I think,
I think it could be argued that Biblical,
Evangelical Christianity, the only true form of Christianity,
I think it could be argued that Christianity
has had a greater, deeper, richer, longer
influence on the nation of Wales than any
other nation on the face of this earth.
Well, of course, you think, well, he would
say that, wouldn't he?
Ladies and gentlemen, members of the jury, let
me present you with some evidence.
I'm not going to talk about the book.
I'm not going to give you a potted
history of Christianity in Wales.
I can say, if you want to know
more, you can, you can buy the book.
All I want to do is show you,
give you some sense of the influence, the
impact that Christianity has had and in some
respects is still having here in Wales.
Let's look at some areas.
People's names, people's names.
I see one or two students, past students
from the Evangelical Theological College of Wales here.
Let me ask you, what is the name
of the registrar at Brintirion?
Don't know?
Never seen him?
Mark Barnes, you remember?
Ewan Rhys Jones.
Can't see him.
Don't think he's here.
Hope he's not here.
Ewan Rhys Jones.
Some of you know him.
Have you ever thought what Ewan Rhys Jones
says to us?
Rhys, well now, Rhys has all kinds of
Christian connotations in the history of Wales, all
right?
But Rhys Jones.
Back in the 1920s, a man called Rhys
Jones established a Bible school in connection with
his church in, what do I call it?
I would have to say because of where
I come from, Porth, right?
Porth.
We don't normally call him Rhys Jones.
We normally call him R.B. Jones, but
his name actually was Rhys Bevan Jones.
He was Rhys Jones, right?
That Bible school eventually moved to Barry, all
right?
And became what is the South Wales Bible
College.
That college eventually moved to Brintirion, all right?
And it's, yes, it's a coincidence that the
present registrar of the college, Ewan Rhys Jones,
has the same name as the person who
established the college in the first place.
I think, I think it should be written
into the constitution that all future registrars of
the college should be called Rhys Jones.
But what about his other name?
What, Ewan, Ewan Rhys Jones.
What does Ewan mean?
Ewan is a Welsh form, one of the
Welsh forms of John, yes.
One of the Welsh forms of John.
What does John mean?
John means the gift or the grace of
God.
So, Ewan is the gift or the grace
of God.
But he's Ewan Jones.
Now, Jones means John's son, all right?
That's how surnames have been formed so often
in Wales.
They've taken the Christian name of the father,
grandfather, whatever, and then added an S, if
necessary.
William Williams, David Davies, David's son.
So, Jones is John's son.
Ewan Rhys Jones is a theological declaration.
Have you ever thought of that?
His first name and his surname declare a
gift or the grace of God, and not
just once.
John Bunyan would have called him grace abounding,
all right?
Grace running over.
Grace in his first name, grace in his
second name.
And John Jones, I mean, John Jones must
be the most common name in Wales over
the centuries.
That's not quite as common these days.
John is not so fashionable.
But you go over, take the centuries, John
Jones, John Jones Tawsharn, John Elias.
John Elias's name was really John Jones.
But there were so many John Joneses, young
John Joneses, beginning to preach up in the
Llyn Peninsula when John Elias was a young
man.
They told him, some of the other older
Christians said, look, we don't want another John
Jones.
You take your grandfather's name, all right, and
you be John Elias just to help us
out.
It wasn't a stage name, all right?
He didn't decide.
The older Christians decided for him that he
should be John Elias.
But he was really John Jones.
And there are so many John Joneses in
the history of us and in the Christian
history of Wales.
But that very name, as I say, is
a theological declaration.
Remember that when you see him next time?
Mr. Jones, you are a theological declaration.
And it says much for the college itself,
doesn't it?
A college that upholds the doctrines of grace.
And not just a modicum of grace, not
just a drop of grace, but grace abounding
to the chief of sinners.
Am I allowed to speak about myself?
Just a little bit.
I have a first name.
It's not Gwyn.
It's John.
John, all right?
John Davis.
Well, now then, John, good goodness, grace of
God.
From the New Testament, Davis, because some, probably
back in the 17th century when names were
anglicized, my great-great-great-great-great-great
-great-great-great-grandfather would have been David,
somebody or other, all right?
