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Patrick: Inspiration for the Mission of William Carey and his Friends

By Michael A.G. Haykin –

Inspiring William Carey and his Friends

When, in 1805, William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward summarized the principles upon which they would base their mission at Serampore in India, they drew a comparison between what they were assured would happen in India and what God had done in the British Isles nearly fifteen hundred years earlier.

He who raised the sottish and brutalised Britons to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, can raise these slaves of superstition, purify their hearts by faith, and make them worshippers of the one God in spirit and in truth. The promises are fully sufficient to remove our doubts, and to make us anticipate that not very distant period when He will famish all the gods of India, and cause these very idolaters to cast their idols to the moles and to the bats, and renounce for ever the work of their own hands (The Serampore Form of Agreement).

Despite the immense task facing them in India, they had confidence in the God who had brought their distant ancestors, also “slaves of superstition,” to a genuine faith in Christ. Thirteen years earlier, in 1792, Carey had made a number of references to this evangelization of the British Isles in his epochal work, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. He did so by distinguishing between those missions that sought to expand the dominion of “popery,” usually “by force of arms,” and those that genuinely extended the kingdom of Christ. Among the former he lists the Roman mission of Augustine of Canterbury and Paulinus; among the latter it is the name of Patrick that receives the most attention.

The next year [435] Patrick was sent from Scotland to preach to the Irish, who before his time were totally uncivilized, and, some say, cannibals; he however, was useful, and laid the foundations of several churches in Ireland.

This statement, along with that from the Serampore Form of Agreement, would appear to indicate that the evangelistic success of Patrick, and his spiritual heirs in the Celtic Church was a source of encouragement to Carey. How much more Carey knew about the historical Patrick is not clear; but he would certainly have been thrilled and inspired by Patrick’s evangelistic zeal and God-centered spirituality.

Patrick’s World and Mission

The world in which Patrick was born around 390ad was part of the Roman Empire. With the way Patrick is linked to all things Irish, it is hard to believe that Patrick was not born in Ireland, but he wasn’t! He was born into a Christian home in what is now Wales, or southern Scotland, or possibly even England (to the horror of every loyal Irish patriot!). When he was sixteen years of age he was taken captive by Irish pirates and, as a slave, lived in Ireland for the next six years or so. It was there in Ireland that he was converted with, in his words, “all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance” (Confession 2— the Confession of Patrick is one of his two genuine writings).

When Patrick was in his twenties, he escaped from captivity in Ireland and went back to his home in what had been the Roman province of Britannia. Here he would have stayed, glad as he was to get back to his family and friends. But not long after he got back, he had a dream in which he saw the Irish coming to him, asking him to return to Ireland to presumably share with them the good news about Jesus Christ (Confession 23). Patrick returned to the north of Ireland in the early 430s, where he stayed for the rest of his life. As he wrote:

I came to the people of Ireland to preach the Gospel, and to suffer insult from the unbelievers, bearing the reproach of my going abroad and many persecutions even unto bonds, and to give my free birth for the benefit of others; and, should I be worthy, I am prepared to give even my life without hesitation and most gladly for his [i.e. Christ’s] name, and it is there that I wish to spend it until I die, if the Lord would grant it to me (Confession 37).

This text reveals a man who has a deep certainty of the will of God for his life: to live out his days in Ireland so that the Irish might come to know God as he had done. His ministry in Ireland was extremely successful, though he certainly had not evangelized the whole of Ireland by the time of his death, which was around 460ad.

His missionary labors, however, were not without strong opposition, presumably from the Celtic Druids in Ireland. In one section of his Confession he says: “daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity.” Patrick’s response to these dangers reveals the true mettle of the man: “I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God Almighty, who rules everywhere, as the prophet says: ‘Cast thy thought upon God, and he shall sustain thee’” (Confession 55).

There was not only external opposition, though. Many of Patrick’s Christian contemporaries in the Western Roman Empire appear to have given little thought to evangelizing their barbarian neighbours. As one scholar, Máire B. de Paor, has noted: “There was seemingly no organised, concerted effort made to go out and convert pagans, beyond the confines of the Western Roman Empire” during the twilight years of Roman rule in the West. Did the Church in the West regard the barbarians as somehow less than human and therefore beyond the pale of evangelism?

Whatever the reason, Patrick’s mission to Ireland stands in splendid isolation. Thus, when Patrick announced his intention in Britain to undertake a mission to the Irish there were those who strongly opposed him: “Many tried to prevent my mission; they would even talk to each other behind my back and say: ‘Why does this fellow throw himself into danger among enemies who have no knowledge of God?’” (Confession 46).

Patrick, though, was assured of the rightness of his mission to Ireland. He knew himself called to evangelize Ireland. He had a deep sense of gratitude to God for what the Lord had done for him. “I cannot be silent,” he declared, “about the great benefits and the great grace which the lord has deigned to bestow upon me in the land of my captivity; for this we can give to God in return after having been chastened by him, to exalt and praise His wonders before every nation that is anywhere under the heaven” (Confession 3). Most importantly he had a robust understanding of what Scripture clearly teaches on this matter: the very same texts, passages like Matthew 28:19–20 and Mark 16:15–16, that spoke to William Carey and his friends had spoken to Patrick centuries earlier (Confession 38–40).

Michael A. G. Haykin is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has authored numerous books including: The Spirit of God: The Exegesis of 1 and 2 Corinthians in the Pneumatomachian Controversy of the Fourth Century (E. J. Brill, 1994); One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, His Friends, and His Times (Evangelical Press, 1994); Kiffin, Knollys and Keach: Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage (Reformation Today Trust, 1996); ‘At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word’: Andrew Fuller as an Apologist (Paternoster Press, 2004); Jonathan Edwards: The Holy Spirit in Revival (Evangelical Press, 2005); The God Who Draws Near: An Introduction to Biblical Spirituality (Evangelical Press, 2007); The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers (Reformation Trust, 2009); The Empire of the Holy Spirit (Borderstone Press, 2010); Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church (Crossway, 2011). Haykin is the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and blogs at Historia ecclesiastica. Haykin is married to Alison and they have two children, Victoria and Nigel.

This column is from the March issue of Credo Magazine, “Make Disciples of All Nations.” Read others like it today!

To view the Magazine as a PDF {Click Here}

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) These words, spoken by Jesus after his resurrection, are famously known as The Great Commission. As disciples of Christ, it is our great joy to go and tell the nations about the good news of salvation for sinners through Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. The March issue of Credo Magazine will seek to ignite a passion for missions. And what better timing as this year marks the 200th anniversary of Adoniram and Ann Judson setting sail aboard the Caravan with to take the gospel to Burma. Contributors include: Ted Kluck, Jason Duesing, Nathan Finn, the Housley Family (missionaries in Papua New Guinea), Kenneth Stewart, Brian Vickers, David VanDrunen, Matt Williams, and many others.

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