Pre-Pentecostal Roots

As early as 1716, the young Zizendorf had been active in establishing numerous prayer groups seeking a closer relationship with Jesus. In 1722 he was approached by a group of Moravians to request permission to live on his lands. He granted this request and soon became intrigued by their teachings and holy lifestyle.

By 1727 Zizendorf had retired from public life to spend all his time with the Moravians on his Berthelsdorf estate. That year he joined with many others in prayer for "a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit." Men, women, and children prayed fervently and wept. Many prayed all night long, and "great emotion prevailed." Pastor Rothe reported that on Sunday, August 10, the whole congregation fell to the dust "overwhelmed by a wonderful and irresistible power of the Lord" and experienced an "ecstasy of feeling." They prayed, sang, and wept till midnight, and then they instituted a twenty-four-hour prayer chain. This "hourly Intercession" continued for over 100 years by relays of brothers and sisters, praying without ceasing for the spiritual awakening of God's church.

On August 13, 1727, a decisive event occurred, which Moravian historians have described as a "signal outpouring of the Holy Spirit," "a modern Pente-cost," and a Moravian "baptism of the Holy Spirit," comparing it to Joel 2, Acts 8, 10, and 19. Zinzendorf called it "the day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the congregation" and "the Pentecost." In the words of a participant, "The Holy Ghost came upon us and in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst."

This spiritual revival resulted in a flood of new hymns, nearly all of which addressed Jesus, adoring Him as God. From this revival also sprang the first organized Protestant missions work, when, in 1731 Leonard Dober and David Nitchmann, were sent to St. Thomas to live among the slaves and preach the Gospel.

While accounts of the "Moravian Pentecost" do not explicitly mention speaking in tongues, the early Moravians, Quakers, Shakers, and similar groups often practiced speaking in tongues and other outward manifestations of Holy Spirit baptism in the 1700s and 1800s.

In his book The Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers, he identified some of the key characteristics of the Quakers as loving one another, loving enemies, refusing to fight, speaking truth with no oaths, refusing to pay tithes to support the state church, not respecting persons, and using plain speech. He emphasized the need of conversion, regeneration, and holiness.

During the regin of William and Mary Penn spent six troubled years in prison or in hiding. Soon, Penn "found himself a prisoner in the Tower of London for denying the Trinity.... To be freed from the Tower, Penn had to show that he did not deny Christ's divinity but only his distinction from God the Father." In defense of the Quakers on this issue, Penn affirmed the deity, humanity, and atoning work of Christ and explained:

[Quakers] believe in the holy three, or Trinity of Father, Word, and Spirit, according to Scripture. And that these three are truly and properly one; of one nature as well as will. But they are very tender of quitting Scripture terms and phrases, for schoolmen's such as distinct and separate persons and subsistences, etc. are; from whence people are apt to entertain gross ideas and notions of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

John Wesley

(1703-1791)

(Portrait by Frank O. Salisbury)

The great revivalist and founder of the Methodist church, John Wesley was one of the most powerful evangelists of all time. During his lifetime he travelled, mostly on horseback, over a quarter of a million miles, and preached over forty thousand sermons, many in the open air, before audiences which were frequently hostile. However, had it not been for an encounter with the Holy Spirit, Wesley may have been just another Anglican preacher.

After a failed attempt as a missionary to the American colonies, Wesley came under the influence of the Moravians and joined in a 'Religious Society' in London. In May 1738 he underwent a profound spiritual experience which he simply described in his May 24 Journal entry as "I felt my heart strangely warmed." January 1, 1739, John and Charles Wesley, Whitefield, and other friends met with the Moravians for all-night prayer. John Wesley reported, "The power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground."

Wesley continued to be impressed by the spirituality of the Moravians, and he adopted some of their ideas and methods. Ultimately, however, he deemed them too mystical (spiritually subjective), and he disagreed with their philosophy of quietism, or detachment from everyday life and uninvolvement with the world. While Wesley certainly advocated separation from worldly influences, he believed Christians should interact vigorously with the society around them.

While there is no clear historical evidence that Wesley himself ever spoke in tongues, such Pentecostal manifestations were common in the services he and his associates lead, and he seems to speak favorably of them in his Journal entries.

The assurance of the free grace of God was the experience of the early Methodists, which the Wesleys set in the Christian tradition of arminianism, emphasising within human freewill the need for holy living as an outcome of faith leading towards 'Christian perfection'. Faith alone was sufficient for salvation, but saving faith would be manifest in good works, including social reforms as well as personal holiness.

George Whitefield

(1714-1770)

Whitefield, an associate of the Wesley brothers brought Methodist revivalism to the American colonies. It is said that John Wesley got much of his spiritual zeal from Whitefield. Certainly the phenomenon of field preaching (the spiritual parent of tent revivals), although not new to Whitefield or Wesley, was brought to its greatest intensity by Whitefield and then turned over to Wesley.

Interestingly, John Wesly, the Oxford Professor, genteel son of an Anglican pastor, would see his greatest revivals among the coal miners of Bristol and factory laborers of London, while this cross-eyed young man, born in a tavern in Gloucester, had his greatest successes in the fine halls of palaces and estates.

Unlike Wesley, modern Pentecostalism owes very little doctrinally to Whitefield. Whitefield remained a Calvinist, breaking with Wesley over the issue of predestination. Instead, his influence lay in keeping alive the Great Awakening and transferring its leadership from the Anglicans of New England to the Baptist and Methodist revivalists of the Colonial West. In accomplishing this, he was greatly assisted by the "old light" theologians who rejected the emotionalism and excesses they saw in revivalism, and forced the Spirit of God to seek more fertile, and more humble, soil.

There is no clear historical evidence that Whitefield ever spoke in tongues. Many consider him to be the best of the early Methodist preachers. Following his example, they preached with great fervor, and the audience responded with high emotion and physical demonstration, much like Pentecostals today. Historical accounts describe people weeping, crying out, shaking, jerking, falling, and dancing under the power of God, resulting in the label of "shouting Methodists." There was strong conviction of sin, joy upon repentance, and ecstasy in worship. The historian Elmer Clark wrote, "Extreme emotional disturbances, ecstasies and bodily seizures of various sorts were common in the Wesleyan Revival of the eighteenth century in England," with people in Methodist meetings exhibiting "violent motor reactions ... convulsions and shakings" and screaming.