CALCUTTA AND SERAMPORE, 1806
‘Now let me burn out for God!’ Such were the words with which Henry Martyn began his ministry to natives and Europeans in North India, as in the secrecy of prayer he reviewed his first two days in Calcutta. Chaplain though he was, officially, at the most intolerant time of the East India Company’s administration, he was above all things a missionary. Charles Simeon had chosen him, and Charles Grant had sent him out, for this as well as his purely professional duty, and it never occurred to him that he could be anything else. He burned to bring all men to the same peace with God and service to Him which he himself had for seven years enjoyed. We find him recording his great delight, now at an extract sent to him from the East India Company’s Charter, doubtless the old one from William III., ‘authorising and even requiring me to teach the natives,’ and again on receiving a letter from Corrie, ‘exulting with thankfulness and joy that Dr. Kerr was preaching the Gospel. Eight such chaplains in India! this is precious news indeed.’ Even up to the present time no Christian in India has ever recognised so fully, or carried out in a brief time so unrestingly, his duty to natives and Europeans alike as sinners to be saved by Jesus Christ alone.
Henry Martyn’s first Sunday in Calcutta was spent in worship in St. Johns, the ‘new church,’ when Mr. Jefferies read one part and Mr. Limerick another of the service, and Mr. Brown preached. Midday was spent with ‘a pious family where we had some agreeable and religious conversation, but their wish to keep me from the work of the mission and retain me at Calcutta was carried farther than mere civility, and showed an extraordinary unconcern for the souls of the poor heathens.’ In the evening, though unwell with a cold and sore throat, he ventured to read the service in the mission or old church of Kiernander. He was there ‘agreeably surprised at the number, attention, and apparent liveliness of the audience. Most of the young ministers that I know would rejoice to come from England if they knew how attractive every circumstance is respecting the church.’ Next day he was presented at the levée of Sir George Barlow, acting Governor-General, ‘who, after one or two trifling questions, passed on.’ He then spent some time in the College of Fort William, where he was shown Tipoo’s library, and one of the Mohammedan professors—a colleague of Carey—chanted the Koran. Thence he was rowed with the tide, in an hour and a half, sixteen miles up the Hoogli to Aldeen, the house of Rev. David Brown in the suburb of Serampore, which became his home in Lower Bengal. On the next two Sundays he preached in the old church of Calcutta, and in the new church ‘officiated at the Sacrament with Mr. Limerick.’ It was on June 8 that he preached in the new church, for the first time, his famous sermon from 1 Cor. i. 23, 24, on ‘Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.’
This is his own account of the immediate result:
1806, June 8.—The sermon excited no small ferment; however, after some looks of surprise and whispering, the congregation became attentive and serious. I knew what I was to be on my guard against, and therefore, that I might not have my mind full of idle thoughts about the opinions of men, I prayed both before and after, that the Word might be for the conversion of souls, and that I might feel indifferent, except on this score.
We cannot describe the sermon, as it was published after his death, and again in 1862, more correctly than by comparing it to one of Mr. Spurgeon’s, save that, in style, it is a little more academic and a little less Saxon or homely. But never before had the high officials and prosperous residents of Calcutta, who attended the church which had become ‘fashionable’ since the Marquess Wellesley set the example of regular attendance, heard the evangel preached. The chaplains had been and were of the Arian and Pelagian type common in the Church till a later period. They at once commenced an assault on their young colleague and on the doctrines by which Luther and Calvin had reformed the Churches of Christendom. This was the conclusion of the hated sermon:
There is, in every congregation, a large proportion of Jews and Greeks. There are persons who resemble the Jews in self-righteousness; who, after hearing the doctrines of grace insisted on for years, yet see no occasion at all for changing the ground of their hopes. They seek righteousness ‘not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law: for they stumble at that stumbling-stone’ (Rom. ix. 32); or, perhaps, after going a little way in the profession of the Gospel, they take offence at the rigour of the practice which we require, as if the Gospel did not enjoin it. ‘This is a hard saying,’ they complain; ‘who can hear it?’ (John vi. 60), and thus resemble those who first made the complaint, who ‘went back and walked no more with Him.’
Others come to carp and to criticise. While heretics who deny the Lord that bought them, open infidels, professed atheists, grossly wicked men, are considered as entitled to candour, liberality, and respect, they are pleased to make serious professors of the Gospel exclusively objects of contempt, and set down their discourses on the mysteries of faith as idle and senseless jargon. Alas! how miserably dark and perverse must they be who think thus of that Gospel which unites all the power and wisdom of God in it. After God has arranged all the parts of His plan, so as to make it the best which in His wisdom could be devised for the restoration of man, how pitiable their stupidity and ignorance to whom it is foolishness! And, let us add, how miserable will be their end! because they not only are condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on them, but they incur tenfold danger: they not only remain without a remedy to their maladies, but have the guilt of rejecting it when offered to them. This is their danger, that there is always a stumbling-block in the way: the further they go, the nearer are they to their fall. They are always exposed to sudden, unexpected destruction. They cannot foresee one moment whether they shall stand or fall the next; and when they do fall they fall at once without warning. Their feet shall slide in due time. Just shame is it to the sons of men, that He whose delight it was to do them good, and who so loved them as to shed His blood for them, should have so many in the world to despise and reject His offers; but thus is the ancient Scripture fulfilled—‘The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God’ (1 Cor. ii. 14).
Tremble at your state, all ye that from self-righteousness, or pride, or unwillingness to follow Him in the regeneration, disregard Christ! Nothing keeps you one moment from perdition but the mere sovereign pleasure of God. Yet suppose not that we take pleasure in contradicting your natural sentiments on religion, or in giving pain by forcing offensive truths upon your attention—no! as the ministers of joy and peace we rise up at the command of God, to preach Christ crucified to you all. He died for His bitterest enemies: therefore, though ye have been Jews or Greeks, self-righteous, ignorant, or profane—though ye have presumed to call His truths in question, treated the Bible with contempt, or even chosen to prefer an idol to the Saviour—yet return, at length, before you die, and God is willing to forgive you.
How happy is the condition of those who obey the call of the Gospel. Their hope being placed on that way of salvation which is the power and wisdom of God, on what a broad, firm basis doth it rest! Heaven and earth may pass away, though much of the power and wisdom of God was employed in erecting that fabric; but the power and wisdom themselves of God must be cut off from His immutable essence, and pass away, before one tittle of your hope can fail. Then rejoice, ye children of Wisdom, by whom she is justified. Happy are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear; and the things which God hath hidden from the wise and prudent, He hath revealed unto you. Ye were righteous in your own esteem; but ye ‘count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Then be not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, ‘which is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth’; but continue to display its efficacy by the holiness of your lives, and live rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.