A History of the Moravian Church

by J. E. Hutton

For the first complaint he offered the remedy known as his "Tropus Idea." The whole policy of Zinzendorf lies in those two words. He expounded it fully at a Synod in Marienborn. The more he studied Church history in general, the more convinced he became that over and above all the Christian Churches there was one ideal universal Christian Church; that that ideal Church represented the original religion of Christ; and that now the true mission of the Brethren was to make that ideal Church a reality on God's fair earth. He did not regard any of the Churches of Christ as Churches in this higher sense of the term. He regarded them rather as religious training grounds. He called them, not Churches, but tropuses. He called the Lutheran Church a tropus; he called the Calvinistic Church a tropus; he called the Moravian Church a tropus; he called the Pilgrim Band a tropus; he called the Memnonites a tropus; and by this word "tropus" he meant a religious school in which Christians were trained for membership in the one true Church of Christ. He would not have one of these tropuses destroyed. He regarded them all as essential. He honoured them all as means to a higher end. He would never try to draw a man from his tropus. And now he set a grand task before the Brethren. As the Brethren had no distinctive creed, and taught the original religion of Christ, they must now, he said, regard it as their Divine mission to find room within their broad bosom for men from all the tropuses. They were not merely to restore the Moravian Church; they were to establish a broader, comprehensive Church, to be known as the "Church of the Brethren"; and that Church would be composed of men from every tropus under heaven. Some would be Lutherans, some Reformed, some Anglicans, some Moravians, some Memnonites, some Pilgrims in the foreign field. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, he now revived the old Brethren's ministerial orders of Presbyter, Deacon and Acoluth; and when these men entered on their duties he informed them that they were the servants, not merely of the Moravian Church, but of the wider "Church of the Brethren." If the Count could now have carried out his scheme, he would have had men from various Churches at the head of each tropus in the Church of the Brethren. For the present he did the best he could, and divided the Brethren into three leading tropuses. At the head of the Moravian tropus was Bishop Polycarp Müller; at the head of the Lutheran, first he himself, and then, later, Dr. Hermann, Court Preacher at Dresden; and finally, at the head of the Reformed, first his old friend Bishop Friedrich de Watteville, and then, later, Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man.[98] His scheme was now fairly clear. "In future," he said, "we are all to be Brethren, and our Bishops must be Brethren's Bishops; and, therefore, in this Church of the Brethren there will henceforth be, not only Moravians, but also Lutherans and Calvinists, who cannot find peace in their own Churches on account of brutal theologians."

His second remedy was worse than the disease. The great fault in Zinzendorf's character was lack of ballast. For the last few years he had given way to the habit of despising his own common sense; and instead of using his own judgment he now used the Lot. He had probably learned this habit from the Halle Pietists. He carried his Lot apparatus in his pocket;[99] he consulted it on all sorts of topics; he regarded it as the infallible voice of God. "To me," said he, in a letter to Spangenberg, "the Lot and the Will of God are simply one and the same thing. I am not wise enough to seek God's will by my own mental efforts. I would rather trust an innocent piece of paper than my own feelings." He now endeavoured to teach this faith to his Brethren. He founded a society called "The Order of the Little Fools," {June 2nd, 1743.} and before very long they were nearly all "little fools." His argument here was astounding. He appealed to the well-known words of Christ Himself.[100] As God, he contended, had revealed His will, not to wise men, but to babes, it followed that the more like babes the Brethren became, the more clearly they would understand the mysteries of grace. They were not to use their own brains; they were to wish that they had no brains; they were to be like children in arms; and thus they would overcome all their doubts and banish all their cares. The result was disastrous. It led to the period known as the "Sifting Time." It is the saddest period in the history of the Brethren's Church. For seven years these Brethren took leave of their senses, and allowed their feelings to lead them on in the paths of insensate folly. They began by taking Zinzendorf at his word. They used diminutives for nearly everything. They addressed the Count as "Papa" and "Little Papa"; they spoke of Christ as "Brother Lambkin";[101] and they described themselves as little wound-parsons, cross-wood little splinters, a blessed troop of cross-air[102] birds, cross-air little atoms, cross-air little sponges, and cross-air little pigeons.

The chief sinner was the Count himself. Having thrown his common sense overboard, he gave free rein to his fancy, and came out with an exposition of the Holy Trinity which offended the rules of good taste. He compared the Holy Trinity to a family. The father, said he, was God; the mother was the Holy Ghost; their son was Jesus; and the Church of Christ, the Son's fair bride, was born in the Saviour's Side-wound, was betrothed to Christ on the Cross, was married to Christ in the Holy Communion, and was thus the daughter-in-law of the Father and the Holy Ghost. We can all see the dangers of this. As soon as human images of spiritual truths are pressed beyond decent limits, they lead to frivolity and folly; and that was just the effect at Herrnhaag. The more freely the Brethren used these phrases, the more childish they became. They called the Communion the "Embracing of the Man"; and thus they lost their reverence for things Divine.

But the next move of the Count was even worse. For its origin we must go back a few years in his story. As the Count one day was burning a pile of papers he saw one slip flutter down to the ground untouched by the fire {1734.}. He picked it up, looked at it, and found that it contained the words:—

"Oh, let us in Thy nail-prints see
Our pardon and election free."

