William Carey

"The Father of Modern Missions"

by
Rodney Gray

William Carey, The Father of Modern Missions

Copyright© 1994 by Rodney Gray
All Rights reserved.

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In June, 1793, the French Revolution was getting ready to unleash its Reign of Terror. A
group of twelve men, the so-called Great Committee of Public Safety, held supreme and
absolute authority over the life and property of every French citizen. The king and queen,
both reduced to the rank of common citizens, were beheaded within months of each other.
There was a movement afoot to have Christianity abolished by decree of the National
Convention. Church buildings in Paris and other major cities were closing one after
another, the guillotine was taking the place of the cross as the symbol of liberty and was
even being called the "Holy Guillotine." The Revolution was determined to uproot and
destroy every vestige of the old order, even the reckoning of time and measure. The
Goddess of Reason was being enshrined as the object of worship and churches were
turned into temples in her honor. France was at war with England and just about every
other European state, as France issued the call for revolution against monarchies
everywhere. In the new world, Eli Whitney was busy figuring out how to make life easier
for cotton growers in the south. Isaac Backus was pressing ahead with his history of New
England, "with Particular reference to the Baptists." And George Washington, in his
second term as President of the United States, was resisting increasing pressure to get
involved in the war on the side of the French, who thought it was the least he could do in
light of their aid in the cause of the American Revolution.

Across the English Channel, just twenty one miles from the coast of France, other events
were unfolding, events more momentous, though hardly noticed by the world. The Kron
Princessa Maria, a ship of Danish registry, was setting sail for India, a voyage which
would last five months. As the white cliffs of Dover gradually faded from view, one
wonders whether William Carey realized that neither he nor his wife Dorothy nor their
newborn son, Jabez, would never see England again. Certainly he could not have
imagined that his life and labors would ignite the missionary enterprise to such an extent
that the world would remember him as the Father of Modern Missions. In the two
centuries since Carey the world has come under the sway of unprecedented Gospel
influences. For Carey, it was a simple but profound matter of conviction that those
entrusted with the Gospel have an obligation to communicate it to those who do not have
it, and he and his small circle of supporters set out "not so much to undertake a project as
to develop a principle" (Cramp, 438). He became convinced that the Great Commission is
binding on all believers as a Gospel duty transcending times, places and circumstances.

Timothy George notes that, since Carey's death in 1834, “some 50 biographies of Carey
have been published in many languages of the world” (George, 1991, xviii). Not only so,
but papers on Carey's career abound, since Baptist gatherings and missions conferences
have always wanted to stake out their rightful claims on his heritage. The recent book on
William Carey, by Timothy George, is entitled Faithful Witness: The Life and Career of
William Carey. It has the advantage of being concise and readable and of manageable
size. It is especially useful because included at the end is the trenchant essay, "An
Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the
Heathens. In Which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success
of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings, are
Considered, by William Carey." Rather than reviewing George's book or simply retelling
an oft-told story, our focus will turn to the "Enquiry," and some of its implications for us.

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 Early Life

When William Carey announced to his father that he intended to become a missionary in
India, his father wondered if he was out of his mind. This was in large part due to the fact
that what William intended to do with his life was so far removed from the life he had
known from his birth. William Carey was born in a little village called Paulerspury, in the
county of Northamptonshire, England, August 17, 1761. He was christened in the
Anglican parish church in which both his father and grandfather served as clerk. One of
his ancestors was the minister of the same parish in the previous century and the Careys
were ardently Episcopalian. Certainly William was not taught to seek out the company of
Baptists and Dissenters. Like many Anglicans of his day, he resented anyone who
presumed to separate from the established religion. His childhood was typical of the
common people of that time. William was the oldest of five children. His father, Edmund,
was barely able to provide for his family by working as the village schoolteacher. This
proved to be a great advantage to William because it gave him access to books. He had a
hunger for knowledge from an early age and read everything he could.

At the age of fourteen he became an apprentice to a shoemaker in the village of

Piddington. Earlier in his boyhood he had developed a skin disease that required him to
avoid prolonged exposure to the sun, so his parents thought it best to arrange indoor
employment for him. He was to learn a trade that would enable him to earn a living for
the next fourteen years, but it was a turning point in his life for a more important reason.
In the shoe shop he became acquainted with another apprentice named John Warr.
Carey’s new friend was three years older than he, and he was a Dissenter. In England,
Dissenters are those who “dissent” from the established church, the Church of England.
Dissenters could be Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Baptists, and others.
They were also known as “Nonconformists,” because they refused to “conform” to the
established church. John Warr’s testimony was such that it began to provoke many lively
discussions between the two young men. William Carey began to realize that his friend
had something that he had not found in the formal, lifeless services of the Church of
England.

An incident in his life about this time seems to have shown him in a powerful way the
evil and deceit of his heart. Christmas was approaching, and it was the custom for
apprentices to receive gifts from their master’s customers. A customer offered Carey his
choice of two coins of greater and lesser value. He immediately chose the more valuable
coin, only to discover later that it was counterfeit. He decided to remedy the situation by
exchanging it for a genuine coin paid to his master’s business. By his own account,
William even made his sins of theft and lying a matter of earnest prayer to God, that if
God would get him through it without being found out, he promised to live a good life.
He was found out and was so ashamed that he avoided being seen in public for some
time.

