The closing decades of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century saw what Johannes Van Den Berg has described as the 'great breakthrough of the missionary idea'. Between 1792 and 1814 missionary societies were formed on both sides of the Atlantic. In England, the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen was established in 1792; the Missionary Society (later the London Missionary Society), which brought together both Dissenters and Anglican Evangelicals, in 1795; the Church Missionary Society in 1799; and the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804. Across the Atlantic, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed in 1810 and the American Baptist Missionary Board in 1814.

The missionary task of the Christian church is, of course, as old as the gospel itself. It would be a great mistake, therefore, to think that missionary history begins with men such as William Carey, David Bogue, Henry Martyn and Adoniram Judson. However, the period from 1792 to 1814 saw a level of missionary interest and activity which the Church had not known since the days of the apostles. This great surge in missionary endeavour was the result of several causes, of which the most important were undoubtedly the revivals of the eighteenth century and the vigorous Calvinist and post-millennial theology and expectancy of a number of men, chief among whom was Jonathan Edwards. The Evangelical Revival shook Anglicans and Dissenters alike out of their spiritual torpor, while the theology and expectancy which found their classic expression in Edwards' Humble Attempt encouraged missionaries and missionary societies to take to heart the Great Commission in the assurance that their labours, however arduous, would not be in vain.

The roots of the London Missionary Society have been described as 'tangled and diffuse'. They spread from London to Warwickshire and to Hampshire, from Independents to Calvinistic Methodists, from Evangelical Anglicans to Scottish Presbyterians. When a number of Independent ministers met together in Warwick in June 1793 to consider the duty of Christians with respect to the spread of the gospel, one of the resolutions adopted was that 'it appears to us, that it is the duty of all Christians to employ every means in their power to spread the knowledge of the Gospel, both at home and abroad', while another was 'that the first Monday of every month, at seven o'clock in the evening, be a season fixed on for united prayer to God for the success of every attempt by all denominations of Christians for the spread of the Gospel'. Beneath the first resolution lay the conviction that, as the Particular Baptist William Carey had but recently demonstrated, the Great Commission given by the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples was still binding on Christians. The second resolution had its roots in the concerts for prayer which seem to have originated in Scotland in the 1740s in the wake of the revivals at Cambuslang and Kilsyth, and of which Jonathan Edwards was a strong advocate. Urging upon Christians a regular, recurring day of prayer, Edwards encouraged them by reminding them that the glory of the last days had not yet been accomplished. Its greatness was unspeakable. Had not Christ worked and prayed and suffered for that day? The Scriptures were full of examples, incentives and commands to pray for it. There seems to be no reason to doubt that the Independent Ministers of the Midlands, in common with many others, were not only well acquainted with Edwards' Humble Attempt, but also in sympathy with it.

The Independent church at Gosport in Hampshire had as its pastor at this time a Scotsman, David Bogue, justly described by Iain Murray as 'one of the greatest forgotten figures in the history of missions'. Perhaps no other man contributed more than Bogue both to the formation of the Missionary Society and to the policies which it adopted in its early years. A sermon of his which had a great impact on his contemporaries was preached in 1792 on the text 'Thy Kingdom Come', before the Correspondent Board in London of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge in the Highlands and Islands. The sermon revealed Bogue's deep sense of the miserable condition of the millions of the human race who had never heard 'the joyful sound of salvation by a crucified Redeemer'. The preacher pressed home upon the consciences of his hearers 'the coldness of the zeal of Christians for the glory of God and the salvation of their fellow creatures', calling upon Christians to repent and to seek from God grace to assist and animate them in the great work of spreading the gospel throughout the world.

If his hearers needed motives to spur them on in this glorious task, then there were both encouragements and obligations to be taken into account. Did not both the Old and New Testaments predict the glory of the latter days? Had not previous attempts to propagate the gospel been crowned with considerable success? What happiness would be theirs who were delivered from bondage to Satan and brought into the liberty of the sons of God! What honour would be theirs who exerted themselves in advancing Christ's kingdom! Did not the benefits which Britain had received from God call for a just return? Were not recent geographical discoveries evidence of God's providential design that His truth should be taken to these newly discovered lands? Would not the example of his hearers, if they laid his words to heart, stir up others? The divinely appointed way of spreading the gospel — preaching — was 'as powerful now as it was at first. It forms characters of the very same kind; it makes men equally good as in any former age and by it, I doubt not, will God accomplish the glory of the latter days and bring Mahometans, Jews and Pagans into the Kingdom of God's dear Son'. Bogue brought his sermon to a close with an impassioned appeal:

Seize the present favourable opportunity to convey the Gospel to the heathen nations and hasten by your united and vigourous exertions the morning of that joyful day when it shall be proclaimed 'the kingdom of our Lord is come: men are blessed in him and all nations shall call him blessed: Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.'

