The true nature of Gospel preaching:

John Elias of Anglesey

Beyond the jagged peaks of the Snowdonian mountains of North Wales, chained to the mainland by two slender bridges, lies the island of Anglesey. On a sign over each of these two bridges are the words ‘Môn Mam Cymru’, or ‘Anglesey, Mother of Wales’. Half a million people in Wales still speak Welsh. Travel the dozen or so miles almost to the centre of the island and, leaving the main road to the port of Holyhead you will find lying deep in the valley of the river Cefni, the busy market town and administrative centre of the island, Llangefni.

It was in the vicinity of this town that my maternal grandmother was born and spent her early years, until the grinding poverty of life on the land at the dawn of the twentieth century drove her and her saddler husband, James Roberts, along with their children to seek a better life in the large English towns of Liverpool and then Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

Follow Llangefni’s narrow one-way street system and at one point you will face Penuel Chapel. Look away up over the door and you will see a commemorative plaque to Christmas Evans, preacher and hymn-writer, who settled in the town in 1791. He was a man whose ministry was honoured by God in the salvation of many, many souls. Hanging on the walls of my grandmother’s sitting room were certificates awarded to her for memorising not just verses, but whole sections of the Scriptures at the Welsh Sunday School at this self-same Penuel Chapel. Take the road out of the town towards the main road through the island and on the left-hand side you will pass Moriah Chapel, one the place where once preached John Elias (1774-1845), described in modern tourist guides as a ‘staunch fundamentalist’. The original building has been replaced, but follow a narrow road almost opposite and just before the Railway Bridge, and hidden behind tall trees still stands the house he called home in his later years, ‘Y Fron’.

Visit the town today and you will find a bustling country town. In summer the place throngs with holiday visitors, although not to excess. All but the initiated will be totally unaware that God once visited this place with Gospel blessings hardly paralleled anywhere since. Visiting, walking these streets almost in pilgrimage, to those of us privy to Llangefni’s past secrets, it is like treading only holy ground. Those with ears to hear and eyes to see hear still in their mind the tones of Elias’ clear and piercing voice echoing in the streets, calling sinners to repentance and faith in Christ. We imagine still his sharp, penetrating eyes sweeping to and fro across his waiting congregation. Today the Gospel call is not heard, the major denominations having long since fallen to liberal theology. Men and women go about their business caring more for the welfare of their cats and dogs than that of their own souls.

Elias had little formal education and trained as a weaver. He had no wealth, could call upon no influential family or friends. This man God took and taught him to preach the Gospel with urgency and power. Preaching in the open-air, he would address crowds of up to ten thousand or more. His concern was for the terrible condition of those ready to die with no saving knowledge of Christ. Preaching on Ephesians 2:12 in Liverpool, in December, 1809, his words were:

"O the wretchedness of the condition of those men who are without Christ! No tongue can ever tell, and no finite mind can ever fathom to eternity, the thousandth part of the misery of men without Christ! Bare, without a robe! Ill, with no physician! Hungry, having not the bread of life! Filthy, with no fountain! Guilty, with no righteousness! Lost with no Saviour! Damned, with no atonement!"

His concern for sinners was without doubt, he bent forward over his Bible and wept openly.

Drunkards, rough men, adulterers, all kinds turned up to hear this man sent from God proclaim the words of life. In the following account Elias is speaking at a huge open-air meeting at Holyhead and addressed this group in particular.

"Are there drunkards here? I’m afraid there are: May I make an appeal to you? Will you just for today try to control yourselves? …What shall we do with them brothers? ...I feel a desire," he said, as he became more agitated, "to put them up for auction to anyone who will take them, so that they will never bother us any more." Then stretching forth his arm as though he were holding them in his hand, he shouted at the top of his voice, "Who’ll take them? Who’ll take them? Anglicans, will you take them? ‘Us!! In our baptism we profess to reject the devil and all his works. No, we will not take them.’" Then a moment of silence followed. "Congregationalists, will you take them? ‘What? Us! Many years ago we left the Church of England because of its corruption. No! We will not take them.’" Silence again. Then, with his arm stretched out, he shouted again, "Baptists, will you take them? ‘Us! We immerse all our people in water to show that only the clean are acceptable to us. No! We will not take them.’" Silence again. "Wesleyans, will you take them? ‘What Us! Good works are an issue of life with us; we do not wish to have them.’" Then stretching his hand out as though he were holding them in it, and casting a glance over the crowd, he shouted at the very highest volume of his voice, "Who will take them? Who will take them? Who will take them?" …He turned his face towards the left, and in a rather low voice, and yet distinct enough for the whole congregation to hear, he said, "I rather thought I heard the Devil at my elbow saying, Knock them down to me; I will take them.’" Then, he raised his eyes, and with a grave, extremely serious look on his face, he searched the congregation with his eyes and for about a quarter of a minute, he never said a word. …and then [he] shouted with tremendous force until his voice echoed thought the town, "I was going to say, Satan, that you could have them: but…" and he raised his eyes towards heaven, and with a victorious, yet tender voice, he cried, "I hear Jesus shouting, ‘I will take them; I will take them; to wash them of their filth, to sober them in their drunkenness; to purify them of all their uncleanness in my own blood.’"

This was a Gospel for the whosoever, "no matter what nation, no matter how wretched or unworthy he might be; whosoever believeth." Elias saw himself as God’s messenger with a solemn responsibility to speak of the seriousness of man’s dreadful condition in sin. He must also speak of God’s grace Christ, inviting all men to turn in faith to Him. He pleaded with men to trust Christ alone for salvation and this he did for over forty years.

