The one dangerous opponent was Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. He objected to the clause about the certificate. If a man wished to prove himself a Moravian, let him do so by bringing witnesses. What use was a Bishop's certificate? It would not be accepted by any judge in the country.
On the other hand, Lord Granville, in a genial speech, spoke highly of the Brethren. As some members were still afraid that the whole country might become Moravians, and refuse to defend our land against her foes, he dismissed their fears by an anecdote about a Quaker. At one time, he said, in the days of his youth, the late famous admiral, Sir Charles Wager, had been mate on a ship commanded by a Quaker; and on one occasion the ship was attacked by a French privateer. What, then, did the Quaker captain do? Instead of fighting the privateer himself, he gave over the command to Wager, captured the privateer, and made his fortune. But the Brethren, he held, were even broader minded than the Quakers.
"I may compare them," he said, "to a casting-net over all Christendom, to enclose all denominations of Christians. If you like episcopacy, they have it; if you choose the Presbytery of Luther or Calvin, they have that also; and if you are pleased with Quakerism, they have something of that."
With this speech Zinzendorf was delighted. As the little difficulty about the certificate had not yet been cleared away, he suggested that the person bringing the certificate should bring witnesses as well; and with this trifling amendment the Bill at last—on May 12th, the Moravian Memorial Day—was carried without a division.
In one sense this Act was a triumph for the Brethren, and yet it scarcely affected their fortunes in England. Its interest is national rather than Moravian. It was a step in the history of religious toleration, and the great principle it embodied was that a religious body is entitled to freedom on the ground of its usefulness to the State. The principle is one of the deepest importance. It is the fundamental principle to-day of religious liberty in England. But the Brethren themselves reaped very little benefit. With the exception of their freedom from the oath and from military service, they still occupied the same position as before the Act was passed. We come here to one of those contradictions which are the glory of all legal systems. On the one hand, by Act of Parliament, they were declared an Episcopal Church, and could hardly, therefore, be regarded as Dissenters; on the other, they were treated as Dissenters still, and still had their churches licensed as "places of worship for the use of Protestant Dissenters."[126]
CHAPTER XIII. — THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS, 1749-1755.
As soon as the Act of Parliament was passed, and the settlement at Herrnhaag had been broken up, the Count resolved that the headquarters of the Brethren's Church should henceforward be in London; and to this intent he now leased a block of buildings at Chelsea, known as Lindsey House. The great house, in altered form, is standing still. It is at the corner of Cheyne Walk and Beaufort Street, and is close to the Thames Embankment. It had once belonged to Sir Thomas More, and also to the ducal family of Ancaster. The designs of Zinzendorf were ambitious. He leased the adjoining Beaufort grounds and gardens, spent £12,000 on the property, had the house remodelled in grandiose style, erected, close by, the "Clock" chapel and a minister's house, laid out a cemetery, known to this day as "Sharon," and thus made preliminary arrangements for the establishment in Chelsea of a Moravian settlement in full working order. In those days Chelsea was a charming London suburb. From the house to the river side lay a terrace, used as a grand parade; from the bank to the water there ran a short flight of steps; and from there the pleasure-boats, with banners flying, took trippers up and down the shining river. For five years this Paradise was the headquarters of the Brethren's Church. There, in grand style, lived the Count himself, with the members of his Pilgrim Band; there the Brethren met in conference; there the archives of the Church were preserved; and there letters and reports were received from all parts of the rapidly extending mission field.
And now the Count led a new campaign in England. As debates in Parliament were not then published in full, it was always open for an enemy to say that the Brethren had obtained their privileges by means of some underhand trick; and in order to give this charge the lie, the Count now published a folio volume, entitled, "Acta Fratrum Unitatis in Anglia." In this volume he took the bull by the horns. He issued it by the advice of Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and Man. It was a thorough and comprehensive treatise, and contained all about the Moravians that an honest and inquiring Briton would need to know. The first part consisted of the principal vouchers that had been examined by the Parliamentary Committee. The next was an article, "The Whole System of the Twenty-one Doctrinal Articles of the Confession of Augsburg"; and here the Brethren set forth their doctrinal beliefs in detail. The next article was "The Brethren's Method of Preaching the Gospel, according to the Synod of Bern, 1532"; and here they explained why they preached so much about the Person and sufferings of Christ. The next article was a series of extracts from the minutes of German Synods; and here the Brethren showed what they meant by such phrases as "Sinnership" and "Blood and Wounds Theology." But the cream of the volume was Zinzendorf's treatise, "The Rationale of the Brethren's Liturgies." He explained why the Brethren spoke so freely on certain moral matters, and contended that while they had sometimes used language which prudish people might condemn as indecent, they had done so from the loftiest motives, and had always maintained among themselves a high standard of purity. At the close of the volume was the Brethren's "Church Litany," revised by Sherlock, Bishop of London, a glossary of their religious terms, and a pathetic request that if the reader was not satisfied yet he should ask for further information. The volume was a challenge to the public. It was an honest manifesto of the Brethren's principles, a declaration that they had nothing to conceal, and a challenge to their enemies to do their worst.
The next task of Zinzendorf was to comfort the Brethren's friends. At this period, while Zinzendorf was resident in London, the whole cause of the Brethren in England was growing at an amazing pace; and in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dublin, and the North of Ireland, the members of the numerous societies and preaching places were clamouring for full admission to the Moravian Church. They assumed a very natural attitude. On the one hand, they wanted to become Moravians; on the other, they objected to the system of discipline enforced so strictly in the settlements, and contended that though it might suit in Germany, it was not fit for independent Britons. But Zinzendorf gave a clear and crushing answer. For the benefit of all good Britons who wished to join the Moravian Church without accepting the Moravian discipline, he issued what he called a "Consolatory Letter";[127] and the consolation that he gave them was that he could not consider their arguments for a moment. He informed them that the Brethren's rules were so strict that candidates could only be received with caution; that the Brethren had no desire to disturb those whose outward mode of religion was already fixed; that they lived in a mystical communion with Christ which others might not understand; and, finally, that they refused point-blank to rob the other Churches of their members, and preferred to act "as a seasonable assistant in an irreligious age, and as a most faithful servant to the other Protestant Churches." Thus were the society members blackballed; and thus did Zinzendorf prove in England that, with all his faults, he was never a schismatic or a poacher on others' preserves.