USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Bethlehem > A history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, with some account of its founders and their early activity in America > Part 25
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
and institutions were supposed to have, then the obligation to all stand together in the matter, regardless of different individual views on the subject, was naturally laid upon all.
Thus the Moravians, as a body of people professing that the main object of their organized activities was to propagate the gospel of peace, became allied, before the public, with what have sometimes been styled the group of "peace sects" in Pennsylvania. To secure exemption from bearing arms, as well as from taking oath, not only in the North American colonies, but in all British dominions, was felt to be highly desirable. Besides this, in view of much popular misapprehension in reference to the Brethren's Church, historically and doctrinally-for the extravagant aberrations of the period of a few years through which a portion of it had been passing did not represent its real doctrines and principles-it was wished to have a thorough investigation take place, in the hope that an official recog- nition of the Church might be formally and explicitly granted by the English authorities, such as had not been included in the act of 1747. To this end Henry Cossart, agent in England, and others were dili- gently gathering material in the form of documentary evidence bear- ing upon every question that might be raised in the course of such an investigation. In order to give the history of this important matter in this connection, it is necessary to here overrun somewhat the period of time covered by this chapter. On September 16, 1748, Zinzendorf was constituted a kind of plenipotentiary by the Synod of the Church, under the title of Advocatus Fratrum, to personally nego- tiate in its name with authorities, particularly in Holland and Eng- land. In the latter country, after he took up his residence there with his cabinet of counselors, in January, 1749, he passed in that capa- city as "the Lord Advocate of the Brethren" in official circles. As such, he gave a power of attorney, on December 13, 1748, to six leading men, including Cossart, to proceed with the business in hand in his name. Meanwhile the palpable occasion for presenting the petition to Parliament in behalf of the Church, which practical men knew would strengthen the appeal and furnish the kind of basis to which most attention would at first be paid, appeared in the arrival of Captain Garrison at London with the Irene from Holland, January II, 1749, having on board a large colony bound for Pennsylvania.15
15 This colony of 120 is sometimes called the "Third Sea Congregation," also the " John Nitschmann Colony," because at the head of it was Bishop John Nitschmann, who was going to Pennsylvania to take command under a new order of things. Bishop David Nitschmann also returned to America with this colony. The names will all appear in the next chapter.
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1745 -- 1748.
It was presumed that the appeal for the distinct privileges sought in their behalf would bring on the desired investigation. Zinzendorf was reluctant to have it start on this matter-of-fact basis on which the material interests represented in Parliament by the Board of Trade for the colonies would weigh in the question, but he yielded and let it take this course.
On February 20, 1749, General Oglethorpe moved in the House of Commons that the House co-operate with the Brethren to encour- age their settling in the colonies. This was carried, with but one dissenting voice, and a Committee of Inquiry of upwards of forty members was appointed, of which Oglethorpe was chosen chairman. On March 14, he reported to the House that the committee to whom the petition of the "Deputies from the United Moravian Churches" -five empowered by Zinzendorf as Advocatus together with Cossart, had been referred, had examined the same and directed that it be reported. It was subsequently read in the House and it was "ordered that leave be given to bring in a Bill for encouraging the people known by the name of Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren to settle in his Majesty's colonies in America." Prior to the first reading, they were called "the Moravian Brethren" in the title of the proposed act and in naming them in the body of it, but in accordance with Zinzendorf's emphatic desire, this title was then changed to Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren. After the third reading, on April 15, a new committee of seventy members was, on motion, appointed to review the report of the first committee. The report was sustained, passed the Commons, April 18, and was then engrossed as "an Act of Parliament." In the House of Lords, con- trary to the expectation of some, it was found that the bench of Bishops had decided to not delay its passage, from the standpoint of ecclesiastical recognition, and the adverse position taken by the Bishop of London, from the narrower point of view of his jurisdic- tion in the American colonies, was also overcome. Then the min- isterial party in the interests of the Crown, as distinct from those represented by the Board of Trade, resorted to obstructive tactics, by moving, on April 23, that the Lords, as a committee of the whole, take up the matter de novo, thus subjecting it to the ordeal of a third investigating committee. One manoeuvre was the effort to have the benefit of the act limited to German colonists. The Lord Chancellor led in this attempt to obstruct or curtail; and some of the speeches reported reveal how strongly the prejudices against
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Zinzendorf and the Brethren, awakened in some quarters mainly through the German clergy of England's German King, operated against the passage of the act for a while. After an adjournment of the committee of the whole by the Lord Chancellor for six days, a strong speech for the act was made by Lord Halifax, warmly sup- ported by Lords Granville and Sandys, the Duke of Argyle and others, while the Bishop of Worcester "declared the approbation of the whole episcopal bench." Many previous opponents were won over and others concluded to, at least, offer no further active oppo- sition. Then, on that day, May 12, 1749, in the midst of much sus- pense, the act passed, nemine contradicente, and, on June 6, it received the royal sanction.