And then his son became somebody, instead of
somebody ap David or ap David, would have
taken the anglicized form and become Davis.
So David, what does David mean?
God's friend, yes.
God's beloved, if you like, all right?
God's beloved from the Old Testament, all right?
So I am an embodiment of Old and
New Testaments, all right?
John Davis.
Well, there are many.
Again, John Davis is a very common name
in Wales, isn't it?
But I could hardly wish for a better
name.
John Davis was the man who revised and
corrected the first translation of the Bible into
Welsh, William Morgan's Bible.
William Morgan lived on the road in Llanbadan
for a time.
But John Davis was one of the greatest
scholars of his time in Europe in the
mid-17th century, and he revised William Morgan's
translation of the Bible into Welsh.
So the Bible we have, we call it
William Morgan's Bible, but it's really William Morgan
with John Davis having got his red pen
out, all right, and made the appropriate corrections.
But there was another John Davis, many of
them, but let me name just one more.
There was a John Davis who went in
the year 1800 from the little remote hamlet
in North Montgomeryshire of Llangwyhange Llangwynfa, all right,
the place where Anne Griffiths lived.
He knew Anne Griffiths very well.
He went in the year 1800 from Llangwyhange
Llangwynfa to Tahiti as a missionary.
Didn't fly with Concord, didn't fly at all.
It must have taken him months and months
to get there.
His story is remarkable.
How he translated the New Testament into the
local languages.
He translated Pilgrim's Progress into the native language.
He translated the Westminster Catechism, Shrouded Catechism, into
the native language, and so on and so
on.
He was blind for the last 10 years
of his life.
He spent over 55 years in Tahiti.
He never came back.
He never had a furlough.
He never had a pension fund.
I'm not saying missionaries shouldn't have furloughs and
pension funds.
Don't misunderstand me.
But the commitment, Mr. Andrew Bowden was saying
about the commitment, as we are presenting some
of these covenants, the commitment of this John
Davis in going half the way around the
world in order to take the gospel to
the islanders of Tahiti.
But then I have this middle name, Gwyn.
What does Gwyn mean?
White.
Yes, that's what it normally means, white.
But in association with that, it then means
pure.
It does.
It means pure, holy, blessed.
You know the Beatitudes?
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
That's how they begin, isn't it?
Well, in Welsh, they begin, Gwynna i byd,
a trodion under a spirit.
The poor in spirit have a white world,
or their world is white.
And so it goes through them.
Gwynna i byd, Gwynna i byd, Gwynna i
byd.
I am a walking Beatitude.
Can you see all these names?
I mean, my name is nothing special.
Plenty of Gwyns, plenty of Davises, plenty of
Johns, plenty of John Joneses, and Ewan Joneses,
and Rhys Joneses.
Names of people echoing biblical theological truths.
But then, let's go on.
What about the names of places?
What about the names of places here in
Wales?
I think it's very difficult to go 10
miles in Wales without passing some place where
there has been a testimony to the gospel
in some form or other.
You think about all these thans.
Now, some of you are probably from England,
not very familiar with the thans.
Can't even...
I'm tempted to challenge you to pronounce.
Yes, yes.
A than.
What is a than?
I feel like one of these quiz masters
where you've got to accept the answer even
though it's not...
Yes, yes.
Technically, a than is a piece of enclosed
land because much of the British Isles were
covered with forestry, trees, bushes, and so on.
So, what the early settlers did, they would
have to clear the land and then they'd
enclose it to keep out the wild animals
and so on.
And then within that piece of enclosed land,
they would place the church.
And of course, the than, although technically it
means the enclosed land, because they built the
church on that piece of enclosed land, yes,
it then came to mean the church.
So, you are right.
Yes, yes.
How many thans are there in Wales?
No, then.
Do I hear a hundred?
Anybody give me a hundred?
A hundred?
The lady in the purple hat there, a
hundred?
Right.
Any advance on a hundred?
Two?
Sorry?
Five hundred?
Well, somebody's read the book.
Five hundred to you, sir.
Yes.
Well, over five hundred actually.
Now, one has to say, I won't go
into the reasons for this now, one has
to...
Not all of them are genuine thanai, but
most of them are.
