CHURCH HISTORY

Chapter 75

The Count von Zinzendorf

The Herrnhutters

One of the young men who had been instructed by Francke was the Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. He was born in Dresden in the year 1700, a descendant of an ancient Austrian noble family. He lost his lather in early childhood and was brought up by a pious grandmother and aunt. While yet a child the young Count manifested an ardent love for the Lord Jesus. In childish simplicity he prayed to the precious Saviour and went with all his needs to Him. When he became older this love towards the Lord Jesus remained with him. When he had reached the age of fifteen, being a student at Halle, he established an organization with some of his friends, which members bound themselves to love the Lord Jesus, to remain faithful unto Him, and to consecrate their lives to also lead others to Christ, especially Jews and heathens, by means of His Word and by example. The members of this organization, which was called “The Order of the Grain of Mustard Seed,’ carried as a badge of their order a little shield with the image of the Saviour upon it, and under which was written: “He is our Salvation”; and around the edge these words were found: “None of us liveth to himself.”

In the year 1716 Zinzendorf left Halle and departed for the University at Wittenberg. According to the wish of his relatives he studied law; at the same time, however, he also pursued the study of theology, for it was the desire of his heart that the Lord would use him for the preaching of His Word. When he left the University he traveled to Holland, France, and Switzerland. Of all that he saw, nothing made such an impression upon him as a painting which he saw in a museum at Dusseldorf. This was an illustration of the Lord Jesus on the cross, with these words written under it: “This I did for you. What are you doing for me?”

Zinzendorf could scarcely take his eyes away from this painting, and very fervently he prayed to the Lord to grant that he might live in communion with God, to the end that he might bear fruit to His glory and the welfare of his fellow-creatures. The world had lost all attractiveness for him, and he desired nothing else than to live for the Lord. When he returned from his journey he received an appointment to the council of state from the Saxon government. He could find no pleasure in a busy city life, however, and after a short time he resigned his position and withdrew from public affairs to the quietness of his estate at Berthelsdorf, where he desired to be engaged in the service of the Lord.

In the year 1722 a company of Moravians went to Berthelsdorf seeking a place of refuge on the estate of the Count von Zinzendorf because of the persecution. They were also known as Bohemian Brethren, descendants of the first followers of the Bohemian reformer, John Huss. This sect originally flourished in Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland, but was disrupted and greatly suppressed in the 17th century. In Moravia their chief residence was at Fulneck, where they also became known as the Moravian Brethren. When peace was signed at Munster the freedom of religion was granted to the Protestants in Germany, but the Bohemian Brethren were nevertheless persecuted because they refused to unite with the Lutheran and Reformed churches.

Zinzendorf received these refugees very kindly and permitted them to settle on his estate. Thus a colony was soon formed in Germany. On the 22nd of June one of the brethren, by the name of Christian David, cut down the first tree for the building of the new settlement, exclaiming: “Here the sparrow hath found her house and the swallow her nest, beneath Thine altars, O Lord of Hosts!” The brethren united in prayer to beseech the Lord to take them under His protection. Therefore, they gave their colony the name of “Herrnhut,” or the “Lord’s Lodge.”

A certain historian has recorded the following about the Count von Zinzendorf and the Moravians: “Zinzendorf with some of the Moravians developed some strange and unique ideas. He laid extreme emphasis on Christ as the heart of religion. This led to great sentimentality in sermons and in hymns. The sufferings of Christ occupied the mind of Zinzendorf a great deal. His ideas were often both fanciful and sentimental. That was especially true of his ideas concerning Christ’s wounded side. He loved to dwell on the idea that the Church had been drawn from the side of Christ, as Eve from Adam’s. He also dwelled much on the fact that men must become as little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. This led him to indulge frequently in many childish expressions. (This is better than to be high-minded and to have no true pietism—The translator). Gradually, however Zinzendorf and the Moravians discarded many of these peculiar ideas.

“Zinzendorf was a Pietist Lutheran. He had wanted the Moravians to become members of the Lutheran Church on the basis of Spener’s idea. In the end, however, the Moravians organized themselves as a separate church with bishops, elders, and deacons. Actually their form of church government became more Presbyterian than Episcopal.”

Now to return, in such a manner the foundation was laid for a new church of the Brethren, which was also named the congregation of the Herrnhutters, after their first colony. Soon these first refugees were followed by others, so that after about five years the congregation already totalled two hundred members. Zinzendorf and his friend, De Watteville, were chosen as directors of the congregation. The purpose which the Count had in mind when as a lad he organized the Order of the Mustard Seed, he could now seek to attain on a larger scale. He desired to form a congregation whose members, bound with brotherly love to each other, would seek the coming of God’s kingdom amongst Jews and heathens. To build up such a congregation Zinzendorf offered all his gifts and strength, yea, all that he had. With the greatest precision he directed the affairs of the congregation; he likewise sought to excite and encourage the members of the congregation to be active in the service of the Lord, each in his own sphere. We shall see that the members of the Church of the Brethren soon understood their calling to advance missionary work among the heathens.

Zinzendorf could not see the necessity of formulating what the congregation believed in a written confession; it was rather his desire to form a congregation whore all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ would be admitted regardless of confession. It was only some time later, when the church councils of Saxony insisted that they should adopt a confession, that the Herrnhutters declared that they wished to hold to the Augsburg Confession of Paith. Hence, notwithstanding the good purposes of the Count, he directed the congregation more one-sidedly to desire religious feeling rather than to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

On the 9th of May, 1760, Zinzendorf died; history says that his end was peace. The loss was felt deeply by the congregation for whom he had done so much. They wrote upon his tombstone: “He was raised up to bear fruit, a fruit that shall remain.” The Church of the Brethren was not brought to nothing after the death of Zinzendorf, but on the contrary it was established also in various other countries, even in America. In the year 1748 the Herrnhutters established a congregation at Zeist, Holland, after having tried in vain to do so in Ysselstein. The missionary work which Zinzendorf had sought to advance with such great zeal is yet continually taken to heart by the Church of the Brethren. Zinzendorf considered the brethren of the Moravian Church as soldiers of Christ, the King of Kings, who were called to go throughout the whole world to bring the message of the Gospel. No church in those days was as zealous in the field of foreign missionary labor as they were. Today they carry on their misisonary work in Greenland, Labrador, Alaska, the West Indies, in South and East Africa, Victoria, Queensland, Tibet, and among the North American Indians. The Moravian Church presently has well over 40,000 members in the United States and Canada alone.

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