At first the effect on Zinzendorf was healthy enough. He regarded the words as a direct message from God. He began to think more of the value of the death of Christ. He altered the style of his preaching; he became more definitely evangelical; and henceforth he taught the doctrine that all happiness and all virtue must centre in the atoning death of Christ. "Since the year 1734," he said, "the atoning sacrifice of Jesus became our only testimony and our one means of salvation." But now he carried this doctrine to excess. Again the cause was his use of the Lot. As long as Zinzendorf used his own mental powers, he was able to make his "Blood and Wounds Theology" a power for good; but as soon as he bade good-bye to his intellect he made his doctrine a laughing-stock and a scandal. Instead of concentrating his attention on the moral and spiritual value of the cross, he now began to lay all the stress on the mere physical details. He composed a "Litany of the Wounds"; and the Brethren could now talk and sing of nothing else {1743.}. "We stick," they said, "to the Blood and Wounds Theology. We will preach nothing but Jesus the Crucified. We will look for nothing else in the Bible but the Lamb and His Wounds, and again Wounds, and Blood and Blood." Above all they began to worship the Side-wound. "We stick," they declared, "to the Lambkin and His little Side-wound. It is useless to call this folly. We dote upon it. We are in love with it. We shall stay for ever in the little side-hole, where we are so unspeakably blessed."

Still worse, these men now forgot the main moral principle of the Christian religion. Instead of living for others they lived for themselves. Instead of working hard for their living they were now enjoying themselves at the Count's expense; instead of plain living and high thinking they had high living and low thinking; and instead of spending their money on the poor they spent it now on grand illuminations, transparent pictures, and gorgeous musical festivals. No longer was their religion a discipline. It was a luxury, an orgy, a pastime. At Herrnhut the ruling principle was law; at Herrnhaag the ruling principle was liberty. At Herrnhut their religion was legal; at Herrnhaag it was supposed to be evangelical. The walls of their meeting-house were daubed with flaming pictures. In the centre of the ceiling was a picture of the Ascension; in one corner, Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus on the Resurrection morning; in another, our Lord making himself known to the two disciples at Emmaus; in a third Thomas thrusting his hand in the Saviour's side; in a fourth, Peter leaping from a boat to greet the Risen Master on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias. The four walls were equally gorgeous. At one end of the hall was a picture of the Jew's Passover, some Hebrews sprinkling blood on the door-posts, and the destroying angel passing. At the opposite end was a picture of the Last Supper; on another wall Moses lifting up the brazen serpent; on the fourth the Crucifixion. We can easily see the purpose of these pictures. They were all meant to teach the same great lesson. They were appeals through the eye to the heart. They were sermons in paint. If the Brethren had halted here they had done well. But again they rode their horse to death. For them pictures and hymns were not enough. At Marienborn Castle they now held a series of birthday festivals in honour of Zinzendorf, Anna Nitschmann and other Moravian worthies; and these festivals must have cost thousands of pounds. At such times the old castle gleamed with a thousand lights. At night, says a visitor, the building seemed on fire. The walls were hung with festoons. The hall was ornamented with boughs. The pillars were decked with lights, spirally disposed, and the seats were covered with fine linen, set off with sightly ribbons.

But the worst feature of this riotous life is still to be mentioned. If there is any topic requiring delicate treatment, it is surely the question of sexual morality; and now the Count made the great mistake of throwing aside the cloak of modesty and speaking out on sins of the flesh in the plainest possible language. He delivered a series of discourses on moral purity; and in those discourses he used expressions which would hardly be permitted now except in a medical treatise. His purpose was certainly good. He contended that he had the Bible on his side; that the morals of the age were bad; and that the time for plain speaking had come. "At that time," he said, "when the Brethren's congregations appeared afresh on the horizon of the Church, he found, on the one hand, the lust of concupiscence carried to the utmost pitch possible, and the youth almost totally ruined; and on the other hand some few thoughtful persons who proposed a spirituality like the angels." But again the Brethren rode their horse to death. They were not immoral, they were only silly. They talked too freely about these delicate topics; they sang about them in their hymns; they had these hymns published in a volume known as the "Twelfth Appendix" to their Hymn-book; and thus they innocently gave the public the impression that they revelled, for its own sake, in coarse and filthy language.

What judgment are we to pass on all these follies? For the Brethren we may fairly enter the plea that most of them were humble and simple-minded men; that, on the whole, they meant well; and that, in their zeal for the Gospel of Christ, they allowed their feelings to carry them away. And further, let us bear in mind that, despite their foolish style of speech, they were still heroes of the Cross. They had still a burning love for Christ; they were still willing to serve abroad; and they still went out to foreign lands, and laid down their lives for the sake of Him who had laid down His for them. As John Cennick was on his visit to Herrnhaag (1746), he was amazed by the splendid spirit of devotion shown. He found himself at the hub of the missionary world. He saw portraits of missionaries on every hand. He heard a hymn sung in twenty-two different languages. He heard sermons in German, Esthonian, French, Spanish, Swedish, Lettish, Bohemian, Dutch, Hebrew, Danish, and Eskimo. He heard letters read from missionaries in every quarter of the globe.

"Are you ready," said Zinzendorf to John Soerensen, "to serve the Saviour in Greenland?"