Two years later, having received from John Ryland (Junior) news about William Carey, Bogue was very concerned that, while other Christians were actively engaged in missionary work, the Independents were not. His concern surfaced in an article under the heading 'To the Evangelical Dissenters who Practise Infant Baptism' which appeared in the Evangelical Magazine for September 1794 and which has been described as 'one of the first and most important steps in the great and providential work of originating the London Missionary Society'.

Bogue's remarks were addressed specifically to his fellow evangelical, nonconformist paedobaptists because 'there is not a body of Christians in the country except ourselves, but have put their hand to the plough. We alone have not sent messengers to the Heathen to proclaim the riches of redeeming love'. As in his London sermon, Bogue set out clearly the motives which should cause his readers to engage in this work. Since man's chief end is to glorify God, Christians in Britain should seek to lead their 'brethren in pagan lands to glorify Him also by making them acquainted with His nature, government and grace'. The love of Christians for the Lord Jesus Christ binds them to 'shed abroad the sweet odour of His name in every place. They have a duty to carry out Christ's great missionary commission'. Did they seek encouragements?

The sacred Scripture is full of promise, that the knowledge of Christ shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the channel of the sea; and every promise is a call and motive to enter on the service without delay. It is the cause of God and will prevail.

Once again Bogue emphasized that the divinely appointed means of carrying on the work of the gospel was 'by the preaching of the ministers of Jesus Christ'. Men and money were needed. As far as the provision of suitable men was concerned, 'it will be necessary to found a seminary ... An able and eminently pious minister in a central situation must be sought for to superintend it'. As for money, congregations should make annual subscriptions and individual Christians should make donations and legacies. Bogue closed his appeal by calling upon the London ministers, 'without loss of time to propose some plan for the accomplishment of this most desirable end, that our Lord Jesus Christ may have the Heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.'

Two months later the Evangelical Magazine carried a review by the Anglican clergyman and chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, Thomas Haweis, of a book entitled Letters on Missions: addressed to the Protestant Ministers of the British Churches, written by another Anglican clergyman, Melville Home, who had been a chaplain in Sierra Leone. Haweis warmly supported Home's contention that differences in church polity and even, to a limited extent, in doctrine need not prevent combined activity on the part of Christians in the cause of missions, and pleaded for the formation of a missionary society on such a basis. He called upon the 'really faithful and zealous' to 'look out for men who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and begin with one corps of missionaries to the Heathen in the South Seas'.

Following the publication of Bogue's appeal and Haweis' review, events moved rapidly. The initiative was taken by two London ministers: John Eyre, minister of the Episcopal Chapel at Homerton and one of the editors of the Evangelical Magazine; and Matthew Wilks, minister of Moorfields Tabernacle, who brought together at Baker's Coffee House, Cornhill, on 4th November, a number of ministers to discuss the practicability of forming a new missionary society. Anglicans, Scottish Presbyterians and Independents were involved both at this meeting and at subsequent meetings at the Castle and Falcon in Aldersgate Street. These meetings would open with a time of prayer, followed by the reading of passages of Scripture which bore directly on the conversion of the heathen and by discussion related to missionary efforts. Those who attended these meetings set out the following statement:

We whose names are here subscribed declare our earnest desire to exert ourselves for promoting the great work of introducing the Gospel and its ordinances to heathen and other unenlightened countries, and unite together, purposing to use our best endeavours that we may bring forward the formation of an extensive and regularly organised society, to consist of evangelical ministers and lay brethren of all denominations, the object of which society shall be to pursue the most effectual measures for accomplishing this most important and glorious design.

In January 1795 the ministers involved in these meetings sent out a circular letter, announcing their intention of holding in the summer a general meeting of ministers and lay brethren from all parts of the country to plan a missionary society. In the event, the meeting (or, rather, a series of meetings) took place in September 1795. At a well-attended meeting on the evening of 21st September it was unanimously resolved 'that it is the opinion of the meeting that the establishment of a society for sending missionaries to the heathen and unenlightened countries is highly desirable'. A committee was set up to draft a constitution and soon came forward with proposals which included the name 'The Missionary Society' whose object was, 'to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations'.

