday, 13 August, the Holy Spirit was poured out on them all. Their prayers were answered in ways far beyond anyone’s expectations. Many of them decided to set aside certain times for continued earnest prayer.
On 26 August, twentyfour men and twentyfour women covenanted together to continue praying in intervals of one hour each, day and night, each hour allocated by lots to different people.
On 27 August, this new regulation began. Others joined the intercessors and the number involved increased to seventyseven. They all carefully observed the hour which had been appointed for them. The intercessors had a weekly meeting where prayer needs were given to them.
The children, also touched powerfully by God, began a similar plan among themselves. Those who heard their infant supplications were deeply moved. The children’s prayers and supplications had a powerful effect on the whole community
That astonishing prayer meeting beginning in 1727 went on for one hundred years. It was unique. Known as the Hourly Intercession, it involved relays of men and women in prayer without ceasing made to God. That prayer also led to action, especially evangelism. More than one hundred missionaries left that village community in the next twentyfive years, all constantly supported in prayer.
The Spirit’s Witness
One result of their baptism in the Holy Spirit was a joyful assurance of their pardon and salvation. This made a strong impact on people in many countries, including the Wesleys.
In 1736, John and Charles Wesley sailed to America as Anglican missionaries. A company of Moravian immigrants were also on the vessel. During a terrible storm, they all faced the danger of shipwreck. John Wesley wrote in his journal:
“At seven, I went to the Germans. I had long before observed the great seriousness of their behavior. Of their humility, they had given a continual proof by performing those servile offices for the other passengers, which none of the English would undertake; for which they desired and would receive no pay, saying, ‘It was good for their proud hearts,’ and ’their loving Saviour had done more for them.’ And every day had given them occasion of showing a meekness, which no injury could move. If they were pushed, struck or thrown down, they rose again and went away; but no complaint was found in their mouth. Here was now an opportunity of trying whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger and revenge. In the midst of the Psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterwards: ‘Were you not afraid?’ He answered, ‘I thank God, no.’ I asked: ‘But were not your women and children afraid?’ He replied mildly: ‘No, our women and children are not afraid to die’ (1927:3536).
In Georgia, John Wesley sought spiritual counsel from the Moravian Bishop, A. G. Spangenberg. Back in England in 1738 the Wesley brothers became intimately acquainted with the Moravians, especially Peter Boehler who later became a leading Moravian bishop.
On 4 March, 1738, Wesley wrote in his diary: ‘I found my brother at Oxford recovering from his pleurisy; and with him Peter Boehler: by whom (in the hand of the great God) I was, on Sunday, the 5th, clearly convicted of unbelief; of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved. Immediately it struck into my mind, “Leave off preaching. How can you preach to others who have not faith yourself?” I asked Boehler whether he thought I should leave it off, or not. He answered, “By no means.” I asked; “But what can I preach?” He said: “Preach faith till you have faith.” Accordingly, Monday, 6, I began preaching this new doctrine, though my soul started back from the work. The first person, to whom I offered salvation by faith alone, was a prisoner under sentence of death.
Eventually John Wesley came to assurance of salvation. His own testimony reads;
Wednesday, May 3, 1738. My brother had a long and particular conversation with Peter Boechler. And it now pleased God to open his eyes; so that he also saw clearly, what was the nature of that one true living faith, whereby alone “through grace” we are saved.
Wednesday, May 24. In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
Friday, May 26. My soul continued in peace, but yet in heaviness, because of manifold temptations. I asked Mr. Telchig, the Moravian, what to do. He said, “You must not fight with them as you did before, but flee from them the moment they appear, and take shelter in the wounds of Jesus.”
The Methodists and Moravians often met together then for Bible study and prayer. George Whitefield’s biographer wrote:
Whitefield began the New Year (1739) as gloriously as he ended that which had just expired. He received Sacrament, preached twice, expounded twice, attended a Moravian love feast in Fetter Lane, where he spent the whole night in prayer to God, psalms and thanksgivings, and then pronounced “this to be the happiest New Year’s Day he had ever seen.”