Eventually he did venture out again and started to attend the Dissenter prayer meetings
with his friend, John Warr. On Sunday, February 10, 1779, King George III proclaimed a
national day of prayer and fasting because of the losses Britain was suffering in the

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American Revolution. This was the first Sunday service Carey attended at the Dissenting
meeting house. He heard a sermon on Hebrews 13:13 – “Let us go forth therefore unto
him without the camp, bearing his reproach.” He determined to stop attending the Church
of England services altogether and to identify himself with a more evangelical ministry.
He seems to have become a Christian around this time. In the meantime Carey continued
to read as much as he could. His employer had a supply of books and he allowed Carey
the use of them. He began to study New Testament Greek and secured the help of a
former university student to help him. It was said of him that he always worked with a
book open before him. During the same year his master died and he was apprenticed to a
relative of his former master in a place called Hackleton.

William Carey was not yet twenty years of age when he married his new master’s sister-
in-law, Dorothy Plackett on June 10, 1781. Their first child, Ann, died of a fever that
nearly took William’s life, too. By this time William was preaching as often as he could
and studying as much as he could. By 1783 he became convinced of believers’ baptism
and was eventually baptized on October 5 in the River Nene by a Baptist minister in
Northampton named John Ryland, Jr. In December of the same year his master died and
Carey took over the business. He also assumed responsibility to care for his master’s
widow and four children. The Treaty of Paris was signed in October of the same year
after the Americans defeated the British at Yorktown in 1781. The years of war, the loss
of Britain’s most valuable colonies, and an unusually harsh winter only added to the
difficulties William Carey faced. His burden for missions persisted despite all hardships.
In 1784 Andrew Fuller’s The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation was published, and it
made a great impression on him.

Carey first began to preach to the Dissenting meeting in Hackleton. John Sutcliff, the
pastor of the Baptist church in Olney, encouraged him to become a member of an
established Baptist congregation and seek formal ordination to the gospel ministry. Carey
then united with Sutcliff’s church and was given an opportunity to preach in the summer
of 1785. The Olney church did not consider him ready for ordination but encouraged him
to preach elsewhere as he had opportunity. The same year he accepted a call to the Baptist
church in Moulton. He was barely able to survive financially, even by making shoes and
teaching school in addition to his pastoral duties. In due course the Olney church declared
itself in support of his call to the ministry of the gospel. An ordination service was
convened August 1, 1787. Twenty ministers from the Northamptonshire Baptist
Association gathered with the congregation at the Moulton meeting house to formally set
William Carey apart to the ministry of the gospel. Two months later he had the joy and
privilege of baptizing his wife, Dorothy, who had not as yet yielded to believers’ baptism.
Their life at Moulton was a constant struggle in things material, but they enjoyed the
blessing of God with the birth of three sons and the fellowship and support of a devoted
congregation.

William Carey traced the beginning of his interest in missions to his ministry in Moulton.
As a boy he had read accounts of the voyages of Captain James Cook as they were
published in a local newspaper. Captain Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779, and the same
year Carey moved to his pastorate in Moulton the Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage

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was published in London. It was wildly popular all over the country, and William Carey
took a special interest in reading it. The end of Captain Cook’s global explorations was in
a very real sense the beginning of global evangelization. Carey continued to read
whatever he could to expand his awareness of the peoples of the world who had not been
reached with the gospel. It was said of him that he looked out from his cottage window in
the little village of Moulton upon an entire world of lost men and women. While serving
the congregation at Moulton, and before his ordination, he attended a ministers’ meeting
of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association in 1786. It was on this occasion that he
proposed a question for discussion among the assembled pastors. His question was
whether the great commission was not as binding on them as it was upon the apostles.
Out of that came the report that John Ryland, Sr., who had invited any of the younger
men to propose a subject, sharply rebuked William Carey with these words: “Young man,
sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your help or
mine.” But the subject was discussed in several subsequent ministers’ meetings and Carey
took notes on the various arguments and objections that were advanced. These, together
with other notes on the need for missionary evangelism and how it could be
accomplished became the basis of his famous Enquiry that is examined below.

In 1789 he accepted a call from the Baptist church at Harvey Lane in the city of
Leicester. A city church presented an entirely different situation to William Carey, and his
ministry there was plagued with serious troubles. Prior to his coming, the church had had
three pastors in three years, and it did not take long for the old problems to surface. The
condition of the church deteriorated so badly that he took the drastic step of proposing
that the church dissolve its membership and reconstitute itself under a new commitment
to follow biblical doctrine and discipline. Some refused to comply but most did and the
church began to recover under Carey’s ministry. But through it all his interest in carrying
the gospel to the heathen in other parts of the world never diminished. He continued to
promote and discuss the cause of world missions at every opportunity. It was not until
1791 that things had settled down sufficiently in the church for Carey to be formally
installed as its pastor. By this time his Enquiry was almost in final form. Some of his
fellow pastors were gathered for fellowship the evening following his installation service,
and he was asked to read portions of it to them. A month earlier they had all heard
Andrew Fuller preach a sermon in the meeting of the Northamptonshire Baptist
Association on “The Danger of Delay” from Haggai 1:2.

