DAVIES, JAMES (1767? - 1860), Baptist minister
Date of birth: 1767?
Date of death: 1860
Gender: Male
Occupation: Baptist minister
Area of activity: Religion
Author: Robert Thomas Jenkins
Born in Clydey parish, Pembrokeshire. He was a member of Pant Teg (Newcastle Emlyn) congregation, and was educated at a Carmarthen school. In 1793 he resided near Ffynnonhenry, and in the following year was ordained minister there, and also at Horeb church, Rhydargaeau; in both he was remarkably successful. But he was anti-Calvinist, and in the schism of 1799 the two churches parted company. Ffynnonhenry clinging to its Calvinism while Rhydargaeau became a General Baptist church under Davies's pastorate.
He was still, however, a Trinitarian, with no Arian tendencies - we find him welcoming the advent of the Welsh Wesleyan mission to west Wales and preaching, along with Moses Williams (died 1819), to the Welsh Wesleyans at Carmarthen in 1806 (A History of Carmarthenshire, ii, 253).
It was therefore natural that he should in 1820 have left the General Baptists (now becoming increasingly anti-Trinitarian) and returned to the Particular Baptists; yet there are hints that his theological views were still unchanged - it was rather that his personal popularity and his eminence as a preacher effaced the memory of controversies, now twenty years past, which had lost much of their meaning. Rhydargaeau reverted with its pastor, as also did Llangyndeyrn which was also in his charge and had long parted with the Unitarianism preached by its former pastor William Thomas (died 1813).
Ffynnonhenry in its turn invited him to become joint pastor with David Evans (1778 - 1866), and thus his original charge obtained a further forty years of his services. He died at Ffynnonbumsaint 16 May 1860, 'aged 93,' and was buried in Ffynnonhenry burial ground.
Author
- Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)
- David Jones, Hanes y Bedyddwyr yn Neheubarth Cymru (1839), 423, 425, 480
- Sidney Jenkins, Hanes Eglwys y Bedyddwyr, Ffynnonhenri (1930)
- T. Morgan, Enwogion Cymreig 1700-1900 (1907)
Sources
- Wikidata: Q20733308
Additional Links
Published date: 1959
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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