principles, rules, and regulations for discipline. A considerable majority of the settlers having belonged to the church of Moravia, where they had been accustomed to a discipline more personally scrutinizing than that of any other protestant community, desired permission to continue the same in their new settlement; and as the other settlers were dissatisfied with their own respective churches, not from any indifference to religion, but from being disposed to a more inward, serious, and lively exercise of it, there was no hindrance to their becoming thus far delighted with the views of their Moravian brethren. But it was not so easy to bring about unanimity in doctrine. For though the members of the new community, with very few exceptions, were all protestants, yet with respect to the protestant denominations to which they belonged, they consisted of Moravians, Lutherans, and Reformed; and these distinctions were subdivided by the private and peculiar sentiments of many among them. Hence the easiest means of their coalescence, allowing for the impossibility of a multitude seeing exactly alike in every thing, was to have a leader, of sufficient character and influence to mould them, by little and little, after a plan of his own, which should not be decidedly opposed to either of the Confessions subscribed at the peace of Westphalia; as otherwise it could expect no toleration even from our protestant churches. Such a leader did Providence give them in the benevolent nobleman who had so kindly afforded them a place of shelter. Count Zinzendorf, from his early youth, had ardently desired to become active for the advancement of the kingdom of God; and was endued with such abilities and dispositions, as would not admit of his spending his life in occupations merely secular, much less of his confining it to the common benevolence of a fatherly nobleman among his tenants and dependants. His really noble spirit required a larger sphere of signal and active service for the kingdom of God. The occasion was now presented to him, the Herrnhut community having invited and chosen him to preside over them. This was in the year 1727; and he resolved cheerfully to devote to their welfare the rest of his life. He had already been the chief manager of their temporal concerns; but his religious exertions. among them had been only those of a private man; and he had appointed the Berthelsdorf pastor, Rothe, to officiate as their minister. In 1733 he invited also the assistance of Mr. Steinhofer, a Würtemberg clergyman, whose acquaintance he had made on a tour through that country. This was the first occasion

of the Count's intercourse with the church of Würtemberg. But as Steinhofer wished that his own engagement at Herrnhut might not hinder his returning at any time to officiate in his native land, the Count thought it expedient to get the Würtemberg church to recognize that at Herrnhut as a sister community; which he hoped would also be serviceable to it on many other accounts; therefore he went to Tübingen, and presented through Mr. Steinhofer to the Theological Faculty the following inquiry:-" Whether the brethren of the Moravian church at Herrnhut, as agreeing with the Confessions of the protestant church, might be allowed to consider themselves as in ecclesiastical union with the evangelical church of Würtemberg, though they should retain their own well known form of discipline, as it had been established among them for three centuries?" Now, as it was unknown in Würtemberg that many members of the Herrnhut community varied at that time from the doctrinal system of the protestant church, (for the subsequent assimilation of their religious opinions had hardly yet begun to work,) the Theological Faculty felt it the less necessary to hesitate in giving their assent, especially as the Count had gained the hearts of all by his amiable and conciliatory conduct. Bilfinger then drew up the reply in such favourable terms, that the Count reckoned at once upon finding the church of Würtemberg an affectionate and thorough-going patroness of his little community. Upon this occasion it was, that Bengel became personally acquainted with him on the third of April, 1733. Mr. Oetinger, who had been a pupil of Bengel, had related to the Count at Herrnhut much respecting his former tutor, as well as about Bengel's apocalyptical system, and had prevailed with the Count to go with him to Denkendorf upon a visit to Bengel. Here Bengel laid before the Count in a connected manner his views upon prophecy, and particularly upon the Apocalypse.* The Count, at first, so admired all, that he even called Bengel the prophet of age; but found himself afterwards so hard pressed by some of Bengel's particular representations and remarks, that he discontinued the conversation; though, had he gone with Bengel farther into the subject, he might have found some important respects in which both parties were agreed. For they were very closely assimilated in many things. Both loved God from their

the

* See Spangenberg's Life of Zinzendorf; p. 791.

+ See Oetinger's work, entitled, "Conversations between John Conrad Dippel and Count Zinzendorf in the Invisible World;" p. 5.

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earliest days. Both revered the memory of Spener and Franke, and considered the present race of Franke's scholars at Halle incompetent to meet the spiritual demands of the times. Both agreed in believing that every thing relating to the great doctrine of atonement by the blood of the cross, was already deplorably neglected by modern Lutheran divines,* and that this neglect would increase more and more. Both regarded the whole protestant church as sadly corrupted, and as verging more and more to decay; they also together lamented the very great declension of church discipline. But in deciding upon the best method of furthering true religion, suitably to present peculiar necessities, they widely differed. Zinzendorf considered the Lutheran church to be already past recovery; and thought it his duty to call upon her few pious and believing members to form themselves into a new community, and withdraw from her at once, even though it should exhaust her of all her remnant life and savour of christian doctrine. With respect to the new church then to be formed, he would have it most closely bound up with the interests of Christ, by undeviating simplicity of adherence to the doctrine of atonement, and to constant preaching of the word of the cross, as the supreme matter, the very life and soul of all evangelical instruction; in order that such a church might be impervious to the infidel spirit of the times, and prove a salt of the earth to the heathen as well as christian world. Bengel was of opinion, that such a proposed germination, development, and, by and by, universal spread of one renovated, lively, and wakeful little community, intended to supersede every other, was an idea far from agreeing with the method of God's dealings with mankind, and, therefore, it was in vain to expect its realization. He anticipated that God, in his own good time, having made due riddance of the unholy and infidel dregs of Christendom, would constitute his renovated church out of the small surviving remnant.

