CONTENTS. HISTORY, &c. PART I. HISTORY OF THE MISSION FROM ITS COMMENCEMENT TO THE YEAR 1815. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE MISSION. THE year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two is memorable as the era of extraordinary events. Portentous clouds had been for a long period gathering in the political horizon, till the thunders of the French revolution exploded, and were heard throughout Europe. Having decreed the abolition of royalty, the Convention summoned the monarch to their tribunal, and consigned him to public execution. The whole country was in a ferment; massacres were perpetrated, and proscriptions issued every day; christianity was denounced, and in the premature predictions of their most celebrated men, was speedily to become extinct. The infection of these sentiments spread; and, while intestine commotion and foreign war combined to unloose the cords which bound all social existence together, infidelity usurped the dominion of men's passions, and poured the venom of its malignity into all the channels of literature. B The immediate results were alarming. A spirit of selfishness, distrust, and hatred, was generated; people were everywhere induced to regard exclusively their personal interests; and the demons of strife stalked abroad over desolated nations. These effects were far from being restricted to continental Europe; our own country largely participated in the revolutionary feelings of the time; infidelity eclipsed the glory of truth, and spread its pestilential atmosphere amidst the moral darkness and confusion. The nation became warm in politics, and cold in religion. The hallowed excitement of a previous season of revival by the ministrations of Whitfield and the Wesleys, was rapidly subsiding; and, even within the precincts of an orthodox christianity, the spirit of this world, encouraged by the absorbing interest taken in public affairs, was fast destroying individual piety. Forms and ceremonies, indeed, there were,-maintained, too, with sufficient vehemence and pertinacity; but the power of religion was denied. Nothing morally great was achieved; nothing was attempted. Discord reigned in Europe, perplexity in Britain; and gross darkness covered the face of the world. Into this mass of confusion and crime, God put the purifying leaven; and though at first insignificant, unobserved, slow in operation, encompassed with difficulties, and checked by opposition,-yet the influence was of a nature to manifest its celestial character, and to ensure its permanency. A missionary feeling being produced in a few, gradually expanded till it affected the heart of the christian church; so that from the humble beginnings about to be recorded, sprung a general zeal for missions, which, we have reason to conclude, will eventually, under God, accomplish the evangelisation of the world. On the second of October, in the year already mentioned, an anniversary meeting of baptist ministers in Northamptonshire, was held at Kettering. After public worship, the ministers met privately, for the purpose of considering the moral state of the world, and determining their personal obligation with reference to it; when they came to a solemn and unanimous resolution "to act together in society for the purpose of propagating the gospel among the heathen." They further resolved that, "as in the present divided state of Christendom, it seems that each denomination, by exerting itself separately, is most likely to accomplish the great ends of a mission, it is agreed that this Society be called, "The particular* Baptist Society for propagating the gospel among the heathen." The Revds. John Ryland, Reynold Hogg, William Carey, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller, were constituted a committee; Reynold Hogg being appointed treasurer, and Andrew Fuller secretary. The names of several other persons are recorded, who, though not then appointed as forming part of the executive body, zealously concurred in the proceedings. These are Abraham Greenwood, Edward Sharman, Joshua Burton, Samuel Pearce, Thomas Blundell, William Heighton, John Eayres, Joseph Timms. * This term is simply a doctrinal distinction, describing those who believe in the election of individuals to eternal life. General redemption is the theory of those who are denominated General Baptists. |