Cennick is one of the lesser-known figures of the eighteenth cenury awakening and to describe him as "forgotten" is fair comment. A new biography by G M Best highlights this neglect in its title John Cennick: the forgotten evangelist.
He should be much better known. In his biography of Wesley A Skevington Wood wrote
No history of the 18th century awakening can be comprehensive which does not recognise the importance of John Cennick.
Arnold Dallimore, writing on Whitefield, says
The 18th century revival produced no more beautiful and holy life than that of John Cennick. It is a sad loss to the christian world that his career has been so flagrantly overlooked.
So we ought to pay attention to him.
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Cennick lived in a time of revival. This revival began among High Church Anglicans but touched all sorts of people including nonconformists who had been ejected from the state church and separatists who never joined it - Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists. The leading revivalists came to be known as Methodists. Early on they divided into Wesleyan or Arminian and Calvinistic Methodists, ie stressing man's role in salvation or God's. At the same time, the Moravians were very influential in the Methodist movement. Cennick was involved successively with all three groups - Wesleyans, Calvinistic Methodists and Moravians - that is one reason he has been forgotten, none of the three groups keeping his memory alive well. It might be useful then to start by attempting to briefly summarise what characterised the three overlapping but distinct groups
Methodists. This term originated in Oxford University where John Wesley (1703-1791) and other students formed what was called 'The Holy Club'. They lived by method so the nickname Methodist was given them. Wesley remained an Anglican all his life but the name eventually became the chief one by which his societies were known. leading to the Methodist denomination. In its widest sense Methodist covers Wesleyans and Calvinists but is often confined to the former. Historically, Wesleyan Methodism is Arminian in theology and teaches Christian perfectionism - Christians can attain to some sort of perfection in this life.
Calvinistic Methodists. From the early days of the Methodist movement there was a Calvinist faction, which was tolerated at first but then fiercely resisted. In Wales, Calvinistic Methodism predominated under the leadership of Daniel Rowland (c 1711-1790), William Williams (1717-1791) and Howell Harris (1714-1773). The names of Cennick and George Whitefield (1714-1770) were strongly associated with it in England as was the Countess of Huntingdon (1717-1791).
Moravians. The Moravians or Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren) has its roots in the Bohemian Reformation led by Jan Hus (1369-1415). The name Moravian arises from the fact that a small group from Moravia was revived following forced exile from there in 1722. Fleeing persecution, they travelled, under Christian David (1692-1751), over a hundred miles to Berthelsdorf, Saxony to find protection under Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760). Zinzendorf was a nobleman brought up in the traditions of Lutheran Pietism but sympathetic to Moravianism as he had read the works of Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670). The Moravians settled on Zinzendorf's estate at Herrnhut near Berthelsdorf. After an initially contentious period, revival broke out among them. The Moravians became a group marked by prayer and missionary zeal and an attraction to communal living. They set up a continuous prayer watch that lasted a hundred years and became outstanding for missionary work in many, many places, well before the modern missionary movement that began in 1792. They also taught what has been called a blood and wounds theology. They emphasised Christ's wounds to a morbid, sometimes sexually charged and often silly extent. Some of this theology was later repudiated as part of the "sifting times".
Wesley first met and was impressed by them when sailing to Georgia in 1735. (He calls them Germans as they spoke German). The Moravians began work in England in 1741, seeking to work alongside the Church of England as far as they could. In 1743 some of the societies gathered by the Yorkshire Methodist Benjamin Ingham (1712-1772) became Moravian.
In their book on Cennick Bold as a lion the Nazarenes Peter Gentry and Paul Taylor divide Cennick's life into four and we will follow that pattern.
Reading
Early years
We are not entirely sure how to say the name. Is it Kennick or Sennick? Nor are its roots clear. Is the source Bohemia as some suggest or is it Welsh or Cornish?
