J. E. Hutton

“ If they taught the old theology of Spangenberg, they would be untrue to their convictions; if they taught their convictions, they would be untrue to the Church; and, therefore, they solved the problem by teaching no theology at all. Instead of lecturing on the Bible, they lectured now on philosophy; instead of expounding the teaching of Christ and His Apostles, they expounded the teaching of Kant, Fichte and Jacobi; and when the students became ministers, they had little but philosophy to offer the people. For ordinary people philosophy is as tasteless as the white of an egg. ”

“ But now he was all good humour. "There never have been any Christians," he said, in a lecture to his students, "so like the apostles in doctrine and constitution as these Bohemian Brethren."
"Tell your Brethren," he said to their deputies, "to hold fast what God has given them, and never give up their constitution and discipline. Let them take no heed of revilements. The world will behave foolishly. If you in Bohemia were to live as we do, what is said of us would be said of you, and if we were to live as you do, what is said of you would be said of us." ”

“ Some of the Popes were heretics; some of the clergy were villains, foredoomed to torment in Hell; and, therefore, all in search of the truth must turn, not to the Pope and the clergy, but to the Bible and the law of Christ. God alone had the power of the keys; God alone must be obeyed; and the Holy Catholic Church consisted, not of the Pope, the Cardinals, the Priests, and so many baptized members, but "of all those that had been chosen by God." It is hard to imagine a doctrine more Protestant than this. ”

“ As the settlers learned to know each other better they learned to love each other less. As poverty crept in at the door love flew out of the window. Instead of trying to help each other, men actually tried to cut each other out in business, just like the rest of the world. As the first flush of joy died away, men pointed out each other's motes, and sarcasm pushed charity from her throne; and, worse than all, there now appeared that demon of discord, theological dispute. The chief leader was a religious crank, named Krüger. He was, of course, no descendant of the Brethren's Church. ”

“ For one man who will steadily follow a principle, there are hundreds who would rather follow a leader. As long as Hus was alive in the flesh, he was able to command the loyalty of the people; but now that his tongue was silent for ever, his followers split into many contending factions. For all his eloquence he had never been able to strike one clear commanding note. In some of his views he was a Catholic, in others a Protestant. To some he was merely the fiery patriot, to others the champion of Church Reform, to others the high-souled moral teacher, to others the enemy of the Pope. ”

“ The whole of Christian perfection is imputed, not inherent. We are perfect in Christ—in ourselves, never."
"What," asked Wesley, in blank amazement, after Zinzendorf had hammered out his point. "Does not a believer, while he increases in love, increase equally in holiness?"
"By no means," said the Count; "the moment he is justified he is sanctified wholly. From that time, even unto death, he is neither more nor less holy. A babe in Christ is as pure in heart as a father in Christ. There is no difference." ”

“ His conscience drew him to the Brethren, his honour held him to the Utraquists, and finally his own father confessor settled the question for him.
"Dear friend," said the holy man, "entrust your soul to the Brethren. Never mind if some of them are hypocrites, who do not obey their own rules. It is your business to obey the rules yourself. What more do you want? If you return to us in Prague, you will meet with none but sinners and sodomites." ”

“ It is absurd to blame the Brethren for mixing in politics, and absurd to say that this mixing was the cause of their ruin. At that time in Bohemia religion and politics were inseparable. If a man took a definite stand in religion he took thereby a definite stand in politics. To be a Protestant was to be a rebel. If Budowa had never lifted a finger, the destruction of the Brethren would have been no less complete. ”

“ You alone, in all the world, combine a wholesome discipline with a pure faith." "We," said Calvin, "have long since recognised the value of such a system, but cannot, in any way, attain to it." "I am pleased," said Melancthon, "with the strict discipline enforced in your congregations. I wish we could have a stricter discipline in ours." It is clear what all this means. It means that the Brethren, in their humble way, had taught the famous Protestant leaders the value of a system of Church discipline and the need of good works as the proper fruit of faith. ”

“ For this pious and utterly unfounded opinion the evidence usually summoned is the fact that Bishop Amos Comenius, in a sermon entitled "Haggai Redivivus," had some rather severe remarks to make about the sins of his Brethren. But Bishops' sermons are dangerous historical evidence. It is not the business of a preacher to tell the whole truth in one discourse. He is not a witness in the box; he is a prophet aiming at some special moral reform. If a Bishop is lecturing his Brethren for their failings he is sure to indulge, not exactly in exaggeration, but in one-sided statements of the facts. ”

