Vavasor Powell

Vavasor (or Vavasour) Powell (1617 – 27 October 1670) was a Welsh Nonconformist Puritan preacher, evangelist, church leader and writer.

Early life

Powell was born in Knucklas, Radnorshire and may have been educated at Jesus College, Oxford.[1] He returned to Wales as a schoolmaster (1638-9) during which time he was converted to the Puritan understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ under the preaching of the Puritan Walter Cradock and through the writings of Richard Sibbs (1577-1635) and William Perkins (1558–1602).

Preaching

In about 1639 Powell became an itinerant preacher and was arrested twice for preaching in various parts of Wales in 1640. However, he was not punished and during the Civil War he preached in and around London.[2] In the same year he was the first minister of Pendref Chapel, Llanfyllin, which is said to be the oldest Welsh independent church in Powys.[3]

On 26 December 1641 he was preaching in Llanyre Parish Church in Rhos when he was forcibly removed by Hugh Lloyd (bishop) and twelve armed men and imprisoned.

In 1646, when Parliament's victory was certain, Powell returned to Wales having received a "certificate of character" from the Westminster Assembly, although he had refused to be ordained by the Presbyterians. With a salary granted to him by parliament he resumed his itinerant preaching in Wales.[2]

Advisor to Parliament and controversy

In 1650 Parliament appointed a commission for the better propagation and preaching of the gospel in Wales, with Powell acting as one of the principal advisers of this body. For three years he was actively employed in removing from their parishes those ministers whom he regarded as incompetent.[2]

During this time Powell was involved in a controversy with Welsh poet Katherine Philips. Powell had published a poem celebrating the regicide of Charles I, and Philips responded with hers, Upon the Double Murder of King Charles in Answer to a Libellous Rhyme made by V.P. This was one of her first forays into political writing, and she is one of the first women to do so in literature. When it became apparent the poem may be published, and so embarrass her husband James Philips, she was forced to apologise. She did so in the form of another poem but whilst distancing herself from the views of her husband she reinforced her criticism of Powell.[4]

Preaching in London and royal plot

In 1653 Powell returned to London to preach at St Ann Blackfriars after the death of their pastor, William Gouge. Having denounced Cromwell for accepting the office of Lord Protector, he was imprisoned.[2]

At the Restoration, on 18 July 1660, the Council of King Charles II issued an order to Sir Matthew Price, High Sheriff of Montgomeryshire to take into safe custody Vavasour Powell (described as, "a most factious and dangerous minister"), Sir Richard Saltonstall, and Richard Price of Aberbechan.[5] According to Price's letters to Secretary Nicholas, Vavasour Powell, Saltonstall and Price were concerned in a plot to depose King Charles II. Letters were found in their possession indicating the plot extended all the way to London. By 2 August 1660 Vavasour Powell was taken into custody, while Sir Richard Saltonstall and Capt. Richard Price "had left these parts" (Montgomeryshire).[6]

Powell remained in prison for seven years. He was set free in 1667, but in the following year he was again imprisoned and was in custody until his death on 27 October 1670.[2] Powell is buried at Bunhill Fields cemetery in London.

Work

Powell wrote eleven books and some hymns but his chief gifts were those of a preacher.[2] During his ministry he preached before the Lord Mayor of London (1649), Parliament (1650) and as an ardent defender of Calvinism held disputations with popular Arminians of his day.

While remaining a relatively minor figure in seventeenth-century Puritan history since his death, Powell's place in the Puritan movement has been reassessed in recent years. The twentieth-century Welsh theologian R. Tudur Jones wrote of Powell:

Vavasor Powell deserves better of historians than to be dismissed as a millenarian enthusiast. In many ways, Powell was the most striking personality amongst the Welsh Puritans.[7]

That estimation has been heeded as Powell has been the subject of doctoral dissertations as well as several peer reviewed papers and presentations. Powell has emerged as a leading case study for the right wing elements of Seventeenth Century English Non Conformity and their relationship to the larger Puritan movement.

Writing and hymns

Writing and hymns by Powell include[8] the following:

Written work in English

The Scriptures Concord, London, 1646
God the Father glorified, London, 1649
Christ and Moses Excellency, London, 1650
Saving faith, London, 1651
Christ exalted, 1651
Three Hymns, London, 1650
Common-Prayer Book on divine service, London, 1660
The Bird in the cage, London, 1661
The Sufferers-catechism, 1664
A New and useful concordance, London, 1671
Divine Love, London, 1677
The golden sayings, sentences and experiences of Mr. Vavasor Powell [...], London, undated (c. 1675) OCLC 766915441

Notable hymns in Welsh

Crist, fy ngorffwysfa benaf yw
Alldudion y'm tra yn y byd
Duw yw ein gobaith yn ddiffael
Mor weddaidd ar fynyddoedd yw

gollark: I am of course not responsible for any damage.

gollark: You could always use liquid fluorine.

gollark: Hydrogen is cheap.

gollark: Just make it with an onsite proton proton fusion reactor.

gollark: Liquid helium of course.

References

Stephen K. Roberts. "Powell, Vavasor (1617–1670)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/22662. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) This notes that there is no written record of his attending Jesus College.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Powell, Vavasor". Encyclopædia Britannica. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 223.
Haslam, Richard (1992). The Buildings of Wales: Powys (1 (with corrections) ed.). Penguin Books, University of Wales Press. pp. 131–136. ISBN 9780300096316. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
Shopland, Norena 'The Welsh Sappho' from Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales,Seren Books, 2017
Green, Mary Ann Everett, Ed. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1661 Vol. I (1860) London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, p. 123
Green, Mary Ann Everett (1860). Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles II, 1660-1661 Vol. I. London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts. p. 176.
M.A. Milton, The Application of the Faith of the Westminster Assembly in the Ministry of the Welsh Puritan, Vavasor Powell (1617-1670), page 15.
H. Turner Evans, Biography of Welsh Hymnology to 1960 (1977) Caernarfon: Welsh Library Association, p. 139, (ISBN 0 85365 119 1)

External Links

Powell's Christ Exalted, 1651, along with a brief biographical sketch