John was born in Reading, Berkshire 300 years ago, on December 12, 1718. His grandparents had been persecuted Quakers but his parents, George and Anna, were Anglicans. His mother instructed him in the faith and made sure he was regularly at church. He later wrote of how she would not let him play on the Lord’s day, confining him to reading indoors or reciting hymns all day with his sisters. At the time he counted it "the worst of bondage and indeed cruelty."
When still young, when his mother took him to see her dying sister he overheard her speak to her maid with great assurance saying she expected to "stand before the Lord as bold as a lion". John's mother spoke of her sister as a poor soul but she replied that she was not a poor soul but rich in Christ! The words greatly impressed themselves on young John. He often recalled them, desiring similar assurance.
His Journal recounts that, as a boy, he was obstinate and sinful, being particularly given to lying, stealing from fellow school pupils, disobeying his parents and Sabbath-breaking. He sometimes dreaded going to bed in case he would drop into hell before morning came. Praying before he slept he would promise God he would improve but never succeeded.
When he was 13 he was sent to his older brother in London to seek an apprenticeship. Despite several attempts, he failed to obtain one. When he was about 15 his mother had a shop built for him but he could not settle to it and finally contented himself with various other types of work. In his mid-teens, he says,
I delighted … in singing songs, talking of the heathen gods, of wars of Jews and Greeks, of Alexander the Great and in the cursed delusion of card playing, in seeing fights, in horse races, in dancing assemblies, revelling and walking with young company.
Conviction
About Easter 1735 he experienced a period of deep conviction of sin. It was a terrible time for him.
I felt at once an uncommon fear and dejection … through the strength of convictions and the fear of going to hell … I knew not any weight before like this.
No distraction would lift the load. Getting away from the town to walk in the country did no good. Even there the terrors of the Lord came on him and the pains of hell took hold of him. A light-hearted companion could only ease the burden for a time.
Whoever I met I envied their happiness. Whatever I heard grieved me; whatever I said or did so troubled me, that I repented that I stirred or broke silence. If I laughed at any thing my heart smote me immediately; and if the occasion was a foolish jest or lie, I thought, alas! I helped not only to ruin my own soul, but the souls of others too.
He gave up worldly amusements and even considered entering a monastery to get peace of mind, all to no avail. Often he would have confusing nightmares. He tried exercise, change of diet and medicines but all proved useless. "I even ate acorns, leaves of trees, crabs, and grass, and wished often heartily that I could bring myself to live only upon roots and herbs" he says. He confesses that he was convicted over his sins yet had no power to stop sinning
I committed it continually, though not in the eyes of the world. My chief sins were pride, murmuring against God, blasphemy, disobedience, and evil concupiscence; sometimes I strove against them, but finding myself always conquered I concluded there was no help.
In church his mind wandered. It seemed to him that his worship mocked God and he even abandoned prayer at one point knowing the prayers of the wicked are an abomination. The devil suggested to him that there was no God. He cried out, ‘Have I sinned more than all the sons of Adam? O that I had never been born.’
He was sure heaven was closed to him. He describes these times.
I stood still and fixed my heavy eyes on the trees, walls or on the ground, amazed above measure, and often crying with a bitter cry, “What must I do to be saved?”‘ He thought of going to the country to be a plough-boy, of even starving himself to death, but he could not get any peace. ‘I could not be thankful for any temporal blessings, because I thought myself so unsettled, and because no blessing satisfied my craving soul or made me wish to stay behind on earth a day … nor could meat, drink, or raiment give me any comfort; I only wanted to know if I had any part in Jesus.
He tried eating only once a day and fasting from Friday breakfast until Sunday noon, when he had communion, but it was no good. ‘No alms, or fasting, or prayers, or watchings could cover my naked soul from almighty wrath.’
This period lasted two or more years during which time even Scripture brought no comfort.
To me all beside the law and the judgements and their terrors were like a book sealed so that I could not read it (as I thought) to profit by it at all.
Conversion
Around August 1737, finding his own efforts to obtain salvation useless, he says,
I began to resign myself to the disposal of God. I gave up my desires and remains of hope; being content to go down to hell … I found that I was willing on any terms to be saved, but was convinced I deserved hell and so bowed to the justice of God.