This love feast at Fetter Lane was a memorable one. Besides about sixty Moravians, there were present not fewer than seven of the Oxford Methodists, namely John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Wesley Hall, Benjamin Ingham, Charles Kinchin and Richards Hitchins, all of the ordained clergymen of the Church of England. Wesley writes: “About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of His Majesty, we broke out with one voice “We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord!”
What the Moravians imparted to John Wesley is summarized by one of his biographers, W. H. Fitchett:
“In substance it was three things which lie in the very alphabet of Christianity, but which somehow the teachings of a godly home, of a great University, and of an ancient Church, and of famous books, had not taught Wesley. There are that salvation is through Christ’s Atonement alone, and not through our own works; that it’s sole condition is faith; and that it is attested to the spiritual consciousness by the Holy Spirit. There truths today are platitudes; to Wesley they were, at this stage of his life, discoveries.”
Wesley’s estimate of the Moravian revival which resulted in his own conversion was prophetic. When Peter Boehler, nine years his junior, left England for America after several months, Wesley recorded in his journal:
“Peter Boehler left London to embark for Carolina. Oh what a work hath God begun since his coming into England! Such a one as shall never come to an end, till Heaven and earth pass away!”
Peter Boehler wrote to Count Zinzendorf, saying “The English people made a wonderful to do about me’ and though I could not speak much English, they were always wanting me to tell them about the Saviour, His blood and wounds, and the forgiveness of sins.”
Witnesses unto Me
Zinzendorf’s speaking, preaching and letters were full of Christ. Everywhere the Moravians went they spoke of their Lord, sang of Him, and witnessed naturally. The Holy Spirit had filled them, as in the early church, with great love for their Lord.
Their Bishop Spangenberg, for example, told how Johannes, an Indian chief who had been a very wicked man, was converted. The chief said that once a preacher came to their tribe and proved to them that there was a God. They informed him that they were not ignorant of that and told him to go away. Another preacher came and told them not to steal, drink too much, or lie. They regarded him as a fool because they already knew that, and they sent him off to preach to his own people who were worse that the Indians in those vices.
Then Christian Henry Rauch, one of the Moravian Brethren, came to his hut, sat with him and told him about Jesus. Then fatigued from his journey, Christian Henry lay down and slept, unafraid of the chief. Johannes could not get the Moravian’s words out of his mind. He dreamt of the cross. He told his tribe about Jesus and they repented as the Holy Spirit moved their hearts. Johannes said to the bishop, “Thus, through the grace of God, the awakening among us took place. I tell you therefore, brethren, preach to the heathen Christ and His blood and death, if you wish to produce a blessing among them.”
In Europe, a Countess with close friends among kings, emperors and princes, famous for her brilliant gifts and witty conversation, found that none of her amusements and recreations satisfied her any longer. A humble Moravian shoemaker came into her presence and she was struck with his remarkable cheerfulness. She asked him why he was so happy and he replied that “Jesus has forgiven my sins. He forgives me every day and He loves me and that makes me happy through all the hours” The Countess thought about that and began to pray. Conviction led her into the same joyful faith and she became a great witness for Christ among titled people, especially in the court of the Emperor of Russia, Alexander I, her close friend.
A New Song
Then, as now, the baptism in the Holy Spirit upon the Moravians and then the Methodists, produced a flood of sacred songs. Many of the best hymns may be traced to this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Moravian hymns were filled with praise to Christ, adoration of him as God, and proclamation of His virtues and work.
Moravian hymns were generally prayers to Christ. It was a Moravian characteristic that their prayers were generally addressed to their Saviour. Honoring the Son, they honored the Father who had sent Him as well as the Holy Spirit who glorified Christ.
A truly converted Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Lutheran, Moravian or Armenian, Baptist or Quaker, when baptized in the Holy Spirit and with fire often breaks out into sacred song that is prayer or praise addressed to Jesus.
