EDWARDS, MILES (1743 - 1808); Baptist minister

Name: Miles Edwards
Date of birth: 1743
Date of death: 1808
Parent: Thomas Edwards
Gender: Male
Occupation: Baptist minister
Area of activity: Religion
Author: Edward William Price Evans

Born at Goytre, Monmouthshire, in 1743. His father (Rev. Thomas Edwards, Llanwenarth) died in 1746 and his mother removed to Pontypool, where (at Pen-y-garn, in 1766) he began to preach. Trained at Trosnant, at Leominster, and at Bristol Baptist Academy, he was ordained in 1775 as assistant minister at Bethedsa (Bassaleg, Monmouth). In 1776 he was elected minister of a new church which was gathered in his house, Wern, near Pontypool, and which, in 1779, settled at Upper Trosnant. He ministered there until his death on 25 September 1808, and he was buried in the chapel burial-ground. Miles Edwards was considered a good scholar, and an effective preacher in Welsh and English. A frequent itinerant, he periodically ministered to a congregation at Coleford. Although Jonathan Edwards was perhaps his favourite theologian, his theology was a very qualified Calvinism, and his influence undoubtedly helped to liberate the Welsh Baptist pulpit from the doctrinal rigidity and restricted appeal of the current hyper- Calvinism.

Author

Published date: 1959

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