He began to seek God for mercy. He gave up telling God how good he was and instead
... pleaded the great oblation and sacrifice of Christ crucified, I entreated mercy for his sake alone: I knew my guilt, and was dumb before my God.
He resolved to go to a lonely place on September 7 to wait on God. However the day before was a bad day and he felt very dejected. He heard the church bell ring for prayers and reluctantly went to church. Describing his feelings, he says he left church like some outcast into a foreign land.
... my heart was ready to burst, my soul was on the brink of hell … Had any met me my countenance would have betrayed me as well as my voice and tears.
Entering the church, he fell on his knees aware of his sins and feeling he was bound for hell. ‘It was as if the sword of the Lord was dividing asunder my joints and marrow, my soul and spirit’. Then near the end he read Psalm 34:19 Great are the troubles of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out them all. He says
I had just room to think, “Who can be more destitute than me?”, when I was overwhelmed with joy and believed there was mercy. My heart danced for joy, and my dying soul revived! I no more groaned under the weight of sin. The fears of hell were taken away, and being sensible that Christ loved me, and died for me, I rejoiced in God my Saviour.
He was by this time three months off his nineteenth birthday. Soon Satan returned to buffet him with doubts and he cried aloud for mercy, casting himself on God. One dull day when he was under fierce temptation, suddenly the sun shone through the clouds. It came to his mind, Thus shall the Sun of righteousness arise in thee. He believed the promise, and found the love of God again shed abroad in his heart. He experienced peace from this time on and assurance of salvation.
Cennick's family were not sympathetic to his faith but in 1738 someone gave him a copy of Whitefield's Journals, just then beginning to appear in print, and he knew he had found a fellow believer. He knew nothing else of Whitefield but longed to meet a fellow sinner.
Shortly after the desire formed, he was at a neighbour's house with her and her son and his friend down from Oxford University. When a game of cards was proposed Cennick declined and gave reasons. The Oxford student said he reminded him of a similar student he had met at the university, by the name of Kinchin. Cenick was so starved of fellowship that the next week he walked the 28 miles to Oxford to find this Kinchin. Despite many doubts about finding him, he located the man and had good fellowship with him. This was Rev Charles Kinchin (1711-1742) a member of the Holy Club. Through Kinchin Cennick was introduced to Whitefield and his circle.
Cennick first met Whitefield himself at the London bookshop owned by Moravian James Hutton (1715-1795). He greeted Whitefield as an old friend. It led to being introduced to the Fetter Lane meeting, which Cennick, his sister Sally and a Reading girl, Kesia Wilmot, joined, in 1739.
He first met John Wesley that same year. Wesley was heading down to Hampshire to preach for Kinchin and stopped to preach to the little group Cennick had gathered in his home town, a group rather despised by the local Anglicans. Cennick never lost his love for Anglicanism, despite this. Debating with an Irish Presbyterian in later years he was able honestly to declare himself thus "I am an Episcoplian, every inch of me and every drop of blood in me is Episcopalian".
Bristol and South Gloucestershire
It was the Whitefield connection that led to Cennick serving in the Bristol area. A work had been established among coal miners from Kingswood, just outside Bristol, and Wesley wanted someone to help him with it. There was a school that was about to begin. Prompted by the fact that most pulpits were closed to him and the example of Howell Harris in Wales, Whitefield had begun open air preaching and it had led to the Kingswood work. On returning from America, Wesley also began to preach in the open air and Whitefield made him responsible for the Kingswood work.
The Wesleys, of course, were lifelong Arminians but Whitefield had already espoused Calvinism. This soon led to many problems in the then fledgling Methodist movement, though at this point the two streams ran together. It was on Whitefield's recommendation that Cennick, also a Calvinist, went to work with Wesley. There is some dispute over Cennick's intended role in Bristol. The question is all tied up with the fact that before long Wesley became very unhappy with him.
