LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

A BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH PAPER ON THE LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY

A Paper Presented to

Dr. Gary Tomlin

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course

CHHI 692

Christopher Ellis

July 10, 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biographical Outline........................................................................................................................3

Influence on American Christianity.................................................................................................4

Writings Produced...........................................................................................................................4

Biography of Carey’s Life and Work..............................................................................................6

Personal Evaluation of Carey’s Life and Work.............................................................................11

Bibliography..................................................................................................................................14

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BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF THE LIFE OF WILLIAM CAREY

BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE

I. Genealogy and Early Years

a. Born to Peter and Ann Carey, 17 August 1761b. Born and lived in Paulerspury, England

II. Education and Trade

a. Father, Edmund, was a schoolmaster. 1767b. Health prevented field work, Carey became a cobbler

III. Conversion and Ministry

a. Lead to Christ at 17b. Called to Pastor, without a Seminary Education 1785

IV. Missionary Society Formation and Sending

a. Publishes An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens

b. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel amongst the Heathen formed 2 October, 1792

V. Service in India

a. Arrives in India, 11 November, 1793b. Translates Bible into various languages an dialects, works to end the practice

of sati, contributes to education, fundamentally changed Indian cultureVI. Death and Legacy

a. Died 9 June, 1834b. “Father of Modern Missions”

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INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY

William Carey’s influence on American Christianity lies mostly in the realm of foreign

missions. He is the catalyst for Adoniram Judson coming to India. It is through Carey’s brave

sacrifice that the chokehold of the hyper-Calvinists was broken. Carey held to a five-fold

approach to missions that has only recently been reflected in the paradigm shift in world

missions. Stephen Neill wrote:

He saw missionary work as a five pronged advance, with equal attention directed to each of the five elements:

1. The widespread preaching of the Gospel by every possible method;2. The support of the preaching by the distribution of the Bible in the languages of the

country;3. The establishment at the earliest possible moment of a Church;4. A profound study of the back-ground and thought of the non-Christian peoples;5. The training at the earliest possible moment of an indigenous ministry1

For much of the twentieth century, the method of Foreign missions was to send

missionaries and start Western Churches, or Western-styled Churches. Bible translation was

important, but the methodology remained thoroughly Western. It was not until late in the

twentieth century that the use of indigenous peoples became the focus of mission sending

agencies. The training of local Pastors to start the churches and to finish the work is now

standard operating procedure within most foreign missions agencies.

WRITINGS PRODUCED

The most important of Carey’s writings is An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians

to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. When David Platt published his now

1 Stephen Neill. A History of Christian Missions. Penguin Books: England. 1990, p. 224.

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bestselling book, Radical, this author realized quickly that Platt’s idea was little more that

Carey’s question stretched to an American-Dream framework. However applicable Platt’s book

is to the Church today, Carey’s was doubly so in 1792. Carey closes his pamphlet with thus:

We are exhorted to lay up treasure in heaven, where moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. It is also declared that whatsoever a man soeth, that also shall he reap. These Scriptures teach us that the enjoyments of the life to come, bear near relation to that which now is; a relation similar to that of the harvest, and the seed. It is true all the reward is of mere grace, but it is nevertheless encouraging; what a treasure, what a harvest must await such Characters as Paul, and Elliot, and Brainerd, and others, who have given themselves wholly to the work of the Lord. What a heaven it will be to see the many myriads of poor heathens, of Britons amongst the rest, who by their labours have been brought to the knowledge of God. Surely a crown of rejoicing like this is worth aspiring to. Surely it is worth while to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause, and kingdom of Christ. FINIS.2

Carey’s impassioned plea did not fall on deaf ears for this was the springboard that launched the

British Mission Society.

It would be remiss to not mention Carey’s Bible translation as being among his important

writings. The value or detriment of these writings cannot be judged accurately for they did not

survive history. They do serve as an example of how translators must learn idiom within a given

language. Carey was oft criticized for his translation work and through the years all of his

translations were replaced3.

His personal correspondence has shed much light on the life of this great missionary. We

learn of his first wife’s mental illness, the heartbreaks or laboring amongst a people who see him

as entirely foreign, and his dedication to his Lord. It is through these letters one sees Carey’s

2 William Carey. An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2007.

3 Neill, 224.

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heart. It is through his correspondence that word gets back to England concerning the practice of

sati, the ritual burning alive of women on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands.4

BIOGRAPHY OF CAREY’S LIFE AND WORK

William Carey was born on August 17, 1761. It was a humble beginning in a small town

called Paulerspury in Northampton, England. The stage was that of Anglican heritage and access

to public learning. Carey’s grandfather, Peter Carey, was the first headmaster of an endowed

school for grammar. Small as it was, this school did afford a select number of children a place in

which to learn. Peter died in his forties leaving Ann Carey to rear their child, a son, Edmund.