Throughout the week several sermons were preached, culminating in a sermon from David Bogue on the evening of 24th September. Taking as his text the words 'Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, "This people say, 'The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built'" (Haggai 1:2), Bogue took up and refuted, one by one, ten objections which had been brought forward against the formation of the new society. Some of these objections highlighted the difficulties involved in missionary endeavour, while others sprang from eschatological considerations. Bogue did not deny that there would be difficulties.

Difficulties — the most tremendous difficulties, are to be looked for. Will Satan suffer his kingdom to fall without a struggle? No; he will rouse all here to arms against us; and his instruments on earth, uniting themselves to the host from beneath, will do everything in their power to prevent the progress of the gospel of the Redeemer'. But there was a complete and unassailable answer to the faint-hearted: 'But here is the foundation of our hope. Christ has all power both in heaven and in earth. He is infinitely mightier than his opposers, and all his enemies will be made his footstool: and he has assured us that he came to be a light to enlighten the heathen, as well as to be the glory of his people Israel'. Later in the sermon Bogue was to return to this subject: 'Why should we be cast down at the prospect of difficulties in the way? Let our whole dependence be placed in the wisdom, power and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He can exalt every valley, level every mountain and hill, make the way to places plain and the crooked straight, and by removing every stumbling-block prepare the rough for His servants, and make the triumph of the cross glorious in the eyes of the nations of the earth.

Bogue also had an answer for those who sought to argue on eschatological grounds that the time had not yet come for the conversion of the heathen: 'In aiming to propagate the gospel, we are to be guided by what God enjoins as a duty, not by what he delivered as a prediction.'

Rejoicing to see Christians of different denominations coming together to form a missionary society, Bogue expressed the hope that 'from this day by our exertions, and by the exertions of others whom we shall provoke to zeal, the kingdom of Jesus Christ shall be considerably enlarged both at home and abroad, and continue to increase "till the knowledge of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea"'.

The week concluded with a business meeting at which the first Board of Directors, composed of twenty ministers and fourteen laymen, was appointed, and it was decided that the first attempt should be to send missionaries to 'Otaheite, or some other of the islands of the South Sea'. Differences and difficulties lay ahead but, having put their hand to the plough, the men who came together from London and the provinces, and from different church backgrounds, to form the Missionary Society would not turn back.

If the meetings which marked the foundation of the Missionary Society in the autumn of 1795 were characterised by a spirit of harmony, not only between men of different denominations but also between men of different temperaments and outlooks, it was not long before serious disagreements surfaced as the founders sought to hammer out the policy to be followed by the fledgling Society. Two issues in particular were instrumental in bringing these differences to light. The first revolved around the sort of training which missionary candidates should receive before they went to the mission field, while the second concerned the choice of an appropriate part of the world in which to undertake missionary activity. On both of these matters Thomas Haweis may be regarded as the champion of one point of view and David Bogue of the other.

Training for Missionary Candidates⤒🔗

In his article 'To the Evangelical Dissenters who practise Infant Baptism', David Bogue had already made public his conviction that a special course of training was necessary for missionary candidates:

It is highly probable that some zealous men would present themselves who are well qualified to go immediately on a mission among the heathen, but in general they will require some previous instruction, and therefore it will be necessary to found a seminary for training up persons for the work. An able and eminently pious minister in a central situation must be sought for to superintend it. And as the education of a missionary must be in many respects widely different from that of those who preach in Christian countries, it may be expected that every man of talents will unite his endeavours to render the plan of instruction as well adapted to answer the end in view, and in every respect as complete as possible.

However, during the early years of the Missionary Society Bogue was unable to carry the day. Within a week of the Society's foundation the Board of Directors had adopted a set of rules for the examination of would-be missionaries. Two provisions were especially significant: 'It is not necessary that every missionary should be a learned man', but he must possess a competent measure of that kind of knowledge which the object of the mission requires! 'Godly men who understand mechanic arts may be of signal use to this undertaking as missionaries, especially in the South Sea Islands, Africa and other uncivilised parts of the world.'

Commenting on the attitude beneath these resolutions, Richard Lovett, the historian of the Society, remarked:

Doubtless many of the Directors feared that it was hardly possible in the face of the enthusiasm they had so recently witnessed to keep rigidly to the course of true wisdom, and to insist that no man should be sent forth until he had received at least two or three years intellectual and spiritual training, and had evidenced his fitness for the foreign field by exhibiting the capacity to stand the searching discipline of college training ... It is also practically certain that many connected with the management of the Society had most erroneous views, first as to what heathen life was like, and secondly as to the type of man best fitted to deal with it. 'Godly men who understood mechanic arts' were by not a few of the fathers placed much higher in the scale of usefulness among uncivilised nations than the student, the preacher, the man of scholarly and disciplined mind. The enormous waste of resources caused by the practical adoption of this view in the early years of the Society's work is an object lesson for succeeding generations.

