Theologia Cambrensis

D. Densil Morgan

Description

As well as outlining the shape of Welsh religious history generally, this volume describes the development of Calvinistic Methodist thought up to and beyond the secession from the Established Church in 1811, and the way in which the Evangelical Revival impacted the Older Dissent to create a vibrant popular Nonconformity. Along with analysing aspects of theology and doctrine, the narrative assesses the contribution of such key personalities as William Williams Pantycelyn, Thomas Charles of Bala andThomas Jones of Denbigh, and the Nonconformists Titus Lewis, Joseph Harris ‘Gomer’, George Lewis, David Rees and Gwilym Hiraethog. Following the notorious ‘Treachery of the Blue Books’ of 1847 and the Religious Census of 1851, Anglicanism regained ground, and among the themes treated in the latter chapters are the influence of High Church Tractarianism and the Broad Church ‘Lampeter Theology’ in the parishes. The volume concludes by assessing the intellectual culture of evangelicalism personified by Lewis Edwards and Thomas Charles Edwards, and describes the challenges of Darwinism, philosophical Idealism and a more critical attitude to the biblical text.

Introduction
Chapter 1 1760–1790
Chapter 2 1790–1820 (i)
Chapter 3 1790–1820 (ii)
Chapter 4 1820–1859 (i)
Chapter 5 1820–1859 (ii)
Chapter 6 1860–1890
Chapter 7 1890–1900
Theology in Wales: A Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Histoire
• Great Britain
• History
• Wales
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786838087
• Langue: English