Most of them recall not just a church,
but usually it's than something or other, isn't
it?
Than Badarn down the road is the church
of Padarn.
The church established, founded, what would you say
today?
Planted by Padarn.
Padarn's church.
This was the church planted by Padarn.
And so Llandaulo would be the church planted
by Tylo and so on and so on.
And the length and breadth of Wales, you
have these thanai, churches planted by even what
we would call evangelical Christians.
And it's amazing, isn't it?
Over 500 of them, perhaps less than 500
if you exclude some that are not genuine
articles, but still a large number of them.
They might cause the non-Welsh here to
splutter a bit as they try to pronounce
it, but really these thanai, they are witnesses,
they are testimonies to the work of God
in days gone by.
This is a place where so-and-so
established a church, planted church, usually back in
the sixth century.
Let's go for a trip.
I live in Aberystwyth, but I teach in
the college at Brinterion in Bridgend.
Come with me as I journey down to
Brinterion.
I come out of my house up in
Pemparce.
I can more or less, not quite because
they built a roundabout just by the house
and they built a fence, but still I
used to be able to until five or
six years ago, look down on Llanbadan where
there's been a testimony to the gospel since
the sixth century.
Paddan lived in the sixth century, established that
thanai all those years ago.
All right, so that's a good start, but
I don't go that way.
I go on the start to go on
the road to Aberaeron.
That takes me through Llanfairion and then Llanhwstyd.
I can take a shortcut in Llanhwstyd and
go over the mountain.
The first place I come to when I
go over the mountain is a place called
Nebo.
What is that?
What's the connection?
What happened at Nebo?
Yes, Moses was buried at Nebo.
All right, why do they call this little
hamlet just on the hill above Llanwstyd?
Why do they call it Nebo?
Well, because there's a chapel in the middle
of the hamlet.
And I find this, there's some symbolic significance
here, isn't there?
The chapel was built first and then the
houses grew up around the chapel.
And so the village took its name from
the chapel that was at the very center
of the community.
Right?
So the people living in the hamlet, they
said, we are people of Nebo because the
chapel physically and spiritually was right there at
the heart of that community.
Well, I don't stop.
I've got work to do.
On through Nebo and up, go up and
up and up and up to a place
called Trichrig.
Well, it's not, it's not a place, just
I happen to know that's what, that's what
it's called.
Trichrig really means three peaks.
All right, there's nothing there except a man
who sells, on the top of the hill,
sells secondhand Volvos.
Why?
Well, I, yeah.
But Trichrig, there was a man called James
Hughes and he, as was common in the
first half of the 19th century in Wales,
he had a Bardic name and his Bardic
name was Iago Trichrig.
Right?
And what James Hughes did, he moved to
London, spent much of his life in London,
but what he did besides writing some quite
remarkable hymns, he produced a Bible commentary in
Welsh.
Right?
The one, the version I got, four quite
substantial volumes.
You can get any other editions too, eight
volumes or twelve volumes or whatever.
It's a remarkable work because what he did,
writing in the first half of the 19th
century, what he did was go to all
the best English commentators and summarise them.
Right?
Take the best bits out of them and
bring them all together and publish them in
this massive commentary.
So you don't need to get, you don't
need to buy Matthew Poole, let's say.
Right?
Because James Hughes has summarised, he's got the
best bits out of Matthew Poole and put
them in his, and the best bits out
of Doddridge and the best bits out of
Gies and so many other commentators as well.
Right?
So as I get up to the top
of the hill, I was looking at his
commentary last week because I couldn't find what
I wanted in all the other commentaries, the
specific modern English commentaries I had on this
particular book.
I thought I'll turn to James Hughes.
And yes, yes, I found what I wanted.
Right?
So I gave him a little salute as
I go down the hill.
As I go down the hill, I come
to the village of Talsarn.
Just on the outskirts of Talsarn, there's a
sign.
To the left, Llangeitho.
Llangeitho, the ministry of Daniel Rowland, where somebody
else grew up.
Who else grew up in Llangeitho?
Dr Lloyd-Jones.
Yes, yes, yes.
So I've given James Hughes a salute with
my right hand.
So I give Llangeitho a salute with my
left hand.
Right?
Talsarn.