This was so in Herrnhut. The chief singer then was the godly young nobleman Count Zinzendorf. He became the prince of German hymn writers.
England saw similar developments. One of the many spiritual children of Peter Boehler was John Gambold, a young clergyman of the Church of England, an Oxford graduate and a friend of the Wesleys. He joined the Moravian Church and became its first English Bishop. Some of his hymns and sacred songs became well known.
Another of Peter Boehler’s English converts was James Hutton, a famous book seller. He also wrote some precious hymns.
The best known English Moravian hymn writer during the Great Revival was John Cennick. At one of Cennick’s famous open air meetings, a young Scottish labourer, John Montgomery, was converted. He joined the Moravian Church and John and Mary Montgomery became Moravian missionaries in the West Indies where they died and were buried. Their son James was educated in the Moravian school at Fulneck, James Montgomery ranks with great hymn writers of that era.
Charles Wesley had more than 6,000 hymns published after his conversion in 1738 through the witness and prayers of Peter Boehler.
The majority of his hymns testify to his great experience of salvation. Peter Boehler had told him: “If I had a thousand tongues, I would praise Jesus with every one of them.” This prompted Wesley shortly after his conversion to write the immortal lines:
Oh for a thousand tongues to sing
My dear Redeemer’s praise
The glories of my God and King
The triumphs of His grace.
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
Fruit That Abides
A traveler of that period wrote this striking testimony, “In all my journeys I have found only three objects that exceeded my expectations, viz.: the ocean, Count Zinzendorf and the Herrnhut congregation.” Herrnhut had become a spiritual centre visited by people from all parts of Europe seeking to be saved or to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and with fire.
John Wesley’s visit to Herrnhut was typical of thousands of others. “God has given me at length,” he wrote to his brother Samuel, “the desire of my heart. I am with a Church whose conversation is in Heaven; in whom is the mind that was in Christ, and who so walk as He walked.” In his journal he wrote, “I would gladly have spent my life here; but my Master called me to labour in another part of His vineyard. O, when shall this Christianity cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea?”
At the end of his life, Count Zinzendorf could triumphantly say: I am going to my Saviour, I am ready. There is nothing to hinder me now. I cannot say how much I love you all. Who would have believed that the prayer of Christ, “that they all may be one,” could have been so strikingly fulfilled among us! I only asked for firstfruits among the heathen, and thousands have been given me. Are we not as in Heaven! Do we not live together like the angels! The Lord and His servants understand each other. I am ready.
Over four thousand people followed his body to its resting place on the Hutberg, including Maravian ministers from Holland, England, Ireland, North America and Greenland. His tombstone bore this inscription:
Here lie the remains of the immortal man of God, Nicholas Lewis, Count and Lord of Zinzendorf and Pattendorf; who through the grace of God and his own unwearied service, became the ordinary of the Brethren’s Church, renewed in this eighteenth century. He was born in Dresden on May 26, 1700, and entered into the joy of his Lord at Herrnhut on May 9, 1760. He was appointed to bring forth fruit, that his fruit should abide.
Renew Our Days
The renewal of the Moravian Church can stir our hearts to pray, “Renew our days as of old.”
In 1927, 200 years after the revival in of the Moravian Church, the editor of The Biblical Review, New York, wrote:
No matter whether one is sympathetic toward the idea of revivals or not, if he wants to study the question thoroughly, he cannot afford to overlook the history and teachings of the Moravians. Theirs has been from the beginning a great Revival Church, and its service to the general cause of Christianity, and to foreign missions in particular, is deserving of wide recognition. The story of their spiritual development and its influence is one of the most inspiring in the annals of Christianity.
