Introduction
“In May of 1792 Carey was asked to preach at the annual meeting of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association. On this occasion ministers and messengers from the twenty-four associated churches gathered in Nottingham at the Baptist chapel in Friar Lane.”[1] During this associational message, Carey uttered the following phrase: expect great things; attempt great things.[2] The plea for this message centered around evangelizing the nations. “The ferment of his prolonged study and passion for spreading the gospel oversees was poured into that one concentrated address.”[3] After his message, “when it appeared that the meeting would close without definitive action, Carey brought a halt to the proceedings to plead with Fuller to call for some action related to the foreign-mission question. A resolution was passed: Resolved, that a plan be prepared against the next Ministers’ Meeting at Kettering, for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the Gospel among the Heathens.”[4] Through the efforts of these backwater Baptists, the modern missionary movement sprung forth. The purpose of this paper is to consider one of these Baptists who was so intimately involved in this movement, namely, William Carey. This purpose will be achieved by examining factors that contributed to the success of these closely knitted Particular Baptists. To rightly examine the life, ministry, and impact of William Carey is to consider a group of friends plodding together for the Lord.
A Biographical Sketch
William Carey was born on August 17, 1761, in a village called Paulerspury in the Midlands of England. He was the oldest son of five children born to Edmund and Elizabeth Carey. His father, Edmund, strongly influenced Carey’s early years. Edmund was initially a weaver by trade, but an important career change took place in 1767. Timothy George writes: “When William was six years old, his father was appointed master of the local charity school in the village. It was providential that Carey, whose interest in education would form a major part of his life’s work, should begin his days as the son of a schoolteacher.”[5] Though Carey did not receive formal theological education, his father’s influence taught him critical thinking skills. These skills likely gave young Carey an interest to read literature, including the Bible: “His father later recalled that his precocious son was always attentive to learning when a boy, and William himself remembered that he had been accustomed to read the Scriptures from infancy.”[6]
When Carey turned fourteen, “his father apprenticed him to Clarke Nichols, a shoemaker in Piddington, and like Carey’s father, a strict English Churchman.”[7] Through this vocation, Carey would meet John Warr, the blessed instrument used by God to confront Carey of his sin and show him his need for salvation in Christ. Warr, a nonconformist, was initially disinteresting to Carey. Perhaps this was because of Carey’s Anglican upbringing. To use the words of Tom Nettles: “Carey, coming from staunch Anglican stock, had learned to disdain these people who did not care to worship in accordance with the established Anglican Church.”[8] Or perhaps he was distracted by the everyday activities of his youth, like playing football.[9] Nevertheless, Warr’s insistence was impactful. As “Warr continued to witness to Carey, the latter felt a growing uneasiness and stings of conscience gradually increasing.”[10] Around this time, Carey experienced “most awful profligacy of [his] conduct being addicted to swearing, lying, and in haste conversation.”[11] Though Warr loaned Carey books to work through during this time, Carey resorted to cleaning himself up. “He sought to reform himself, leaving off lying, swearing and other sins, and attended three parish church services on Sunday and the Dissenters’ prayer meeting in the evening.”[12] Around Christmas of 1777, Carey more greatly felt guilt for his sin—specifically because of a significant lie. On a visit to Northampton, he visited a shop and met a hardware dealer named Hall, who gave Carey a counterfeit shilling. Carey later attempted to pass this fake currency off to his employer, but the lie was soon detected. “Carey’s dishonesty was discovered, and he was covered with shame and disgrace, afraid to even go abroad in the village for fear of what others were thinking.”[13] Though Carey was self-reforming and trying to look good outwardly, it was through this experience that he rightly saw his sin. In Carey’s words, it caused him “to see much more of myself than I had ever done before, and to seek for mercy with greater earnestness.”[14] Sometime afterward, Carey was converted as he came to “depend on a crucified Saviour for pardon and salvation, and to seek a system of doctrines in the Word of God.”[15]
Though John Warr was the instrument used to bring about Carey’s salvation, he was part of a congregation that practiced infant baptism. Part of Carey’s search for a system of doctrine inevitably included a study of baptism. “He examined [this] subject thoroughly after hearing a pastor named Horsey preach on ‘the rhantism of an infant.’”[16] After studying this issue for himself, Carey was convinced that the Bible teaches the baptism of disciples alone. “Early one Sunday morning in October 1783, Carey was baptized by the Baptist pastor, John Ryland, Jr., in the River Nene at Northampton.”[17]
Around the time of his baptism, Carey came across the published journals of Captain James Cook (1728–1779) recounting his voyages in the Pacific, which involved, among other things, the discovery of Tahiti and the charting of the unknown shores of New Zealand and Australia. Carey put it this way: “Reading Cook’s voyages was the first thing that engaged my mind to think of missions.”[18] Carey collected geographical and religious information from nations he supposed had never heard the gospel for the next eight years.