Meanwhile, Cennick arrived in the bustling port city of Bristol in June 1739, having walked from Reading. The school was to begin the following year. On the same site, there would be a Methodist meeting place. Before this, however, the believers would meet in the open air. Shortly after Cennick's arrival three or four hundred gathered to hear preaching under a sycamore tree but Wesley was away and there was no preacher so Cennick reluctantly began to lead the service. When a man who was due to read a sermon to them arrived he urged Cennick to continue, which he did, with success, on John 1. The significance of this event goes beyond what it meant for Cennick himself as it was the very first time in the Methodist movement that an unordained man had preached to a congregation.
Cennick's success led to other opportunities and he became a regular preacher, not only in the Bristol area but across South Gloucestershire. Wesley's return did not alter the situation. Cennick said that Wesley encouraged him in this direction. It would be another two years before the issue arose in Methodism again. This time a Thomas Maxfield (d 1784) preached in the Foundery in London. Wesley's inclination was to resist it but his mother persuaded him otherwise and so the long history of Methodist lay preaching had begun. The only other lay preacher at the time in such circles was a man called Joseph Humphreys (b 1720) but he was a Moravian and only joined Wesley until later. It is suggested that Wesley was happy with Cennick because he was such an effective preacher, despite not having been formally trained or ordained.
All was well for a while then but by the end of 1740 Wesley, then regularly travelling between Bristol and London, was not happy. His journal for December 1740 speaks of "many unpleasing accounts concerning our little society at Kingswood." Cennick, who would have been with him at this point, was part of the problem. By this time the Calvinist Arminian issue was beginning to dominate discussions. At the same time, Cennick was not happy with two other characteristics of Wesley and his teaching. First, Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection, which held that it was possible in this life to be free from sin. Wesley himself never claimed to have attained perfection but big problems arose when others did. There was also the question of how to deal with physical manifestations such as screaming and fainting in meetings.
J E Hutton describes the sort of thing that went on.
At the services the people conducted themselves like maniacs. Some foamed at the mouth and tore themselves in hellish agonies. Some suffered from swollen tongues and swollen necks. Some sweated enormously, and broke out in blasphemous language. At one service, held in the Kingswood schoolroom, the place became a pandemonium; and Cennick himself confessed with horror that the room was like the habitation of lost spirits. Outside a thunderstorm was raging; inside a storm of yells and roars. One woman declared that her name was Satan; another was Beelzebub; and a third was Legion. And certainly they were all behaving now like folk possessed with demons. From end to end of the room they raced, bawling and roaring at the top of their voices."The devil will have me," shrieked one. "I am his servant. I am damned.""My sins can never be pardoned," said another. "I am gone, gone for ever.""That fearful thunder," moaned a third, "is raised by the devil; in this storm he will bear me to hell."A young man, named Sommers, roared like a dragon, and seven strong men could hardly hold him down. "Ten thousand devils," he roared, "millions, millions of devils are about me.""Bring Mr. Cennick! Bring Mr. Cennick!" was heard on every side; and when Mr. Cennick was brought they wanted to tear him in pieces.
Wesley would encourage such things whereas Cennick, like Whitefield, sought to discourage them. The perfectionists complained about Cennick to Wesley who stopped him preaching in the Kingswood School. Part of the problem here may have been that Cennick was drawn to the Moravian teaching that grace was to be sought not by striving but by being quiet. If Wesley suspected Cennick of that false teaching then his disenchantment with the younger man is understandable. In 1740, Cennick was still a member of the Moravian Fetter Lane Society in London. Wesley and his followers had that same year pulled out of Fetter Lane and formed a distinctively Methodist society at the Foundery in Moorfields.
Whatever the exact contours of the differences between Wesley and Cennick and their respective supporters, these differences were dealt with fairly amicably at first. However, Cennick was clearly agitated and wrote more than one letter to Whitefield in America urging his return. These letters came into Wesley's hands and were used against him in due time.In the end it was impossible to keep a lid on things. On March 6, 1741, Cennick and some two dozen followers were thrown out of the Kingswood society, immediately gathering in the house of a Stephen Tippett nearby, forming what was in effect the first ever Calvinistic Methodist Society.