He further maintained, that not even any such distinct and separate community as Zinzendorf wished to form, could be admitted to share the glories of the millennial kingdom, without undergoing, with the rest of Christendom, much further improvement, during a severe sifting time and purification. He likewise intimated, that as it was insufficient for strengthening a church

Bengel once observed (it was in 1744) that "the present race at Halle had become rather too degenerate to cope with the spirit of the times. That the dignity and seriousness of Spener were no longer there; nor any equivalent in their room. That the good men of that school ought to bestir themselves a little, if in such times as these they wished to answer the intentions of their founder."

against the grand apostasy, singly to hold forth that chief essential doctrine, the atonement by the blood of the cross; so, to invest this with a sort of isolated favouritism, to the comparative neglect of other divine truths and instructions, appeared rather like a piece of narrow worldly policy, or seemed at least to come short of that respect which is due to the whole tenor of scripture. Not to mention, that by favouritism of this sort, we rob ourselves of many other most valuable helps to godliness; as also, that, by inordinately descanting upon the blood of Christ, we may cause many needlessly to stumble at that important doctrine itself. Besides, that we may hereby come to overlook the particular means for encountering the approaching temptation of the whole church militant; which particular means can only be ascertained by carefully observing all the ways of God in the development of his kingdom. With such sentiments, Bengel could not feel that he should be justified in giving up the Lutheran church as yet; but thought it would be much more right to send forth an appeal to all its members, entreating them to give their most serious attention to the scriptural developments of the kingdom of God, as their safest preservative against the future great apostasy, and as their best preparation for the important changes so near at hand.

The difference of sentiment between Zinzendorf and Bengel was certainly here very considerable, and was sufficient, at its first discovery, to put these sincere and worthy men upon separate tracks. But as it was one of Bengel's resolutions, never to commit to the press his thoughts upon any subject till he had some special call for it, he did not publish his "Remarks" upon the Brethren's church till eighteen years afterwards. Meanwhile he followed, as did also the Count, that course which they considered that Providence had appointed them. Zinzendorf, having found that his services to his community were not likely to answer his wishes, without a regular commission to act among them as an ordained minister, went privately to Stralsund, in 1734, and submitted to a divinity examination from the consistorial authorities,* for testimonials of orthodoxy, with a view to ordination. The result was so favourable, that he even thought of establishing a theological seminary in the spirit of his own communion. Having learnt, on his recent tour through Würtemberg, that some of the ancient abbeys of this country were unprovided with

* These were Dr. Gregory Langemach and Dr. Charles Joachim Sibeth.

prelates, he was induced to petition the reigning duke Charles Alexander, for the prelacy of one of those establishments, with permission to found in it a theological seminary. But his petition was, though in a very gracious manner, refused, in consequence of the (catholic) duke's apprehension, that to comply with it would appear like unfaithfulness to his mother church. However, as Spangenberg, whom the Count had deputed upon this business, still found the chief clergy of Würtemberg, and particularly the chancellor, Pfaff, of Tübingen, so kindly disposed to favour his plans, the Count thought it worth while, on the second of November, to write to the Würtemberg consistory, stating, that, having "addicted himself," after the apostolical pattern, (1 Cor. xvi. 15,) "to the ministry of the saints," he had resolved, in the name of God, to receive ordination to the sacred office; and hoped that the reverend members of the consistory would grant him that divinely authorised help, as well as afford him, upon all future occasions, their spiritual counsel and assistance. As their reply (of Dec. 10) turned out greatly to his satisfaction, he soon after went to Würtemberg, and petitioned the Theological Faculty of Tübingen, that he might be immediately ordained. This was complied with; and, on the following day, the Faculty having sent out their programma, the Count was permitted to preach in the collegiate church, and in that of the hospital at Tübingen. He was now one, as it were, of the clergy of the church of Würtemberg, and sometimes called himself a Würtemberg divine. In the year 1739 he went, for the third time, into that country; preached with great acceptance in several of the towns he passed through, as Pfallingen, Hirschau, Hall, and Heilbronn; and delivered testimonies of his faith at other places. He became still more closely connected with Würtemberg, by Steinhofer's having taken a share in the ministerial charge of Ebersdorf, near to Berthelsdorf;* and likewise by Oetinger's spending a considerable time at Hernnhut. Oetinger endeavoured to persuade the Count and the Hernnhut community to more comprehensive scriptural inquiry, particularly through Bengel's views of the Apocalypse; but the majority did not think it necessary to seek stirring motives from future times, as they considered that to love Christ with a (sopy) pathetic feeling, was better than any incitement from mysterious subjects too

* Steinhofer was in the way of being appointed copastor at Berthelsdorf; but some unexpected obstacles prevented it.