Edmund Carey’s impact upon William continued into his adulthood. “Like his father before him, he became a village schoolmaster for poor children.”[19] During this time, Carey also worked as a shoemaker and pastor at a church in Moulton, Northampton. He worked these three jobs because the church could not pay him adequate compensation. Concerning the time of Carey’s calling to this work, Michael Haykin writes:
“[John] Sutcliff noted in the Olney Church Book that on 10 August 1786 Carey had been ‘called to the work of the ministry and sent out by the Church to preach the gospel, wherever God in his providence might call him’. Sutcliff’s advice regarding whether Carey should… devote himself to the work at Moulton has not been recorded, but he must have encouraged Carey to give himself to the Baptists in the village that he now called home. From that November Carey was invited by the Moulton believers to become their pastor and three months later—after prayer and presumably discussion with Sutcliff—Carey accepted.”[20]
Carey pastored the Moulton work until the summer of 1789[21] until on May 7, 1789, when he accepted a call from the Baptist church at Harvey Lane in Leicester.[22] Carey would serve in this Northampton Association church until sent to India to preach the gospel. “The minutes of the business meeting for the Hervey Lane Baptist Church in Leicester, England, for September, October, November, December, and January 1792-93 state: ‘no business of importance except that [as of January] our pastor gave us notice that he should leave us in March, having engaged to go on a Mission to Bengal in the East Indies.’ With such an inauspicious notation, the church of which William Carey was pastor recorded the most signal event in the history of modern missions.”[23]
On June 13, 1793, the Carey family set sail from Dover to India. The crew consisted of William, his wife Dorothy, their four children (Felix, William, Peter, and Jabez), and Dorothy’s sister. On November 11, 1793, the crew safely arrived in India. “After a tempestuous sea voyage of five months, Carey and his party arrived in Calcutta.”[24] Upon arrival, he and his family were immediately met with difficulties, including the potential of being shipped back to England since they entered India as illegal aliens. After just a few months of being in Calcutta, William moved his family to Mudnabati in the summer of 1794 to manage an indigo factory to provide for his family. Providing for the physical needs of his family was a difficult circumstance, but this was also a season of much discouragement. Carey witnessed little, tangible, spiritual fruit upon his arrival to India.
“For seven years Carey worked in India without seeing a single convert from Hinduism to the Christian faith. He prayed, preached, taught, translated the Scriptures into Bengali, but with no visible results to show forth his efforts. There were times when he was discouraged and depressed, but he kept ‘plodding on,’ as he put it, toward the goal of establishing a vibrant Christian witness in India.”[25]
After many years of laboring, there was cause to rejoice. In 1797, Carey completed the Bengali translation of the New Testament. In October 1799, he was joined on the mission field by co-laborers William Ward, Joshua Marshman, and Hannah Marshman. A few months later, on January 10, 1800, Carey and his family moved to Serampore to establish a missionary community to focus on Bible printing, education, and further missionary work. “Eventually, the Serampore community numbered around sixty persons who worked in various aspects of the mission.”[26] Then, there was ample reason for rejoicing. After years of labor, a man named Krishna Pal was converted by the power of God. The work of Bible translation was a vital means to bring Krishna to faith: “Krishna Pal… rejoiced in the sovereign grace of God for they had ‘no other means, it seems than a New Testament and a few pamphlets.’”[27] On Sunday, December 28, 1800, Carey baptized Krishna Pal into the Ganges River. Blessings continued, for on February 7, 1801, the first Bengali New Testament was printed. In the following years, the Lord prospered the work of Carey’s hands and gave him opportunities to educate while translating. In April 1801, he was appointed a teacher at Fort William College in Calcutta. By 1807, he was awarded a doctorate by Brown University for his accomplishments. In 1808, the Sanskrit New Testament was published. Ten years later, in 1818, the Sanskrit Bible was published. Also, in 1818, Carey, Ward, and Marshman opened Serampore College. Carey’s missional and education achievements are evidence that he lived the essence of what he preached in 1792. His entire life was expecting and attempting great things.