Well, Talsarn, of course, is of no, as
far as I know, no significance whatsoever.
But there is another Talsarn up in North
Wales that we associate with John Jones.
John Jones Talsarn.
It must be on the book stall, Hugh
Kinsey, wasn't it?
Book by John Aron, a translation, The Atonement
Controversy, which is taken from, translated from, the
biography of John Jones Talsarn, recently published by
the Banner of Truth in English, translated by
John Aron, a native of Aberystwyth here.
All right.
So this Talsarn that I go through sets
bells ringing, right, about the other Talsarn and
the John Jones who came from there and
who was a key figure, not always to
be recommended, but still a key figure in
the development of Christianity in Wales in the
first half of the 19th century.
Right.
I've got to leave this shortcut now.
I get back onto the main road, if
you can, if you can call it the
main road, and down into Lampeter.
But of course, Lampeter is really a Llan,
all right?
Lampeter is a corruption of Llanbeddwr Pont Steffan,
so there's a Llan there as well.
So I go through Lampeter and the suburb
of Llan, and then off again.
As I go about five or six miles
out from Lampeter, on the left-hand side
there's a chapel there at a place called
Farmers, right, where Timothy Richard, one of the
most famous Welsh missionaries ever, went to China
in the second half of the 19th century.
That's where he came from.
Problems with his theology, right?
It wasn't as good as it might have
been.
There was another Welsh missionary called Griffith John
from Swansea who went to China at more
or less the same time, and he was
a good man.
Yes, he was.
But still, you can't help but admire Timothy
Richard's pioneering spirit leaving, like John Davis, leaving
this remote part of rural West Wales to
go to China and to find himself in
the company of the leading figures of China,
which perhaps affected his theology a little bit.
But still, it was an amazing thing for
him to do, when you think of what
happened to him when he got there.
But then, just down the road, you get
into Pimcite.
What's Pimcite?
Five saints.
Oh yes, not just one saint.
We've got a plurality of elders here.
There are five saints in this place, right?
Okay.
Isn't that great?
Five saints.
They want to honour.
Was it five saints who planted the church,
or did they want to honour five saints?
I don't know.
But the very name, five saints.
Just after Pimcite, I turn off another shortcut.
This is worse than the first one.
It is a shortcut, but the road is
back.
But just after I turn, I come to,
again, a very small place called Creager Bar.
Yes, yes, we have an organist here.
Yes, we do.
What is Creager Bar?
Where does it set more bells ringing?
Creager Bar, among other things, but Creager Bar
is the name of the tune to which,
in English, people normally sing Vernon Hyams' hymn,
I Saw a New Vision of Jesus.
It's a majestic tune, isn't it?
But in Welsh, it has rather different connotations.
It's the tune for the great funeral hymn,
O Ffrunio Car Salem, which speaks of the
joy and the peace that the believer has
in heaven with the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's a glorious tune to a glorious
hymn.
So, as I go through Creager Bar, I
start singing.
I start singing.
I don't know what people would think coming
here if they saw me coming the other
way.
The only consolation is the road is so
bad that they're probably concentrating on the road
and can't see me or hear me singing.
By the time I finished that hymn in
Welsh, I've arrived in Talyllacha or Tally.
Now, what's special about Tally?
What's special about Tally?
Some clever person here will say that in
Tally is one of the very few pre
-monstretension abbeys in Wales.
You knew that, didn't you?
And if you look, it is quite striking.
It's in ruins now, but what remains is
quite striking.
But I don't really salute that.
Tally is famous for something else.
As you go through the very small village,
the way I'm going down to Bridgend, on
the left-hand side, there's a little stone
building, sometimes used to garage a car, I
see as I pass.
What was it?
Anybody know?
In days gone by.
It was a smithy.
And a man called Thomas Lewis was the
blacksmith there.
And as far as I know, Thomas Lewis
only ever wrote one verse.
What a verse.
Do you know, Myron Jones?
Yes, you do.
It's a verse that speaks of the crucifixion
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's a verse that's dripping with scriptural imagery
and with heartfelt devotion.
But it's also a hymn that takes its
picture, as well as from scripture, takes its
pictures from the life of the smith.
