Excerpt from The Handbook of the Moravian Congregation of Bethlehem, Pa., Incorporated as "the Congregation of United Brethren of the Borough of Bethlehem and Its Vicinity" Bishop, and entered into negotiations with the government for fav orable terms to his brethren on the Continent and in the United Kingdom for colonization in the British possessions in America. He formed the acquaintance of several Bishops of the Anglican Church, including John Potter, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he had many conferences, and who jointly prepared the way for an Act of Parliament which, receiving the assent of King George II on June 6, 1749, and granting the petitions presented, recognized the Unitas Fratrum as an ancient Protestant Episcopal Church, whose doctrines differed in no essentials from those of the Thirty nine Articles. It was he who had conducted the colony that the Church had sent to Georgia in 1734, some of whose members, owing to its dissolution, were among the founders of Bethlehem. On the 27th of February, 1742, he organized in London a party of fifty-six emigrants from various countries of Europe, who set sail from Gravesend, on the 19th of the following March, as a Sea-congre gation. The company was in charge of Peter Boehler, formerly professor at the University of Jena, that minister, afterwards Bishop, of the Unitas Fratrum, with whom the Rev. John Wesley had those numerous and notable interviews which are gratefully acknowledged to have given much of its distinctive cast to the Methodist Episcopal Church. The vessel arrived at Philadelphia on Ascension Day, June 7, and the several divisions of this colony, together with Zinzendorf and his companions - who for half-a-year had been itinerating and holding synodal meetings of Moravian, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Baptist believers with a view to exalt Christ and advance His Kingdom by uniting all the German churche's' of the land upon the basis of experimental religion and practical piety into what he termed a Church of God in the Spirit - reached Bethlehem at noon on Thursday, June 21, and met with a cordial reception at a love-feast held for the purpose. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.