On June 10, 1781, William married his first wife, Dorothy Plackett, a woman who was five years older than him. Together they would have six children, though three would die as young children. Their firstborn, Ann Carey, died in her second year. Their other daughter, Lucy Carey, also died in her second year (in England). The four living children who boarded to India were Felix, William, Peter, and Jabez. After less than a year in India, “his five-year-old son, Peter, contracted a virulent fever and died.”[28] In January of 1796, the sixth and final child was born: Jonathan Carey. During these years in India, Dorothy’s mental health strongly diminished. One would think that the loss of her children and being relocated to India would contribute to this. Her mental derangement gradually intensified until her death on December 8, 1807. Five months later, on May 9, 1808, Carey married his second wife, Charlotte Rumohr. They were united in marriage until her death on May 30, 1821. On July 22, 1822, Carey married his third wife, Grace Hughes (1778-1835). Their marriage lasted until William’s death. Throughout his life, William experienced the deaths of people he loved. Not only did he outlive two wives and endure the death of multiple children (including Felix’s in 1822), but he also outlived many of his friends: John Sutcliff (d.1814), Andrew Fuller (d.1815), Krishna Pal (d.1822), William Ward (d. 1823), and John Ryland Jr. (d.1825). Finally, on the morning of June 9, 1834, Carey experienced death. “One of his last requests was that a couplet from one of his favorite Watts hymns, and nothing more, be inscribed on the stone slab which would mark his grave: A wretched, poor, and helpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall.”[30] Though Carey finished his Christian race in India, he was looking to a better country.
The Obligation to Use Means
Once as a young man, Carey was present at a fellowship for ministers. During this meeting, the idea was suggested that they have some area of doctrine to discuss. Carey suggested the following topic: “the duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel among heathen nations.”[31] After suggesting this topic, Carey was rebuked. John Ryland Sr., the father of the man who baptized Carey, apparently[32] said the following words: “Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine!”[33] Carey’s topic was not taken up. Later, Carey published a work titled An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversions of the Heathens, in 1792. In this publication, Carey refuted the view held by some of his contemporaries that making disciples of the nations was no longer a binding command upon the church. “Carey was able to refute this argument by pointing out that the two other aspects of the text in Matthew 28—baptism and the presence of Christ [to the end of his age with his people]—had no temporal limitations on them. The command to baptize was still very much in force, and the promise of Christ’s abiding presence was still a comfort in time of trouble and turmoil.”[34] Though Ryland Sr. had apparently[35] asserted that God would convert sinners without means, Carey later propounded: “… if God intends the salvation of the heathen, he will some way or another bring them to the gospel, or the gospel to them.”[36]
One of the most important “means” Carey utilized in evangelism was getting Scripture into the languages of his listeners. This inevitably required the difficult work of bible translation. With the philological giftedness that Carey had[37], and with the ability of Ward to use a printing press, the Sarempore trio worked tirelessly to the admirable goal of getting God’s word into the languages of the people. One of the first languages emphasized was Bengali. “Carey pulled the last page of the Bengali New Testament off the press on February 7, 1801. By March 5, 1801, it was bound, and Carey laid it on the communion table.”[38] Nettles further writes about Carey’s philological giftedness:
“Carey’s work in reducing several languages and dialects to the principal level for study was massive while his Sanskrit grammar, the earliest full grammar of the language to be written and published, set him ‘high amongst the most distinguished of our Sanskrit scholars’. Carey’s work in Bengali both salvaged and improved the language, and established it, indeed, as a viable language… Carey was responsible for translating the Bible, or supervising and overseeing its translation, whole or in part, into thirty-six distinct languages.”[39]