A year later the Association met again with ministers and messengers from 24 churches
present. The preacher for the first service of the day was William Carey, whose Enquiry
had by now been published. His text was Isaiah 54:2,3. It was a powerful message that
unleashed all the accumulated burden of his heart. They convened the following morning
for the business session of the Association meeting. The meeting was about to be
dismissed without any proposal or action concerning world missions. Suddenly William
Carey called out, “Is there nothing again going to be done, sir?” The result was that at the
last minute a resolution was adopted to prepare a plan to be considered at the next
meeting to bring the gospel to the heathen. Out of this the Baptist Missionary Society was
born. But why had there been this persistent hesitancy toward global missions among his
fellow ministers?

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 The Situation As Carey Found It

Widespread indifference had settled upon the churches of Carey's day on the question of
global evangelism. The spirit of the times was captured in a song that was making the
rounds, and seemed to express this lethargy about the whole notion of gospel missions
(George, 39).

Go into all the world,

the Lord of old did say,
But now where He has planted thee,
there thou shouldst stay.

The controversy, if indeed there was any, turned in large part on the interpretation of the
word "Go" in our Lord's Great Commission in Matthew 28:19. Even the great Dr. John
Gill, who was known to be against the so-called "Free Address to unconverted sinners,"
(Rippon 1838: 71), had always maintained that God's grace unto sinners is as freely
bestowed as was his honorary degree in divinity, of which he said, "I neither thought it,
nor bought it, nor sought it." Gill had gone on record with this comment fifty years before
Carey: "Into all the world; some into one place, and some into another; since his power
and authority, and so now the commission he gave them, reached every where; before it
was confined to Judea, but now it is extended to all the nations of the world" (Gill 1746:
305). But even sentiments such as Gill's were in short supply in Carey's day. The
conventional wisdom was that the missionary thrust of our Lord's command was directed
to, and therefore fulfilled by, the apostles. The task of British Baptists at the end of the
eighteenth century was to "occupy until He comes."

Is this absence of missionary zeal justly attributable to a strident hyper-Calvinism among

Particular Baptists? The revivals of the earlier and latter parts of the eighteenth century
were having their good effect on the local churches, promoting the start of new churches
and bringing a renewed vitality to associational life. The Northamptonshire Baptist
Association had already taken up the challenge inspired by Jonathan Edwards' "Humble
Attempt to promote ...Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion..." first published
in 1748 in Boston, Massachusetts. A copy of it was evidently made available by John
Erskine in 1784. It circulated among the pastors and the Association resolved to set aside
the first Monday of each month for this purpose. Five years later it was republished by
John Sutcliff and was having a great effect upon the churches. Andrew Fuller finalized
and published his Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation during this same time.

Nevertheless, it must be granted that Carey faced at least a practical hyper-Calvinism

which had left many Particular Baptists with a blind side in relation to foreign missionary
efforts. Uncertainty over the free address of gospel invitations to unconverted hearers in
the churches was bound to impact the question of foreign missions. Whether it is fair to
dismiss the problem as theologically driven has been a matter of debate, a debate we will
not enter here, much less resolve. Erroll Hulse does not think the situation can be defined
in such simplistic terms. He writes, "The ministers of the Northamptonshire Association
were not HyperCalvinists. They would have subscribed to the 1689 Confession of Faith.

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Doctrinally they were orthodox but their mentality was insular and confined in the same
way as ours can be" (RT 130 [1992]: 2).

The observation may be made that, if this missionary inertia was rooted in doctrinal
convictions, it is difficult to account for the willingness of Carey's associates in the
ministry to come around as they did. Doctrinal convictions tenaciously held are not
readily surrendered. Thomas Armitage offers this observation, though he refrains from
using the term "hyper-Calvinism:" "To most of the Baptists his [Carey's] views were
visionary and even wild, in open conflict with God's sovereignty" (Armitage 1887: 580).
McBeth on the other hand does not hesitate to explain the decline among Particular
Baptists in terms of a "sterile hyper-Calvinism" (McBeth 1987: 178). Robinson stops
short of tracing a necessary effect-to-cause relationship, but argues that hyperCalvinism
"could be made to justify the lack of missionary zeal" (Robinson 1946: 112,113). Torbet
deals with the subject in terms of the rise of younger men of "moderate" Calvinist views
replacing the older men who were at least influenced by hyper-Calvinism. Referring to
Andrew Fuller, he declares, "To him also belongs the credit for doing much to break
down the anti-missionary spirit of hyper-Calvinists" (Torbet 1965: 80). Then as now, the
term "hyper-Calvinism" almost inevitably carries subjective connotations, depending on
the perspective of the observer. Spurgeon said that Gill was the choirmaster of hyper-
Calvinism, "but if his followers never went beyond their master, they would not go very
far astray." In any case, within the space of a year's time William Carey managed, under
God, to persuade his fellow pastors to "hold the ropes" for him as he committed himself
to descend into the work of evangelizing India.

