Jackals Among Ruins

Cromwell did not take that comment very well and Powell was locked up immediately. So here was a man who would debate the heretics of the day, who championed high Calvinism against Arminians of the day, who was so popular that Parliament requested his services as a preacher on several occasions, who was so gifted that he caught the attention of men like John Owen, who wrote the preface to one of Powell’s books. Yet he became involved with the fringe political movements of his day, and began to focus on anarchist, radical millenarian ideas, that pitted him against his own allies. Vavasor Powell forfeited his ministry. He was locked up by the Puritans. When Charles the Second returned he released a number of prisoners but considered Powell so dangerous to the populace that he left him there. And Powell grew sick in prison.

There in the horrible conditions of the Fleet Street Prison, Vavasor Powell the fiery evangelist and radical millenarian, returned, through the sanctifying powers of a cell and time alone with God and His Word, to become a pastor. It was said of him that he transformed his cell into an academy and his guards into parishioners who were catechized by Powell and sat under his preaching each Lord’s Day. Indeed, he became so pastoral in his outlook and behavior that the officials let this once dangerous lion of Wales out each Sunday to preach in the streets of London. He wrote beautiful letters to the little churches in Wales, some of which he had founded. He wrote some marvelous hymns and devotional books, one of which, Bird in a Cage Chirping, contains remarkably tender and pastoral passages on Christian suffering.

In short, this man forfeited the years of his ministry in fringe groups only to recover his ministry in the last years of his life. He died in his cell in 1670 and was buried in Bunhill Fields Cemetery in London in what is now an unmarked grave. I went there and remember reconstructing the day of his funeral service, and with the help of the cemetery worker, located the place where his remains lay. I will never forget the words of that worker, as the sun sank low and the shadows fell upon the ancient burial grounds in old London. This fellow said, in unmistakable Cockney, “I ’ave no idea why ye would want to look fer this ’ere bloat; this ground is filled with nothing but rebels and the dregs of society who couldn’t get a proper burial.” As he said that to me, I looked over his shoulder to see the tomb of John Bunyan. Over his other shoulder I saw the tomb of Susannah Wesley. “Yes,” I said, “but I suspect this whole cemetery will erupt with glorified saints on the day when Christ comes again.” He shook his head over what I am certain he thought was a very confused Yank, and we parted.

And thus Powell’s legacy is mixed. He was the Puritan prophet of Wales and the anarchist preacher and prisoner. He was in a sense a Jackal Among Ruins, who forfeited his ministry on the altar of his own bad ideas. But by God’s grace, he became a pastor again.