Another “means” Carey strongly believed God would use to convert sinners was the preaching of Scripture. “From the beginning, he desired to ‘preach in earnest to these poor people.’ Soon he did; [on] May 9, 1795, Carey preached [to them] from Luke 4:18[40].”[41] In this sermon, Carey declares that the information that they had received from the Hindu scriptures and the Koran were not sufficient to give that saving knowledge of the one true God. Carey emphasized that these poor sinners needed union with the savior Jesus Christ. William’s son, Jonathan, further explains his father’s preaching emphasis:
“In the work of preaching my father was actively employed, both at Serampore and in Calcutta. At the former place, he preached in the chapel on the mission premises, in English and in the Bengali language; and in English at the Danish church and at Calcutta; he preached also at the Lal Bazar chapel in both languages; and devoted one evening exclusively to hearing and giving counsel to inquirers.”[42]
The last “means” worthy of emphasis was education. “Not only were Carey, Marshman, and Ward convinced that general education would increase one’s appreciation of the biblical material; they also believed that true learning would reveal the perverseness of false religion.”[43] Some of the areas of study they emphasized included arithmetic, geography, general history, practical Hindu wisdom, and, most importantly, Holy Scripture.[44]
The Importance of Friendship
It would be foolish to think that the success granted to Carey came from his unaided efforts. Carey not only recognized the importance of God’s blessing and supernatural assistance upon his ministry, but Carey also recognized the value of deep friendships. Often throughout the history of the church, God has granted much success to a group of Christians who have been bonded together in love for one another by the Holy Spirit. Though Augustine of Hippo is commonly thought of as one of the most influential persons to impact Christianity (both in Protestant and Catholic dogma), he was by no means a “lone ranger” Christian. He often reflected on friendship, writing in his confessions: “Without friends, even the happiness of the senses which I then possessed was impossible, no matter how great the abundance of carnal pleasures.”[45] We know the names of two of his greatest friends, Alpyius and Nebridis.[46] After tracing Augustine’s biography, Peter Brown observes:
“Having read the life of this extremely inward-looking man, we suddenly realize, to our surprise, that he has hardly ever been alone. There have always been friends around him. He learnt to speak ‘amid the cooing of nurses, the jokes of laughing faces, the high spirits of playmates.’ Only a friendship could make him lose ‘half my soul’; and only yet more friendship would heal his wound. Seldom do we find him thinking alone: usually he is ‘talking on such subjects to my friends.’ Augustine has hardly changed in this: in middle age he remains delightfully and tragically exposed to ‘that most unfathomable of all involvements of the soul—friendship.’”[47]
One may be tempted to think of Martin Luther as a “lone ranger” Christian who did the impossible for God. Nevertheless, Phillip Melanchthon is evidence that his life was not complete solitude! Luther once wrote the following warm words to Melanchthon for encouragement: “Great though our cause is, its Author and Champion is also great, for the cause is not ours… If our cause is false, let us recant. But if it is true, why should we make Him a liar who has given us such great promises and who commands us to be confident and undismayed.”[48] One can hardly read these words without noticing the pronouns “ours,” “us,” and “we.”
Similarly, Carey cannot be rightly understood without recognizing the group of friends he labored with. “Carey was part of this [the Baptist Missionary Society] close-knit circle of like-minded friends, without whom little of what he longed for would have been realized.”[49] Though each person involved with the Baptist Missionary Society played a role in propagating the gospel, there were three men from the Northampton Baptist Association whom Carey had a deep friendship with: John Ryland Jr., John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller.
