Thomas Lewis on the preaching 1807-1817

John Ryland 1753-1825

(1807) ... [April 19 begins Baptist church with four others. Two baptised in river.] June 3rd, Mr Thomas preached to the congregation in Llysfaen (Lisvane);

Thomas Lewis on the early years

Ryeford Baptist Chapel

We have already established that Thomas was born in 1778 in Whitson, Monmouthshire and some time later his parents moved (c 1782-1792) from New Inn to Llangibby. He was schooled in Tredunnock then Trosnant, Pontypool(c 1792-1799) . Aged 17 (1795) he was baptised and joined Pen-y-garn Baptist church, beginnin to preach aged 18 (1796). In December 1800 (22) he began at Bristol Baptist Academy, In 1801 he preached his first sermon at Ryeford, Herefordshire, on Christmas Day (on Luke 19:10). In 1802 (24) he was voted £5 by the London Particular Baptist Itinerating Society to itinerate in Herefordshire and on 19 September of that year he was ordained in Ryeford.Thomas Lewis preserves these notes on the years 1803-1807, the Ryeford years.

1803. According to a table Thomas preached at home 54 times and away from home 60 times. During the years that Mr Thomas was in Ryeford he often preached in the following nearby places: Hoarwithy, Gansley, Coleford, Ross, Tainton (Tintern?), Ruardean and Mitcheldean. In the same year he also preached in Leominster (Llanllieni), Bridgnorth, Llanwenarth, Blaenavon, Penygarn, Trosnant, Bristol and Hereford.

1804. According to a table Thomas preached at home 42 times and away from home 67 times. In this year the old building in Ryeford was repaired. It was re-opened on the 17th of October when the preachers were Mr [John] Rowland of Pershore [who preached when Micah Thomas was ordained] and Mr [Thomas] Symmons of Wotton-under-Edge. Their texts were Isaiah 4:3 and 66:14. [It was some time around 1804 that Thomas married his first wife Sophia Wall of Ross, 23 years his senior!]

1805. According to a table Thomas preached at home 46 times and away from home 66 times. This year Mr Thomas preached in Bradford [on Avon], Bath, Bromley Shrewsbury, Coseley, Pershore and Evesham.

1806. According to a table Thomas preached at home 44 times and away from home 48 times. This year he preached in Cardiff, Peterstone, Caerphilly, Cadoxton and Worcester. This was the first year of stirrings about baptism. He baptised 27 all told in Ryeford.

1807. According to a table Thomas preached at home 95 times and away from home 90 times. January 4th was Mr Thomas's last Sabbath in Ryeford. The following Monday he went to Abergavenny and one Mr Jonathan Davies from Llanddewi Rhydderch moved his furniture. Jonathan Davies was a member in Llanwenarth and a reliable and godly man. His children are now members in Llanddewi, and two of his sons are deacons there. This J D ... John Williams from Tresaeson ... the men who started the cause in Llanddewi about 60 years ago. It is their disciples who are there to this day and they are blessed. ...

Biographical Material in Seren Gomer 1855

Baptist Chapel Llanddewi built 1827

I have recently realised that there is a series of biographical articles on Micah Thomas by Thomas Lewis Llanddewi (1823-1900) that appeared in the Welsh language publication Seren Gomer in 1855. It would seem that Lewis wrote it in English first but then translated it into Welsh. An English version exists then in the National Library but the Welsh version is available online. I am trying to read it, although my Welsh is rather poor. Lewis was born in Llandeilo'r-fan, Breconshire. In 1829 the family moved to Cwmdŵr where he was baptised in 1837. He worked in the woollen mills at Cwmdŵr and Llanwrtyd and began to preach in 1840 at Pantycelyn. He was trained for the ministry at Horeb (Cwmdŵr), at the school kept by Brutus near Pentre-bach, at D. Williams's (Independent) school at Tredwstan, and at an academy at Pontypool. He was minister at Llanddewi Rhydderch, 1848-1856; Llanelly, Breconshire,, 1856-1859; Jerusalem, Rhymney, 1860-1863; Penuel, Carmarthen, 1863-1874; Moriah, Risca, 1874-1880. He retired to Newport, Monmouthshire. He published Cofiant … Titus Lewis, Carmarthen; Cofiant … James Richard, Pontypridd; Ymddygiad y Feibl Gymdeithas Frytanaidd a Thramor at y Bedyddwyr; and Esboniad y Teulu. His Hunangofiant appeared in 1903 and his 'Hanes Eglwysi'r Bedyddwyr ym Mynwy hyd 1890,' still in manuscript, is kept in the county archives at Abercarn. He was a frequent contributor to the periodicals, and wrote articles for the Geiriadur Bywgraffyddol, the Geiriadur of Mathetes and Y Gwyddoniadur..

