In 1749 the British Parliament passed an act which allowed
Moravians in America to make payment in lieu of military service,
and permitted Moravians in Great Britain and Ireland as well as
America to affirm rather than take an oath on all occasions. This
Act, with its preamble describing the Moravian Church as 'an
antient Protestant Episcopal Church', is crucial to an understand-
ing of the history of the Moravian Church in England and impor-
tant in wider Moravian history. Wauer's view that it closed the first
period of the history of the Moravians in England is in many ways
correct. ¹ As indicated in Chapter VI, it effectively ended the debate
over the Moravians' role in England and vis-à-vis the English
Church and State, being in fact a defeat for the count's ideals. It
also marked a turning-point in the history of the Moravian dealings
with the Anglican episcopate, with whom (as Chapter VII has
shown) relations had reached a low ebb by 1747-8. The years
1749-53 represented the high-water mark of official recognition of
the Moravian Church by government and Parliament, Church and
society. With the passing of the Act the Moravians mounted the
public stage and became an accepted feature of English life, less
than seven years after the 'settling' of the first two congregations.
The headquarters of the worldwide Moravian Church could now
be established in London, the focal point between the Continental
settlements and those in the New World. On the other hand, the
Act can be seen as an important stage in a development which was
not really concluded until the mid-1750s. By drawing attention to
the Moravians and making their leader a public figure, it laid them
open to the opposition which was to erupt only four years after it
was passed. This crisis of public confidence, together with the
financial collapse which partly provoked it, was to set the definitive

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