Westminster Conference 2014 Day 1

It was a good day today in Oxford Street at the Westminster Conference. Today had a very Welsh flavour with three Welsh speakers (Stephen Clark, Adrian Brake and Andrew Davies) and three Welshish subjects. Welshmen seemed thicker on the ground than usual too.

The first paper was called holy worldliness (almost the same name as this blog). After a laudatory introduction concerning Whitefield we moved to the way he and Harris were less than perfect in their approach to marriage. Certainly the Harris, Whitefield, Elizabeth James affair is bizarre and Harris's obsession with Mrs Griffith wrong but I felt it was harsh to criticise Whitefield's unsuccessful letter of proposal to Elizabeth Delamotte. Failures by two men in one area does not justify the accusation of dualism. Anyway we had a half decent discussion following the paper.

We then had an excellent introduction to Thomas Charles who died in 1814. His Bible Dictionary had an incredible impact. It makes you wish you spoke Welsh. It begins

"The Holy Scriptures are a treasure house of all profitable and essential knowledge ….. Since they have all been given by the inspiration of God, they must partake of his perfection, and befit it. Because of the perfection of his knowledge, he cannot err; and because of the integrity of his nature, he will not deceive us in any matter; therefore, the knowledge given to us in the Scriptures is lofty, certain and complete. There is nothing which pertains to our condition and our blessedness in another world; nor anything which pertains to our circumstances and our duties in this world, that God, in his holy word, has not given us full instruction, how to behave in all things, in all situations, and towards everyone. The great plan of salvation, through a Mediator, shines clearly and fully in it, before a world of sinners."

You can get one in leather on ebay for around £60-70. There appear to some volumes available online.

The final paper was on Calvinistic Methodism and so the focus was on Wales again but it went well beyond that. The discussion after limped along a little.

Nottage Nonconformity

I read that Nottage was one of the earliest centres of Nonconformist activities in Wales. John Myles (1621-1683) a trier under Cromwell and the founder of Wales's first Baptist Church in Ilston, 1649, who went on to found Swansea, Massachusetts, preached in Nottage in 1657. After the Declaration of Indulgence, 1662, two licences were issued in 1672 by Charles II allowing Walter Cradock (1606-1659) the founder with William Wroth (1576-1642) of Wales's first Independent Church in Llanfaches, 1638, and a supporter of Cromwell and Howell Thomas (in William Andrews' house), a Baptist, to preach. Howell Harris (1714-1773) in 1743 formed a Methodist 'Society' in Nottage. Baptists leased a cottage on the site of the present chapel and were received into the Association by 1789. Differences over doctrine divided the Baptists, and the church became Unitarian.

(I'll be putting a similar version of this on my Great Ejection blogsite).

DMLJ 08 Bennett on Howell Harris

In 1962 a translation from Welsh of the 1909 book "The dawn of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism" appeared under the title "Howell Harris and the Dawn of Revival". The original was by Richard Bennett (1860-1937). The translator was Gomer M Roberts (1904-1993). It was printed by EPW.

INTRODUCTION

As the one primarily responsible for the suggestion that this book should be translated and published I am happy to write a word of introduction and recommendation. The very fact that I have made the suggestion shows in itself the value that I attach to it. I have long felt that those who cannot read and understand the Welsh language should be given the opportunity of reaping some of the benefits and blessings that I have enjoyed from reading this book. Let me introduce its contents. It is not a complete biography of Howell Harris. It concentrates in great detail only upon the first three years of his spiritual history. There are two or three full biographies of him in book form (out of print alas!) and also articles on him in certain larger works on Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. But the object of Richard Bennett, the original author, was to allow us to see the working of God's Spirit in the soul of Howell Harris in the detailed manner recorded in Harris's own Diaries, in these first formative and thrilling years. Bennett therefore rightly felt that his own remarks should be reduced to a minimum, and that all that was required of him was to supply the connecting links in the story so as to enable the reader to understand the various allusions to actual events. He does not attempt to comment upon, still less to apply or to enforce, what is revealed in the extracts from Harris's diaries. He was too sensitive spiritually to do so, and probably felt the ground was so holy that he could but take off the shoes from off his feet and be silent in awe. I have always been most grateful to him for this. No! Here we have Howell Harris himself making bare his soul and allowing us to read of God's dealings with him. As spiritual autobiography it is practically unrivalled. A more honest soul than Harris never lived. That was the testimony of all his contemporaries to him. There is a sense in which he was almost too honest and too sensitive. But who are we in this decadent, superficial and glib age to say that? At times we are privileged to look on at the struggles of a mighty soul and made to feel something of its agony. At other times we listen to the praises and thanksgiving of a soul virtually lifted up to the third heaven and knowing such outpourings of the Holy Spirit and workings of the love of God that he could scarce contain them. Anyone who reads this book carefully will derive great spiritual benefit. He will be troubled and uplifted, corrected and encouraged. Some may well feel that they have never hitherto been Christians at all if this is really what is possible to the Christian. Others in self defence and resisting the Spirit, will feel that this is but "enthusiasm" and "ecstasy," the two things that a "moderate," formal, respectable, Laodicean Christianity always abominates. But read it for yourself! Quite apart from these considerations which are the chief reason for reading it, this book is quite invaluable from the historical standpoint. Howell Harris was an intimate friend of Whitefield, the Wesleys and the other leaders of the evangelical awakening in England in the 18th century. He frequently preached for Whitefield in London and acted as his deputy while the latter was in America. As for the history of the same revival in Wales and the origin of what is now known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales what is recorded here is crucial and essential. Ryle in his work "The Religious Leaders of the 18th Century" did not include Harris because he never became an ordained clergyman. The reasons for that are explained here and are of fascinating interest in and of themselves. Nothing is more profitable, after the reading of the Bible itself and books that help us to understand it, than the reading of the biography or autobiography of a great Christian man. Howell Harris was a great man and a genius in a natural sense, a brilliant organiser and improvisor - a man who would have succeeded in almost any walk in life. He had a complex and fascinating personality which made him inevitably a prince and a leader amongst men. He takes his place naturally and as an equal in the distinguished company to which I have already referred. He was not as great a preacher as Daniel Rowlands and George Whitefield, but as an exhorter he was probably superior to both. But what amazes us and humbles us and condemns us is his humility and his utter submission to our Lord at all costs. This is why God used him in such a mighty manner. Would you know something of what is meant by the term "revival"? Would you know the real meaning of, "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God"? Would you know more of "life in the Spirit," and "prayer in the Spirit," and something of "the powers of the world to come"? Then read this book and remember that Howell Harris was but "a man of like passions with ourselves" and that Jesus Christ is " the same yesterday, today and forever." The translation is faithful and clear. I pray that this book may be so blessed and used as to cause many to cry out saying, "where is the Lord God of Howell Harris?" D. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES,

Westminster Chapel, London