Among the numerous documents considered by the several com- mittees, two that have particular connection with Pennsylvania may be here mentioned. One, among those produced, "to prove that the Moravian Brethren have settled in his Majesty's dominions in America and met with approbation," was a file of three lists of those "already settled in Pennsylvania" (including their accessions from that Province and the children committed to their care). One reported 395 persons at Bethlehem in February, 1748. Another reported 145 persons at Nazareth, Gnadenthal and Gnadenhuetten at that time. The third gave 122 as the number of children in the institutions at Fredericktown, Germantown and Oley in August, 1748; there being no list of the adults at those three places. Together with these lists, was also presented a certificate from the Inspector of Customs at London "that the ship Irene, from Holland, lately cleared for Philadelphia with about 150 German passengers." She cleared, February 20, and put out to sea, March 1, 1749. The con- cluding statement was added that "the number of the Brethren already settled, and going to settle in Pennsylvania, contained in the said lists and certificates, amounts in the whole to 812 persons."
The other document alluded to was a letter to the chairman of the Committee of Inquiry from Thomas Penn, Esq., Proprietor of Penn- sylvania, under date of February 21, 1749,16 O. S. 1748. It is as follows: "The Deputies of the Moravian Brethren having desired me to certify to you the Behaviour of those settled in Pennsylvania,
16 It may be observed here that the above dates, in connection with these proceedings in England are the old style English dates, historically associated with the documents and records. This deviation from the principle followed in these pages, in the matter of dates, as stated in a previous chapter, seems to be necessary in this case.
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1745-1748.
I am to inform you, that about eight years ago one of the Brethren purchased a Tract of Land containing Five thousand Acres, and set- tled on it, and another Tract, several Hundred People, who have built Two Towns, made good Improvements, and live quietly among their Neighbours. Above One hundred of these People sailed about Ten Days since for Pennsylvania ; they appeared healthy, able-bodied people, and very fit to settle a new Country. As I apprehend they will make good useful Subjects, I cannot but wish them all reason- able Encouragement, especially when I consider their Endeavours to civilize the Indians, and to make them acquainted with Principles of Religion, may .. .. much strengthen the English Interest among those People."