Their first great experience which gave the Moravians such spiritual power was a personal experience of salvation. The second great experience which gave them such spiritual power and leadership was the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Dr. J. Kenneth Pfohl, a Moravian pastor, wrote in The Moravian in 1927: The great Moravian Pentecost was not a shower of blessing out of a cloudless sky. It did come suddenly, as suddenly as the blessing of its great predecessor in Jerusalem, when the Christian Church was born. Yet, for long there had been signs of abundance of rain, though many recognized them not. In short, the blessing of the 13th of August 1727, was diligently and earnestly prepared for. We know of no annals of Church history which evidence greater desire for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and more patient and persistent effort in that direction than those of our own Church between the years 1725 and 1727. Two distinct lines of preparation and spiritual effort for the blessing are evident. One was prayer; the other was individual work with individuals. We are told that “men and Women met for prayer and praise at one another’s homes and the Church of Berthelsdorf was crowed out.” Then the Spirit came in great power. Then the entire company experienced the blessing at once and the same time.
In another article in The Moravian, Dr. E. S. Hagen declared: The great revival in 1727 in Herrnhut was the normal and logical result of prayer and the preaching of the Word of the Cross. “Christ and Him Crucified” was our brethren’s confession of faith, and “the inward witness of remission of sins through faith in His blood” their blessed and quickening experience. Lecky in his History of Morals says of John Wesley’s conversion May 24, 1738, in the prayer meeting of Moravian Brethren in Aldersgate Street: “What happened in that little room was of more importance to England than all the victories of Pitt by land or sea.” A renewal of our days as of old involves a return to fervent prayer and to the earnest and effectual preaching of the remission of sins through the vicarious sacrifice and the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Revival time is coming. We cherish a high expectancy of it. Sooner than we dream of, to God’s people, who give themselves to earnest, persevering prayer, and the Scriptural testimony concerning the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the windows of Heaven will be opened.
The day of revivals is not past. The Holy Spirit still waits to fill believers with power from on high.
For centuries the followers of John Huss (1373-1415), the martyred Bohemian reformer, had endured persecution and death. Fleeing from imprisonment and torture, they at last found a refuge in Germany where Count Zinzendorf, a young Christian nobleman, offered them an asylum on his estates.
Zinzendorf at the age of four drew up and signed the following covenant: “Dear Saviour, do Thou be mine, and I will be Thine.” One day he stood in the Dusseldorf Gallery before a picture of the Christ. Underneath were the words:
“This have I done for Thee, What doest Thou for Me?”
Turning from the glittering allurements of Paris, he there and then gave himself utterly to Christ, adopting as his motto:
“I have one passion; it is Jesus, Jesus only.”
Speaking of what occurred that memorable thirteenth day of August, historians tell that they left the House of God “hardly knowing whether they belonged to earth or had already gone to Heaven.” Zinzendorf, in his description of it, says: “The Saviour permitted to come upon us a Spirit of whom we had hitherto not had any experience or knowledge. Hitherto WE had been the leaders and helpers. Now the Holy Spirit Himself took full control of everything and everybody.”
All are agreed that it was a definite, unmistakable outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the entire congregation, so wonderful that it was absolutely indescribable. The brethren had been judging one another; doctrinal disputes were common; heated arguments that threatened division and discord were the order of the day. Instead of love, bitterness. Instead of brotherly unity, strife.
“When God intends great mercy for His people,” says Matthew Henry, “the first thing He does is to set them apraying.” And so it was at Herrnhut. The more spiritual among them, utterly dissatisfied with themselves, commenced to cry mightily to God for help. That their prayer was answered, there is abundant proof. James Montgomery, their greatest hymn writer, gives the following realistic description:
“They walked with God in peace and love, But failed with one another; While sternly for the Faith they strove, Brother fell out with brother; But He in whom they put their trust, Who knew their frames that they were dust, Pitied and healed their weakness.
He found them in His House of Prayer, With one accord assembled; And so revealed His presence there, They wept with joy and trembled: One cup they drank, one bread they brake, One baptism shared, one language spake, Forgiving and forgiven.
Then forth they went with tongues aflame In one blest theme delighting; The love of Jesus and His name, God’s children all uniting; That love our theme and watchword still, The law of love may we fulfil, And love as we are loved.”
