pastoral predicament of Vavasor Powell (1617-1670): Eschatological fervor and its relationship to the pastoral ministry, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Sep 2000 by Milton, Michael A

ss It would have been absolutely necessary to have secured Cradock's signature. Indeed, Cradock was so pre-eminent by this time that the Welsh Puritans were called "Cradocians." See John Davies's remarks in A History of Wales (London: Penguin, 1993) 281.

37 The "PostScript" to A Word for God supplied the following account of that precipitous incident: Reader, This paper had sooner come into thy hands, if the Subscribers hereof (who were willing to do nothing rashly) had not waited for further Council and direction from God herein then they had at their first intention of the publishing hereof, and withal it was deferred for a time, hoping that God might some other way convince the Person chiefly concerned in it; and seeing God gave him time to repent ["Rev.2.21" is added on the sidebar], and yet he repented not, we have published this our Testimony. To which you might have had many more Subscribers (who were willing to own this Paper) if convenience and Providence had made way for it to come into their view: There hath been great endeavors to stifle it in the Birth; to that end, some of the Subscribers were threatened with imprisonment, and Others were issued out to imprison some (whereof one was secured) namely Mr Vavasor Powell, who was taken by a company of Souldiers, from a day of Fasting and Prayer at Aberbechan in Mountgomory shire, where many Saints were gathered together, which caused much sadnesse, yea and much heartbreakings to them all; and he remained for some time a prisoner upon that account. FINIS. National Library of Wales.

ss The Dictionary of National Biography (ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963-64) 250. [Hereafter, the DNB.]

ss The tract is called "Catholic Communion: Doubly Defended." It was answered by anonymous Welsh supporters of Vavasor Powell who produced A Winding Sheet for Mr. Baxter's Dead: Or, Those whom he path Kill'd and Slain in his `Catholic Communion; sweetly embalmed, and decently Buried again. Being an Apology for Several Ministers, viz., Mr. Erbury, Mr. Cradock, Mr. Vavasor Powel [sic), and Mr. Morgan Lloyd, misrepresented by Mr. Baxter to the world.

" The previous year, 1665, was a horrible year for London because of the plague. Daniel Defoe in his A Journal of the Plague Year (London: Penguin Classics, 1986 reprint of the 1722 first edition) wrote, "I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year therefore with a coarse but sincere stanza of my own, which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandums the same year they were written:

A dreadful plague in London was

In the year sixty-five,

Which swept an hundred thousand souls

Away; yet I alive! [see p. 256].

Taken together-the plague, the fire, and the Civil War, along with the proliferation of end-time preaching and his own understanding of how the eschaton would appear-it is easy to see how Powell lost track of the main, ordinary pastoral tasks.

41 Jones, Dissertation 195.

42 -, T*iY or the BIRD IN THE CAGE CHIRPING.