"Who Were The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists?"
https://www.growingingrace.blog/2019/11/03/who-were-the-calvinistic-methodists/
The ‘Calvinistic Methodist’ denomination arose from the evangelical conversions of Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland in 1735 and the ultimate separation of Whitefield from the Wesleys over the Calvinistic interpretation of Article 17 of the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion concerning predestination and election. It was distinctly Welsh, and not part of (Arminian) Wesleyan Methodism in England. The denomination seceded from the Anglican church in 1811. In 1823, the Confession of Faith of the Connextion of Calvinistic Methodists in Wales was published, based on the Westminster Confession.
The denomination was officially renamed the Presbyterian Church of Wales in 1928; approved by an Act of Parliament in 1933, and then accepted The Short Declaration of Faith and Practice (seven articles) without some of the Calvinistic confessions of 1823.
“William Williams and Welsh Calvinistic Methodism” in The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors
https://www.misterrichardson.com/welshcalmeth.html
The lecture provides insight into Lloyd-Jones’ views on Experiential Calvinism, the work of the Holy Spirit in Assurance, Revival, the primacy of Preaching, hymns “packed with theology and experience”, the power of prayer meetings, and the contrast with English (Wesleyan Arminian) Methodism and Welsh Methodism.
“I am one of those who believes that Calvinism should always lead to great preaching; and when it does not I query the genuineness of the Calvinism. You cannot have great preaching without a great theme: and they had that great theme, and so you had great preaching all over the country. And the great characteristic of the preaching, as of the life, was warmth, and enthusiasm, and rejoicing.”
“The Calvinistic Methodists did not preach through the Catechism. Their whole tendency was to say - as was the tendency of Charles Haddon Spurgeon - that you should not even preach a series of sermons, but that each sermon should be 'given' to you, that you look to God for your sermons. I mean by that, that you look to God for your text and the message you are to deliver.”
“I regard the term 'dead Calvinism' as a contradiction in terms. I say that a dead Calvinism is impossible, and that if your Calvinism appears to be dead it is not Calvinism, it is a philosophy. It is a philosophy using Calvinistic terms, it is an intellectualism, and it is not real Calvinism.”
“My argument is, that cold, sad, mournful, depressing Calvinism is not Calvinism at all. It is a caricature; something has gone wrong somewhere. It is mere intellectualism and philosophy. Calvinism leads to feeling, to passion, to warmth, to praise, to thanksgiving. Look at Paul, the greatest of them all. We should not talk about ‘Calvinism’; it is Paul’s teaching. He tells us that he wept. He preached with tears. Do you? When did we last weep over these matters? When did we last shed tears? When have we shown the feeling and the passion that he shows?”
“Calvinism of necessity leads to an emphasis upon the action and the activity of God the Holy Spirit. The whole emphasis is upon what God does to us: not what man does, but what God does to us; not our hold of Him but 'His strong grasp of us'. So Calvinism of necessity leads to experiences, and to great emphasis upon experience; and these men, and all these older Calvinists were constantly talking about 'visitations', how the Lord had appeared to them, how the Lord had spoken to them - the kind of thing that we have seen Toplady expressing in the hymn already quoted and in his Diaries. They also talked about 'withdrawings'. Why have those terms disappeared from amongst us modern Calvinists? When have you last spoken about a 'visitation' from the Spirit of God? When did Christ last make Himself 'real' to you? What do you know about 'withdrawings' of the Spirit, and the feeling that your Bridegroom has left you and that He has not visited you recently? This is of the essence of true Calvinism; and a Calvinism that knows nothing about visitations and withdrawings is a caricature of Calvinism.”
“Calvinism leads to assurance, and assurance of necessity leads to joy. You cannot be assured quietly and unmoved by the fact that your sins are forgiven, and that you are a child of God, and that you are going to heaven: it is impossible. Assurance must lead to joy. Not only that; knowing this leads to prayer. God is my Father. I am adopted. I know Him. I have an entrance, and I want to go there. I want to speak to Him and I want to know Him. This is true Calvinism. And that, of course, leads to a love of His Word. You meet Him in the Word. The Word instructs you as to how to find Him; it helps you to understand the visitations and the withdrawings. You live on the Word. Nothing so drives a man to the Word of God as true Calvinism.”
“Calvinism without (experiential) Methodism tends to lead to intellectualism and scholasticism. The result is that men talk more about 'the Truth we hold', rather than about 'the Truth that holds us'.”
Lloyd-Jones concluded with this ancient Christian hymn, possibly 4th century, and first published in Philip Gell's A Church Hymn Book, 1815. It was later adapted to the tune “Church Triumphant” by James William Elliott, 1874
We praise, we worship thee, O God.
Thy sovereign power we sound abroad:
All nations bow before Thy throne,
And Thee the Eternal Father own.
Loud alleluias to Thy Name
Angels and seraphim proclaim:
The heavens and all the powers on high
With rapture constantly do cry –
'O holy, holy, holy, Lord!'
Thou God of hosts, by all adored;
Earth and the heavens are full of Thee,
Thy light, Thy power, Thy majesty.
Apostles join the glorious throng
And swell the loud immortal song;
Prophets enraptured hear the sound
And spread the alleluia round.
Victorious martyrs join their lays
And shout the omnipotence of grace,
While all thy church through all the earth
Acknowledge and extol Thy worth.
Glory to Thee, O God most high
Father, we praise Thy majesty,
The Son, the Spirit, we adore,
One Godhead, blest for evermore.