Salvation by Faith
The first experience that the revived brethren constantly emphasized and that was passed on through Wesley to the Methodists was a definite knowledge of salvation by faith in Christ alone. They made the discovery that the Church could not save them; that there was no salvation in its creeds, doctrines or dogmas; that good works, moral living, commandment keeping, praying and Bible reading, could not avail; much less culture, character or conduct. They found that Christ alone could save; that He was willing and able to receive sinners at a moment’s notice; that justification, the forgiveness of sins, the new birth, etc., were instantaneous experiences received the very moment a sinner believed on Christ; that salvation was through grace and by faith, apart from the deeds of the law; that when a man is saved he has peace with God, and that he receives the assurance of salvation by the witness of the Holy Spirit in his heart.
The second experience that came to the brethren was a personal anointing of the Holy Spirit for life and service. In the power of that anointing they went forth and accomplished impossible tasks.
Results of the Outpouring
The first of the two great results was hymns and spiritual songs. No church, in comparison to its numbers, has ever produced as many hymns as the Moravian. For well over two centuries now we have been singing their hymns. Most of their hymns are prayers to Christ. Many of them are expressions of joy and gratitude for what He has done. In them they portray His sufferings for sinners on the cross. His shed blood is the central theme of their songs. Practically all their hymns are hymns of their own personal experiences of salvation and spiritual blessing. And what is more natural than for the heart to break out in glad praise and love to the One who had done so much!
The other outstanding result of the Moravian revival at Herrnhut was a vision of worldwide missions.
“This small church in twenty years,” says Dr. Warneck, “called into being more missions than the whole Evangelical Church had done in two centuries.” That this great missionary fervour was the direct result of the mighty outpouring at Herrnhut, and that a new and unquenchable passion controlled the entire movement, is most strikingly set forth by Count Zinzendorf himself:
“Urged by love, to every nation Of the fallen human race, We will publish Christ’s salvation, And declare His blood-bought grace; To display Him, and portray Him, In His dying form and beauty, Be it our aim and joyful duty.”
Again their devoted leader, Count Zinzendorf, imparts to them his vision in the following words:
“I am destined by the Lord to proclaim the message of the death and blood of Jesus, not with human wisdom but with divine power, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.” But it is in Zinzendorf’s last words spoken on his deathbed, that we get the real spirit of Moravianism:
“I am going to my Saviour. I am ready. There is nothing to hinder me now. I cannot say how much I love you all. Who would have believed that the prayer of Christ, ‘that they all may be one’ (John 17:11), could have been so strikingly fulfilled among us! I only asked for the first fruits among the heathen, and thousands have been given me. Are we not as in Heaven! Do we not live together like angels! The Lord and His servants understand each other. I am ready.” He died at the age of sixty and was buried at Herrnhut, more than four thousand from all parts of the world following his body to the grave.
In the West Indies, among the North American Indians, on the cold, bleak shores of Greenland, far away in dark, benighted Africa, as well as in South America, and practically every country in Europe and Asia, the Moravians planted the cross and won thousands of souls to Jesus Christ. And all this, let it be remembered, was some fifty years before the modern missionary movement was launched by William Carey, who in turn got his inspiration from the Moravians.
Thus as in the days of the early Church, the Holy Ghost fell upon them, and immediately “they went everywhere preaching the Word” (Acts 8:4) – witnesses unto Christ. And because they were, with Paul, determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, they were eminently successful. They preached the blood to the most savage tribes, and multitudes were convicted and converted. It was the spirit expressed in their leader’s great motto that inspired them: “I have one passion,” exclaimed Zinzendorf, “it is Jesus, Jesus only.”
What about Us?
But now arises the question: What about us? Do we need a revival? What is the greatest need of the Church of our day? Men, machinery, money, organization? No. The supreme need of the hour is a mighty outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Oh that there might come upon us a spirit of prayer such as came upon the brethren at Herrnhut over two centuries ago, that we, too, both individually and as a Church, might experience an anointing of the Holy Spirit that would cause the world to wonder at the “signs following!” God grant it may be so!