That act of Parliament, taken in all its parts, gave the Moravian Church and its settlements in the American colonies a formally recognized footing such as was enjoyed by no other religious body in these provinces. Besides the recognition of its historic character, its doctrine was declared "to differ in no essential article of faith from that of the Church of England, as set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles." It was thus guaranteed the exercise of its own constitu- tion in its congregations. There was a provision that the Advocatus or the Secretarius of the Church was recognized as the competent person to conduct correspondence or negotiations with the govern- ment in its affairs, whenever occasion occurred, and the names and residences of its bishops were to be certified by him from time to time. It was stipulated that persons claiming the benefit of the act must be furnished with a certificate of membership by a bishop or minister. The act reads in part as follows: "Whereas many of the people of the church or congregation called the Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren are settled in his Majesty's colonies in America, and demean themselves there as a sober, quiet and industrious people . and several of the said Brethren do conscientiously scruple the taking of an oath, and likewise do conscientiously scruple bearing arms, or serving in any military capacity, although they are willing and ready to contribute whatever sums of money shall be thought a reasonable compensation for such service, and which shall be necessary for the defence and support of his Majesty's Person and Government :- and whereas the said congregations are an Ancient Protestant Episcopal Church which has been countenanced and relieved by the Kings of England, your Majesty's predecessors :
"And whereas the encouraging of the said People to settle in America will be beneficial to the said colonies; therefore may it please
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
your Majesty, at the humble petition of (the names of the petitioners) Deputies from the said Moravian Churches, in Behalf of themselves and their United Brethren, that it may be enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, that from and after the 24th day of June, 1749, every person being a member of the said Protestant Episcopal Church, known by the name of Unitas Fratrum or United Brethren ... .. who shall be required upon any lawful occasion to take an oath," etc. Then follow the provisions petitioned for, exempting from oath and military duty and accepting affirmation and assessment of money in lieu of these two obligations respectively, with the various conditions already referred to and certain penalties.17
Thus the standing of the Moravian Church was established in the colonies. The obligation to treat it respectfully, notwithstanding the extravagances with which it had become partially infected at that time, was laid upon the Anglican clergy by their own highest authorities. The fusilade of detraction and calumny in print which those abnormal tendencies had occasioned was to a considerable extent offset through that recognition of the Church by men of such eminence. Its settlement in Pennsylvania and the activities emanating therefrom were secured against permanent damage from any further such oppressive official measures on the part of civil authorities under the incitement of contentious political factions, knavish traders and intolerant religionists, as had been promulgated in New York and were audaciously renewed in 1755, in defiance of this act, but not enforced. Although the slander about alleged complicity in French and Jesuitical intrigues did not cease therefore, yet, a position had been attained from which its further propagation could be withstood, since it had been totally discredited by the British Government.
While those well-managed efforts, of so much consequence to Bethlehem and all related enterprises in Pennsylvania, were in
17 The practical value of this act, prior to the Revolutionary War, was much greater for Moravians in the American colonies, and consequently for the entire Church, than is com- monly represented by modern Moravian writers in Europe, especially in Germany, where no importance is attached by many to the difference between being a Church or a mere association, where the American situation in this respect is imperfectly understood and that act of Parliament is hardly given a place among events of general significance in the history of the Church. Its value in the American colonies came to an end, of course, with the Declaration of Independence.
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1745-1748.
progress in England, important internal changes occurred that rendered the close of the period embraced in this chapter a notable epoch. Their inception lay in plans evolved at several conferences during 1747, between Zinzendorf, who was then holding, temporarily, a peculiar autocratic position in the direction of affairs, and the men he had associated with himself as a kind of cabinet. The central point decided was that the General Eldership which was one of Bishop Spangenberg's functions at Bethlehem should be abolished there, as this peculiar individual, spiritual headship had been set aside in Europe in 1741; and that the idea of the invisible headship of Christ, specially appropriated and applied under the conception of such an ideal Eldership, should be promulgated also in America, with organization and management so reconstructed as to be brought into harmony with this thought. This would mean the termination of the plenipotentiary administration of Spangenberg, as explained at the close of the preceding chapter, and the substitution of a collegiate control by a Conference or Board of Elders, with the lofty and bold thought that the invisible, supreme One, "Head over all things to the Church," should be regarded as in their midst, ruling and directing "as their Chief Elder." In itself considered, this idea of the headship of Christ in the Church on earth was sound and scriptural, and the conception of this headship, as a supreme pastoral relation of the Chief Shepherd to His flock on earth, which He had purchased with His own blood, had its warrant in numerous utter- ances of Christ and His Apostles. The thought of a peculiarly vivid realization and elevating special experience of this spiritual relation to the exalted Saviour, on the part of a group of souls, one in high spiritual mood and intense desire of heart, can not be called an unwarrantable one. That such souls should be led, in a subjective sense, to specially appropriate the blessing of this relation found in such an experience, cannot, in itself considered, be called fanaticism.
