David Bogue
of Gosport
"Objections against a mission to the heathen,
stated and considered."
A Sermon Preached at Tottenham Court Chapel
Before the Founders of the Missionary Society, 24 Sep. 1795.
THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION
CAMBRIDGE: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1811.
David Bogue, a native of Scotland, was born in 1750 (Hallydown, Coldingham, Berwickshire) and died in 1825 while on a preaching tour in Brighton, England. Educated for the Christian ministry at University of Edinburgh, Bogue later received an honorary doctorate from Yale in 1815.
Known widely as the founder of the Missionary Society in 1795, later named the London Missionary Society (1818, LMS), Bogue gave this sermon at the initiation of the Society whose purpose was "to spread the knowledge of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations." Bogue delivered the sermon in the famous Tottenham Court Chapel, London, the site where George Whitefield had preached in 1756. The Society was largely Congregational, though Anglicans and Presbyterians participated in the Society.
In the nineteenth century, the LMS supported missions in Tahiti, North America, China, South East Asia, India, the Pacific, Madagascar, Central Africa, Southern Africa, Australia, the Caribbean which included British Guiana. One of the most famous missionaries that the LMS supported was David Livingstone (1813-1873), a missionary to southern Africa. Of note is the fact that in 1796, Bogue and the Society failed in persuading the East India Company to allow a group of missionaries into India, though William Carey had been there--somewhat anonymously--since 1793.
Not only was Bogue involved in the Missionary Society, he also assisted in the establishment of the Religious Tract Society (1799) and the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804). He published numerous works in addition to this sermon on missions to the heathen. Some of his other works include:
Click on the links below for the full-text version of Bogue's sermon against ten late eighteenth century, British objections to missionary work:
"Objections against a mission to the heathen,
stated and considered."
1795
Haggai 1:2
Objection I: The work itself is so very arduous, that success cannot be hoped for.
Objection II: The time for the conversion of the heathen is not yet come, because the millennium is still at the distance of some hundred years."
Objection III: What is there in the state of the Christian church at present that flatters with peculiar hopes of success for a mission to the Heathen? Many ages have elapsed, and little has been done; what makes the time now so favourable? Are we better than our fathers?"
Objection IV: The governments of the world will oppose the exertions of your plans and defeat its design.
Objection VI: How and where shall we find proper persons to undertake the arduous work of missionaries to the heathens?
Objection VII: Whence will the society and the missionaries be able to find support?
Objection VIII: There is no door open in Providence for the entrance of the Gospel: We should wait till such an event take place and then diligently improve it.
Objection IX: What right have we to interfere with the religion of other nations?
Objection X: We have heathens enough at home, let us convert them first before we go abroad.
Created: December 1, 2004 Updated: December 1, 2004