ZINZENDORFF (Nicholas Lewis), count, was the noted founder of the German religious sect called Moravians, or Herrnhuters. From his own narrative it appears, that when he came of age in 1721, his thoughts were wholly bent on gathering together a little society of believers, among whom he might live, and who should entirely employ themselves in exercises of devotion under him. He accordingly purchased an estate at Bertholdsdorf in Upper Lusatia, where being joined by some followers, he gave the curacy of the village to a man of his own complexion; and Bertholdsdorf
Zinzendorf soon became talked of for a new mode of piety. One Christian David, a carpenter, brought a few protestants from Moravia; they began a new town about half a league from the village, where count Zinzendorf fixed his residence among them, and where great numbers of Moravians flocked and established themselves under his protection: so that in 1732 their number amounted to 600. An adjacent hill, called the Hutberg, gave occasion to these colonists to call their new settlement Huth des Herrn, and afterward Herrnhuth; which may be interpreted "The guard or protection of the Lord;" and from this the whole sect have taken their name. The count spared neither pains nor art to propagate his opinions; he went himself all over Europe, and at least twice to America; and sent his missionaries throughout the world. In 1733 a Herrnhut was established even in Greenland; the society possesses Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, and has a settlement among the Hottentots: China, it is reported, has admitted them; and we know what progress they have made in our own country as well as on the continent. Their discipline is very rigid, and therefore submission to the will of their superiors is inculcated as the will of their Saviour: hence the language they talk in is, "Jesus will have it so; the Lamb commands it;" a language not uncommon in the mouth of spiritual taskmasters. As to the doctrine taught by the Moravians, it may be observed, that enthusiastic devotees in all ages, have been apt to suffer their heavenly affections to stray down to carnal objects; but it was reserved for count Zinzendorf to frame a religious system upon obscene principles. Thus he says, "What is called in the Bible by the hideous name puudentum, or a thing to be ashamed of on account of the fall, is changed by the Saviour into verendum, or a thing to be worshipped." "I consider (says he) the parts for distinguishing both sexes in Christians, as the most honourable of the whole body, my Lord and God having partly inhabited them and partly worn them himself." In conformity to these ideas, he and his followers esteem the conjugal embrace as the highest act of devotion. "Jesus (we are told) is the spouse of all the sisters; the husbands, in the proper sense, are his procurators or agents, and may therefore be called vice-christi, or vice gods: all souls are of the feminine gender; the male quality adapted to bodies at their formation being detached as soon as it is interred." Their discourses and hymns contain a deal of nonsense about the five wounds of Christ; particularly the side hole. Count Zinzendorf died in 1760. Those who wish to know more of the Moravian tenets may consult Rimius's account of them, translated in 1753.