As previously mentioned under the biographical sketch, John Ryland Jr. was the man that baptized Carey on October 5, 1783. On August 1, 1787, Ryland Jr. was present for Carey’s formal ordination as pastor of the Moulton church. “At the ordination service, after Carey had presented his statement of faith, Ryland asked him various questions about his theological convictions. Ryland noted in his diary that Carey’s theological convictions were ‘sound and sensible.’”[50] Carey’s friendship with Ryland was not merely sentimentalism. Instead, they were united in their shared love for Christ and like-minded doctrinal convictions.[51]
Carey’s friendship with John Sutcliff was also built upon a foundation of like-minded theology. Before Carey was formally ordained to preach, he became of member of John Sutcliff’s church in Olney in 1785. Sutcliff privileged Carey with the opportunity to preach to this congregation on July 14, 1785. Before long, Carey was sent out by the church in Olney and was regularly preaching at the church in Moulton. During the early parts of Carey’s ministry there, “Sutcliff appears to have sent Cary the outlines of a covenant that became the basis for the one signed by the members of the Moulton Church.”[52] Additionally, Sutcliff preached the ordination charge for Carey from 2 Timothy 4:5.
The last friend present at Carey’s ordination was Andrew Fuller, whom Michael Haykin says, “may well have been his closest friend in the years that followed.”[53] Fuller also preached to the Moulton church, and his text came from Psalm 68:18. If Carey was the legs to the Baptist Missionary Society, Fuller was the hand that penned the theological backbone for the impetus to evangelize the heathen. But Fuller could also be viewed as “feet” back in England for his efforts as the secretary for the Baptist Missionary Society. “On average, he was away from home three months out of the year”[54] raising funds and promoting the mission. “Fuller likened their ‘undertaking in India’ to a group of men deliberating about descending into ‘a deep mine, which had never before been explored.’ While we were thus deliberating, Carey, as it were, said ‘Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.’”[55] Andrew Fuller was a vital rope holder to the mission and friend of Carey.
On October 2, 1792, a ministerial meeting was held at Kettering to discuss the formation of what would become the BMS. “In addition to Fuller, Ryland Jr., Sutcliff and Carey, there was also there that night Samuel Pearce (1766-99) whose church in Birmingham belonged to the Midland Association, but whom Fuller had invited to be one of the preachers that day.”[56] Pearce’s friendship with Carey can be deduced by the encouraging letters he sent to Carey. More than deduction, we get a sense of their deep friendship from a phrase written in Greek from Pearce to Carey.
“The commitment of these men to one another is well summed up in the words that Samuel Pearce wrote in the front of a Greek New Testament that he sent to Carey in the autumn of 1797. In choosing these particular words, Pearce was obviously seeking to remind Carey what God had done for them by joining them together in Christian friendship. Appropriately, five of them were in Greek and were drawn from Acts 4:32: “A small token of the great esteem he bears his dear brother Carey… καρδια και ψθχη μια [one heart and one soul].”[57]
The last two of Carey’s friends worthy of mention are William Ward and Joshua Marshman. Together, these three men make up what has been called the Serampore trio. They were the brethren that labored together on the field in India for the propagation of the gospel. Ward was a printing press manager who got Bible translations into the hands of readers. He was also exceptionally gifted in preaching and regularly did so in Serampore. Marshman contributed to this communal effort by assuming “the role of apologist for the mission.”[58] Marshman zealously and eagerly labored to make Christ known in this role. Concerning their relationship with one another, Haykin writes: “In all extant literature and manuscripts of these three men, there is amazingly no trace of mutual jealousy or severe anger.”[59] Carey said the following about his relationship with Ward and Marshman: “As the image or shadow of bigotry is not known among us here, we take sweet counsel together, and go to the house of God as friends.”[60]
The Significance of Evangelical Calvinism
Tom Hicks writes the following about the doctrinal impetus for Carey’s evangelism: “William Carey, an English Particular Baptist, and the ‘Father of Modern Missions,’ built his mission work on warm evangelical Calvinism…”[61] Like many, Carey was initially an Arminian when he first became a follower of Christ. As Carey grew in his understanding of Scripture, he became convinced that Calvinism best articulated the Bible’s teaching about salvation. Through the careful study of a book titled Help to Zion’s Travelers by a Particular Baptist named Robert Hall, Carey became convinced of the doctrines of grace. “Hall’s book presented and defended the evangelical Calvinism of Particular Baptists and helped Carey to comprehend and systematize the teachings of Scripture about divine sovereignty and human responsibility in salvation.”[62]
Having now been persuaded that the Arminian explanation of soteriology was wrong, Carey faced different Calvinistic structures. One type of Calvinism lent itself toward being passive and non-evangelistic to the unconverted in its preaching.[63] This is because the Particular Baptists had been influenced by “High-Calvinism” or “Hyper-Calvinism.” These Calvinists reasoned that it was unfair to offer the gospel to the non-elect if they didn’t have the ability to repent. Thus, they denied the free offer of the gospel to the unconverted and would not call upon the unconverted to repent of sin and believe in Christ.