At this distance, it is very difficult to apportion blame with regard to the fall out. Wesley famously once referred to Cennick as "that weak man" but that does seem an unfair epithet. Undoubtedly there was fault on both sides. Perhaps Cennick has some excuse in his relative youthfulness (22) and Wesley did tend to be rather vindictive once a person crossed swords with him. At least there was not a complete breakdown in relationships. Famously, Wesley had Cennick's grace "Be present at our table Lord" written on his Wedgwood teapot in later years. The Wesleys also did what they could to help and foster Cennick's hymn writing talent.
After the break with Wesley, things continued much as they had previously, Cennick's little Calvinistic congregation growing in numbers.
Cennick is sometimes referred to as "The apostle of Wiltshire" as at this time he began to preach extensively in North West Wiltshire. On July 16, 1740, he was invited to preach in the village of Castle Combe where there was a real breakthrough for the gospel. Cennick began to preach in village after village in the area; in Chippenham, Corsham, Malmesbury, Swindon and Avon (probably Bradford-on-Avon). Where there were many converts they were formed into a society and it was often possible to build meeting places. The leading one was at Foxham. Cennick had a house that he used as his Wiltshire base in East Tytherington (Tetherington he called it). Although the work in Wiltshire was successful it was not without strong opposition from unbelievers, often of a most violent sort.
Whitefield had returned to England on March 15, 1741, and was dismayed to find how his Moorfields crowds had drifted away while Wesley's nearby Foundery work was flourishing. Whitefield wasted no time inviting Cennick to London and soon appointed him, Joseph Humphreys and Robert Seagrave (1893-1760) as his new assistants. A wooden structure (said to be like a huge shed) was soon raised in Moorfields, the first of Whitefield's tabernacles. Thinking of it as a temporary arrangement helped Whitefield feel he was not directly opposing Wesley. Wesley himself had little compunction about decrying Whitefield and his doctrine.
In a short while Whitefield's work was back on its feet and he felt able to travel twice to Scotland, leaving Cennick in charge. Like Wesley, Whitefield had once objected to the use of lay preachers but, again like Wesley, was happy to see Cennick as his deputy.
In 1742, through Whitefield, a tabernacle and a new school were built in Kingswood for Cennick's society about half a mile from Wesley's school. A plaque once found on it said it was
Erected by George Whitefield, BA, and John Cennick, AD 1741. It is Whitefield's first Tabernacle, the oldest existing memorial of his great share in the Eighteenth Century Revival.That should be first permanent Tabernacle. The London one was only made permanent in 1753.
In the first half of the 1740s Cennick divided his time between London, Bristol and his Wiltshire societies. In this period he met Howell Harris, also unordained yet a powerful preacher. They formed a strong bond and were together in Swindon in June 1741. Cennick wrote of the time
We found a large company assembled in the grove, with whom I sang and prayed, but I was hindered from preaching by a great mob, who made a noise, and played in the midst of the people, and then with guns fired over our heads, holding the muzzles of their pieces so near our faces that we were both black as tinkers with the powder. We were not frightened, but opened our breasts and told them we were ready to lay down our lives for our doctrine, and had nothing against it if their guns were leveled at our hearts. Then they got dust out of the highway and covered us all over, and then sprayed us with an engine, which they filled out of the stinking ditches, till we were just like men in the pillory. But as they sprayed Brother Harris, I spoke to the congregation, and when they turned their engine on me, he preached, and thus they continued until they had spoiled the engine, and then they threw whole buckets of water over us. ... The next day they gathered about the home of Mr. Lawrence, who had received us, and broke all of his windows with stones, cut and wounded four of his family, and knocked down one of his daughters.’