Midland Association 1806

In 1806 the Midland Baptist Association held its meetings in Ryeford and Micah Thomas was the moderator. The preachers were a J Rowland, William Belsher (1764-1849) Worcester and Daniel Trotman (1767-1850) Tewkesbury who later moved on to America.

Bebbington on Micah Thomas and the end of the Academy

David Bebbington gave a paper on Edwards and his legacy in Britian, in Australia in 2015. See here.
In it he says

The transition from a high Calvinism to the moderate version represented by Edwards was sharply contested in Wales. The first Baptist academy to be set up in Wales, at Abergavenny in 1807, had another Bristol graduate trained by John Ryland, Micah Thomas, as its president. Thomas was a keen advocate of the Edwardsean approach to theology as embodied in Fuller’s writings. As a result he was charged by the high Calvinists of south Wales as veering towards Arminianism. In 1811 he published a sermon called Salvation of Sovereign Grace in order, as he put it, to ‘refute groundless insinuations’.(D. Mervyn Himbury, The South Wales Baptist College (1807-1957) [Cardiff: South Wales Baptist College, 1957], p. 22.) The rumours of his defection from sound doctrine, however, continued to circulate and in 1834 critics were given ammunition by five disaffected students. They complained that at worship he used John Wesley’s notes on scripture, claiming that they were superior to the comments of John Gill, the doughty eighteenth-century champion of high Calvinist orthodoxy among the Baptists. The affair was complicated by petty attacks on Thomas for refusing permission for students to attend the local Welsh society and requiring residents to be in their rooms by 8 p.m. The resulting controversy brought down the academy. The local Baptist association refused further financial support, a rival institution was planned, Thomas resigned, the academy closed and a new institution had to be created elsewhere, at Pontypool. There, under a president trained at Stepney and a tutor from Bristol Academy, the position of Edwards, Fuller and the newer Calvinism was reinstated. (Himbury, South Wales Baptist College, pp. 31-43.) This episode reveals clearly that contemporaries recognised the sharp difference between the model of theology of Gill and the type associated with Edwards. Micah Thomas contrasted the two. The point of view embodied in Gill’s thought was ‘that stringent and exclusive system’ which was designed ‘to guarantee the orthodoxy of the preacher’, differing from ‘the universally benign atmosphere of that blessed economy, which is… “good tidings of great joy to all people”’.(Himbury, South Wales Baptist College, p. 36.) In the end this warm-hearted Edwardseanism triumphed.  

Edward Copleston

On December 9, 1836, Edward Copleston (1776-1849), Bishop of Llandaff from 1827, wrote to W Bruce Knight (1786-1845) at the Deanery of St Paul's with an article for the press. From 1825 Knight was Chancellor of Llandaff Cathedral. Copleston says

As your brother is perhaps still from home, I send the enclosed to you, hoping that you will think it worthy of being sent to the Merthyr Guardian for this week. I was so disgusted yesterday with reading the Reverend Micah Thomas's, & other Reverends speeches at Abergavenny, as reported in the Merlin, that I could not forbear concocting a little squib, by way of getting it out of my spleen.

If the Editor will print it a little open, so as to attract notice, & print the proper names in small capitals, I think it may make some of them wince. ...

Knight's brother was Sir James Lewis Knight-Bruce (1791-1866) an English barrister, judge and politician.

Baptist Mission 1822

Baptist Mission.—On Wednesday morning, June 19, the Anniversary of this Society commenced by a sermon, delivered in the Methodist Chapel, Great Queen-street, by the Rev. W. Jay, of Bath. In the evening the Rev. Micah Thomas, of Abergavenny, preached at Sion Chapel. At a prayer meeting, held for the special purpose of imploring a divine blessing upon the society and its founders, on the following morning, at Eagle-street meeting house, the venerable Dr. Ryland, of Bristol, delivered a very suitable address, from Acts xxi. 28.' Men of Israel, help.' The public meeting was soon afterwards held in Great Queen-street Chapel, Benjamin Shaw, Esq. the treasurer, in the chair; who, in his speech with which he opened the meeting, very happily adverted to the pleasing instance of Christian liberality, afforded by the fact of an Independent minister having preached in a Wesleyan chapel, for a Baptist Society. The Report contained an interesting account of the present state of the missions on the Continent of India, in Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, the West Indies, &c. together with a statement of the measures adopted at home for promoting the interest of the society. From the statement of accounts, it appeared that the receipts of the society in the year just closed, had been greater than in any preceding year, except the last, in which extraordinary donations and collections had been made to the amount of £2000. The amount received in the past year was about £11,600, exceeding the expenditure by £1000; but as the treasurer had immediately to make a large remittance to India, and was under acceptance for bills drawn from thence, he concluded his statement of accounts by informing the meeting, that the amount of debt due from the society might still be stated at £4000.