CHAPTER IX.

Wesley's Experience; His Reflections-Peter Böhler: His Doctrine and Life-Conversion of the Two Brothers: Effect Upon Their Ministry.

N his arrival in London (Feb. 3, 1738), and without delay,

gian trustees; gave to them a written account why he had left the colony, and returned to them the instrument whereby they had appointed him minister of Savannah. While on his way to England, upon the bosom of the great deep, his "mind was full of thought," and in the fullness of his heart he made the following entry in his private journal: "I went to America to convert the Indians; but O who shall convert me? who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well-nay, and believe myself, while no danger is near; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. Nor can I say, 'To die is gain.'

I have a sin of fear that, when I've spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore.

I think, verily, if the gospel be true, I am safe; for I not only have given, and do give, all my goods to feed the poor; I not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever God shall appoint for me; but I follow after charity (though not as I ought, yet as I can), if haply I may attain it. I now believe the gospel is true. I show my faith by my works, by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me sees I would be a Christian."

By the most infallible of proofs, he tells us that of his own Consciousness-he was convinced of his having "no such faith in Christ" as prevented his heart from being troubled; and he earnestly prays to be "saved by such a faith as implies peace in life and death." He did not apprehend the promise, "A new heart also will I give you." To attain to a state of entire sanctification was with him the great business of life; he aimed at a high standard of personal holiness; but in the process of this work, his references to the grace of the Holy Spirit were rather

Wesley's Experience.

107

casual and indirect than indicative of an entire dependence upon his presence and agency. A few days afterward, standing again on English soil, he makes in his journal this record of his inward struggles, this estimate of his spiritual condition.

It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgia Indians the nature of Christianity; but what have I learned myself in the meantime? Why (what I the least of all suspected), that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God. "I am not mad," though I thus speak, but "I speak the words of truth and soberness;" if haply some of those who still dream may awake and see that as I am so are they. Are they read in philosophy? So was I. In ancient or modern tongues? So was I also. Are they versed in the science of divinity? I too have studied it many years. Can they talk fluently upon spiritual things? The very same could I do. Are they plenteous in alms? Behold, I give all my goods to feed the poor. Do they give of their labor as well as of their substance? I have labored more abundantly than they all. Are they willing to suffer for their brethren? I have thrown up my friends, reputation, ease, country; I have put my life in my hand, wandering into strange lands; I have given my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God should please to bring upon me. But does all this (be it more or less, it matters not) make me acceptable to God? Does all I ever did or can know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify me in his sight? Yea, or the constant use of all the means of grace (which, nevertheless, is meet, right, and our bounden duty)? Or that I know nothing of myself; that I am, as touching outward, moral righteousness, blameless? Or (to come closer yet) the having a rational conviction of all the truths of Christianity? Does all this give me a claim to the holy, heavenly, divine character of a Christian? By no means. If the oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by "the law and the testimony," all these things, though when ennobled by faith in Christ they are holy, and just, and good, yet without it are "dung and dross," meet only to be purged away by "the fire that never shall be quenched." This, then, have I learned in the ends of the earth-that I "am fallen short of the glory of God;" that my whole heart is "altogether corrupt and abominable," and, consequently, my whole life (seeing it cannot be that an "evil tree" should "bring forth good fruit"); that "alienated" as I am from the life of God, I am "a child of wrath," an heir of hell; that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God, so far from making any atonement for the least of those sins which "are more in number than the hairs of my head," that the most specious of them need an atonement themselves, or they cannot abide his righteous judgment; that "having the sentence of death" in my heart, and having nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no hope but that of being justified freely "through the redemption that is in Jesus;" I have no hope but that if I seek I shall find Christ, and "be found in him, not having my own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

If it be said that I have faith (for many such things have I heard from many miserable comforters), I answer, So have the devils-a sort of faith-but still they are strangers to the covenant of promise. So the apostles had even at Cana in

Galilee, when Jesus first "manifested forth his glory;" even then they in a sort "believed on him," but they had not then "the faith that overcometh the world." The faith I want is "a sure trust and confidence in God, that through the merits of Christ my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favor of God." I want that faith which St. Paul recommends to all the world, especially in his Epistle to the Romans-that faith which enables every one that hath it to cry out: "I live not, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it (though many imagine they have it who have it not); for whosoever hath it is "freed from sin," the whole "body of sin is destroyed" in him; he is freed from fear, "having peace with God through Christ, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God." And he is freed from doubt, "having the love of God shed abroad in his heart through the Holy Ghost which is given unto him;" which "Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit that he is a child of God."

Wesley had been in the Christian ministry for twelve or thirteen years, and having tried legalism and ritualism to the utmost, he found no health in them. He is now ready to be "taught the way of the Lord more perfectly;" and the Lord has prepared a teacher. At the very time when, harassed by persecution and perplexed as to the state of his heart, he resolved to return to his native land, the heads of the Moravian Church in Germany were making arrangements to send a pious and gifted evangelist to America, directing him to pass through England. Little did they imagine what consequences would arise out of the fulfillment of their plans. The hand of God was in it. The man selected for this service was Peter Böhler, who arrived in London just in time to impart the evangelical instruction which Wesley and his brother so greatly needed. The sons of the Anglican Church applied to the son of the Moravian: "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out."