Edmund had a brother ho had gone to the wilderness of Canada earlier. He would return to

England later in life and be a mentor to one young William Carey. Edmund was educated in the

same school his father had held the headmaster position in years earlier. At the age of twenty-

four, Edmund married Elizabeth Wells in Towcester, moving his mother into their home as well.

The newly weds were poor, but Edmund worked hard to provide. He had learned the

former trade of his father and excelled at the loom. On August 17, 1761, a son was born to

Edmund and Elizabeth and was named after Ann’s firstborn, Edmund’s deceased brother.

William was the joy of his grandmother, which garnered him special attention. She died a few

years later and William’s uncle, named Peter after his father, had returned form Canada.

Uncle Peter was to influence his nephew very much, the influence of which is vastly

evident in William’s later life. Peter returned to England with stories of the wilderness and of the

battles between the French and the English to control the territory of Canada. He was childless,

4 Terry Carter, The Journal and Selected Letters of William Carey. Macon, Georgia: Smyth & Helwys, 2000. p.65.

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but he was very fond of children, especially William. Peter “drew his nephew to him telling him

tells of ships and the sea, of Canada’s Indians and French people, of its woods and winters, of

rivers, falls, and lakes, beasts and birds, trees and flowers; casting the spell of the New World

about him.”5 Indeed, Peter poured himself into young William and developed in the younger a

love for botany, biology, foreign lands, and foreign peoples.

In 1767, the schoolmaster position was vacated and Edmund was asked by the Anglican

Church to take the position. His prior studiousness and work ethic made him the natural choice

for the position. William was six and was now moving geographically and socially. The position

provided a nice home close to the school with a virtual playground of plants and animals. There

was an orchard and a moat that afforded William the opportunity to explore, study, and learn a

great deal. This bodying of learning at such a young age would continue throughout Carey’s life

and put to full use while a missionary in India.

Even at a young age, William exhibited keen interests in math, science, and travel. He

preferred to read Columbus to Crusoe. He enjoyed the factual accounts over the fictitious ones.

By the age of twelve, he had memorized a Latin vocabulary. Even at this young age, William

Carey had demonstrated his gifting in languages.

William suffered from a skin condition that prevented him from being in the sun for long

periods. As much as he loved wedding his rows in the garden, the condition left him in pain,

causing his skin to redden and swell and prevented him from sleeping. Still, he labored in the sun

as much as possible. His father soon realized that his son would need a different trade and

searched long and prayerfully for the perfect master to apprentice his son. The advancement of

technology played another role in finding William a different trade. His father may have seen the

weaving business’ demise and chose for William instead the trade of shoemaker. Clarke Nichols

5 Carey, S. Pearce. William Carey. London: Butler and Tanner, Frome, Somerset. 2008, 15.

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of Piddington became William’s master, an apparently devout Christian. William would soon

discover that Nichols was not. The hidden face of Nichols put a sour taste for religion in the

mouth of the young apprentice. It seems the master shoemaker was also a master sinner.

During William’s apprenticeship in the shoemaker’s shop, he worked with another young

lad, one John Warr, who was a few years older. Warr’s grandfather had helped to found

Potterspury’s Independent Church and Carey had distaste for Dissenters. After all, Carey’s father

and grandfather had been servants in the Anglican Church. This did not dissuade Carr in the least

as he kept up his pursuit of Christ for himself and eventually claimed Him as his Lord and

Savior. Carr eventually convinced Carey to accompany him to one of their prayer gatherings

where a spark was lit in Carey’s heart. This was not the cold, formalistic Christianity he had

come accustomed to in the Anglican Church. Author S. Pearce Carey notes that these people

seemed to have “ a closer hold on God.”6

In September of 1779, Nichols lay dying. The two young lads he had agreed to take on as

apprentices were able to share the gospel with him and lead him to a saving knowledge of Jesus

Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. It was after Nichols’ death that God introduced a few

other influential men into the life of William Carey; men that would ultimately push him to a

truer understanding of the gospel and sharpen his Calvinistic views. Thomas Scott and Robert