“ As the Brethren met on Sunday morning for early worship in the public hall, they joined with one accord in the prayer, "Bless the sweat of the brow and faithfulness in business"; and the only business they allowed was business which they could ask the Lord to bless. To them work was a sacred duty, a delight and a means for the common good. If a man is blessed who has found his work, then blessed were the folk at Herrnhut. "We do not work to live," said the Count; "we live to work." ”

“ It was now exactly fourteen years since Christian David had felled the first tree at Herrnhut; and now for another fourteen years these crumbling walls were to be the home of Moravian life. What the members of the Pilgrim Band were we may know from the very name. They were a travelling Church. They were a body of Christians called to the task, in Zinzendorf's own words, "to proclaim the Saviour to the world"; and the Count's noble motto was: "The earth is the Lord's; all souls are His; I am debtor to all." ”

“ I have been blinded by the reading of German books! I have never found any thing so good in those books as we have in the books of the Brethren. You have no need, beloved Brethren, to seek for instruction from others. You have enough at home. I exhort you to study what you have already; you will find there all you need." Again the discipline was revived in all its vigour; again, by Augusta's advice, the Catechism of Luke was put into common use, and the Brethren began to open schools and teach their principles to others. ”

“ The leader was Comenius himself. As they bade farewell to their native land they did so in the firm conviction that they themselves should see the day when the Church of the Brethren should stand once more in her ancient home; and as they stood on a spur of the Giant Mountains, and saw the old loved hills and dales, the towns and hamlets, the nestling churches, Comenius raised his eyes to heaven and uttered that historic prayer which was to have so marvellous an answer. He prayed that in the old home God would preserve a "Hidden Seed," which would one day grow to a tree ”

“ We sail on the "Harmony" to Labrador, and see the neatly built settlements, the fur-clad Missionary in his dog-drawn sledge, the hardy Eskimos, the squat little children at the village schools, the fathers and mothers at worship in the pointed church, the patients waiting their turn in the surgery in the hospital at Okak. We pass on to Alaska, and steam with the Brethren up the Kuskokwim River. We visit the islands of the West Indies, where Froude, the historian, admired the Moravian Schools, and where his only complaint about these schools was that there were not enough of them. ”

“ It is better, oh, women! for your sons to be hangmen than to be priests; for the hangman only kills the body, while the priest kills the soul. Look there," he suddenly exclaimed one Sunday, pointing to a picture of St. Peter on the wall, "there is as much difference between the priests of to-day and the twelve apostles as there is between that old painting and the living St. Peter in heaven. [6] For the priests have put the devil into the sacraments themselves, and are leading you straight to the fires of Hell."
If an eloquent speaker attacks the clergy, he is sure to draw a crowd. ”

“ As the grocer stood behind his counter, or the weaver plied his flying shuttle, he was toiling, not for himself alone, but for all his Brethren and Sisters. If a man desired to set up in business, he had first to obtain the permission of the Elders; and the Elders refused to grant the permission unless they thought that the business in question was needed by the rest of the people. "No brother," ran the law at Herrnhut, "shall compete with his brother in trade." No man was allowed to lend money on interest without the consent of the Elders. ”

“ In vain Luther, in a friendly letter, urged them to cultivate more knowledge. "We have no need," they replied, "of teachers who understand other tongues, such as Greek and Hebrew. It is not our custom to appoint ministers who have been trained at advanced schools in languages and fine arts. We prefer Bohemians and Germans who have come to a knowledge of the truth through personal experience and practical service, and who are therefore qualified to impart to others the piety they have first acquired themselves. And here we are true to the law of God and the practice of the early Church." ”

“ If we think of the Brethren as retiring hermits, we shall entirely misunderstand their character. They fought the Rationalists with their own weapons; they gave a splendid classical, literary and scientific education; they enforced their discipline on the sons of barons and nobles; they staffed their schools with men of learning and piety; and these men, by taking a personal interest in the religious life of their pupils, trained up a band of fearless warriors for the holy cause of the Gospel. It was this force of personal influence and example that made the schools so famous ”

