The Reverend Dr. Ernest A. Payne (1902-80) was an English Baptist pastor, ecumenist, teacher, and scholar. He served as the secretary and president of the Baptist Union and England and Ireland, and was involved in the World Council of Churches from its conception in the late 1940s. He also taught at Regent's Park College of Oxford University. His early ambition had been to serve as a missionary; when other duties prevented, he was a supporter and historian of the Baptist Missionary Society, which had its origins in the late eighteenth century. Payne was really the first to draw attention to the fact that the major leaders not only of Baptist world missions but of other English mission movements drew their inspiration from Edwards. Two books of his were particularly instrumental: An Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God's People in Extraordinary Prayer (1747), a call for internationally observed "concerts" or days of prayer for revival that, he pointed out, inspired the famous "Prayer Call of 1784" that presaged the English missionary movement; and The Life of David Brainerd (1749), a biography of a young missionary in mid-eighteenth century Pennsylvania and New Jersey who worked himself to an early death, a work which was hugely popular and has provided a model for domestic and foreign missionaries. In an article written in the dark days of World War II, Payne commemorated the approaching 150th anniversary of the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society, highlighting an important aspect of Edwards's influence down to the present day. (Source: Ernest A. Payne, "The Evangelical Revival and the Beginnings of the Modern Missionary Movement," Congregational Quarterly XXI (Oct. 1943), 223, 225-27, 228, 229, 232-33.
Many branches of the Christian Church are about to celebrate important missionary anniversaries. During the thirty-two years from 1792 to 1824 almost all the great modern Missionary Societies of Britain, the Continent of Europe, and America . . . had their origin, and the completion of a century and a half of work would in any case have led to a retelling of the story of their beginnings and an attempt to assess the achievements of 150 years. . . .
The modern missionary movement is usually described, in rough and ready fashion, as one of the products of the Evangelical Revival. Whether a main product or a by-product has depended on the interest and knowledge of the person making the statement. On the whole, until recently, it has been regarded as a rather subsidiary and specialized interest springing from the quickening of religious life in the Revival. . . .
No one wishes to belittle [John] Wesley* and his work, but in regard to missionary origins his is certainly not the only name to be considered, nor indeed the chief name, and the term "Evangelical Revival" must be interpreted far more widely than it usually is, if it is adequately to cover the impulses which led to the modern missionary movement. . . . The decisive influence of Edwards on the new life which carried the Church out to distant continents seems to have been all too little recognized by those who have written about the origin of the missionary movement.
The English Baptists are generally accorded the distinction of being the first in modern times to found a society deliberately and exclusively aimed at the evangelization of the non-Christian world, and there is no doubt at all about the important repercussions which their action had in other branches of the Church. The founders of the London Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society, and those who sought to awaken the conscience of the Church of Scotland in regard to world-evangelization, confessed that they had been challenged and inspired by what the Baptists had done. When, in October, 1792, a little group of Midland ministers formed the Baptist Missionary Society, they did a new thing, and one of tremendous consequence. Theirs is a remarkable story.
The little company were hardly any of them known outside their own very restricted spheres. They stood barely on the fringe of the main intellectual and religious influences of the time. They were most of them young men. They were led to the step they took by the importunity of William Carey, shoemaker, schoolmaster, pastor, who, in 1792, was 31 years old. Not without difficulty he had won for his scheme the support of Andrew Fuller, a sturdy, self-educated son of the Fens, seven years his senior. Carey and Fuller were the leaders of the enterprise. [John] Sutcliff,* of Olney, and [John] Ryland,* of Northampton, were their close friends, and, from 1792, staunch collaborators in the cause. . . . [N]ext to the Bible, the really dominating influence on the thinking and practice of Carey and his friends was Jonathan Edwards.
It was a threefold influence, theological, devotional, and practical. (1) There was a theological influence, affecting Fuller and Ryland most of all. These men had grown up in an atmosphere of high, or hyper, Calvinism, and it was stifling the life of their churches. . . . Young Fuller, seeking to work out a more satisfying and satisfactory theology, on the basis of his own religious experience, found in Jonathan Edwards a teacher who spoke powerfully to his mind and heart. . . . Fuller's own book, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1784)-an epoch-making, life-giving book so far as Baptists were concerned, clearing the path for evangelism both at home and abroad-was substantially the same in outlook as the more famous treatises of the New England divine.
(2) There was the challenge which came to those Midland Baptists from the quickening of life in the New England churches which is now generally called "The Great Awakening," and this was powerfully supplemented by the plea put forward by Edwards in his Humble Attempt to promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God' People in Extraordinary Prayer. It was this last-named book which prompted Sutcliff to organize a Cal to Prayer throughout the Northampton Baptist Association. All are agreed on the decisive importance of this prayer movement in relation to the founding of the B.M.S., and later the L.M.S.
(3) And not the least important, Carey, who had benefited by both the theological and the prayer impulses, was himself deeply stirred by Edwards's edition of the diary and journal of David Brainerd, the saintly young missionary of the American Indians. It was, as Ryland put it, "almost a second Bible to him." . . . Nor could he forget that Edwards himself had worked among the Indians during his years at Stockbridge and while he was writing his most important theological work. . . .