Hall were both confirmations of sorts to the conclusions Carey himself was arriving at in his own

studies. Scott was self-taught in Biblical languages, as was Carey.7 It is interesting to note the

influence that knowledge of these languages would play out in the lives of these men,

particularly Carey’s. Hall emphasized the individual’s sole responsibility to claim Christ as his

own thus confirming Carey’s Calvinistic beliefs and not the hyper-Calvinism that was becoming

6 Carey, 25.7 Carey, 28-29.

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predominant line of thinking among Evangelicals in England.8 In 1792, Carey preached his

famous sermon on Isaiah 54:2-3 where he pronounced, “Expect great things. Attempt great

things.”9

In the summer of 1781, William Carey and Dorothy Plackett were joined in holy

matrimony. Dorothy was the daughter of one of the ministers leading the Dissenter Prayer

Meeting known as the Hackleton Meeting.10 She came from a Puritan home and was known to be

a godly woman. She was also five years his senior. Their first child died of fever. Life was hard

for British merchants after the embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Americans. Carey suffered

through one of their roughest winters and even resorted to selling repaired, used shoes to provide

for his family.11 It would seem that Carey was always a man to struggle through whatever came

his way in order to survive.

Carey pressed evermore into his service for the gospel. Having arrived at the conviction

that baptism was indeed for believers only, Carey was baptized by immersion in October of 1783

by John Ryland. Ryland was a Baptist minister in Northampton. Carey would soon come to read

some of Captain Cook’s log books describing his voyages and discoveries in the South Pacific.

S. Pearce Carey wrote: “…the log books changed into something deeper – a revelation of the sin

and sorrow, the immorality, cruelty and misery of unevangelized peoples; a drama of the world’s

tragic ignorance of Christ, a door opening into hell.”12 Carey was tremendously burdened for the

heathen from this point on and prayed much for the lost inhabiting the places that Captain Cook

written about in his logs. He was called to pastor in 1785 and was ordained in 1787. He

ministered among a people poor in riches, yet rich in fellowship and love. Smallpox broke out in

8 Ibid., 29.9 James Leo Garrett. Baptist Theology: A Four Century Study. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. 200910 Carey, 31.11 Ibid., 34.12 Ibid., 35

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Moulton in 1788 and caused a great number of deaths in his pastorate. Carey was admitted into

the Northampton Fraternity of Ministers. It was here that Carey’s question of whether or not the

great commission applied to ministers of every age and not just the apostles’. It was John

Ryland’s father who reportedly brushed Carey’s question aside by stating, “Young man, sit

down, sit down! You’re and enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, He’ll do it

without consulting you or me. Besides, there must be another Pentecostal gift of tongues!”13 The

hyper-Calvinism of the day had reached its zenith, but Carey was still deeply burdened by this.

He had a world map that hung in his shoe making shop and he had sown a leather globe together

using different colored leather for the nations. He has secretly been gathering information and

studying the people groups of the world so that he might more adequately present his case and

the enormity of the Church’s duty that lay before them.14 Against fierce opposition from his own

colleagues, Carey was encouraged to write and publish a pamphlet that described the Church’s

need to reach the lost in the uttermost parts of the world. From meager means and beginnings,

this lay preacher had traced God’s hand of Providence throughout Scripture and time.

When pressed that the Lord’s commission extended only to the Apostles, Carey

responded, “Then why do we baptize? If baptism concerns us, then world missions must no

less.” He professed the idea that his own countrymen had access to the gospel, yet many chose to

not draw near and hear. The heathen on the other hand, had neither such ministers, nor the gospel

in their own language. He was often heard to say that if his friends would support him for a year,

he would go wherever they would send him, knowing that Captain Cook had described cannibals

on the islands he had visited. William Carey was a man deeply burdened by the lostness of the

world.

13 Ibid., 4714 Ibid., 48

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A Baptist Missionary Society was born on October 2, 1792 in a small parlor. This was

unprecedented. Though many had gone in the name of established churches or on their own, this

was the first time a group of ministers had gathered to send one of their own with their own

means for support. They required, nor asked for any outside establishment assistance. This was a

cooperative of individuals using their own provisions to send a peer to a heathen land. S. Pearce

Carey wrote, “The faith of five – Carey, Fuller, Pearce, Ryland, and Sutcliff- in founding a

missionary society with such humble and feeble backing was entirely new in modern British

history.”15 He went on to describe this group as “relatively young- Sutcliff 40, Ryland 39, Fuller

38, Carey 31, and Pearce 26.”16

From this meeting, Carey would journey on to India as a missionary. The work was far

from easy and was ripe with trials. The tenacity exhibited in his youth would raise its head again

as an older man and Carey would labor for 40 years amongst the Hindu people of India. He can

be labeled: Christian Missionary and Botanist, Industrialist, Economist, Medical Humanitarian,

Media Pioneer, Agriculturalist, Translator and Educator, Astronomer, Library Pioneer, Forest

Conservationist, Crusader for Women’s Rights, Public Servant, Moral Reformer, and Cultural

Transformer.17 Carey went home to be with the lord on June 9, 1834. He had labored for 40 years

amongst the Indian peoples.