It was Harris who called the famous meeting, depicted in a 1912 painting by Hugh Williams, just outside Caerphilly in January 1743 where he, Cennick, Humphreys and the ordained ministers, Whitefield, Rowland, Williams Pantycelyn and John Powell (1708-1795), met to begin the Calvinistic Methodist Association with Whitefield as its first Moderator.
Just over a year later, in April 1744, a similar meeting took place in Cennick's home in East Tytherington. It was the first Wiltshire Association meeting. Again, Whitefield was the superintendent, with Cennick, Harris, Humphreys and two others as assistants. They were all warmly invited to the next Welsh Association, due to be held in Trefeca that summer.
An initiative of Cennick's at this time was to try and call together the three main groups in the revival to foster mutual understanding and co-operation - Calvinist and Wesleyan Methodists and Moravians. This foundered chiefly because of the Moravians, it would seem.
In August, 1744 Whitefield headed again for America, where he would spend four years. In the September Cennick went to Exeter, hardly touched by revival until then. There was great opposition but he successfully establish a work. Revival did not entirely depend on Whitefield.
Having said that, Cennick was no Whitefield. He was often ill-equipped to deal with problems. Calvinists were as prone as the Wesleyans to some problems. Both had to contend with antinomians convinced that real Christians had no obligation to keep the moral law. Soon after Whitefield sailed, a group of that opinion led by William Cudworth left Moorfields Tabernacle.
Cennick had long admired the Moravians and increasingly cast longing eyes towards them. Johan Toeltschig (1703-1764) was probably the first Moravian he met, Toeltschig came to Kingswood in 1739 and later worked with Cennick in Ireland. Cennick had a very good relationship with Bishop August Gottlieb Spangenburg (1704-1792) or Spangleburg as he liked to call him. He admired the way they divided the congregation into choirs (married and unmarried men and married and unmarried women, each with a choirmaster).
It was not easy to join the Moravians who had a convoluted method for receiving members that included drawing lots (use of the lot was one of their distinctive features). Nevertheless, in 1745 Cennick became a member of the Moravian church. Some 400 members of the Tabernacle also left, intending to join him. The societies of the West of England also came under Moravian control, although there was a rebellion in Kingswood and a separate congregation had to be formed.
It was a body blow to the Calvinistic Methodist movement to lose Cennick, although they came to see it as all part of God's providence, as their creed taught them. Whitefield was able to accept the loss of Cennick with a great deal more grace than Wesley had. Various suggestions are made as to why Cennick became Moravian - not that he took up all their beliefs and practices. The simplicity of their approach is perhaps the thing he appreciated most. Maybe we have to accept that Cennick's forte was as an evangelist not as a leader of the calibre of Wesley or Whitefield and so he was always likely to seek a position where he was able to do what he did best and loved best.
In January, 1746 Cennick left England with Jonas Paul Weiss (1695-1779) for a visit to the Moravian HQ in Germany. He spent three months at Herrnhaag where he was formally received into membership.
He first travelled to Ireland in 1744 and tried to visit again but failed the following year. Returning to Britain from Germany as a Moravian he embarked on his great campaign in Ireland, beginning at Dublin, and proceeding to found societies in Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Monaghan and Tyrone.
On one occasion Cennick spoke of his devotion to the "babe that lay in swaddling clouts". With typical Irish wit, they dubbed him "Swaddling Jack" a term that was later applied to Methodist preachers in general.
In spite of some fierce opposition, his work was accompanied by phenomenal success and was supported by Dr John Ryder (c 1697-1775), Bishop of Down and Connor, who is said to have told his clergy to preach like Cennick. Another early supporter was Benjamin La Trobe (1728-1786), who had been a Baptist before meeting Cennick. A notable convert was Captain Robert Adair (1721-1798) of Ballymena who whipped Cennick in a drunken rage on their first encounter.
