A Methodist in South Wales

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354–430).
Saint Augustines Confessions Translated: and with Some Marginall Notes Illustrated. Wherein Divers Antiquities are Explayned; and the Marginall Notes of a Former Popish Translation, Answered. Translated and annotated by William Watts.
London: John Norton, 1631. (BRA1476)

First published in 1470, the Latin text of St. Augustine’s Confessions was first translated into English in 1620 by Sir Tobie Mathew (1577–1655). In response to that “Popish” translation, the Anglican scholar William Watts (c. 1590–1649) produced this annotated version in 1631. The first page of Bridwell Library’s copy of Watts’ translation is inscribed “Peter Williams, Carmarthen, 1787.” One of the leaders of the Calvinistic Methodists in South Wales, Peter Williams (1723–1796) joined the “predestinarian” branch of Methodism after hearing George Whitefield (1714–1770) preach in 1743. A friend and correspondent of John Wesley, Williams published an influential commentary for the first Welsh Bible printed in Wales (1770).