Only one verse speaks about the sweat, sweat
as drops of blood.
But something the smith of all people would
know about, speaks about the nails.
Again, something the smith would make.
Speaks about the plow making a furrow in
the back of Jesus Christ.
Yes, that is the imagery.
But linking that then with the whipping of
his back.
And of course, he would have made plows,
amended plows and so on.
Speaks about the heart melting.
Well, working in a smithy like that, your
heart would have melted.
Your body would have melted too.
He takes this imagery and then applies it
to what the Lord Jesus Christ experienced on
the cross.
It really is a remarkable verse.
Just this unknown smith working in that little
stone building that you pass on the left
-hand side.
Anyway, I'm going to be late for my
lecture, aren't I?
On we go.
There's a sign too.
Yes, which is another word for Jerusalem.
Like with Nebo, the community takes its name
from the chapel in the middle of the
community there.
Then I come down into Llandaulo.
Tylo lived the same time as Paddan.
They were colleagues.
Tylo established this church in Llandaulo.
Just on from Llandaulo, just over the bridge,
there's a sign for Bethlehem.
There is.
I know a friend of mine lives in
Bethlehem.
I think it's still true.
It was true until very recently anyway, that
at Christmas time, you could take your cards
to the post office in Bethlehem and the
postmaster would stamp them Bethlehem.
Now this may have changed because the post
office likes to reorganize itself quite often, doesn't
it?
But I think it's still true.
You can take your cards and he'll stamp
them so that your friends and family can
get their cards from Bethlehem.
But I can't go to Bethlehem.
I got other things to do.
I got a turn just after Llandaulo.
And I go along another road now that
takes me to Carmel.
I've been to Nabal.
I've seen the signs to Salem and Bethlehem,
but now it's Carmel.
What happened in Carmel?
Yes, Elijah and the prophets of Israel.
So I sail through Carmel and you're thinking
you almost see Elijah there.
And then down on the left hand side,
I can see Penegros.
What's Penegros famous for?
The apostolics, the headquarters of the apostolics that
came out of the 1904 revival.
But then the sign says Penegros on the
left, but on the right, it says Maisabont.
Maisabont, I'm now in the land of the
mission halls, the famous mission hall in Maisabont.
And then on into Crosshands.
Well, Crosshands doesn't sound very romantic, does it?
But something happened in Crosshands in the early
1950s.
People like Sylvan Jones, people like Ivion Evans,
people like Gareth Davis, from that era were
converted at that time.
You wouldn't say there's a revival.
Well, that's how you define revival.
You wouldn't say it wasn't a nationwide sweeping
revolutionary revival, but the Holy Spirit worked at
that time in that place.
I get to Crosshands and a sigh of
relief, I'm on the dual carriageway.
So off we go.
Right, speed up a bit now.
First place I get to on the dual
carriageway is the start of the motorway.
But I don't regard it as the start
of the motorway.
I regard it as the end of the
motorway.
I think the M4 has greater significance, symbolic
significance, than any other road in Britain.
Where does the M4 begin?
London.
London it begins.
London, the city, the smoke, the center of
all sophistication, the hub of the media and
so on.
It starts, where does it go?
Where does it lead to?
Pont Abraham, yes.
Doesn't that tell us something I find very,
very precious?
It's as if the road says, I'm fed
up with London, I want to get out
of London as soon as I can.
I want to go to Pont Abraham.
Have you ever thought of Pont Abraham?
Pont, bridge, right?
Abraham's bridge is Pont Abraham.
Pont, something useful, isn't it?
But something symbolic as well, isn't it?
And something symbolic from a Christian standpoint.
The Lord Jesus Christ as the bridge, if
you like, between us and God.
And that's having all kinds of social implications
as well for our Christian lives.
We need to be bridges and so on.
I don't need to tell you this, do
I?
But not just any bridge, this is Abraham's
bridge, Abraham's bridge.
London impersonal, nobody knows anybody else.
But the road leads to Pont Abraham, a
specific person, right?
Abraham, who is this Abraham?
Don't know.
But you know who the biblical Abraham, Abraham
was?
A man of faith, a man who walked
with gods, right?
I like Pont Abraham.
Yes, yes.