That the exalted spiritual mood carried down from such an experience should communicate itself to wider circles, and that the central conception that had been laid hold of, in the midst of it, should appeal to them, as a new treasure of spiritual reality found, was not unnatural. In cherishing and propagating these ideas, however, men were walking on dizzy heights, where not all were able to maintain steadiness and soberness. Zinzendorf, sailing in the clouds with all his thoughts and plans at this period, to a much greater extent than before his return from America or after the crisis in the Wetterau; seeming to almost have an aversion to every-
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
thing that savored of practical thought and simple common sense, or that lay within any conventional lines; seeming to be driven, by the incessant goading of his assailants, into a mania for the extra- ordinary, and to look askance at every sober-minded, well-balanced man in the Church, who tried to hold the process of things down on safe, solid ground, carried the promulgation of this doctrine to extremes that cannot be justified, both in the phraseology employed and in the application of it to governmental machinery, in detail. In the matter of expression and applied use, therefore, the cult that developed under his propensity to pursue every thought to the utter- most, was fairly open to the reproach of fanaticism. Driven to its greatest extreme at the very time when the Wetteravian fever was producing the delirium described in the preceding pages of this chapter, it served to aggravate the distemper. The infatuated conceit fostered, that the body of the Brethren were "the Saviour's people," in a sense different from that in which other bodies of Christians could make this claim, possessed the minds of all who were carried along with this tide, and became the chief offense to those who criticised.
It produced, with the self-complacency already referred to, a kind of lofty, patronizing air towards others, most cultivated among the lesser spirits in the Church, which lingered long after the intense ardor of those years had subsided. That the resort to the use of the lot, after the manner of Zinzendorf, by the conferences of Elders, under the central idea of the Lord Jesus Christ spiritually enthroned in their midst, and believed to over-rule and direct the result in all manner of questions, should increase in frequency, and in the range of things thus dealt with, was consistent with the ideas started out from, and was logically inevitable. In subsequent years, after the enthusiastic fervor which produced the language of the first flush, in connection with it, had passed away, and its employment was reduced to system and grew perfunctory, that language, adhered to, became a kind of mere official cant; just, as in many other respects, among other bodies of Christians, even now, many expressions and ways which originated in peculiar religious enthusiasm and are retained after the fire has burned down, have become empty cant.
The reconstruction to be effected in Pennsylvania, to harmonize with this ideal conception of church government, involved the establishment of the Church and all its operations in the American colonies, as superintended at Bethlehem, on a distinct ecclesiastical basis, different from that on which it stood before, in connection with
1745-1748. 225
the Church of God in the Spirit under the Pennsylvania Synod. This latter, as nominally a union, or joint Synod of different ecclesiastical elements, was to cease. This alliance of elements, so far as they were yet represented in the Synod and were served by ministers provided from Bethlehem, was henceforth to be regarded as com- prising "tropes" of membership within the Brethren's Church; this conception of tropes, as already sufficiently elucidated in these pages, having been more articulately enunciated and formally adopted, as a principle, in Europe, at the Tenth General Synod of the Church, held in January, 1745. All of the congregations in America that were served by the Brethren and that desired to remain in this connection, were to be now organized as congregations of the Brethren-in other words as congregations of the Moravian Church, or at least as missions and itinerant charges of the Church. With this change of base in view, which the altered conditions in Pennsylvania, especially the progress of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches towards general organization with proper, distinct supervision, rendered manifestly expedient, Zinzendorf, on September 13, 1746, wrote a letter resigning his nominal inspectorship of the Lutheran department under the Pennsylvania Synod. At a conference of the ministers who belonged to this department, held at Bethlehem on January 27, 1747, when they were not yet aware of what was in