PERSONAL EVALUATION OF CAREY’S LIFE AND WORK

Carey’s boldness as a young Pastor to question the status quo of foreign missions is very

encouraging. His patience is a testimony to his commitment to his Lord. He did not quit when

15 Ibid,, 84.16 Ibid., 8717 Vishal & Ruth Mangalwadi, The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture,

Good News Publishers, Wheaton:IL. 1999. 1-25.

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first remanded by the senior Ryland, but rather began collecting data about foreign peoples,

studying maps, and researching methods by which the Church, not just himself, would carry out

Christ’s commission. Carey must have spent hours in prayer and knew that he was on solid

footing when pressing these issues. The confidence to go against the status quo, or to challenge

denominational authority and superiors was handled with the upmost care.

When one researches the life of William Carey, they will find that one aspect of his life is

often glossed over. Dorothy Carey was the first wife of William and the wife of his formative

years, even making the journey to India. James Beck has written, “Perhaps her sacrifice was not

a voluntary one, but it was a sacrifice none the less.” Dorothy Carey succumbs to the pressures

of being a missionary wife, suffers the death of a child, suffers from dysentery, is secluded in a

foreign land with little help, makes the five-month journey at the end of her pregnancy only to

give birth in India. She later goes mad. Her delusions include accusing William of adultery,

cussing, and throwing rather loud tantrums. She even goes after him with a kitchen knife at one

point. This episode in Carey’s life, however much he is to be admired, troubles this author. On

one hand, why did he not more fully consider the ramifications of his decision? On the other

hand, had he not gone, where would the state of world missions be? This event was difficult to

deal with and still lingers in thought. According to the Mangalwadis:

Yet it had been Dorothy’s sacrifice that had enabled Carey to do all that he did:1. Had she refused to come to India, Carey would have been forced to return to

England;2. Had she come from an educated upper-class background, she might have

completely refused the poor lifestyle they had to accept during the early years, when mission support was not there;

3. Had she insisted on studying and ministering, they could not have looked after their children in the early years

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4. As a result of her mental illness, mission societies began to treat wives as being equally important as their husbands: They were interviewed; their vision, abilities, and mental health were examined, their needs and concerns provided for.

5. Beck says that Dorothy became the hard anvil on which was hammered some of the success of Carey’s remarkable career18

In the aforementioned quote from Carey’s Enquiry, Carey recognizes that he is not the

“Father of Modern Missions” as is frequently attributed to him. There is a sense that our modern

paradigm closely follows his, but there were others who had ventured out into missions prior to

Carey ever leaving England. Carey himself notes the work of John Elliot and David Brainerd

among the natives of North America. Stephen Neill’s book on the History of Christian Missions

devotes eight chapters to mission work previous to Carey publishing Enquiry and the formation

of the Baptist Mission Society.19

How humbly any minister must feel to read of such a life of service! To sit week after

week in a local church with all of its innate struggles grumbling and complaining that the Lord

has called them to serve in such a dismal place. God, deliver your church from such thoughts.

Ignite in the preachers of today the fire you kindled in Carey so long ago. Instead of sending

resumes out looking for work, Pastors should be gathering information on unreached people

groups as Carey did. God, grant the tenacious spirit to preserver through trials for Your glory

and the greatness of Your name.

18 Mangalwadi, 54-55.19 Neill, 222.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beck, James. The Tragic Untold Story of Mrs. William Carey. Grand Rapids: Baler House Books, 1996

Carey, S. Pearce. William Carey. London: Butler and Tanner, Frome, Somerset. 2008

Carey, William. An Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2007

Carter, Terry. The Journal and Selected Letters of William Carey. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2000

Garrett, James Leo. Baptist Theology: A Four-Century Study. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. 2009

Vishal & Ruth Mangalwadi, The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture, Good News Publishers, Wheaton:IL. 1999

Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. Penguin Books: England. 1990

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