in 1751, Stuttgart. Count N. L. von Zinzendorf in 1722 granted a settlement on his estate at Berthelsdorf to a few pious refugees from the persecuted church of Moravia. The settlement was named Herrnhut, The watch of the Lord ; and from it, as the parent scion, have emanated the various branches of Moravianism, which have proved such a blessing in different parts of the world. Z. desired that his community should be considered in union with the Evan- gelical Church at Wiirtemberg, though still retaining its own discip- line, as it had existed for three centuries among them. The Theo- logical Faculty of Wiirtemberg gave a favourable reply to his application in 1733, being not at the time aware, that the Herrnhut community varied at the time from the doctrinal system of the Pro- testant Church. But subsequently, having learnt from the Moravian publications (their Hymn-book, and u The present form of the king- dom of the cross”), that the Brethren represented the doctrine of the Trinity in a form offensive to orthodox Lutherans, they (including Bengel) requested Z. in 1747 to furnish a full account of the doctrine and discipline of the Brethren, so as to do away the offence taken at their questionable mode and form of Christian teaching.
Z. considered the Lutheran Church to be past recovery, and that it was the duty of her few pious members to withdraw from her and form themselves into a new community. B., on the contrary, looked for no perfect community in the present dispensation ; and rather anticipated that God would, in His own good time, out of the sur- viving remnant of true believers, constitute a renovated Church. B. also intimated, that as it was insufficient to strengthen the Church against the grand apostasy, singly to hold forth that chief essential doctrine, the atonement by the blood of the cross, so to invest it with an isolated favouritism, to the neglect of other truths, comes short of the respect due to the whole tenor #of Scripture : we there- by rob ourselves of many other helps to godliness. B. at the same time said, u There is a precious thing among them, it is their love to one another and to all men : as individuals, they are excellent, they only want to be conducted right as a community. The sickly wish of seceders has always been to adjust every single hair. It offends me, that the Brethren so frequently omit the name of the Father as our Creator and God, and insist too little on Christ’s resurrection, the moral law, and the value of Biblical knowledge. Z. thinks no part of a clock so useful as the dial-hand : the kingdom of heaven is not so limited to them , that every one who has been converted by others must be deemed behind-hand, until he is incorporated with themselves : Their enterprise is like a forcing of plants in a hot-house, where a few certainly may be brought to perfection before their season ; but it is the open garden that yields the abundance and the sweetest of them, only a little later : Only in proportion to their abiding in humility would the Brethren prove a blessing to the Pro- testant Church and heathen world, whereby it might serve as an