Three significant steps contributed to this great undertaking. First, The "Enquiry" was
developed and refined gradually until its publication in early 1792. Second, Carey's
famous sermon from Isaiah 54:2 and 3 (the "expect great things, attempt great things"
sermon) was preached in the Association meeting of May of that year. And third, this
sermon in turn sparked the resolution to prepare a plan for the formation of what was
originally called the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the
Heathen. But it is to what is perhaps his definitive work, the famous "Enquiry," that we
now must turn.

The Enquiry Summarized

Carey grounded his whole presentation "in the character of God himself." In other words,
God is a missionary God, who comes in the person of Jesus Christ to seek and to save the
lost. It would be to call in question the very character of God to deny that the knowledge
of His name should be taken to the ends of the earth. Carey argued that the purpose of
God is made clear in the history of redemption. God undertakes to recover a lost race. He
is found by those who do not seek him. It is His ultimate purpose to make His kingdom
prevail as widely as sin and its consequences have extended.

In Section One Carey addresses the crucial question of the interpretation of the Great
Commission. Is it binding on the people of God in all times and places, or is it limited in
its obligation to the apostles? "There seems also to be an opinion existing in the minds of

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some," he wrote, "that because the apostles were extraordinary officers and have no
proper successors, and because many things which were right for them to do would be
unwarrantable for us, therefore it may not be immediately binding on us to execute the
commission, though it was so upon them." Carey argued convincingly against this notion.
In the first place, if the command to teach all nations was limited, then it follows that the
same limitation applies to the command to baptize. Second, all who since the apostles
have ever attempted to take the gospel to the nations have acted without authority. And
third, if the responsibility belonged only to the apostles, then the promise of the Lord's
presence was exclusively theirs, too. Carey went on to demonstrate the absurdity of such
a position by pointing out that "it must be as bad to pray for them, as to preach to them."
Against the argument that we need to await God's providence, Carey asked whether we
are waiting for providential, or miraculous, opportunities. Did anyone expect to be
supernaturally transported to the heathen, and granted the supernatural gift of language to
preach once he arrived? Should we not rather make all possible exertions and use the
opportunities providence has opened? To those who plead the great numbers of
unconverted in their own nation, Carey's response was as it would no doubt be today -
that Gospel opportunities abound here while unnumbered multitudes languish in total
spiritual darkness with not so much as a written language into which to translate the
Bible.

Section Two is a survey of missionary efforts starting with the Book of Acts and covering
history to his own time. Carey begins with the Pentecostal descent of the Holy Spirit and
reviews the expansion of the gospel witness in New Testament times. He proceeds into
the postapostolic period, the Middle Ages and the Reformation, citing names, places and
dates throughout. Carey demonstrated a keen interest in history and an awareness of what
had transpired in the missionary enterprise. He presented the facts in order to show his
contemporaries that they had, in effect, dropped the ball handed to them by the
forerunners. If they held to the theology of the Reformers, it was unaccountable that they
would not engage in evangelistic efforts as the Reformers had done. "John Huss and
Jerome of Prague preached boldly and successfully in Bohemia and the adjacent parts. In
the following century Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Bucer, Martyr, and many others stood
up against all the rest of the world; they preached, and prayed, and wrote; and nations
agreed one after another to cast off the yoke of popery, and to embrace the doctrine of the
gospel."

Carey concluded the survey with mention of two men who seem to have been especially
influential in his own life: John Eliot (1604-1690) and David Brainerd (1718-1747).
Clearly John Eliot, the apostle to the North American Indians, was one of the great
forerunners of the modern missionary movement. He came to Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1631 and at the bidding of Gov. John Winthrop he began his ministry in the New
World at the First Church of Boston. About a year later he became the first minister of the
Congregational Church of Roxbury. In those days Roxbury lay on the frontier of
civilization as the colonists knew it, and in that place Eliot labored for the remaining sixty
years of his life. His concern was to bring the gospel of saving grace to the Indians. He
assigned himself the task of learning the language of the local tribes, and in 1646 he
preached the first gospel message by an Englishman in a native-American tongue. The

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Synod held at Cambridge in 1647 heard not only the opening sermon in English, but on
account of the presence of many Indian converts, an afternoon sermon was preached in
their language as well.

John Eliot's work made the language reducible to writing, leading eventually to a
translation of the Bible as well as a number of other instructional books. The year 1654
saw the publication of the first native American book ever printed in New England: A
Catechism in Massachusetts Algonquin, prepared by John Eliot. In 1664 the entire Bible
was available in the same language. Dozens of communities of socalled "praying Indians"
took shape as a result of Eliot's untiring efforts.