Responding to this “High-Calvinism” or “Hyper-Calvinism,” the evangelical and moderate Particular Baptists were profited by the studies of an American theologian, Jonathan Edwards. “According to the universal testimony of this circle of friends [the Baptist Missionary Society], Jonathan Edwards played the largest role in lifting them from their perplexity.”[64] In Edward’s work titled The Freedom of the Will, Edwards distinguished between ‘Natural and Moral Necessity and Inability.’[65] The distinction follows:
“What has been said of natural and moral necessity, may serve to explain what is intended by natural and moral inability. We are said to be naturally unable to do a thing, when we can’t do it if we will, because what is most commonly called nature don’t allow of it, or because of some impeding defect or obstacle that is extrinsic to the will; either in the faculty of understanding, constitution of body, or external objects. Moral inability consists not in any of these things; but either in the want of inclination; or the strength of a contrary inclination; or the want of sufficient motives in view, to induce and excite the act of the will, or the strength of apparent motives to the contrary. Or both these may be resolved into one; and it may be said in one word, that moral inability consists in the opposition or want of inclination. For when a person is unable to will or choose such a thing, through a defect of motives, or prevalence of contrary motives, ’tis the same thing as his being unable through the want of an inclination, or the prevalence of a contrary inclination, in such circumstances, and under the influence of such views.[66]
Perhaps the clearest influence of Edward’s writing was upon Carey’s friend, Andrew Fuller. In a work titled The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, Fuller writes about the duty of sinners to believe in Christ, to repent of sin, and for ministers to actively evangelize the unconverted. Writing about himself in the third person, Fuller mentions Edwards’s influence on himself:
“He had also read and considered, as well as he was able, President Edwards’s Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, with some other performances on the difference between natural and moral inability. He found much satisfaction in this distinction; as it appeared to him to carry with it its own evidence—to be clearly and fully contained in the Scriptures—and calculated to disburden the Calvinistic system of a number of calumnies with which its enemies have loaded it, as well as to afford clear and honourable conceptions of the Divine government. If it were not the duty of unconverted sinners to believe in Christ, and that because of their inability, he supposed this inability must be natural, or something which did not arise from an evil disposition; but the more he examined the Scriptures, the more he was convinced that all the inability ascribed to man, with respect to believing, arises from the aversion of his heart. They will not come to Christ that they may have life; will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely; will not seek after God; and desire not the knowledge of his ways.”[67]
Though “every member of Fuller’s fraternity of ministerial friends read Edwards and embraced the significance of this simple point,”[68] Fuller had put into writing this helpful distinction. In his church’s confession of faith, he wrote: “I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and faithfully to preach the gospel to all who hear it; and as I believe the inability of men to spiritual things to be wholly of moral, and therefore of the criminal kind, and that it is their duty to love the Lord Jesus Christ and trust in him for salvation though they do not; I therefore believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls, and warnings to them to be not only consistent, but directly adapted, as means in the hand of the Spirit of God, to bring them to Christ. I consider it as part of my duty to which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.”[69]
The evangelistic stream of Calvinists would often describe their theological opponents as those who held to “False Calvinism.”[70] In response, the Hyper-Calvinists would accuse them of Arminianism for evangelizing the unconverted.[71] Evangelical Particular Baptists like Fuller and Ryland Jr. saw themselves holding the biblical position between the error of two extremes—namely High-Calvinism and Arminianism. Indeed, the theology of Edwards and Fuller was the theological impetus and backbone that compelled Carey to take the gospel to the nations.