You can stop at the services, they probably
know nothing about this and the services, but
you can still stop there and see there's
something, right?
This is something precious.
But I got to go.
Cross over the River Lacha, right?
The River Lacha comes out in the sea
at Lacha, Kas Lachor.
Who came from Kas Lachor?
Who came from Lacha?
Evan Roberts, Evan Roberts, right?
Go on, Swansea.
Well, all the Christian associations you've got in
Swansea and so on, I can't stop with
them.
Too many, too many, I can't, right?
But I bypass Swansea on the motorway, go
over the bridge, over the River Neath.
What's down in the bottom there?
What's down in the bottom?
Llanfawel in Welsh, Britain Ferry in English.
Whose family came from Britain Ferry?
You can go on.
Matthew Henry is a remarkable man, but Philip
Henry had a son.
You know his name?
Matthew Henry.
Yes, yes, yes.
And you can't cross over the new, this
fine new bridge over there, over the Neath
Estuary and so on, without looking down into
Swansea.
Without thanking God for raising up Philip Henry
and Matthew Henry and all the influence of
Matthew Henry throughout the world.
Anyway, I still haven't arrived.
Port Talbot, hang on, Port Talbot, Sandfields.
And I'm not thinking just of Mr. Arthur
Murray here.
I'm not thinking only of Mrs. Lynnae Thomas
here, but I can just see the top
of Bethlehem, Sandfields, where Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
was a minister.
But it's a motorway, so I can't look
too long at these things.
Eventually, I find myself in the college.
I find myself, it's been a spiritual odyssey,
isn't it?
And where am I?
Bridgend, Brinterion.
I find that quite remarkable, because just down
the road from the college at Brinterion is
Llanuildid Fawr.
Ilsted was another one of these saints, but
he was a super saint, if you like.
He was one of the first of them.
He established a theological school at which many
of these saints, probably David himself, studied, gained
theological instruction before they went their different ways
to plant these churches the length and breadth
of Wales.
Have you ever been to Llanuildid Fawr?
You won't find it marked on a map,
which is a terrible tragedy, because Ilsted, as
one of the great heroes of Wales, without
Ilsted's pioneering theological work, these saints would have
been at a loss.
But you won't find Llanuildid Fawr on a
map.
This is part of the tragedy, that when
people from another country came to Llanuildid Fawr,
they couldn't pronounce it.
And they turned Llanuildid Fawr into Llantwit Major.
Do you see it?
They turned Ilsted into a twit.
A man of dignity and honour and so
on.
A man who deserves to be remembered with
gratitude.
But what is really remarkable about this?
Where is Llanuildid, I refuse to say Llantwit
Major, right?
Where is Llanuildid Fawr?
Where is it?
It is a stone's throw, or rather, hang
on, two stone's throw, two stone throws, two
stone's throw, three stone, well, it is down
the road from Bryn Tyrion.
Ilsted was there round about the year 500,
let's say.
We are there now, 1500 years later, teaching
more or less exactly the same things.
I find that thrilling.
The providence of God, the hand of God,
the gospel doesn't change.
Ilsted knew and served and loved and honoured
the Lord Jesus Christ and taught about him
and the truths of his word and so
on.
And that is what we are trying to
do, 1500 years later, just up the road.
Isn't it remarkable?
Anyway, that took a long, that is a
long journey, isn't it?
Wherever you go in Wales, wherever, I could
have gone a different way altogether, all right?
Wherever you go, there are these links, somehow
or other, some way or other, with what
God has done, either in place names or
with people who lived here or were converted
there or whatever.
You can't, you're surrounded, the very place names
so often tell us, either the Llans or
places like Pimsaint or whatever, or Nebo, Carmel,
Salem, Bethlehem, they tell us something about the
influence of Christianity on this land.
Very briefly, something else, the literature of Wales,
the literature of Wales.
Very interesting, back in the 6th century, we
have the first examples of literature in Welsh.
We have the present day geographical boundaries of
Wales, political boundaries of Wales, being more or
less formed, you know, a bit rough, but
yes, yes, you can see Wales as a
recognisable entity.
That was exactly the time when all these
saints were planting these churches up and down
the land.
It was a time of revival, and these
things come together.