David Brainerd is perhaps better known through his diary and journal, and the memoirs
by Jonathan Edwards. Carey took the biography by Edwards with him to India and "drew
sustenance from it almost daily" (George, 1991, 45). David Brainerd's self-denying
exertions to reach various tribes of native Americans in New York, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania are well documented and legendary. He was a man who literally burned
himself out in this work at a young age. It has been said that Brainerd has been a more
powerful influence in the cause of the gospel since he died than he was when he lived.
Many who have read about him have discovered that their own lives were profoundly and
permanently changed. One of these was William Carey. Brainerd's diary, it is said,
became a second Bible to him. Brainerd's fervency and godliness were what Carey
wanted to emulate in his own life and ministry. The solemn agreement to which Carey,
who with Marshman and Ward would be known as the Serampore Mission Trio,
committed themselves reminded them to "often look at Brainerd in the woods of
America, pouring out his very soul before God and for the people" (George, 44). The
sufferings, physical, spiritual and mental; the hardships and dangers; the deprivation and
toil endured by Brainerd in his efforts to carry the gospel to the native Americans came as
close as any to the experiences of the Apostle Paul. It was to the example of Brainerd that
William Carey was to turn again and again.

Section Three of Carey's "Enquiry" is truly remarkable in its own right. Though he
devoted his life to pastoral and missionary labors, Carey was a man of many interests. He
studied and read widely to learn all he could about his world. As he made and repaired
shoes in his little shop in Moulton, he would often gaze at his homemade map of the
world. He was intensely interested in reading the accounts of Captain Cook's voyages.
The results of his research are found in this section. In it Carey tabulated the population
of the world at 731 million, according to the available information. He catalogued the
peoples of the world according to four geographical divisions: Europe, Asia, Africa and
America. The religious classifications he used were Christian, Jewish, Mahometan and
Pagan. Timothy George calls this section the "centerpiece" of Carey's "Enquiry" (p. 60).
Here he assembled the results of wide reading and extensive research.

It was not his purpose to merely impress people with statistics, but rather to lend support
to his main proposition that something ought to be done to take the gospel to the
uttermost parts of the earth. He believed that no argument could stand against the
amassed numbers of lost mankind. Carey's work confronted his contemporaries with the

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stark realities of millions of human beings in spiritual darkness, with no gospel witness,
many not even having a written language, and multitudes of them under the cloud of the
papacy or Muhammed. He pointed out the additional fact that much of so-called
"Christendom" is worse off than the rest of the world, because of its widespread unbelief
and degeneracy in the face of gospel privileges. Carey insisted that, "barbarous as these
poor heathens are, they appear to be as capable of knowledge as we are: and in many
places, at least, have displayed uncommon genius and teachability." He concluded this
section with this appeal: "All these things are loud calls to Christians, and especially to
ministers, to exert themselves to the utmost in their several spheres of action, and to try to
enlarge them as much as possible."

In Section Four Carey addressed the inevitable objections. He had heard them all before
in countless discussions. They are quite predictable and address very fundamental, even
legitimate, concerns. But for Carey there was no valid objection against world
evangelism.

There was, first, the objection that the great distances involved should surely preclude
such a venture. Carey's response was to remind the objector that men have managed to
overcome this obstacle for centuries in the interests of trade and commerce. Why not in
the interests of Christ's kingdom? The second argument had to do with the uncivilized
ways for which the pagan world had become notorious. Carey's reply was that this is all
the more reason to bring them the gospel. The gospel is for the barbarian and the civilized
man, and it had many instances to its credit of bringing betterment to the human
condition wherever it went. Others raised a third objection, pointing out the danger of
being killed by the so-called simple savage. But Carey's informed judgment was that,
when confronted with genuine Christianity, natives had generally proved willing to at
least listen to the Word of God. He noted that the heathen are put off not so much by
those who seek to represent before them the meekness and gentleness of Christ, as by the
bad behavior of mere nominal Christians, men whose contact with them was driven by
greed and a lust for power. To the fourth objection that it would be impossible to obtain
the necessities of life and sustain a decent standard of living in many parts of the world,
William Carey maintained that the missionary should learn to do without his European
lifestyle and live as the natives live. And finally, against the contention that language
barriers put the whole idea out of the question, Carey said that if such problems are not
insurmountable for the sake of monetary gain and business, as the great trading
companies of England had already proved, they can be overcome for the sake of the
gospel.

The missionaries, (he insisted), must be men of great piety, prudence, courage, and
forbearance; of undoubted orthodoxy in their sentiments, and must enter with all their
hearts into the spirit of their mission; they must be willing to leave all the comforts of life
behind them, and to encounter all the hardships of a torrid or a frigid climate, an
uncomfortable manner of living, and every other inconvenience that can attend this
undertaking. Clothing, a few knives, powder and shot, fishing-tackle, and the articles of
husbandry above-mentioned, must be provided for them; and when arrived at the place of
their destination, their first business must be to gain some acquaintance with the language

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of the natives. . . and by all lawful means to endeavor to cultivate a friendship with them,
and as soon as possible let them know the errand for which they were sent. They must
endeavor to convince them that it was their good alone which induced them to forsake
their friends and all the comforts of their native country. They must be very careful not to
resent injuries which may be offered to them, nor to think highly of themselves so as to
despise the poor heathens, and by those means lay a foundation for their resentment or
their rejection of the gospel. They must take every opportunity of doing them good, and
laboring and traveling night and day they must instruct, exhort, and rebuke, with all
long-suffering, and anxious desire for them, and, above all, must be instant in prayer for
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the people of their charge. Let but missionaries of
the above description engage in the work and we shall see that it is not impracticable.