The foremost of Czech reformers, John Hus (1369-1415) was a professor of philosophy and rector of the University in Prague. The Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, where Hus preached, became a rallying place for the Czech reformation. Gaining support from students and the common people, he led a protest movement against many practices of the Roman Catholic clergy and hierarchy. Hus was accused of heresy, underwent a long trial at the Council of Constance, and was burned at the stake on July 6, 1415.
ORGANIZED IN 1457
The reformation spirit did not die with Hus. The Moravian Church, or Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren), as it has been officially known since 1457, arose as followers of Hus gathered in the village of Kunvald, about 100 miles east of Prague, in eastern Bohemia, and organized the church. This was 60 years before Martin Luther began his reformation and 100 years before the establishment of the Anglican Church. By 1467 the Moravian Church had established its own ministry, and in the years that followed three orders of the ministry were defined: deacon, presbyter and bishop.
GROWTH, PERSECUTION, EXILE
By 1517 the Unity of Brethren numbered at least 200,000 with over 400 parishes. Using a hymnal and catechism of its own, the church promoted the Scriptures through its two printing presses and provided the people of Bohemia and Moravia with the Bible in their own language.
A bitter persecution, which broke out in 1547, led to the spread of the Brethren's Church to Poland where it grew rapidly. By 1557 there were three provinces of the church: Bohemia, Moravia and Poland. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) brought further persecution to the Brethren's Church, and the Protestants of Bohemia were severely defeated at the battle of White Mountain in 1620.
The prime leader of the Unitas Fratrum in these tempestuous years was Bishop John Amos Comenius (1592-1670). He became world-renowned for his progressive views of education. Comenius, lived most of his life in exile in England and in Holland where he died. His prayer was that some day the "hidden seed" of his beloved Unitas Fratrum might once again spring to new life.
RENEWED IN THE 1700S
The eighteenth century saw the renewal of the Moravian Church through the patronage of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a pietist nobleman in Saxony. Some Moravian families fleeing persecution in Bohemia and Moravia found refuge on Zinzendorf's estate in 1722 and built the community of Herrnhut. The new community became the haven for many more Moravian refugees. Count Zinzendorf encouraged them to keep the discipline of the Unitas Fratrum, and he gave them the vision to take the gospel to the far corners of the globe. August 13, 1727, marked the culmination of a great spiritual renewal for the Moravian Church in Herrnhut, and in 1732 the first missionaries were sent to the West Indies.
TO AMERICA IN 1735
After an unsuccessful attempt to establish a Moravian settlement in Georgia (1735-1740), the Moravians settled in Pennsylvania on the estate of George Whitefield. Moravian settlers purchased 500 acres to establish the settlement of Bethlehem in 1741. Soon they bought the 5,000 acres of the Barony of Nazareth from Whitefield's manager, and the two communities of Bethlehem and Nazareth became closely linked in their agricultural and industrial economy. Other settlement congregations were established in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. All were considered frontier centers for the spread of the gospel, particularly in mission to the Native Americans.
Bishop Augustus Spangenberg led a party to survey a 100,000 acre tract of land in North Carolina, which came to be known as Wachau after an Austrian estate of Count Zinzendorf. The name, later anglicized to Wachovia, became the center of growth for the church in that region. Bethabara, Bethania and Salem (now Winston-Salem) were the first Moravian settlements in North Carolina.
Bethlehem in Pennsylvania and Winston-Salem in North Carolina became the headquarters of the two provinces (North and South), which developed as the Moravian Church in North America became established as an autonomous church body after the Unity Synod of 1848. The church spread out from the geographical centers of Bethlehem and Winston-Salem, following German emigrants to the Midwest. At the end of the nineteenth century they responded to the spiritual needs of Moravian refugees of German ancestry who were fleeing to western Canada because of persecution in Eastern Europe. Such wide geographical spread caused the Northern Province to be divided into Eastern, Western and Canadian Districts.
