In the latter years of Elias's life there was a noticeable withdrawal of the powerful operations of the Spirit from the land in general. Writing in 1837, he says, "The light, power, and authority, formerly experienced under the preaching of the word, are not known in these days! The ministry neither alarms terrifies, nor disturbs the thousands of ungodly persons who sit under it ... No experimental, thoughtful Christian, can deny but that God has withdrawn Himself from us, as to the particular operations of His Spirit, and its especial manifestations of His Sovereign grace." The explanation Elias gives of this declension illustrates his doctrinal position, and his consciousness that the preservation of the favour of God depended upon their maintenance of the Word in its purity. He believed that nothing so ruined churches or dishonoured God as erroneous teaching - "It is an awful thing to misrepresent God and His mind in His holy word!" "The Lord," he wrote, "hath favoured us, poor Methodists, with the glorious truths of the gospel in their perfection. Alas! errors surround us, and satan, changing himself into an angel of light, sets these pernicious evils before us, as great truths!" These evils, as the following quotation from his diary shows, were the appearance of Arminian errors in Wales in the nineteenth century. "The connexion" (that is, the church, which arose in Wales in the eighteenth century awakening) "was not called Calvinistic Methodists at first, as there was not a body of the Arminian Methodists in the country. But when the Wesleyans came amongst us, it was necessary to add the word Calvinistic, to show the difference. There were, before this, union and concord, in the great things of the gospel, amongst the different denominations of Christians in Wales. The Independents agreed fully with the Methodists in the doctrines of grace. They used to acknowledge the Westminster Catechism, as containing the substance of their doctrine ... All from the least to the greatest, preached very clearly and plainly. The chief subjects of their discourses were these: the fall and total corruption of man; his miserable state under the curse, and the just indignation of God; his total inability to deliver and save himself; free salvation, by the sovereign grace and love of God ..." It was a departure from these truths that caused his deep concern. "The great depth of the fall, and the total depravity of man, and his awful misery, are not exhibited in many sermons in scriptural language, it is not plainly declared that all the human race are by nature, 'the children of wrath,' - that none can save himself - that no one deserves to be rescued, and that none will come to Christ to have life. There are but few ministers that fully show that salvation springs entirely out of the sovereign grace of God."
The Arminian teaching was that Christ has purchased redemption for all, but that the effectual application of that redemption is limited and determined by the will of man. To Elias such teaching involved a denial of the completeness of Christ's work and offices, it led to an underestimation of the effects of the fall upon man, and therefore to correspondingly low views of the necessity of the Spirit's Almighty work in conversion. "I do not know," he writes, "how those that deny the total corruption of the human nature, and that salvation as to its plan, its performance, its application, is of grace only, can be considered as faithful ministers ... Unsound and slight thoughts of the work of the Holy Spirit are entertained by many in these days, and he is grieved thereby. Is there not a want of perceiving the corruption, obstinacy, and spiritual deadness of man, and the consequent necessity of the Almighty Spirit to enlighten and overcome him? He opens the eyes of the blind; subduing the disobedient, making them willing in the day of His power; yea, He even raises up the spiritually dead! It is entirely the work of the Holy Ghost to apply to us the free and gracious salvation, planned by the Father in eternity, and executed by the Son in time. Nothing of ours is wanted to complete it ... Man, under the fall, is as incapable to apply salvation to himself, as to plan and to accomplish it."
No one saw the dangers which threatened the visible church from these errors more clearly than Elias. Towards the end of his life he writes "It is a dark night on the church, the depth of winter, when she is sleepy and ready to die. It is still more awful, if while they are asleep they should think themselves awake, and imagine that they see the sun at midnight! ... The watchmen are not very alert and observant. The multitude of enemies that surround the castle walls, bear deceitful colours; not many of the watchmen know them! They are for opening the gates to many a hostile regiment! Oh let it never be said of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, 'Their watchmen are blind.'" He knew of no remedy for such a situation save a restoration of the truth in its purity. "If people are anxious for the favour of God's presence, as the early fathers in the connexion were blessed with, let them take care that they be of the same principles, under the guidance of the same Spirit ... When the Spirit is more fully poured on people, those precious pillars of truth will be raised up out of their dusty holes; then the things of God shall be spoken in 'words taught by the Holy Ghost,' and the corrupt reasonings of men will be silenced by the strong light of divine truth. May the Lord restore a pure lip to the ministers, and may the old paths be sought, where the road is good, and may we walk in it; there is no danger there."
John Elias died on June 8, 1841. Some 10,000 people attended his funeral at Llanfaes in Anglesey, a multitude of solemn feelings possessing their hearts. Writes Morgan, "the thought of seeing him no more till the last day! the day he frequently and seriously dwelt upon in his discourses, with power almost inspired. Oh Mona! Oh Wales! Oh ye multitudes of men, how wilt it be with you, when you will next see that most eminent minister?" 'Remember them,' commands the Apostle, 'who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to-day, and for ever.' Heb. 13: 7-8.
For more on John Elias, see John Elias, Life, Letters and Essays, ISBN 0-85151-1740.
By Iain H. Murray
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