Conclusion
In May of 1792, Carey uttered, “Expect great things; attempt great things.” A critical evaluation of Carey’s life shows that he did both by the help of his God and for the glory of his God. In this paper, I have shown that one of the clearest ways that God used Carey was in a community of friends who shared a common love for Christ. A group of friends worked through the modern question, coming to a moderate, Calvinistic, and evangelistic conclusion. Further, a group of friends worked together in England to formulate a plan to take the gospel to the nations. Though Carey and his family were isolated from Christian fellowship for a few years upon their arrival in India, the Lord would prosper the efforts of a group of Christian friends in Serampore. To tell the story of Carey, the man commonly called the father of the modern missionary movement, is not to exalt one man. Instead, it is to delight in the work of God, who often uses a plurality of Christians who work together to make His name great. “The works of the Lord are great, Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.” (Ps. 111:2 KJV).
Footnotes
[1] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 146.
[2] The sermon text was Isaiah 54:2-3, which reads: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, And let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; And thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, And make the desolate cities to be inhabited.” (Is. 54:2–3 KJV)
[3] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 147.
[4] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 292.
[5] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 143.
[6] Ibid., 143-144.
[7] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 281.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 144.
[10] Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 17.
[11] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 281.
[12] Ibid. 282.
[13] Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 19.
[14] Eustace Carey, Memoir of William Carey, D.D. (London, England: Jackson and Walford, 1836), 12.
[15] Ibid. 14.
[16] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 284.
[17] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 144.
[18] Michael A. G. Haykin, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, His Friends and His Times (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 1994), 184.
[19] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 145.
[20] Michael A. G. Haykin, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, His Friends and His Times (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 1994), 187–188.
[21] Ibid. 189.
[22] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 146.
[23] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 279.
[24] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 155.
[25] Ibid. 156
[26] Ibid. 157
[27] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 298.
[28] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 156.
[29] The following details help better understand what contributed to Dorothy’s mental health in India: “At first Dorothy refused to go with Carey to India but finally consented under special pleading from John Thomas. On August 20, 1793, having passed the Tropic of Capricorn and now just off the Cape of Good Hope, Carey wrote pleasantly, ‘My wife thro mercy is well satisfied with our undertaking, and we are all now in remarkable good Health.’ All that changed—financial insecurity, much moving about, and bodily reaction to climate change plagued them. Carey recorded in January 1794, ‘My family have been much afflicted with the Flux—my Wife and [her] Sister too, who do not see the importance of the Mission as I do, are continually exclaiming against me.’” Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 298.
[30] Timothy George, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The British Particular Baptists 1638-1910, Vol.2. ed. Michael A.G. Haykin (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press), 159.
[31] Timothy George, “Evangelical Revival and the Missionary Awakening” in The Great Commission. Ed. Martin I. Klauber & Scott M. Manetsch (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2008), 50.
[32] I use the word “apparently” because there was argumentation about whether John Ryland Sr. truly spoke this phrase. Concerning this argument, Haykin writes: “John C. Marshman (1794-1877), the son of Carey’s coworker in India, Joshua Marshman, had a similar report about the words of the elder Ryland. As Marshman reported the incident many years later in 1859, Ryland apparently dismissed the proposed topic with a frown and told Carey: ‘Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine!’ On the other hand, John Ryland Jr. strongly asserted that his father never uttered such sentiments. The preponderance of evidence, however, does seem to indicate that Carey did indeed receive some sort of stinging rebuke from the elder Ryland.” Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 40.
[33] Timothy George, “Evangelical Revival and the Missionary Awakening” in The Great Commission. Ed. Martin I. Klauber & Scott M. Manetsch (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2008), 50.
[34] Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 42.
[35] Pastor Garrett Walden (of Grace Heritage Church, AL) is emphasizing his Ph.D. research on John C. Ryland. On an episode of the London Lyceum podcast, Walden explains that he believes Ryland is “deeply misunderstood”, concerning this interaction with William Carey. (9-minute mark). “He had an interesting sense of humor, and he would say things just for the shock value… that is my conclusion about his interaction with William Carey at that minister’s conference. I think when he said, ‘sit down young man, when God decides to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine’, I think he was being sarcastic and ironic and it was like a joke that didn’t land.” (18-minute mark). “I think there is some evidence that he kind of leaned toward hyper-Calvinism, but ultimately, I don’t think he was a hyper-Calvinist.” (19-minute mark). https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-london-lyceum/id1476529038?i=1000558105822
[36] William Carey, Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (London, England: Baptist Missionary Society, Reprint, 1934), 8.