It will perhaps surprise some to learn that Elias was both a Methodist and a Calvinist. Despite this, he rejected any notion that the invitation to sinners was on the condition of God’s election. Some of the Calvinists of his day even suggested that faith in Christ would prove fruitless unless the believer was already predestined to eternal life. This tendency remains today a constant danger in hyper-Calvinism, but it is one that Elias abhorred. It must be treated as error, conflicting with the clear teaching of Scripture:

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37)

John Elias firmly believed that faith in Christ is the only condition of eternal life. Preaching on John 3:16,

"You are not called to believe as elect ones or as redeemed ones. You must believe as a sinner before you can know anything. You do not need to know who has been loved nor who has been elected; only believe in Him who justifies the ungodly."

It is dangerously misleading to send searching souls away to discover by morbid introspection whether or not they are one of the elect as some do. It inevitably generates the worst kind of self-righteousness in many. In letters to his son, John, who was tempted in the direction of hyper-Calvinism, Elias wrote,

"What sinner under his burden and fears was ever rejected by Christ? You need not be lost unless you choose to be – choose to denigrate and reject Christ, and choose sin on earth and hell to eternity instead of receiving Christ and submitting to Him and following Him through fire and water."

Gospel preachers are duty-bound under God to offer pardon to all men without distinction or exception. Gospel preaching can never be viewed simply as the separation of the elect from the damned making Gospel invitations unsuited to the ears of the reprobate! Such remains the erroneous teaching of some to this day.

John Elias was a man with a heart for evangelism and missionary work. Preaching in a farmyard in the middle of a working day on the text "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), Elias thundered,

"What is all this travelling from North Wales to South Wales, and from South Wales to North Wales? The family is too small for the Lamb. Why all the agitation these days to send missionaries to the dark millions of India, to the black pagans of Africa, and to the uncivilised tribes of the South Sea Islands? The family is too small for the Lamb. Why have you come here today [it may be asked], to attract people from their duties in the middle of their working day at a busy time like this? The family is too small for the Lamb." "People!" he said, raising his voice high, "the feast is on the table; it has been prepared by God Himself; there is a welcome, there is a call to you all to come; I have come here today on purpose to announce that there is room for you all at the table; the family is too small for the Lamb." And then a great shouting broke out in the place.

We should not imagine that the soil in which the good seed of God’s Word was planted in those days was any more ready to receive it than today, or that men’s sins were less and their hearts less hardened. Edward Morgan writes in his biography of John Elias of the state of the island of Anglesey when Elias moved there from the mainland.

"There is no doubt but that the Lord, in mercy to Anglesey, brought Elias there: for it was sunk into the lowest state of corruption and immorality. The sins and iniquities of the people were like those of Sodom and Gomorrah, crying up to heaven for vengeance. But the Lord, instead of dealing with them according to their abominations and rebellions, showed the most tender compassion towards them, brought one of his choice ministers there, and commissioned him to publish to them peace and reconciliation through the blood of the Lamb! And great and astonishing were the effects which attended that ministry.

That the improved condition of Anglesey might be seen to advantage, we must more minutely review its awful state of sin and misery, when Elias went to reside there. …IT is lamentable to observe that the regular watchmen in Israel were sleeping at their posts; and worse still, they even partook of the follies and corruptions of the age, and went so far as to oppose the messengers of peace and salvation to the island in those days. The Rev. Daniel Rowland and the Rev. William Williams were prevented by them from preaching the words of everlasting life at Llangefni. Besides, Howell Harris and other preachers of the Gospel were in danger of losing their lives their. …As to the nature of the abominations in Anglesey, much may be known from a small pamphlet published by Elias some years afterwards, with a view to reforming the place. It was written in the form of a dialogue, and alludes chiefly to the sins that arose from the corrupt intercourse between young people class of society. The sin of fornication was countenanced to a very great extent. The manner of intercourse of young people before marriage was most corrupt! Those painful abominations are exposed to our indignation in the Word of God (Job 24:15, 16: Proverbs 7:15-18). The many illegitimate children in that county were proofs of the awfully depraved state of the young."

There are many lessons we can draw from our knowledge of this man. First, he possessed an uncompromising attitude towards sin and preached an uncompromising message with respect to its ruinous effect on the human condition. Second, he was possessed of a burning passion to preach to all men without exception the unsearchable riches of Christ and call them to faith in Him as the only Saviour of men.

We know that the present day has not become more nor less favourable to the Gospel than hitherto. We know that the Word of God preached in the unction of God’s Spirit has lost nothing of its power. We know that God is no less willing to receive all who come to Him in Christ. What then is lacking but those who will go in God’s name to call men to Christ? Furthermore, what is being preached today is often not the authentic Gospel and is from a bible that is not the authentic Word of God. Indeed, it is often the supposed watchmen of Israel who are the most active opponents of such preaching, wanting something to ‘tickle the ears’ of modern men. There is a remarkable toleration of all kinds of sin. Sinful men are encouraged to think they can hang on to most of their former way of life, just jettison its worst most obvious things, ands still come to Christ!

The situation in the Churches in 1799 when Elias moved to Anglesey was dire. There were few chapels, often small and difficult to reach, attendance was poor. Elias wrote:

"there were some godly members in them shining like luminaries, though their gifts were not great: but their consciences were tender, and their spirits broken, and their hearts blazing in love to God, Christ, his cause and his people."

Such is the case today, and our God has not changed!

David W. Norris

R. Tudor Jones, John Elias: Prince among Preachers, Bridgend, 1975

Edward Morgan, John Elias: Life and Letters, Edinburgh, 1973