More than three hundred years had passed since the Council of Constance had burned at the stake the two noblest men of Bohemian history-Jerome and Huss. For a long time the people of Moravia and Bohemia had held principles that, in Luther's time, became Protestantism. John Huss and Jerome of Prague (martyred in 1415) were reformers before the Reformation. The latter, after leaving the University of Prague, visited Oxford, and imbibed Wycliffe's principles while copying his works. This ante-Lutheran reformation, though repressed by vigilant and cruel persecutions, was not extinguished. Many families lingered in Bohemia and Moravia from generation to generation,

Renewed Church of the Brethren.

109 retaining, in humble obscurity, the truth for which the Constance martyrs had died. The papal persecutors deemed that in destroying Jerome and Huss they had extinguished the new movement on the continent of Europe; "but a spark from the stake of Constance lighted up at last the flame of Methodism in England and America."

The formal organization of Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of the Brethren (as the Moravian Church calls itself), may be dated in 1467, when their Society became an independent Church, and their ministry was instituted the Waldensian Bishop, Stephen, consecrating to the episcopal office three men who had been sent to him for that purpose by the Moravian Conference or Synod. Toward the close of the fifteenth century, a Bohemian version of the Bible was published. In the sixteenth century, they sent several deputations to Luther, but were deterred from joining the Lutheran or Calvinistic Churches because of the civil entanglements and worldly elements connected with them. At their last interview the great reformer bid them Godspeed, and took leave of them in these words: "Do you be the apostles of the Bohemians, as I and my brethren will be apostles of the Germans." In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the prosperity of the Brethren was at its highest. The Unitas Fratrum was composed of three provinces-the Moravian, the Bohemian, and the Polish each governed by its own bishops and conferences, but all confederated as one Church, holding General Conferences in common. Then began persecutions more vigorous than ever before known. The Unitas Fratrum, as a recognized organization, disappeared from the eyes of the world, and remained as a "hidden seed" for nearly a century. In Moravia many families secretly maintained the views of their fathers. Among these a religious awakening took place in the first quarter of the eighteenth century under Christian David's preaching, which was followed by the usual persecutions; and several Moravians escaped from their native country with David, and found refuge at Berthelsdorf, an estate in Saxony belonging to Count Zinzendorf. This pious nobleman kindly received them, and other Moravians soon joined them. They built a town, and called it Herrnhut; introduced the discipline and perpetuated the ministry of Unitas Fratrum, and in this way the anciert Church was "RENEWED.”

Christian David, an earnest-minded carpenter, led the little company to a piece of land near a mound (the Hutberg or Watchhill), where, lifting his ax, he cleaved a tree, exclaiming: "Here hath the sparrow found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts!" In June, 1722, the first tree was cut down; in October, the exiles entered their new home. "The renewed Church of the Brethren" dates from the foundation of Herrnhut, and in 1732 the infant community, then numbering about six hundred members, first essayed to fulfill the final charge of our ascending Lord by sending out its messengers to the distant nations of the earth.* Most of them poor and destitute exiles, this feeble band of heroic men sent out, during the short period of nine or ten years, missionaries to Greenland, to the West Indies, to the Indians of North America, to Lapland, to Tartary, to Algiers, to Guinea, to the Cape of Good Hope, and to the Island of Ceylon. Having been nearly extinguished in

*The "Brethren," both in America and in Europe, never increased as did many other denominations of Christians. The fundamental principle underlying the efforts of Zinzendorf and his coadjutors, on behalf of the Church at home, was Spener's idea of ecclesiolæ in ecclesia-little churches within the Church-households of faith whose members should be separated as much as possible from the world, and which should constitute retreats where men could hold undisturbed communion with God. This idea, begun at Herrnhut, resulted in the establishment of Moravian settlements-that is, towns founded by the Church, where no one who is not a member was permitted to own real estate, although strangers, complying with the rules of the community, were allowed to lease houses. A system so exclusive kept the Church small, although it was of great advantage in other respects, and served to foster the missionary zeal which has distinguished the Moravians. The last General Synod, held at Herrnhut in 1857, remodeled the constitution, and opened the way for a more general development of the resources of the Church in the home field. The Unitas Fratrum now consists of three provinces-the American, Continental, and British—which govern themselves in all provincial matters, but are confederated as one Church in respect to general principles of doctrine and practice, and the prosecution of the foreign mission work. Each province has a Synod. For the general government of the three provinces and the foreign missions there is a General Synod, which meets every ten or twelve years, and to which each province sends the same number of delegates. The executive board of the General Synod is called the "Unity's Elders' Conference," and is the highest judicatory for the whole Unitas Fratrum, when that Synod is not in session. In the American province there are two districts. The seat of government for the Northern District is at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and for the Southern, at Salem, North Carolina. The home Church in 1860 numbered 19,633 members, while there were 312 missionaries in the foreign field (not counting native assistants), and 74,538 converts.-Appleton's Cyclopedia.