Extrait

Theologia Cambrensis
Theologia Cambrensis
Protestant Religion and Theology in Wales, Volume 2: 1760–1900
The Long Nineteenth Century
D. DENSIL MORGAN
© D. Densil Morgan, 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3NS.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78683-806-3 e-ISBN: 978-1-78683-808-7
The right of D. Densil Morgan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The University of Wales Press acknowledges the financial support of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Cover design: Olwen Fowler
Cyflwynedig i’r plant a’r wyrion Angharad Bowen Morgan Iwan Bowen Morgan Alisha Morgan Williams Cai Morgan Thomas ac Elis Morgan Thomas
Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction: The Long Nineteenth Century
Chapter 1 1760–1790
Chapter 2 1790–1820 (i)
Chapter 3 1790–1820 (ii)
Chapter 4 1820–1859 (i)
Chapter 5 1820–1859 (ii)
Chapter 6 1860–1890
Chapter 7 1890–1900
Theology in Wales: A Conclusion
Bibliography
Preface
It is with much pleasure that the concluding part of this two-volume analysis of religion and theology in Wales, from the early modern period to the dawn of the twentieth century, can now to be released. Even more than its predecessor, Theologia Cambrensis Volume One, ‘From Reformation to Revival’, the present work, ‘The Long Nineteenth Century’, has taken me back vividly to my initiation into the riches of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Welsh religious history, first as an undergraduate in Arts and then in Theology at what was the University College of North Wales, Bangor, and subsequently as a doctoral student at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, during the 1970s and 1980s. Following a first academic appointment in 1988, my initial field of research was the development of twentieth-century religious thought, including the massive contribution of the Swiss Karl Barth, and having published fairly extensively on religion and society in post-1914 Wales and further afield, I was drawn back to the previous century and the one before that. This somewhat circular progression not only provided me with innumerable insights into the development of the Welsh religious tradition, but convinced me (if I needed convincing) of the immense value of what has been for centuries a core component of the nation’s experience. Despite the secular predilections of the twenty-first century, the positive reception given to Volume One shows that there remains a ready appreciation for a work of this nature.
In preparing the text, certain peculiarities of nomenclature needed to be addressed. For the most part (though not always), ‘Dissent’ refers to those Independents, Baptists and older Presbyterians who maintained their witness between 1760 and c .1820; ‘Nonconformity’ denotes the expansive popular movement which, by mid-century, seemed set on sweeping all before it, with the term ‘Free Churches’ making its appearance by the 1890s. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and despite its obvious Welshness, the Established Church was invariably referred to as ‘the Church of England’, though for stylistic reasons I have not wholly avoided the Victorian construct ‘Anglicanism’ in referring to the earlier period. Mostly, and except where noted, translations from the Welsh are my own. The exception is in the hymns and poetical works of William Williams Pantycelyn, where I have used verse translations from the various publications of the late Dr Eifion Evans, all of which are listed in the bibliography.
It is a particular pleasure to record my thanks once more to two valued friends, Dr Robert Pope of Westminster College, Cambridge, and Dr E. Wyn James, Emeritus Professor of Welsh at Cardiff University, for reading the typescript, making valuable suggestions on the narrative, and saving me from numerous blunders which otherwise would have gone undetected. The responsibility for the analysis and all remaining weaknesses is wholly my own. I am also indebted to Professor Medwin Hughes, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, for the generous financial support given to the project in its entirety. It was my great privilege in 2010 to be appointed the first non-Anglican Professor of Theology at what was initially known as St David’s College Lampeter. The oldest university establishment in England and Wales outside of Oxford and Cambridge, the institution will celebrate its bicentenary in 2022. I hope that this volume will serve in some way as a contribution to those celebrations. Gratitude is due too to Llion Wigley and his colleagues at the University of Wales Press, particularly Dafydd Jones, Henry Maas, Siân Chapman, Bronwen Swain and Elin Williams, for their unfailing skill, kindness and professionalism once again.
Whereas Volume One was dedicated to the memory of my mother and stepfather, it is my pleasure to dedicate ‘The Long Nineteenth Century’ to my daughter, son and three grandchildren. This in no way depreciates the love and support of Ann, my wife, not only during the time Theologia Cambrensis has been in preparation, but for the last four-and-a-half decades as well.
D. Densil Morgan July 2021
Abbreviations
BQ
The Baptist Quarterly
BBCS
Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies
CH
Cylchgrawn Hanes: Journal of the Historical Society of the Presbyterian Church of Wales
CCH
Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd
DWB
Dictionary of Welsh Biography
JEH
Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JHSCW
Journal of the Historical Society of the Church in Wales
JWBS
Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society
JWRH
Journal of Welsh Religious History
NLW
National Library of Wales
NLWJ
National Library of Wales Journal
ODNB
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
TCHB
Trafodion Cymdeithas Hanes y Bedyddwyr
THSC
Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion
WJRH
Welsh Journal of Religious History
Introduction: The Long Nineteenth Century
According to the historian David Hempton, the confessional age of Europe’s Protestant Reformation came to an end with Pietism and the eighteenth-century revival movements, 1 and the aim of the initial volume of Theologia Cambrensis was to chart the way in which the Reformation truths of sola fides , sola gratia and sola scriptura , ‘faith alone’, ‘grace alone’ and ‘scripture alone’, had registered among the Christians of Wales during that time. The narrative began by relating the way in which Holy Scripture, culminating in Bishop William Morgan’s magisterial vernacular translation of 1588, was made available in the parish churches, 2 and how biblical religion developed in the Established Church and, following the Civil Wars and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, among the gathered congregations of Protestant Dissent. By the turn of the eighteenth century, the ‘holy living’ motif in High Church teaching had been established as an Anglican norm, while Reformed doctrine, fed by the Pietism of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (the SPCK) and more pointedly by the literary and educational exertions of Griffith Jones, rector of Llanddowror, had also become widespread. The survey concluded by describing the early impact of the post-1735 Evangelical Revival. 3
If the subtitle of Volume 1 was ‘From Reformation to Revival’, the title chosen for this volume is ‘The Long Nineteenth Century’. In a way this is an artificial construct as there is no detailed agreement as to when that purported century began, though for most historians it came to an end in 1914. 4 The choice of 1900 as a closing date is intentional. As well as marking the conventional divide between the nineteenth century and the twentieth, it notes the death of Thomas Charles Edwards, founding principal of the University College at Aberystwyth and an epoch-making figure in the development of modern Welsh theology. Notwithstanding the great religious revival of 1904–5 and the culmination in 1914 of the fractious campaign to disestablish the Anglican Church in Wales, there was indeed much continuity between religion in Wales at the close of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the First World War, yet virtually all the major aspects of later change were in place by 1900. Much valuable scholarship has appeared during the last few decades covering aspects of religion and society in Wales between 1900 and 1914, including fresh studies of the 1904–5 revival, 5 Nonconformity and the Labour movement, 6 the disestablishment campaign 7 and other matters, complementing R. Tudur Jones’s benchmark analysis Faith and the Crisis of a Nation: Wales 1890–1914 which first appeared in 1981–2. 8 To have included this would have expanded an already extensive narrative to an unacceptable degree. Although life continued as normal until 1914, the religious developments which had occurred by 1900 were, in many cases, incipient in certain significant changes which were already apparent in 1760. In this study, therefore, the nineteenth century begins at that point.
Although the following assessment centres on theology and conceptual developments among Welsh Christians, it does so against the background of considerable social and economic change. In 1760 Wales remained almost wholly agrarian with few large towns and a negligib