From the very earliest literature in Welsh, up
until the 20th century, every single person writing
in the Welsh language would have considered himself,
herself, to be a Christian.
I have to say, they weren't necessarily Christians,
but they would have considered themselves to be
Christians.
Dafydd ap Gwilym, a native of this area,
he used to go regularly to Llanberdan church.
Why did he go to Llanberdan church?
Anybody know?
To see the girls.
Hang on, is this being taped?
Yes, well, I have a feeling that, and
I'm not altogether happy, well, it might be
true that some people come to this conference
in order to see the...
You didn't hear that, you didn't hear that,
all right?
In one of his poems, he says, my
face towards maiden fine, my back to pure
Lord divine.
But he's there, he's in Llanberdan church, and
although you wouldn't say that Dafydd ap Gwilym,
perhaps, well, certainly one of the greatest poets
in Europe during the Middle Ages, you wouldn't
say Dafydd ap Gwilym was an orthodox Christian.
You wouldn't say that there'd be an announcement
on Friday, perhaps, that the speaker at next
year's annual conference of the evangelical movement of
Wales will be Dafydd ap Gwilym.
No, you wouldn't do that.
And yet, in his poetry, he's obviously aware
of the reality of God, and he's also
aware of the failings, the abuses, so evident
in the Catholic church at that time.
And you also find quite remarkable descriptions of
Christ's sufferings on the cross.
And so it goes on up until the
20th century.
Now, 20th century, it changes.
You begin to get the liberals, and the
doubters, and then the atheists.
So 20th century Welsh literature is a different
kettle of fish altogether.
Although there are still many, many people writing
in Welsh who are influenced by Christianity, Christian
themes, certainly Christian vocabulary, even today.
But it is a privilege to study Welsh
literature.
You can study it in the college here.
Over the last 20 years, there have been
two evangelical Christians who've been professors of Welsh
in the university here.
I can hardly think of a greater privilege
in academic terms than studying Welsh literature under
their guidance.
Because wherever you turn in Welsh literature, there
are biblical themes.
I said they may not be always be
discussed from an evangelical standpoint, but they are
there.
You can't avoid them.
They hit you.
Anyway, there are many other things I could
mention, of course, as regards this influence.
Buildings, statues, monuments, things like that.
The way in which the Bible has influenced
the Welsh language, our present-day vocabulary.
I suppose if you were to have a
top 10 of greatest Welsh people ever, seven
or eight of them would probably be Christians.
If you were to ask me, what were
the great periods in the history of Christianity
in Wales, I'd have to say, well, that
sixth century.
It was a time of revival.
The very number, the sheer number of these
llanau, something remarkable happened, didn't it?
The length and breadth.
It's not that they're concentrating in one area,
but they're being founded, being planted all over
the place.
And then the second half of the 18th
century and the first half of the 19th
century, another golden age that we associate with
Methodism.
But of course, Methodism spilled over, overflowed among
the Baptists and the Congregationalists and even into
the established, well, the first Methodists were Anglicans
and remained Anglicans for many years.
So Methodism affected the other denominations as well.
These were golden ages.
And if you were to ask me, was
there anything special about these golden ages, I'd
have to say two things.
One would be grace.
Grace.
And I say that because one of the
things that the age of the saints, right
back in the sixth century, that that stood
for was, can you take it at this
time of the afternoon?
Anti-Pelagianism.
Pelagius, some say, may have been Welsh.
He was certainly British.
And British in that he lived first half
of the fifth century.
In that period, it wouldn't have included just
the people living in Wales, but it would
have included the people from whom the Welsh
were ultimately descended.
So he was British and may well have
been Welsh, although not necessarily living in Wales.
A lot of debate about this.
But Pelagius taught essentially, there is no such
thing as original sin.
Our nature is not infected by sin.
And really, all we need to do is
live as well as we can and ask
Jesus Christ for a bit of a leg
up, you know, to help us to be
what we should be.
And he was opposed, of course, by Augustine.
And he was opposed in Wales.
A man was sent over from the continent
called Germanus.
The Welsh form is Garmon.
If you ever have a son, call him
Garmon.
Call him Garmon.
Because Garmon was sent over to combat Pelagianism.