However, there were others involved with the direction of the Society who, as Lovett comments, 'held it to be little short of folly to expect warm and fervent religious feeling to compensate for lack of mental force and spiritual training. They themselves experienced the same intense yearning for the salvation of the heathen, but they did not believe that this would necessarily keep undisciplined minds and natures from errors of the most serious kind.'

The Board's minutes contain several references to pleas which Bogue made that appropriate training and education should be provided for intending missionaries. Sadly, the other directors, by and large, would not listen to Bogue and eventually had to learn in a painful way that there was something seriously wrong in their attitude. In 1797 two missionaries who had been sent out to the Pacific failed to occupy their posts. The following year, several of the missionaries who had gone to Tahiti deserted. Three missionaries married pagan women. Of a group of thirty missionaries who returned to England after the capture of their ship, twenty-seven quit the Society and never went to the mission field. Some of the missionaries sent out on the Society's first African mission proved to be completely unreliable and unfaithful. Faced with such unpalatable facts, the directors had to reconsider their policy.

A London Committee was set up to instruct selected missionary candidates in theology, grammar and geography. At the same time, ministers in various parts of the country took into their care men from their own or neighbouring congregations who were approved for missionary work. In this way a few young men found their way to David Bogue's Dissenting Academy at Gosport. But Bogue wanted more than this. He pressed for a seminary for the training of missionaries. Following an offer of £500 from two men, one of whom was Robert Haldane, for such a purpose, the directors set up a committee in 1800 to draw up appropriate plans. In July 1800 it was decided to establish the seminary at Gosport with Bogue as tutor, a decision which met with Bogue's approbation.

Bogue at once began to prepare an appropriate course of lectures in accordance with guidelines laid down by the Board's committee. The latter placed at the heart of the course the communication of Biblical knowledge so that missionaries should be furnished with a thorough grasp of the principles of the Word of God. Special attention was to be given to missionary subjects. Above all else, the students were to be encouraged to develop their own spiritual life and walk with God:

The instructions must chiefly refer to the heart and, instead of cherishing the desire of shining in the world by distinguished talents, must aim at subduing every elating thought and mortifying the vain propensities of our nature. When he leaves his native country and friends and goes forth to seek the salvation of the untutored heathen, he is to take this for his motto, 'I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me, and therefore the great scope and tendency of the instruction he is to receive are to impress upon his heart the self-denying principle, as it relates to temporal things and animates the springs of faith and hope in respect to the future world. Thus he may be expected to unite great activity with great meekness, faith with patience, and at length, we trust, great success with humility and praise.

Henceforth, it would be Bogue and his supporters who would mould, determine and direct the educational policy of the Society.

Appropriate Fields for Missionary Activity←⤒🔗

'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature'. There are no parts of the inhabited regions of the world which are to be excluded from missionary endeavour. However, given the limited resources at their disposal, the directors had to decide where a start should be made. Preaching on the occasion of the Society's formation, Thomas Haweis reviewed the possibilities: Africa, 'where scarce a gleam of light illumines the darkness, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Cape of Good Hope'; China, with its three hundred million souls and hardly one who 'knows the true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent'; India, where 'commercial Christians seem to worship no other god but gold' and were reprehensibly apathetic towards the evangelisation of the Hindus. However, it was the new world recently opened up by the discoveries of Wallis and Cook, the South Sea Islands of the Pacific, that Haweis favoured as the region for pioneer missionary activity:

No region of the world, which I have yet observed (and I have considered the matter with much attention) affords us happier prospects in our auspicious career of sending the Gospel to the heathen lands; nowhere are the obstacles apparently less, or the opportunities greater, for the admission of the truth as it is in Jesus. No persecuting government, no Brahmanic castes to oppose, no inhospitable climate to endure, a language of little difficulty to attain, and of vast extent, with free access, and every prejudice in our favour.

As Arthur Skevington Wood remarked, 'Here Haweis breathed the spirit of his age, for the eighteenth century tended to locate Utopia in Tahiti.' Since the late 1780s, Haweis had longed to see missionary work started in Tahiti, and in 1789 Lady Huntingdon had offered him two of her Trevecca students to be trained for this purpose. Although nothing came of this project, the desire still remained. Haweis wanted these far-off regions won for Jesus Christ.

