Henry Martyn (1781–1812):
The Spirit of Christ in Missions
Dr. Jordan Stone
My first recollection of the name Henry Martyn came years ago when reading Andrew Bonar’s Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. Not long after his conversion, M’Cheyne wrote in his journal, “Read H. Martyn’s Memoirs. Would I could imitate him, giving up father, mother, country, house, life, all—for Christ. And yet, what hinders? Lord purify me, and give me strength to dedicate myself, my all, to thee!”[1]
In my circles of Reformed and Presbyterian churches, M’Cheyne’s name is nearly synonymous with the pursuit of personal holiness. If Henry Martyn’s devotion in some way—even a small way—sparked M’Cheyne’s love for Christ, I wanted to know this man who took the gospel to foreign lands. What stirred him? What can we learn from him?
It’s to such questions we turn this afternoon that we might know something of God’s work in the land Martyn knew as Persia and might grow in the Spirit of Christ that compels mission.
FROM BIRTH TO CONVERSION: 1781–1800
Henry Martyn was born in Truro, England on February 18, 1781. His mother died when he was a little over a year old, causing Martyn to know little of maternal nurture and affection. By God’s grace, Martyn’s father—John—was a devoted Christian who raised his children in the Lord’s fear and instruction.
Henry entered the Truro Grammar School at the age of seven, immediately displaying a gifted mind and natural aptitude for learning. When he turned eighteen, he enrolled at St. John’s College, Cambridge, to study mathematics, a field he soon mastered and by the second year, he was head of his class.
Martyn’s academic growth outpaced his spirituality. He was rather temperamental and given to fits of anger, unchecked and unbalanced. So apt was he to fly off the handle that, on one occasion, he threw a knife at a friend, startled to see it strike a wooden panel not far from the intended target.
The moment of spiritual crisis came, as it often does, through the death of a loved one. In January of 1800, Martyn received word that his beloved father had died. Henry’s thoughts understandably drifted to his own death and heavenly realities. He took up reading his Bible, praying to God, and seeking salvation. Conversion soon came. Henry later wrote, “I took my Bible before God in prayer, and prayed for forgiveness through Christ, assurance of it through His Spirit, and grace to obey His commandments.”
FROM CONVERSION TO COMMISSION: 1800–1805
The church that served as a spiritual nursery to Henry was the Church of the Holy Trinity in Cambridge, pastored by one of the great English evangelicals of the time: Charles Simeon. Simeon took Henry into his inner circle, becoming something of a spiritual patron to the young disciple. The years of 1801–1802 saw Henry reach sustained heights in his academic career, reaching the top spots and receiving more awards. The prizes seemed increasingly shallow, however. The restlessness he felt was because the Lord was stirring him to serve in the gospel ministry. Martyn later said he’d been inclined to reject the ministry because he “could not consent to be poor for Christ’s sake.”
By October of 1802, he’d submitted to God’s call: he would study for ordination as Charles Simeon’s curate at Holy Trinity.
While preparing and ministering in the traffic of Cambridge and country quiet of Lolworth, Martyn became ever closer with Simeon. One day, Simeon made a random observation about missionary work, remarking about how great a harvest can come through a single missionary. Simeon originally had in mind the pioneering servant William Carey. The Lord used the comment, however, to lead Martyn to the Diary and Journal of David Brainerd, the young, zealous missionary who’d taken the gospel to Native Americans in the colonies. Martyn’s soul attached itself to Brainerd’s model, one of strict devotion and service to the Lord. At times in later life, Martyn examined his heart asking, “Ah, my soul, is this the life of Brainerd?”
In 1804, Henry accepted an offer to become a Chaplain with the East India Company. He exclaimed, “Blessed be God, I feel myself to be His minister! This thought which I could hardly describe came in the morning after reading Brainerd. I wish for no service but the service of God: to labor for souls on earth and to do His will in heaven.” Martyn was subsequently ordained to the ministry on March 10, 1805, just after his twenty-fourth birthday.
He preached his final sermon in Cambridge on April 7, 1805, and on July 17 he set sail for a foreign land.
LABOR IN INDIA: 1805–1810
The nine-month voyage to India found Martyn in a cabin stocked with books, grammars, dictionaries, and commentaries. He cut a distinguished figure in his careful dress, surrounded as he was by seadogs and sailors. Two to three hundred attended Martyn’s Lord’s Day services where his direct preaching had little noticeable effect. He passed the time in language study, Bible reading, prayer, and attempting to edify all with his conversation and conduct. It was said that his presence on the Union brought it the name of “a very praying ship,” but Martyn wished it was more a reality than it really was.
Henry arrived in Calcutta on May 16, 1806, zealous to do good for souls, writing, “I feel pressed in spirit to do something for God . . . I have hitherto lived to little purpose . . . now let me burn out for God.”
Time doesn’t allow for a focus on his ministry in India which was full of the usual pastoral labor: preaching, praying, visiting, marrying, and burying. Martyn committed himself to deep language study. In time, Martyn realized that translating the Bible into native tongues would bring a greater harvest than his preaching ministry. Henry loved preached but found it taking far too much from his body physically. He realized that his native intellectual gifting meant he was uniquely equipped for this most difficult and necessary work. Marcus Loane comments, “He was to apply a rare genius to the task of translation.” Henry had not difficulty dipping into languages like French, Italian, Dutch, and Portuguese. Learning languages of the east became his daily labor. “He read grammars as other men read novels,” Canon Edmonds declared, “and to him they were more entertaining than novels.”