After World War II, strong pushes for church extension took the Northern Province to Southern California (where only an Indian mission had existed since 1890) as well as to some Eastern, Midwestern and Canadian sites. The Southern Province added numerous churches in the Winston-Salem area, throughout North Carolina and extended its outreach to Florida and to Georgia. In North America, the Moravian Church has congregations in 16 states, the District of Columbia, and in two Provinces of Canada.
http://www.moravian.org/history/
The church of the Moravian Brethren is famous for two things: its missionary zeal and its love for church music. It owes both of these distinguishing characteristics to its great founder and patron leader, Nicolaus Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf. Not only was this very unusual man a gifted writer of hymns, but he was also an ardent exponent of foreign missions.
Zinzendorf was only ten years old when his soul was fired with a passionate desire to do something to help win the world for Christ. He was a pupil at the famous Pietist school of Francke at Halle, Germany, at the time, and through his endeavors a mission society known as “The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed,” was organized among the lads of his own age.
A few years later he chanced to see a copy of Sternberg’s masterpiece, “Ecce Homo,” depicting Christ wearing His crown of thorns before Pilate and the Jewish mob. Beneath the famous picture were inscribed the words:
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This have I done for thee; What hast thou done for Me? |
From that moment Zinzendorf took as his life motto: “I have but one passion, and that is He and only He.” On his wedding day, in 1722, he and his young bride decided to renounce their rank and to dedicate their lives to the task of winning souls for Christ.
128The Lord took them at their word. In that same year a number of Protestant refugees from Moravia, who had been compelled to leave their homes because of Roman Catholic persecution, arrived in Saxony and found refuge on Zinzendorf’s large estate. They were a remnant of the Bohemian Brethren, a heroic religious communion which dated back to the days of the noble martyr, John Huss. Though relentlessly hunted and persecuted for more than three centuries, this early evangelical body had continued to maintain its existence in the form of secret religious circles known as “the hidden seed.”
Under the protection of Count Zinzendorf, the little band of Moravian refugees established a religious center which they called “Herrnhut.” Zinzendorf, who was a Lutheran, induced them to adopt the Augsburg Confession as a statement of their doctrine, but they continued to exist as an independent church body. People from all over Europe, hearing that religious freedom was enjoyed on the Zinzendorf estates, flocked to Herrnhut in large numbers to escape persecution, and it soon became a flourishing colony.
In 1737 Zinzendorf accepted ordination as a bishop of the Brethren, and thus became the real leader of the organization. He immediately began to impart his own missionary zeal to the Moravian movement. Two of the earliest missionaries, David Nitschmann and Leonard Dober, were sent to the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, to preach the gospel to the negro slaves. The blacks were so embittered because of the cruel treatment received at the hands of their taskmasters that they refused to listen to the missionaries, and very little progress could be made. At last, in order to gain their confidence, Dober sold himself as a slave and shared their hardships with them. He soon died, however, 129as a result of this deed. The story of his heroic sacrifice so moved the heart of Prime Minister Wilberforce of England that he forthwith determined to begin the movement which eventually led to the emancipation of all slaves in the British empire.
Missionary zeal continued to flourish among the Moravians, and the little colony of Herrnhut became known as one of the most famous missionary centers of Christendom. Every one of its members felt that he possessed no permanent habitation in this world, and was prepared every day to be sent to any part of the globe.
Though still a small organization today, the Moravian Church has never lost its missionary spirit. It is claimed that for every fifty-eight members of the Church at home, there is one missionary in foreign lands. When Carey went to India, the Moravians already had 165 missionaries in the pagan world.
Zinzendorf was a great lover of music. Even as a boy, he wrote hymns. The first was written at the age of twelve, and he was still producing hymns in 1760, the year of his death. Altogether, he is credited with the authorship of more than 2,000 lyrics. His most famous is “Jesus, still lead on,” which is also known as “Jesus, lead the way.” John Wesley was a great admirer of Zinzendorf’s hymns and has given us the beautiful English translation of “Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.” James Montgomery, the noted English hymnist, was a member of the Moravian communion.
From the book 'Story of Our Hymns'