In his final segment, Section Five, Carey comes to "An Enquiry into the Duty of
Christians in general, and what means ought to be used, in order to promote this work."
He gives unmistakable priority to prayer, "fervent and united prayer." All other efforts
will prove useless without it. Appealing to Zechariah 4:6, he declared, "If a temple is
raised for God in the heathen world, it will not be `by might, nor by power,' nor by the
authority of the magistrate, or the eloquence of the orator; `but by my Spirit, saith the
Lord of Hosts."' "The most glorious works of grace that have ever taken place have been
in answer to prayer; and it is in this way, we have the greatest reason to suppose, that the
glorious outpouring of the Spirit, which we expect at last, will be bestowed."

Remarking upon the monthly prayer meetings already being conducted by his own
Association, Carey saw that they had reason to be optimistic and encouraged to expect "a
greater than ordinary blessing from heaven." Prayer, it seemed to him, was on a level
where all believers could cooperate and unite. There is only one mercy seat, one throne of
grace, to which all believers may boldly appeal, and from which they may expect to find
grace to help in time of need. His convictions about the necessity of perseverance in
prayer were matched only by the conviction that all appropriate means should be used to
obtain those things for which they prayed. Listen to how Carey expands upon this
principle toward the end of his Enquiry:

When a trading company has obtained their charter they usually go to its utmost limits;
and their stocks, their ships, their officers and men are so chosen and regulated as to be
likely to answer their purpose; but they do not stop here, for encouraged by the prospect
of success they use every effort, cast their bread upon the waters, cultivate friendship
with everyone from whose information they expect the least advantage. They cross the
widest and most tempestuous seas and encounter the most unfavourable climates; they
introduce themselves into the most barbarous nation, and sometimes undergo the most
affecting hardships; their minds continue in a state of anxiety, and suspense, and a longer
delay than usual in the arrival of a vessel agitates them with a thousand changeful
thoughts and foreboding apprehensions which continue till the rich returns are safe
arrived in port. But why these fears? Whence all these disquietudes, and this labor? Is it
not because their souls enter into the spirit of the project, and their happiness in a way
depends on its success? Christians are a body whose truest interest lies in the exaltation
of the Messiah's kingdom. Their charter is very extensive, their encouragements

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exceeding great, and the returns promised infinitely superior to all the gains of the most
lucrative company. Let then everyone in his station consider himself as bound to act with
all his might and in every possible way for God.

From this he proposed the formation of a mission Society. He discouraged any notion that
all Christians should unite in an ecumenical sense, because he refused to treat principles
with expediency. He urged that each denomination undertake its own effort. His
concluding appeal was for the necessary financial responsibility, grounded squarely on
the principle that material resources should be invested, not in the world that now is, but
in the world to come. Carey pointed out that the test of the affections of the heart is where
its treasure is, and that whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

Carey's Idea of “Means”

An important dimension of any consideration of the life and ministry of William Carey
concerns his use of the word "means." It is of particular importance within the context of
his "Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the
Heathens." What did he have in mind when he spoke of and urged the use of "means?"
Would he concur with contemporary notions about using virtually any and every means
available in the interests of accomplishing the end in view? Was William Carey operating
on the premise that the end justifies the means? Certainly he had an end, a goal or
purpose in mind, one which he believed to be biblical. He was convinced, and rightly so,
that it was a matter of gospel obedience for believers to preach the gospel to the
unbelieving world. And to that extent he realized that means must be employed to
accomplish that task. But for Carey, means did not exist in their own right. When it came
to the gospel, means did not have a life of their own, independent of the gospel. His
approach was not to go to the hardware store of methodology, see what tools were
available, and then select those which seemed most likely to produce the quickest and
most impressive results. Rather, the means for Carey were defined and dictated by the
same gospel that defined and dictated the ends.

William Carey was an intense student of the Word of God. He did not come by his views
of truth easily, nor did he take them lightly. He had become a convinced Baptist as well as
a thoroughgoing Calvinist. He was willing to utilize methods which were in keeping with
the gospel, which maintained the integrity of the gospel, and which would deliver the
gospel in one piece, rather than fragmented, disgraced and destroyed. So when he spoke
of the use of means, Carey was thinking not only about what must be done, but what was
proper to do. For example, he understood that a mechanism was needed, an organization,
under whose auspices he might get into India. He was thinking about how missionaries
may sustain themselves in a foreign culture. He knew that transportation and lodging
would have to be arranged.

But even more to the point, Carey's emphasis on means is most clearly understood by
considering what means he employed in his ministry in India. For one thing, he engaged
in the arduous task of translating the Scriptures, and eventually saw to it that the Bible
was published in the Bengali language. Carey held a high view of Scripture. He was what

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he was because of his intense study of Scripture. He was able to read the Bible fluently in
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Dutch and French, as well as his own language. In the end, Carey
and his associates were responsible for translating the Bible into some 40 languages and
dialects (George, 140).

