Page 7 - History of UB Church by A. Funkhouser Ver 1
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the remarkable Wesleyan revival of after years. Much of the spirit of the Moravians was carried into
the Methodist movement, both Wesley and Whitefield having a very warm feeling for these people.
In 1735 Moravian missionaries reached America, Count Zinzendorf himself following in 1742. In
1741 Bishop Spangenburg and others issued a call for any Christians of whatsoever name to meet
in a convention at Germantown, "to see how near all. could come together on fundamental points."
Representatives of all the German sects, and perhaps others, were present at the meeting on New
Year's day, 1742. The spirit of it was exactly similar to the movement afterward led by Otterbein.
The doctrinal spirit of those taking part in it was Arminian and not Calvinistic. It was pre-eminently
a missionary body.
Yet this movement, begun in so promising a way, was wrecked by the bitter opposition of the
Lutheran and Reformed pastors, who were opposed to the idea of a church composed only of
converted persons. Wherever the Moravian missionaries went, they found the seeds of prejudice
sown in advance, to embarrass and in some degree to frustrate their efforts.
This opening chapter of our book may not at a first glance seem to have a direct bearing on the
history of the United Brethren in Christ. Yet it will show that the older bodies bearing almost
precisely the same name were precisely the same in spirit, and also that they had brought down to
our modern era the spirit of the Apostolic Church.
"The number of enlightened Christians, who, before the rise of Luther, adhered unswervingly to
the doctrine and discipline of the Church which Christ had established, was very great; and the
unblenching testimony they bore against popery, the evangelical light they dispersed by their
preaching and their circulation of the Scriptures, and the remarkable heroism displayed by so many
thousands, while suffering a cruel death, did far more to make the papal power odious, and to
prepare the public mind to respond to the voice of the reformers, than is generally supposed."
To the above quotation from Lawrence, it may be added that the very existence of the pre-
Reformation Protestants is an irresistible argument for the correctness of their views concerning
the Apostolic Church. The church as reorganized by Constantine and his successors has a long
history of bigoted intolerance and savage persecution, and is mainly responsible for the religious
wars that for several centuries drenched Europe in blood. Yet it is no more than fair to state that if
the church of the Middle Ages appears in the light of history as an apostate church, the Catholic
Church of to-day is the product of a counter-reformation within that church, just as the various
Protestant churches are the product of the Protestant Reformation.
7 Apostolic Christianity before Otterbein
the Methodist movement, both Wesley and Whitefield having a very warm feeling for these people.
In 1735 Moravian missionaries reached America, Count Zinzendorf himself following in 1742. In
1741 Bishop Spangenburg and others issued a call for any Christians of whatsoever name to meet
in a convention at Germantown, "to see how near all. could come together on fundamental points."
Representatives of all the German sects, and perhaps others, were present at the meeting on New
Year's day, 1742. The spirit of it was exactly similar to the movement afterward led by Otterbein.
The doctrinal spirit of those taking part in it was Arminian and not Calvinistic. It was pre-eminently
a missionary body.
Yet this movement, begun in so promising a way, was wrecked by the bitter opposition of the
Lutheran and Reformed pastors, who were opposed to the idea of a church composed only of
converted persons. Wherever the Moravian missionaries went, they found the seeds of prejudice
sown in advance, to embarrass and in some degree to frustrate their efforts.
This opening chapter of our book may not at a first glance seem to have a direct bearing on the
history of the United Brethren in Christ. Yet it will show that the older bodies bearing almost
precisely the same name were precisely the same in spirit, and also that they had brought down to
our modern era the spirit of the Apostolic Church.
"The number of enlightened Christians, who, before the rise of Luther, adhered unswervingly to
the doctrine and discipline of the Church which Christ had established, was very great; and the
unblenching testimony they bore against popery, the evangelical light they dispersed by their
preaching and their circulation of the Scriptures, and the remarkable heroism displayed by so many
thousands, while suffering a cruel death, did far more to make the papal power odious, and to
prepare the public mind to respond to the voice of the reformers, than is generally supposed."
To the above quotation from Lawrence, it may be added that the very existence of the pre-
Reformation Protestants is an irresistible argument for the correctness of their views concerning
the Apostolic Church. The church as reorganized by Constantine and his successors has a long
history of bigoted intolerance and savage persecution, and is mainly responsible for the religious
wars that for several centuries drenched Europe in blood. Yet it is no more than fair to state that if
the church of the Middle Ages appears in the light of history as an apostate church, the Catholic
Church of to-day is the product of a counter-reformation within that church, just as the various
Protestant churches are the product of the Protestant Reformation.
7 Apostolic Christianity before Otterbein