By the close of his work Cennick had built 10 chapels and established some 220 societies. The Moravians were particularly thick on the ground around Lough Neagh where they were divided into four districts. In the north-east there were four societies with chapels at Ballymena, Gloonen and Grogan and a growing cause at Doagh. In the north-west there was a society at Lisnamara, later established as·a congregation at Gracefield. In the south-west three chapels were begun in Armagh, and in·the south-east there were several societies with chapels built or at least begun at Ballinderry, Glenavy and Kilwarlin. From December 1748 Cennick lived in Crebilly, where there was a society. Membership of societies reached about 2000.
Little remains in Ireland today to indicate the power of Cennick and the Moravians in those days. It is suggested that this is due to a number factors. First, the Moravians were at that time passing through a financial crisis so that, when money would have been most useful to support the work among desperately poor Irish folk, none was available. Second, how things were organised. A centralised approach was followed, as in Wiltshire and Yorkshire. As in Yorkshire, the congregations were dependent on Fulneck, so in Ulster a settlement was built at Gracehill, near Ballymena, and all the other congregations depended on it. Third, Cennick's early death when he was not quite 36. At the height of his powers he unexpectedly broke down in body and mind, worn out with his labours and the victim of mental depression.
In June 1755 Cennick travelled back to the mainland to visit his sick mother. He was unwell on arrival in Holyhead. On the five day ride to London he grew much worse and arrived at Fetter Lane in a state of high fever and exhaustion. There, in a room that is now the Chapel vestry, he lay delirious for a week, then died and was buried in a simple grave in the Moravian Cemetery in Chelsea. He left a wife and two surviving daughters. He had married Jane Bryant from Clack, Wiltshire, in 1647. He may have had a previous wife, who presumably died. His mother was of the opinion that he had only married Jane under pressure from the Moravians.
Before his final time in England, in May-July 1752, Cennick had preached in many places in England. He started in Bath and went on to London, Bedford, Northampton, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Yorkshire. In 1753 he preached in Pembrokeshire and other parts of Wales. A connection with Leominster, Herefordshire, begun in 1749, culminated in the founding of a Moravian church in 1759. It is one of five mainland churches (Kingswood, Malmesbury, East Tytherington and Bath are the others) and three in Northern Ireland (Ballinderry, Kilwarlin and Gracehill) he directly founded.
Cennick left some 40 sermons and 750 hymns of varying quality. The main lessons to learn from his life are perhaps in the areas of how hard Christian unity is, holiness and evangelistic zeal.
1. How hard Christian unity is. Cennick was driven out by the Wesleyans and there was little he could have done to prevent it. When he joined the Moravians, however, no-one forced him and they did little to encourage him to join them. He was obviously convinced that it was the right thing to do, however. It did nothing to increase unity.
2. Holiness. In his biography of Wesley, Luke Tyerman wrote
Cennick had his weaknesses; but, in deadness to the world, communion with God, Christian courage and cheerful patience, he had few superiors.
J E Hutton wrote of Cennick that, of all the great eighteenth century preachers,
not one was superior to him in beauty of character. He was inferior to John Wesley in organizing skill, and inferior to Whitefield in dramatic power; but in devotion, in simplicity, and in command over his audience he was equal to either.
3. Evangelistic zeal. Cennick probably preached some eight or nine thousand times, 1739-1755, often to huge crowds. He was often persecuted yet his zeal knew no respite. Here is a brief passage from a late sermon preached in Ireland, quite Moravian in style but full of the passion with which he preached
Behold him behold the Lamb of God! Those open arms are extended to embrace you; that pained breast was made bare, that you might lean there and be comforted; that cross of his was raised up to screen and shelter you, like a great tree, from the burning heat of the wrath of Almighty God; those wounds are the cities of refuge, set open that you might turn in and be safe; that reverend head was bowed down to listen to your complaint and sighs, and those dear lips stooped to kiss you, the blood which runs down from all parts, from head to foot, hastened to make a river of life, that you might drink and live for ever, that you might wash and be clean. O go to him, venture near him, spread your hands and hearts towards this temple, make your prayers towards this gate of heaven, and apply fearless and with trust, to him who was lifted up and slain, and you shall find help.
How we need such preaching today.
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