In the second place, he also undertook the work of gospel proclamation at every
opportunity, never forgetting that his primary purpose for being in India was to preach the
gospel. He lived and modeled the gospel, working in various ways to better the lives of
the native population. He understood that peoples’ lives could only be changed by the
gospel, whether in England or India. In India, horrible practices such as slavery,
infanticide, exposure of the sick and elderly, the practice of sati and other such cruelties,
all went on with the tacit approval of a pagan religious establishment. But Carey would
not relinquish his central focus on the gospel, knowing that changed hearts would result
in changed lives, and changed lives would result in a changed culture.

And finally, Carey is well known for his labors in the field of education. He knew that
he had to make the people literate if they were ever going to be able to read the Bible. So
he opened schools, a vast network of them; schools for natives, as well as Europeans;
schools for boys and girls; boarding schools and Sunday schools. It was Joshua
Marshman and his wife who became chiefly responsible to administer this program.
Carey, convinced that all truth is God's truth, sought to instill this basic concept in Hindu
learning. He saw that the mythologically charged world-view of the Indian culture had to
be replaced by a thoroughly Christian worldview. He never forgot that men need
regeneration, not just education. In spite of much deep-seated suspicion and opposition,
the long-term result was that a generation of people could read the Bible, and many
became leaders in gospel churches throughout India. Carey accepted a position at Fort
William College in Calcutta and taught ably there for almost thirty years. He did not
accept his salary directly, but had it deposited in the general fund of the mission. This
policy no doubt helped to make it possible to establish Serampore College, where Carey
also served while continuing as a professor in Calcutta.

One important part of Carey's overall strategy was the formation of the mission society -
The Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel Among the Heathen. Many
would challenge the wisdom of his ways, and offer the opinion in hindsight that the
societal approach has undermined the integrity, potential and power of the local church
more than it has helped. We would suppose that William Carey took the only road that
seemed open to him at the time. Many have followed him on that road, but we may
respectfully question whether it has taken gospel churches where they really wanted to
go.

Of course, many think the societal idea was the greatest thing to happen to missions since
the Day of Pentecost. The assumption is that churches and para-church organizations are
equally ordained by God and established with apostolic authority. For example, Ralph D.
Winter discusses this in an article called "The Two Structures of God's Redemptive
Mission" (Perspectives, 178). As the title suggests, Winter argues that there are two, not
one, divinely-ordained structures in the world for carrying out the task of world

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evangelization. The first is, in his words, "what is often called the New Testament
church." He frequently refers to the church in these terms without attempting a more
refined definition. "There is," he continues, "a second, quite different structure in the New
Testament context." This he finds in what he calls "Paul's missionary band." This second
structure, according to Winter, has the same legitimacy, the same authority, the same
status, as the first, but with one notable difference (emphasis mine). There is a second,
higher level of commitment required in this second structure. "Thus, on the one hand, the
structure we call the New Testament church is a prototype of all subsequent Christian
fellowships where old and young, male and female are gathered together as normal
biological families in aggregate. On the other hand, Paul's missionary band can be
considered a prototype of all subsequent missionary endeavors organized out of
committed, experienced workers who affiliated themselves as a second decision beyond
membership in the first structure."

Winter posits these as models for all time, showing what he believes to be the Jewish
origin of both, and tracing the historical development of both up to the Reformation. He
asserts that "the profound missiological implication of all this is that the New Testament
is trying to show us how to borrow effective patterns" from the culture. The history of
missions is the discovery of what he calls "functional equivalents of these same two
structures" in the progress of the gospel. Thus what we call the New Testament church is
represented in the early development of the diocese and the parish church in the Roman,
magisterial system. The second structure emerges in the monastic orders, which proved to
be much more durable through the Middle Ages. Winter argues that, due to the
Reformers' dislike of the monastic orders, they virtually abandoned any kind of second
structure, thus seriously disabling any missionary efforts within their ranks.

All of this becomes significant when Winter comes to William Carey, because it was he
who rediscovered this second New Testament structure! The mission society in Carey's
day and beyond stands in Winter's view as the greatest contribution and impetus to the
work of missions. In his view it was the rediscovery of that elite order, which had been
lost for centuries, requiring that second level of commitment, that allowed Carey and all
of those involved in mission societies ever since, to return to the New Testament pattern.
This is the crucial issue for Winter in terms of Carey's interest in the use of means. The
mission society is itself the means for the propagation of the gospel to the heathen. If it is
not the only legitimate means, it is at least, in this view, the superior means. Thus he
applauds the explosion of faith missions in the nineteenth century, and sees all tendencies
for mission agencies to become dominated or controlled by the churches as inherently
destructive and counter-productive. This is, at the very least, reading way too much into
Carey's position. But it helps to explain the prevailing trends today, in which local
churches are more often than not reduced to a status of financial sponsorship, and have
little or no direct oversight of missionary doctrine or practice.

Carey's Enquiry Today

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We conclude with what may prove to be some beneficial lessons we may derive form
William Carey’s work. Carey speaks to us today in many ways and we should be
receptive to the challenge.

1. Carey's emphasis was God- centered. The spirit and temper of William Carey's
Enquiry reminds us that we need what Timothy George calls "a fresh vision of a
full-sized God." Carey and his brethren undertook a task of enormous proportions in a
day of small things. We may take it to heart that the day of small things is never to be
despised when we serve a great God. We, like the pastors and churches of the
Northamptonshire Association of two centuries ago, must never minimize the doctrine of
the sovereignty of God. It was God in all His glorious attributes, God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Spirit, electing, redeeming, regenerating, God all-knowing,
all-powerful, all-present, before whom William Carey stood in awe and said, "Here am I;
send me!" Never say, in the day of small things, there is nothing we can do except hold
our ground.

