John Gambold: The Moravian Bishop Who Left the Church of England for the Unitas Fratrum

 

• A Welsh Beginning: Birth in Puncheston

• Oxford: Christ Church and the Holy Club

• The Wesley Connection: Charles, John, and the Methodist Forerunner

• Ordination: Priest in the Church of England

• Stanton Harcourt: A Quiet Vicarage

• The Moravian Influence: Peter Boehler and Count Zinzendorf

• A Break with Wesley: Diverging Paths

• Resignation and New Allegiance: Joining the Moravians

• Marriage and Ministry: Elizabeth Walker and Fetter Lane

• Bishop of the Unitas Fratrum: A Life of Service

A Welsh Beginning: Birth in Puncheston

John Gambold was born on April 10, 1711, in Puncheston, a village in Pembrokeshire, in the southwest of Wales. He was the son of William Gambold, a clergyman in the Church of England, and he was raised in a household where the traditions of the Anglican church were maintained. His early education was at home, a preparation for the university that would follow.

Pembrokeshire was a land of hills and coast, a place where the Welsh language and the English language coexisted. Gambold was a Welshman who would make his career in England, but his roots were in the soil of Wales.

Oxford: Christ Church and the Holy Club

In 1726, Gambold became a servitor at Christ Church, Oxford. The servitor was a student who worked for his keep, a position of humility that was a stepping stone to a degree. Oxford in the early eighteenth century was a center of learning, but it was also a place of religious fervor, a place where the movements that would shape the English church were being formed.

Gambold enjoyed poetry and drama. His father s death in 1728 affected him deeply, and for a couple of years he abandoned himself to religious melancholy. The loss of his father was a turning point, a crisis that led him to a deeper engagement with his faith.

In March 1730, Gambold became friends with Charles Wesley, who had entered at Christ Church in the same year. The friendship was a fateful one. Charles brought him under the influence of his brother, John Wesley, and Gambold joined the Holy Club, a group of students who met for prayer, study, and religious discipline. The Holy Club was a forerunner to the Methodist church, and Gambold s account of this time, written in 1736, is one of the most important primary sources for the early history of Methodism.

The Wesley Connection: Charles, John, and the Methodist Forerunner

The Wesley brothers were the leaders of the Holy Club, and their influence on Gambold was profound. He was drawn to their piety, their discipline, and their commitment to the religious life. But Gambold was different from the Wesleys in one important respect: he preferred quietism to evangelistic activity. He was more inclined to the study of the early Greek Fathers, and he was captivated by their mysticism.

The tension between the active evangelism of the Wesleys and the contemplative quietism of Gambold would eventually lead to a break between them. But in the early 1730s, they were united in their pursuit of holiness.

Ordination: Priest in the Church of England

Gambold entered for the Anglican priesthood and was ordained in September 1733 by John Potter, the Bishop of Oxford. The ordination was the culmination of his studies, and it marked his entry into the ministry of the Church of England.

In 1735, he became vicar of Stanton Harcourt, a village in Oxfordshire. The parish was small, and the duties were not onerous. Gambold attended to the duties of his small parish, but he spent much time in contemplation. For about two years, from 1736 to 1768, Keziah Wesley, a sister of the Wesley brothers, was a member of his household. The connection to the Wesley family continued, even as Gambold s path began to diverge from theirs.

The Moravian Influence: Peter Boehler and Count Zinzendorf

When John Wesley returned from Georgia in 1738, he introduced Gambold to the Moravian missionary Peter Boehler. Boehler was a member of the Unitas Fratrum, the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination with roots in the fifteenth-century Hussite movement. The Moravians emphasized the importance of a personal relationship with Christ, and their piety had a profound effect on the Wesleys.

Gambold acted as Boehler s interpreter when he was giving lectures at Oxford. The work of interpretation brought him into close contact with Boehler s teaching, and he was drawn to the Moravian emphasis on the inner life, on the experience of conversion, and on the community of believers.

In 1739, Gambold became influenced by a meeting with Count Zinzendorf, the leader of the Moravian Church. Zinzendorf was a charismatic figure, a nobleman who had dedicated his life to the renewal of the Moravian movement. Gambold later translated Zinzendorf s German addresses, making them accessible to English readers.

A Break with Wesley: Diverging Paths

Gambold s religious musings found expression in a dramatic piece, the most important of his poems, written in 1740. In December of that year, he had a visit from his younger brother, who gave him an account of the London Moravians. He was attracted by the homely warmth of their fellowship.

Accompanying his brother to London in 1741, Gambold came under the influence of Philip Henry Molther, a Moravian leader. The encounter deepened his attraction to the Moravian movement, and he began to distance himself from the Wesleys.

Gambold broke with Wesley on July 2, 1741. The break was a painful one, but it was the result of the diverging paths that the two men were taking. Wesley was committed to the evangelistic work that would become Methodism; Gambold was drawn to the quietism and the mysticism of the Moravians.

He preached before the University of Oxford on December 27, 1741, a sermon of rather high church tinge. The sermon was a statement of his own theological position, a position that was moving away from the mainstream of the Church of England.

Resignation and New Allegiance: Joining the Moravians

In October 1742, Gambold resigned his living. He had been for some little time with the Moravians in London, and he was ready to make a decisive break with the Church of England. He was admitted a member of their society in November, while teaching at a boarding-school in Broadoaks, Essex.

On May 14, 1743, he married Elizabeth Walker, a daughter of Joseph Walker of Littletown in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The marriage was a union of two lives dedicated to the Moravian cause.

He became master at a school at Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, a return to his native Wales. But his time in Wales was brief.

Marriage and Ministry: Elizabeth Walker and Fetter Lane

In November 1744, Gambold returned to London and became a stated preacher at Fetter Lane. Fetter Lane was the center of the Moravian community in London, a place where the Moravians gathered for worship and fellowship. Gambold s preaching was a continuation of his ministry, a ministry that was now firmly within the Moravian tradition.

In December 1745, Wesley found him unwilling to renew their former intercourse. The breach between the two men was not healed. They met again in 1763, but Gambold was still shy. Yet Wesley spoke of him to the last, in 1770, as one of the most sensible men in England. The respect between the two men never entirely disappeared, even after their paths had diverged.

Bishop of the Unitas Fratrum: A Life of Service

John Gambold became a bishop of the Unitas Fratrum, the Moravian Church. He served the Moravian community as a leader and as a pastor, a man whose journey from the Church of England to the Moravians had been a journey of conviction. He died on September 13, 1771, at the age of sixty.

His legacy is that of a man who was present at the birth of Methodism, who was a friend of the Wesleys, and who chose a different path. He was a quietist in an age of evangelists, a mystic in an age of reformers. His writings, including his account of the Holy Club, are a source for the history of the religious movements that shaped eighteenth-century England.

Источник: https://california-review.com/component/k2/item/216266