Some of the eras of church history are clearly more momentous than others.
The fourth century, for example, saw the resolution of the Arian controversy with the landmark statement of the Nicene Creed; the 16th century witnessed the massive recovery of gospel truth, and the 18th century saw the transatlantic revivals that laid the foundations for modern Evangelicalism.
John Cennick
Now, among those who were vitally used in the establishment of Evangelical roots was the Moravian evangelist John Cennick* (1718–1755). Though largely unknown today to all but students of the 18th-century Evangelical awakenings in the British Isles, in his day he preached (and prayed) with such Evangelical celebrities as John & Charles Wesley, George Whitefield and Howell Harris, and was well regarded by these men. In the words of Arnold Dallimore: ‘(Cennick) was not only one of the greatest preachers of the 18th-century Revival but also one of its greatest saints. In him Moravianism is seen at its loveliest and best’.
Conversion
Cennick grew up in a legalistic Anglican setting, where his mother insisted that he spend the Lord’s Day reading or saying hymns. Not surprisingly, he rebelled against this upbringing in his teen years and immersed himself in card-playing, dancing, and gambling at the race-track.
In 1735, though – the very year in which Howell Harris and George Whitefield were converted – he was smitten with a deep sense of his guilty state. At times he sought flight from his fears of judgment in atheism. At other times, Luther-like, he thought he should join a monastery and, to prepare for a monastic regimen of purging his soul, he took to eating only grass and acorns!
Deliverance came in September 1737 when, in the middle of an Anglican prayer service, Cennick heard the words Psalm 34.9 ‘Great are the troubles of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of all’ (Book of Common Prayer). He realised that his spiritual destitution was being described and that there was mercy available for even he. ‘My heart danced for joy’, he later wrote in his diary – ‘I heard the voice of Jesus, saying, I am thy salvation’.
Neither Wesleyan nor Calvinist
Over the course of the next two years Cennick met Whitefield and John Wesley, became Methodism’s first lay preacher and was deeply involved in the revival then taking place. Theological tensions, however, developed between Cennick and the Wesleys when the former embraced Calvinism, and eventually there was a not-too-pleasant parting of the ways between Cennick and the Wesley brothers. It is ironic that John Wesley had a prayer written by Cennick inscribed on his teapot: ‘Be present at our table, Lord; be here, and everywhere adored; thy creatures bless, and grant that we may feast in Paradise with thee’.
For a while, from 1741 to 1744, Cennick worked alongside the Calvinist Whitefield as his leading assistant, but this also came to an end in 1745 when he joined the Moravians, a small but remarkable body of evangelistic Christians who were based in Germany and who were a catalyst for revival in that era.
Called to preach in Ireland
As a Moravian preacher Cennick travelled throughout the British Isles, especially knowing God’s blessing in Ireland. Some Dublin Baptists who had heard Cennick preach were so inspired by his sermons that they had begged him to visit Ireland. At first, Cennick was not interested. As he later admitted, he had ‘a strong prejudice against the whole Irish nation and people’. During a trip to the Moravian heartland on the continent, though, Cennick could not get the needs of Ireland out of his mind. Eventually, he sailed to Ireland in early June 1746, praying that the Lord would stand by him in ‘this strange country’. He would be the first of the great evangelists of that era to go to the Irish.
To be continued...
Michael Haykin is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