[37] “Zeal for Scripture prompted him [Carey] to learn Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He also learned to read and write in Dutch and French. Thus, he was enabled to translate Scripture from the original languages and examine the style and fidelityof translations in Latin, French, and Dutch.” Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 285.
[38] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 295.
[39] Ibid. 296.
[40] The passage reads: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,” (Lk. 4:18 KJV).
[41] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 299-300.
[42] Ibid., 300.
[43] L. Russ Bush and Tom J. Nettles, Baptists and the Bible, Revised and expanded. (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1999), 115.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari, trans. Vernon J. Bourke, vol. 21, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1953), 159.
[46] Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: Forty-Fifth Anniversary Edition. (Berkley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 56.
[47] Ibid. 174.
[48] Steve Lawson The Heroic Boldness of Martin Luther. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2013), 101-102.
[49] Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 36.
[50] Ibid. 36
[51] Another example of this can be found in the journal of John Ryland Jr. on July 8, 1788. When Carey was being accused of Arminianism, Ryland Jr. sympathized that his brother endured slander. He expressed his sympathy with these words: “Asked Brother Carey to preach. Some of our people who are wise above what is written, would not hear him, called him an Arminian, and discovered a strange spirit. Lord pity us! I am almost worn out with grief at these foolish cavils against some of the best of my brethren, men of God, who are only hated because of their zeal.” Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 43.
[52] Ibid. 35.
[53] Ibid. 48.
[54] Ibid. 85.
[55] Michael A. G. Haykin and Jerry Slate Jr., Loving God and Neighbor with Samuel Pearce, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin, Lived Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 106.
[56] Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 82.
[57] Ibid. 121.
[58] Ibid. 98
[59] Ibid. 99
[60] Ibid.
[61] Tom Hicks, “The Glorious Impact of Calvinism upon Local Baptist Churches,” in Whomever He Wills: A Surprising Display of Sovereign Mercy, ed. Matthew M. Barrett and Thomas J. Nettles (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2012), 379.
[62] Ibid. 380.
[63] An example of this has been given under the heading “The Obligation to Use Means.” John Ryland Sr. told Carey: “Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine!” Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 40.
[64] Thomas J. Nettles, “William Carey (1761-1834)” in The Baptists: Key People Involved in Forming a Baptist Identity, Volume One, Beginnings in Britain, (Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 287.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, ed. Harry S. Stout and Paul Ramsey, Revised Edition., vol. 1, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 159–160.
[67]Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Controversial Publications, ed. Joseph Belcher, vol. 2 (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 330.
[68] Thomas J. Nettles, “Baptists and the Great Commission” in The Great Commission, Ed. Martin I, Klauber & Scott M. Manetsch (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2008), 93.
[69] Ryland Jr., The Life and Death of Reverend Andrew Fuller, (London, England: Button & Son, 1816), 105.
[70] “I question much if any thinking man can steer clear of False Calvinism on the one hand, and real Arminianism on the other, without entering into the distinction between Natural and moral inability, as it is commonly termed.” Ryland Jr., The Life and Death of Reverend Andrew Fuller, (London, England: Button & Son, 1816), 105.
[71] The following is an example from the journal of John Ryland Jr.: “Asked Brother Carey to preach. Some of our people who are wise above what is written, would not hear him, called him an Arminian, and discovered a strange spirit. Lord pity us! I am almost worm out with grief at these foolish cavils against some of the best of my brethren, men of God, who are only hated because of their zeal.” Michael A.G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey. (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2018), 43.
About the Author
R. Austin McCormick
In 2021, Austin joined the CBTS administration team as the Manager of Media & Communications. Austin is a 2021 MAPS graduate of CBTS, cohost of the Covenant Podcast, and a member of Grace Reformed Baptist Church. He is married to Rachel, and together they have two children: Geneva and Benjamin. He is especially interested in Baptist history.
This blog post is authored by a student of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