And we know that David, Saint David, warned
his fellow countrymen against the dangers of Pelagianism.
What we need is not a bit of
help from Jesus Christ.
What we need is grace.
If we don't receive grace, we are done
for.
So this was one of the essential messages
of the age of the saints.
And then, of course, of Methodism, as we
know with Methodism and spilling over into the
other denominations.
This emphasis on what God has done for
us in what we couldn't do for ourselves.
But the other emphasis then was on zeal.
How these early saints traveled up and down
Wales planting churches and how some of the
other...
Well, they went from Wales over to Cornwall
and to Brittany and to Ireland.
They went from Ireland to France and Italy
and Iceland.
They traveled with the gospel.
The grace of God had so taken hold
of them that they wanted other people to
know and to experience that grace too.
So these two great themes, you have exactly
the same in the end of the 18th
century, the beginning of the 19th century.
That's why John Davis went to Tahiti.
That's why David Jones went from...
If I'd gone another way, I would have
gone from just beyond Aberaeron.
There's a tiny place called Knoyd.
Well, there's a monument to the missionaries who
went from this tiny place to Madagascar and
suffered all kinds of deprivations and persecutions and
so on.
And yet took the gospel to Madagascar.
What drove them?
Well, God had mercy upon them and they
wanted to tell other people about this glorious
Savior who had come to them.
So two great periods, right?
The 6th century, the end of the 18th,
early 19th, two great themes, grace and then
this evangelistic zeal arising from the grace of
God.
You get it in Wales itself in the
18th century with Malach Howell-Harris, you know,
dragged through the streets of Bala, shot at
in Machynlleth.
You get him preaching in Hay-on-Wye.
You've been to Hay-on-Wye?
What's Hay-on-Wye famous for?
Books, books and more books, right?
Howell-Harris preaching in Hay-on-Wye, right?
And the crowd throwing stones at him and
his companion and his companions hit in the
eye and his companion eventually dies, a martyr,
the first Methodist martyr in Hay-on-Wye.
But this was what was happening.
I'm not arguing that this has been a
glorious and uninterrupted story of triumphs and conquests
and so on.
There have been weaknesses.
Yes, there have.
Christianity by its very nature acknowledges the reality
of sin and of indwelling sin.
And you see indwelling sin, if you see
it in your own life and you see
it in other people now, you can see
it in other people in history too.
Yes, good men made serious mistakes.
Good men sometimes disagreed and fell out among
themselves.
There's been sometimes a lack of vision in
applying the faith in practical terms.
And there have been periods of great spiritual
decline.
Somebody did say when they heard I was
going to give this little talk this afternoon,
the story of Christianity in Wales from Pelagius
to Rowan Williams.
Yes, there's been a dark side, still is
a dark side.
But that's what makes the present situation so
poignant because God
has blessed this land so much in days
gone by.
And when you look around you now, you
feel, oh, it makes you want to go
down to the Severn Bridge or any of
the other means of entry into Wales with
a can of spray paint, right?
And, you know, Croeso i Gymru, welcome to
Wales, and to spray underneath Ichabod.
The glory has departed.
And yet, who knows?
Isn't it quite remarkable in these days that
we find that the Christian gospel is flourishing
in other countries?
And that some of these, we know people
tell us that in some of these other
countries, they are praying for Wales.
And that some of these countries to which
we've sent missionaries in days gone by, they
are now beginning to send missionaries to us.
And who knows?
Who knows?
Will God answer some of those prayers?
Will God honour some of those missionaries who
are starting to come here to tell us
the gospel?
To tell us the gospel?
We don't need.
Oh, but we do need to be told
the gospel, don't we?
That's what's so desperately sad about the situation.
Who knows whether God is not even at
this present time, possibly, thinking of Stuart Elliot's
challenge on Monday night, even though preparing some
young Dewi, some young David, some young Williams
Pantykelyn, some young Thomas Charles.
Who knows?
One thing we do know, the light of
the gospel has shone brilliantly here in Wales
at times in days gone by.
There have been other times when it has
almost been extinguished.
But without that light, all that remains is
darkness.
Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
And it's in that light, and in that
light alone, that there is any hope for
true light here in Wales.
Now then, any questions?