Cylchgronau Cymru

them. Clearly the leaders of the movement were feeling their way to different solutions of the practical problem, but there was a strong tendency in the early days to regard water baptism as inessential to a Gospel Church. On this issue we must hear Captain Jenkin Jones, the Jenkin Jones already mentioned as visiting Llanigon to administer communion, Jenkin Jones of Llanddeti (Llanthetty), Breconshire, zealous preacher, vigorous troop officer in the Parliamentary forces, persistent political activist, a kind of Puritan Owain Glyndwr who, after being finally crushed, seems to have disappeared mysteriously from the haunts of men, surely one of the outstanding personalities of Welsh Puritanism and the head and shield of the Llanigon church in the furious decade that ended in crisis in 1650. Born at Ty Mawr in Llanddeti parish in 1623, educated at Jesus College, Oxford, from 1639, he became conspicuous as preacher and soldier in the Civil War. His second wife was Barbara, daughter of Sir Anthony Mansel, of Briton Ferry and niece of the Bussy Mansel who led the Parlia- mentary troops in Glamorgan. When civil strife broke out afresh in 1648 he could be seen leading his cavalry through Gloucester, the troops who had been clothed by his neighbour at Llanddeti and kinsman by marriage, the captain-tailor John Morgan; while in all his undertakings he was aided by his faithful friend Roger Games of Tre-gaer, Llanfrynach, descendant of Dafydd Gam, Glyndwr's old enemy, and ancestor of Dr. Thomas Coke, another fighter with other weapons in another age.25 We can well imagine Jenkin Jones' concern when John Miles' doctrine of baptism came to bring division to the Llanigon fellowship. He, like Richard Powell,26 who came to minister at Llanigon in 1644, and who helped him and the Watkinses to make that place so strong a centre, came to believe in adult baptism by immersion; but he opposed Miles' polity in 1650, administering communion but refusing to baptize because he doubted whether Jesus practised baptism among his followers: 'It was a question to him whether it was an Ordinance of Xt. or noe and that Xt. never used it among his disciples although he did use all other ordinances with them'.27 And he urged that no action should be taken without consulting Walter Cradoc and Vavasor Powell and their congre- gations. The evidence seems decisive that before 1650 the Llanigon church did not impose any baptismal rite on its members and that varying views were held by them on the matter, many of them being prepared to dispense with the external sacrament altogether. What else may be said about the ministry and organization of this Church of the Comers ? For the earliest phase we have the testimony of 28 This account is based on Dr. Richards' in Y Bywgraffiadur. See also Idris Davies, op. cit., pp. 21, 54. 26 Davies, op. cit., p. 22. 87 Ibid., pp. 17-18, 53.