Thomas Charles
The North of Wales in the 1770s was one of the least Christian parts of Britain. The next three decades brought a transformation akin to that of the apostolic era and at the centre of the change was Thomas Charles, ‘the Lord’s gift to North Wales’.
Debarred from the pulpits of his own denomination, and dependent on his shop-keeper wife at Bala, Charles quietly became the leader of the people (‘Calvinistic Methodists’) whose God-anointed witness gathered thousands to the gospel. This astonishing advance involved Bible distribution, the use of circulating schools, preaching, and publishing. More than all these things, there was an outpouring of the Spirit of God and the most enduring lessons of the period have to do with the quality of spiritual life which was then recovered.
Charles’ main characteristic, said Edward Morgan (his editor), was his large measure of love and humility. His life itself, ‘with heaven in his face’, as men said, was a sermon. John Elias’ verdict of many years ago remains true, ‘Whatever proceeds from Mr. Charles is excellent’. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, reading just before his death concluded that Thomas Charles ‘is definitely one of the most neglected of the spiritual leaders’.
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Description
Book Description John Aaron provides here a fresh account of Thomas Charles’s life, presented against the backcloth of his day and age, and in the light of Charles’s extensive network of correspondents, both Welsh and English. In Wales, the popular picture of Thomas Charles (1755–1814) had traditionally been of the man who gave a Bible […]
Thomas Charles’ Spiritual Counsels
Selected From His Letters and Papers by Edward Morgan
Description
Selections from the letters and papers of the 18th-century minister of Bala in North Wales, with a biographical sketch by Iain H. Murray. 520pp.
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