2. Carey's emphasis was Christ- centered. His Enquiry also reminds us of the centrality
and the finality of Jesus Christ. His conviction was that the work of missions is to present
the claims of Jesus Christ, to proclaim that His name is the only name under heaven,
given among men, whereby we must be saved. Modern variations on the missionary
enterprise need to return to the simplicity of this message. The ecumenical movement has
been peddling the line for decades that the task of Christian missions is really to help the
followers of other religions discover the treasures in their own traditions, to show them
that we all have meaningful contributions to make in our mutual quest for the deity. How
much missionary energy is spent on social efforts with no gospel underpinnings, or on
trying to improve the quality of life without presenting the Bread of Life? No, it was
Christ in His person and work, Christ in His complete deity and sinless humanity, Christ
as prophet, priest and king, Christ in his atonement, Christ in His life, death and
resurrection, Christ to be trusted and obeyed, that Carey wanted the opportunity to
present to benighted souls.

3. Further, Carey's emphasis was Bible-centered. We are encouraged to identify with

Carey in his view of Scripture. He never treated the Bible as only having token, symbolic
importance, as if he had to carry it with him to justify what he really wanted to do. The
authority of Scripture was that to which he appealed for his life and ministry. Indeed, it
was due to his linguistic and exegetical disciplines that he came to the conviction that
something must be done to reach the lost. Coupled with this, because the Bible is what it
is, he knew that men should have the opportunity to read it in their own language. In no
area of labor did he exert himself more conscientiously than in the translation of the Word
of God. As we stand on the threshold of a new decade, a new century and a new
millennium, we face a world in which there are still thousands of languages into which
the Bible has not been translated. What can we do to promote this vital work?

4. Carey's emphasis was ministry oriented. Carey and his associates found that they had
a reason for being, a purpose under God, which went beyond those issues over which
they had to part company with some of their brethren. The Enquiry advocated positive

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and productive things. It was a call to arms, to engage in the work of ministry, to take the
initiative, to reach the world with the gospel and to use means to do it. These men knew
what they stood against, but they also came to conclusions about what they stood for.
Those of us who are committed to the benefits of an association of sovereign grace
Baptist churches may, for various reasons, take issue with the mission society concept.
But whatever we may say about the mission society, and the countless similar societies to
which it gave rise in the decades to follow, one thing is clear: These men knew they had
something to do, and they wanted to do it. It was the expression of their renewed
determination to restore the "Go" to the gospel.

5. Carey's Enquiry reminds us that doctrine can never be separated from life. He would
never minimize issues of orthodoxy, but he maintains the equal importance of
ortho-praxy. He saw that it was in this latter area that decline and indifference had settled
upon the Particular Baptists of his generation. Carey advocated a credible profession of
faith, and this meant that one could not sustain a claim to believing the doctrines of grace
without a life that demonstrated the grace of the doctrines. Carey was by no means a
perfect man, and it would be a mistake to make him larger than life. His domestic
problems early in his ministry speak for themselves. But he surely was a man who
understood what it means to be a monument to divine grace. He was never averse to
working with his hands to sustain his living, and in many ways he did so both at home
and abroad. Whether it was teaching school, making and mending shoes, operating an
indigo factory or tending his own garden, he was willing to make all things subservient to
the gospel, and to make himself the servant of others for the sake of Christ. When the
amount of time and energy devoted to other such occupations is taken into account, it is
nothing less than remarkable that he could have accomplished so much in the cause of
Christ with the result that he would be known henceforth as the Father of Modern
Missions.

Works Cited

Armitage, Thomas. A History of the Baptists; Traced by Their Vital Principles and
Practices, From the Time of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the Year 1886. New
York: Bryan, Taylor, and Co., 1887.

Cramp, John M. Baptist History: From the Foundation of the Christian Church to the
Present Time. 1871. Reprint. Watertown, WI: Baptist Heritage Publications, 1987.

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George, Timothy. Faithful Witness: The Life and Mission of William Carey. Birmingham,
AL: New Hope, 1991.

Gill, John. An Exposition of the New Testament. The Gospel According to St. Matthew.
Reprint. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980.

Hulse, Erroll. Editorial. Reformation Today 130 (1992).

McBeth, H. Leon. The Baptist Heritage. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987.

Rippon, John. A Brief Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late Rev. John Gill, D.D.
Reprint. Harrisonburg, VA: Gano Books, 1992.

Robinson, H. Wheeler. "The Life and Faith of the Baptists." British Baptists. Reprint.
New York: Arno Press, 1980.

Torbet, Robert G. A History of the Baptists (Revised). Valley Forge,

PA: The Judson Press, 1950, 1963.

Winter, Ralph D. "The Two Structures of God's Redemptive Mission." In Perspectives on

the World Christian Movement, edited by Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne.,
Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library,.1981.

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