11
The connection is significant, for Pugh was a living continuator of a fervent Puritan evangelicalism such
that a Rowland could imbibe this influence afresh. The cameraderie of a Pugh and a Rowland in central
Wales would be matched by a similar relationship between a veteran Nonconformist minister of
Gloucester, Thomas Cole and the young George Whitefield.
41
Such exemplars, termed by church historian
Geoffrey Nuttall as "Evangelicals before the revival"
42
are not scarce. The fervent evangelical ministry of
other Nonconformists in this period Risdon Darracott and Philip Doddridge among them, goes far to
qualify the general impression that what is now called "Old Dissent" looked on the dawn of the
Evangelical Revival from a detached distance.
43
In just this way, an Anglican evangelical of the next
generation, John Newton, would be nurtured by the Nonconformist evangelical London ministry of
Samuel Brewer (1723-96), whose congregation was the largest Dissenting body in the city.
44
Continuing
evangelical Nonconformity therefore had not only a body of literature to offer Anglican evangelicals once
these were stirred by the Revival, but models of pulpit and pastoral ministry waiting to be emulated.
There is good reason then, to see the spread of evangelicalism among Anglicans as their becoming re-
connected to a pre-existing tradition.
iv. The argument for discontinuity is based on England's situation (just described) as
normative when the religious situations of Wales, Scotland and America were not directly
parallel.
While it would be possible to center an argument about Evangelicalism's origin upon England by
virtue of its that country's 18
th
century superiority of population and political power in the English-
speaking world, such an approach (the one followed by Bebbington) has a definite built-in disadvantage.
Starting with England will suppose that generally, England was the agent by which Evangelicalism was
transmitted to other regions or territories in her orbit. But there is in fact a considerable amount of
evidence that the other regions and territories were the active agents by which Evangelicalism was
transmitted to England.
41
The information about Whitefield is contained in Geoffrey Nuttal's "George Whitefield's Curate: Gloucester
Dissent and the revival" in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History Vol. 27, no. 2 (1977).
42
Geoffrey Nuttal, "Methodism and the Older Dissent: Some Perspectives", Journal of the United Reformed Church
Historical Society, vol. 2, no. 8, p.261
43
On Risdon Darracott s.v. the Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, Vol. 1, Oxford, 1996 and John
Stoughton, Religion in England Vol. 6 p. 99. The links of Philip Doddridge with the Evangelical Revival are
documented among other places in Geoffrey Nuttall ed. Philip Doddridge 1702-51.(London,Independent
Press,1951). Chap. 2 and Alan C. Clifford, "The Christian Mind of Philip Doddridge (1702-1751):The Gospel
according to an Evangelical Congregationalist"; Evangelical Quarterly Vol. LVI #4 October 1984.
44
Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition, (Oxford,University Press), 1996, p. 69