AN
Expostulatory Letter, &c.
London, April 24, 1753.
My Lord,
ALTHOUGH I am persuaded, that nothing hath a greater tendency to strengthen the hands of infidels, than too frequent altercations between the professors of christianity; yet there are certain occasions, wherein the necessary defence of the principles of our holy religion, as well as the practice of it, renders public remonstrances of the greatest use and importance. The sacred pages afford us many examples of this nature. When Aaron was prevailed on by the Israelites, to make a golden calf, and offer sacrifice to it, what an holy indignation did Moses express against him and them? When Peter and Barnabas were carried away with the dissimulation of the Jews, how openly did the Apostle Paul withstand them to the face, and reprove them before all, “Because they were to be blamed?” And when this same Apostle saw the churches of Corinth and Galatia in danger of being drawn away from the simplicity of the gospel, what a fervent testimony did he bear against the authors and abettors of such a destructive scheme?
I mention these instances, my Lord, because I hope they will serve as a sufficient apology for my troubling your Lordship with this letter. For these many years past, have I been a silent, and I trust I can say, an impartial observer of the progress and effects of Moravianism, both in England and America; but such shocking things have been lately brought to our ears, and offences have swelled to such an enormous bulk, that a real regard for my king and my country, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, a disinterested love for the ever-blessed Jesus, that King of kings, and the church which he hath purchased with his own blood, will not suffer me to be silent any longer.
Pardon me, therefore, my Lord, if at length, though with great regret, as the Searcher of hearts knows, I am constrained to inform your Lordship, that you, together with some of your leading brethren, have been unhappily instrumental in misguiding many real, simple, honest-hearted christians; of distressing, if not totally ruining numerous families, and introducing a whole farrago of superstitious, not to say idolatrous fopperies, into the English nation.
For my own part, my Lord, notwithstanding the folio that was published (I presume under your Lordship’s direction) about three years ago, I am as much at a loss as ever, to know what were the principles and usages of the ancient Moravian church; but if she was originally attired in the same garb, in which she hath appeared of late amongst many true-hearted though deluded protestants, she is not that simple, apostolical church the English brethren were made to believe about twelve years ago. Sure I am, that we can find no traces of many of her present practices in the yet more ancient, I mean the primitive churches, and which we all know were really under an immediate and truly apostolical inspection.
Will your Lordship be pleased to give me leave to descend to a few particulars? Pray, my Lord, what instances have we of the first christians walking round the graves of their deceased friends on Easter-day, attended with hautboys, trumpets, french-horns, violins, and other kinds of musical instruments? Or where have we the least mention made of pictures of particular persons being brought into the first christian assemblies, and of candles being placed behind them, in order to give a transparent view of the figures? Where was it ever known, that the picture of the Apostle Paul, representing him handing a gentleman and lady up to the side of Jesus Christ, was ever introduced into the primitive love-feasts? Or do we ever hear, my Lord, of incense, or something like it, being burnt for him, in order to perfume the room before he made his entrance among the brethren? Or can it be supposed that he, who, together with Barnabas, so eagerly repelled the Lycaonians, when they brought oxen and garlands in order to sacrifice unto them, would ever have suffered such things to be done for him, without expressing his abhorrence and detestation of them? And yet your Lordship knows both these have been done for you, and suffered by you, without your having shewn, as far as I can hear, the least dislike[¹].
[¹] I might here take notice of the married women’s being ordered to wear blue knots, the single women pink, and those that are just marriageable, pink and white; the widows that are past child-bearing, to wear white, and those that are not so, blue and white knots; and also of the episcopal knot of Mrs. Hannah Nitschman, (who is, I am informed, the present general Eldress of the congregation) which is sometimes of a purple, and sometimes of a rose colour. These, with many other fanciful things, might be considered; but my mind at present is too full of concern to dwell upon any thing but what more immediately strikes at the welfare of society, and what hath a still more fatal tendency to draw away unwary souls from the simplicity of the gospel. Would to God I could with a safe conscience be excused even from this!