I could not but feel deep regret that so beautiful a part of creation, and the inhabitants of these innumerable islands of the Southern Sea, should be regions of the shadow of death and dens of every unclean beast and habitations of cruelty devouring literally one another. Led by the Gospel through grace on all occasions to look for help to Him who is mighty to save, I could not but hope and pray that this providential discovery of a before unknown world might lead to the communicating of Divine truth to these benighted lands, and bring them out of darkness into His marvellous light, who is the light of life.

In the course of a long article under the title of 'The Very Probable Success of a Proper Mission to the South Sea Islands', published in the Evangelical Magazine for July 1795, Haweis commented that 'the work is wholly divine; but some nations appear in a state more ready than others for the introduction of the Gospel'. The remark would have met with the approval of David Bogue — but the differences between the two men are brought out in the conclusion which Haweis drew from his observation:

The castes of Industan, the government as well as the pride of the Chinese in their attachment to established forms, raise barriers terrible against the admission of the Christian doctrines: whilst the very uncivilised state of the South Sea Islands gives such a high superiority to whatever missionaries from us can be sent among them, as cannot fail to secure their respect.

Another point of view was put forward by David Bogue. Although Bogue recognised that the Great Commission embraced the entire habitable earth; that the gospel is needed by, and suited to, men and women of all nations; and that the gospel is made efficacious in the hands of the Holy Spirit to the salvation of sinners in all lands, nevertheless some parts of the world should be given priority in missionary endeavour. Such parts would be those where great numbers of people speak the same language, where the language already has written form and where books are common, where people are accustomed to reading, where there is a considerable degree of social intercourse, and from where the gospel could readily be spread to adjacent areas. 'Among civilised people, native missionaries and preachers are likely to be soon found, who will spread the Gospel throughout their country'. Bogue reminded his students that Christ came to the centre of the civilised world of His day, that the apostles laboured among civilised peoples, and that the gospel spread from civilised to barbarous nations and not in the opposite direction. 'Three converts in China are worth twenty in Tahiti ... with respect to the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ among men.'

A study of the early missionary activity of the Society indicates that neither point of view prevailed to the exclusion of the other. With varying degrees of success, missionary work was begun between 1795 and 1820 in the South Sea Islands, Africa, India, China, Java, Siberia, the West Indies and Canada.

Conclusion←⤒🔗

The founding fathers of the Missionary Society, together with a great many of the men associated with them in the great missionary awakening of the late-eighteenth century, loved the doctrines of grace. Richard Lovett remarks that 'almost every early missionary would have had no difficulty whatever in signing the full Westminster Confession'. The facts themselves demonstrate that to champion the doctrines of free and sovereign grace drives men on, rather than inhibits them, in missionary activity. The truths of divine election, Christ's death for the elect, and irresistible grace were sources of comfort and support rather than snares and hindrances. The grace of God was able to break all resistance. Missionary labours would not be in vain. At the same time, these men recognised that divine sovereignty did not reduce human responsibility to a meaningless term. The Particular Baptist minister, Andrew Fuller, remarked that 'neither Augustine or Calvin, who each in his day defended predestination, and the other doctrines connected with it, ever appear to have thought of denying it to be the duty of every sinner who has heard the Gospel to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.'

Although the founders of the Missionary Society were convinced that the Great Commission commanded them to evangelise the heathen, they were spurred on in their duty by a sense of expectancy. They shared with George Burder the hope 'that the happy period is approaching, when the Redeemer shall take unto Him His great power and reign'. They anticipated a millennial era when the spiritual dominion of Christ would spread throughout the earth. In some respects, of course, they were wrong. Today Rome, Islam and the religions of the Orient seem as strong as ever, and the optimism of Bogue and his contemporaries appears strangely out of place. But this is not to deny the correctness of their doctrines nor the value of these doctrines as a spur to missionary activity. Has the Church nothing to hope for before the Second Coming of Christ? True, even if the answer is in the negative, we must still labour on in obedience to our Lord's commands. But if the answer were to be 'yes', the duty is likely to be accompanied by a spirit of eager and prayerful expectancy.

We may lament the fact that men like Bogue and Carey, Haweis and Fuller, Henry Martyn and John Venn are no longer with us, feeling that in the presence of such giants, we are but pygmies. But Christ's commission has not lost its validity, nor the gospel its power to save. The promises relating to the extension of our Redeemer's kingdom remain to encourage us, and, as one missionary remarked on hearing of the death of William Carey, 'the God of missions lives forever.'