“ As he rode one day in a covered waggon with two priests of high rank, it so happened that one of them turned to Augusta and urged him to leave the Utraquist Church and join the ranks of the Brethren at Jungbunzlau. Augusta was horrified.
Again he consulted the learned priest; again he received the same strange counsel; and one day the priest ran after him, called him back, and said: "Listen, dear brother! I beseech you, leave us. You will get no good among us. Go to the Brethren at Bunzlau, and there your soul will find rest." Augusta was shocked beyond measure. ”

“ At Marienborn he saw strange sights and heard strange doctrine. At their feasts the Brethren ate like gluttons and drank till they were tipsy. "All godliness, all devotion, all piety," said Rubusch, the general Elder of all the Single Brethren on the Continent, "are no more than so many snares of the devil. Things must be brought to this pass in the community, that nothing shall be spoken of but wounds, wounds, wounds. All other discourse, however Scriptural and pious, must be spued out and trampled under foot." ”

“ They heard the rats and mice hold revels on the worm-eaten staircases, and heard the night wind howl and sough between the broken windows; and from those ruined walls they went out to preach the tidings of the love of Christ in the wigwams of the Indians and the snow-made huts of the Eskimos.
As charity, however, begins at home, the Count and his Brethren began their new labours among the degraded rabble that lived in filth and poverty round the castle. They conducted free schools for the children. They held meetings for men and women in the vaults of the castle. ”

“ But the truth is that the King of Bohemia was now a mere figurehead. The real power lay in the hands of the barons. The barons were Protestant almost to a man.
As the Emperor lay dying a few months later in the castle of Regensburg, he was heard to murmur the words, "The happy time is come." For the Brethren the happy time had come indeed. They knew that the so-called Utraquist Church was Utraquist only in name; they knew that the Bible was read in every village; they knew that Lutheran doctrines were preached in hundreds of Utraquist Churches ”

“ At an early period the whole congregation was divided into ninety unions for prayer, and each band met two or three times a week. The night was as sacred as the day. As the night-watchman went his rounds, he sang a verse at the hour, as follows:—
The clock is eight! to Herrnhut all is told, How Noah and his seven were saved of old, Hear, Brethren, hear! the hour of nine is come! Keep pure each heart, and chasten every home! Hear, Brethren, hear! now ten the hour-hand shows; They only rest who long for night's repose. ”

“ For the life of him Wesley could not understand why a "restless man" of good Christian character should not kneel at the Lord's Table with the Brethren; and to make the insult more stinging still, they actually admitted his companion, Benjamin Ingham. But the real trouble lay at Fetter Lane. It is easy to put our finger on the cause. As long as people hold true to the faith and practice of their fathers they find it easy to live at peace with each other; but as soon as they begin to think for themselves they are sure to differ sooner or later. And that was exactly what happened at Fetter Lane. ”

“ In Germany the settlement system still flourishes. Of the twenty-six Moravian congregations on the Continent, no fewer than twelve are settlements. In most cases these settlements are quiet little Moravian towns, inhabited almost exclusively by Moravians; the Brethren's Houses and Sisters' Houses are still in full working order; the very hotel is under direct church control; and the settlements, therefore, are models of order, sobriety, industry and piety. There the visitor will still find neither poverty nor wealth; there, far from the madding crowd, the angel of peace reigns supreme. ”

“ Augusta throughout had made one fatal blunder. As the Utraquists were now more Protestant in doctrine he thought that they had begun to love the Brethren. The very contrary was the case. If two people agree in nine points out of ten, and only differ in one, they will often quarrel more fiercely with each other than if they disagreed in all the ten. And that was just what happened in Bohemia. The more Protestant the Utraquists became in doctrine, the more jealous they were of the Brethren. ”

“ As the fire of the Hussite Wars died down, a few men in different parts of the country—especially at Chelcic, Wilenow and Divischau—began to take Peter as their spiritual guide. They read his pamphlets with delight, became known as the "Brethren of Chelcic," and wore a distinctive dress, a grey cloak with a cord tied round the waist. The movement spread, the societies multiplied, and thus, in a way no records tell, were laid the foundations of the Church of the Brethren. Did Peter see that Church? We do not know. No one knows when Peter was born, and no one knows when he died. ”