contemplation, it was decided to ask him to reconsider this step and retain the nominal inspectorship, with one of the men located in Pennsylvania serving in the capacity of Vice-Inspector, as before this. It was, however, consummated, and this personal connection of Zinzendorf with the Pennsylvania Synod thus ceased. These changes, being planned in Europe, contemplated also a general internal re-organi- zation, but it was deemed inexpedient, as yet, to abolish the General Economy, or Co-operative Union of Bethlehem and Nazareth, as a practical arrangement for the situation of the time. This was to continue until other reasons should render its dissolution desirable. The question of Spangenberg's further relation to the Economy and to the general work in America, on this altered basis, was, next to the central principle of change in the government, in the abolition of his General Eldership and the promulgation of the Divine Eldership idea, the most important one. In those distant counsels, theorizing and idealizing, with no proper understanding of the vital, practical issues involved in retaining or dispensing with Spangenberg's lead- ership in Pennsylvania at this time, the view prevailed that another
16
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A HISTORY OF BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
man, in closer touch with the latest development of the ideas now to be promulgated at Bethlehem, had better take Spangenberg's place; that the latter had better retire from the leadership, if the idea of the Divine Eldership with the different kind of general man- agement which this would substitute for his superintendency should be introduced. This main question, on which that of Spangenberg's retirement and all others that were involved necessarily turned, was finally submitted to the lot, with an affirmative result, at a special conference of Zinzendorf and his cabinet on December 18, 1747. Earlier in the year, it had been determined that his son-in-law, John de Watteville-consecrated a bishop, June 4, 1747-should undertake a tour of general inspection among the Indian missions as well as in the West Indies. He was therefore commissioned to inaugurate these changes at Bethlehem and in the whole American work. He landed at New York in the third week of September, 1748, with his wife, the Countess Benigna, who had been in Pennsylvania with her father in 1742. On the 19th of that month, about eleven o'clock at night, they unexpectedly arrived at Bethlehem with John Wade who was doing evangelistic work in and about New York, and was awaiting their arrival there, prepared to convey them to Bethlehem. They had been long expected, and it is stated that the people at Bethlehem were overjoyed at their sudden appearance.18
On October 13, a Synod convened at Bethlehem. The sessions were held in the unfinished large house of the single men, the Brethren's House, and continued until October 27. It was the thirteenth Synod held since the return of Spangenberg to Pennsyl- vania in 1744, and the twenty-sixth such convocation since the first held in Germantown in January, 1742. It was the first, however, convoked distinctively as a regular Synod of the Moravian Church. In the manuscript journal it is not called as before, the Pennsylvania Synod, but a "Synod of the Brethren." The numbering of regular Moravian Synods in America begins with this one. Bishop de Watte- ville presided. The various changes and new regulations to be introduced were explained. The more definite system established by the Tenth General Synod of the Church, in 1745, relative to the three
18 With them came five young women. One was Anna Rosina Anders, who for some years served as Eldress or spiritual overseer of the single women at Bethlehem, and was commonly referred to as Sister Anna Rosel. There is an oil portrait of her in the archives at Bethlehem. Another was Elizabeth Lisberger who, on June 2, 1749, was married at Beth- lehem to Thomas Stach, with whom she went to Greenland as a missionary. The others were a Miss Hasselmann, Catherine Barbara Keller and Elizabeth Palmer.
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1745-1748.
grades of the ministry, Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons, in the matter of their respective positions and functions was elucidated; as also the regulations in force in connection with various other ecclesi- astical offices, especially those of Senior and Consenior Civilis and Senior Politicus, as these existed then and were maintained for many years, to have charge of those functions, over against civil authorities and in affairs of state and court, which it was deemed desirable to eliminate from the duties of the bishops. Henry Antes was ordained, at this Synod, a Senior Civilis19 for the Moravian Church in America.
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