What is the Moravian Church?

In 1457 the Hussites took the name of United Brethren, and were by persecution obliged to live in dens and caves. Many fled to Moravia and others to Poland, carrying with them the truths they had learned. In easier times they again became numerous in Bohemia, so that about A.D. 1500 they numbered nearly 200 congregations in Bohemia and the surrounding countries.

The first migration to Moravia was in 1451. Many of the citizens of Prague, with some of the nobility and learned men, and even some of the most pious of the Calixtines, joined them. They now assumed the name of Unitas Fratrum, or the United Brethren. This was the origin of a community which has continued to our own day. For the space of three years they enjoyed peace and liberty of conscience. The missionary spirit, by which the Moravians have always been so distinguished, displayed itself at that early period of their history. Now the silver line of the Saviour's love and their christian zeal shines brightly. We could not see a trace of it when they were using carnal weapons for the defence of the truth of God. But no sooner did grace shine and their numbers increase, than the Romish priests eyed them with suspicion. Many souls were converted through their preaching, and congregations were formed in different parts of the country.

The United Brethren, thus compelled to leave their homes in Lititz and other towns and villages, were obliged to live in forests and under the shelter of rocks, kindling their fires at night. And, singular as it may seem, they not only employed themselves in comforting each other, but in perfecting, what they called, the constitution of the church; forgetting, as many others have done, that God had perfected the constitution of the church at Pentecost, and revealed it to us in His holy word. About seventy persons held a synod in the woods. Two resolutions were adopted which marked the future character of the Moravians: — 1, That it was necessary to provide fit men for the ministerial office; 2, That they were to be chosen by lot like Matthias in Acts 1:24-26. As a fundamental principle, the Brethren held, "that the holy scriptures are the only rule of faith and practice." At the same time a distinction was made between essentials and non-essentials which leaves ample room for both the human will and the imagination. Essentials belong to the question of man's salvation; non-essentials, to the externals of Christianity such as rites, ceremonies, customs, and ecclesiastical regulations. And, further, these may be altered according to the best of human judgment, so that the great work of the gospel may be promoted. This is human, not exclusively Moravian. It is, practically, the common saying, "The end justifies the means." But surely what God has revealed can never be nonessential, and what He has not revealed should never be introduced into His assembly.

The Brethren who had been banished from Moravia were kindly received in Hungary and Moldavia; and were greatly distinguished by their missionary and other religious labours. About the year 1470, they published in the Bohemian language a translation of the whole Bible. This is the second translation upon record of the Bible into one of the European tongues. It passed through several editions rapidly, and in this way these interesting and devoted people prepared the way for Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin.

It is too often forgotten that Matthias was chosen Jewishly, by lot, before the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven to baptise the believers. The church, properly speaking, was not yet manifested. His election therefore can furnish no precedent for a state of things which was changed and governed by the presence of the Spirit. Nor do we read of the use of lots ever afterwards. The Moravian system, with its usual and blind servility, has tried to copy this and other forms which were peculiar to Jerusalem.

Huss had proclaimed reform of the Roman Church along the lines of Wycliffe, appealing to the Bible, and rejecting papal absolutism. He was martyred, but his ideas lived on, found later in the Bohemian Brethren and in the Moravian Church. They also influenced Martin Luther.

Before considering the Lord's message to Sardis, it will be helpful to us if we contemplate for a little some of the features of the work of the Spirit of God in the Reformation and the instruments which He used. In our previous study we spoke of John Wycliffe, born in England around 1320, who first translated the Bible into English. He was called "The Morning Star of the Reformation." John Huss, born about 1373, and Jerome (1363-1416), both of Bohemia, carried on the torch of truth from Wycliffe. Then there were the Moravian brethren who were distinguished by missionary zeal and labours. They published in the Bohemian language a translation of the Bible around 1470.

The chain of witnesses was now complete. Wesselus, Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Luther were linked together. The silver line of God's grace is thus traceable from the days of the apostles, or at least from the days of Constantine, to the time of Luther. There was no room for a separate line of witnesses till after the union of Church and State. The existence and testimony of the Waldenses have been traced back to these early times. Then we have witnesses for Christ in the Paulicians, the Albigenses, the Wycliffites, the Bohemians, the Moravians, or United Brethren, Savonarola, and other individual Protestants in the different nations of Europe.

Before leaving the Moravians, we may recall to the reader's mind the interesting fact of an early connection between them and the Waldenses, if not the Paulicians. Bohemia and Moravia continued in heathenism as late as the ninth century when they received the gospel from Eastern missionaries; probably also from the Paulicians. Peter Waldo, in the twelfth century, driven from Lyons by persecution, found a refuge in Bohemia, where he laboured for twenty years with great success. In the fourteenth century his followers in Bohemia and Passau are said to have amounted to eighty thousand, and throughout Europe to about eight hundred thousand. The court of Rome, irritated by the zeal and offended by the practices of the united Paulician, Waldensian, Bohemian, and Moravian Christians, resolved on their subjugation to the Roman yoke. Celibacy was enjoined, the cup forbidden to the laity, and the church service performed in Latin. A struggle commenced, the Bohemians protested, Rome persecuted, and though many continued firm, others gradually declined, and lost much of their original purity of doctrine and simplicity of worship. So things continued for about three hundred years, when John Huss and Jerome of Prague again raised the standard of truth, witnessed against the corruptions of Rome, and kindled by the flames of their martyrdom a light which soon spread throughout Europe, and which continues to shine in our day, through the good providence of God. The mysterious way by which the light travelled, we must now trace.*

201 It will be alleged that there was individual sanctity. Now that there were God's hidden ones in all times I cannot doubt a moment. And if the character of their holiness shewed want of scriptural light, it was not necessarily the less sincere. Still it is beyond all question that the universal unholiness of the professing world, and especially of the priests, and the idolatry prevalent in Christendom, exposed those whose consciences were oppressed by what was all around them to fall into the snares laid for them by Satan in the shape of false doctrine. The effect of this was, that Christendom was composed of, first, unholy, iniquitous, and persecuting orthodoxy (a few souls groaning under the state of things, such as Bernard, who said, All that remained was for Antichrist to come; and others, that he was born already at Rome); secondly, of a vast number (for they filled the country from Asia to Spain) who had fallen into Manichean notions, and sought holiness by judging all matter as itself unholy, but whose devoted and blameless walk won the conscience of the population, till they were put down by fire and sword; and thirdly, of a number — whose doctrines it is hard to discover — whose constancy and blameless walk astonished conscientious men; and lastly, of others who were counted only schismatics, whose only fault was that they could not own the corruption which reigned around them. One class or another of these was spread all over Europe. It is a sad history; for they were all hunted as wild beasts all over the country, burned and tortured, and it is often hard to ascertain what they really did hold. The inquisition was invented for putting them down. Of one large class, Albigenses and Waldenses (of whom the former, I suppose, were, as to their leaders at any rate, more or less Manichean), the judgments at Toulouse may be found in the end of Limborch's History of the Inquisition, other notices in many popular books. and a good deal of research as to them collected in a note to Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae. Of the Moravians, before they were driven out of Bohemia and Moravia, the best account is a German work — History of the Bohemian Brethren by Gindely. Prague, 1857.

340 George, who began the practical separation in Bohemia and Moravia, after the fall of the Hussites, began with morality, knew nothing of justification by faith as to clearness of doctrine. It was introduced later among them, and through much opposition, and alas! through the Lutherans with great relaxation of practice.