As early as 1804 he was absorbed with a Bengali grammar and Hindustani dictionary, and in 1806 he had become infatuated with the Sanskrit background of many Hindi words. In 1808, he attempted translating a Scripture passage into seven languages, just to see how it would go. While in India, he’d responded eagerly to a request to translate the New Testament into Hindustani, Persian, and Arabic. Tran
TO PERSIA HE WENT: 1810–1812
While in India, Henry received news that two of his beloved sisters had died of consumption (tuberculosis), a lung disease that was a leading cause of death in the nineteenth century. Weak lungs seemed to run in the family. On April 10, 1810, Henry wrote, “Study never makes me ill—scarcely ever fatigues me—but my lungs! Death is seated there; it is speaking that kills me . . . But the call of Jesus Christ bids me cry aloud and spare not. As His minister, I am a debtor both to the Greek and the Barbarian. How can I be silent when I have both ever before me, and my debt not paid?”
Two things combined, under God, to bring Martyn to Persia. First, he had worked for several years on translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic, and he’d long thought to visit both lands for the sake of accuracy and understanding. Second, it was thought that exchanging the scorching land of India for the desert vistas of Persian would aid his health. So, Martyn wrote, “I now pass from India to Arabia, not knowing what things shall befall me there.”
By June of 1811, Martyn was in the heart of the old Persian kingdom, only forty miles from Persepolis and the graves of Darius and Artaxerxes and Ahasuerus. Shiraz was the modern seat of the Old Persian culture and home of its most classical dialect. Henry gave himself up to the two compelling interests of translation and discussion. His presence in Shiraz caused no small stir in its schools of learning, and men came from cities as far afield as Baghdad and Basra to put their perspective before the grave and gentle man from England. Shias and Sufis thronged to the house full of questions; Mullahs and Moulvies tested his learning.
Martyn’s presence led to a long controversy and war of apologetics with some of the leading Muslims in the kingdom. The first spar happened on July 15, 1811. Martyn was one of four authorities among the Sufis in Persia. The oft-heated debate lasted to June of 1812, when the ultimate confrontation over truth took place by the Vizier in the court at Teheran. Henry was challenged to acknowledge that Allah is God, and that Mohammed is his prophet. One scholar observes, “The moment was fraught with danger, but his reply was immediate and spontaneous”: “God is God, and Jesus is the Son of God.”
The oral contests spilled over into print and Martyn bore the brunt of it. The chief Mullah in the country had published an apologetic for Islam which was said to be the greatest ever written and was meant to quiet Martyn’s Christianity forever. Martyn picked up his pen in response, publishing a tract. “He pressed home a skillful argument to its ruthless conclusion, and matched the strength of the argument with the courtesy of his appeal,” Loane writes. Martyn’s defense of the faith was so successful that it went from hand to hand throughout the land, eventually reached the court of the Shah. So concerned was he with Martyn’s argument, the Shah summon one of the most renowned controversialists to reply. His rebuttal was completed after Martyn died, but the Muslim community found it so weak that it was eventually pulled from print.
LET CHRIST LIVE
Martyn finished his translation of the New Testament into Persian in February of 1812, barely eight months after he’d arrived in Shiraz. He wrote, “Now may the Spirit Who gave the word and called me, I trust, to be an interpreter of it, graciously and powerfully apply it to the hearts of sinners, even to the gathering of an elect people from amongst the long-estranged Persians.”
In March, he completed a translation of the entire Psalter. He soon set out on an arduous journey towards Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul. The travel found him often on the brink of delirium and death, so sick was he.
In October, he reached Tokat, some five hundred and fifty miles from Istanbul. Virtually no details exist on the final days of his life. All we know is that on October 16, 1812, he passed into glory. A lasting memorial for Martyn resides in Holy Trinity Church and reads
This tablet
is erected to the Memory of
The Rev. HENRY MARTYN, B.D.,
Fellow of St. John’s College,
and two years curate of this Parish.
He gained by his talents the highest Academical honours,
but counting all loss for Christ,
he left his Native Country, and went into the East,
as a Chaplain of the Hon. East India Company.
There, having faithfully done the work of an Evangelist,
in preaching the Gospel of a crucified Redeemer,
in translating the Holy Scriptures into the
Oriental Languages,
and in defending the Christian Faith in the heart of Persia
against the united talents of the most learned Mohametans,
he died at Tokat on the 16th of October, 1812,
in the 31st year of his age.
The chief monuments which he left of his piety and talents
are Translations of the New Testament
Into the Hindoostance and Persian Languages,
and “by these, being dead, yet speaketh.”
“Pray ye that Lord of the harvest, that
He will send forth labourers into His harvest.”
LEARNING FROM MARTYN
Before leaving India for Persia, Henry Martyn planned to burn all his private papers. God’s providence intervened, and those papers—along with Martyn’s other journals—were delivered to Charles Simeon and John Sargent after Martyn’s death. Martyn’s personal writings have become, according to Stephen Neill, “One of the most precious treasures of Anglican devotion.”
Martyn seems to have self-consciously styled his Journal after David Brainerd’s. If he didn’t, the similarities in structure, self-confession, and pursuit of the inner life, only further reveal the degree to which Brainerd’s life and ministry shaped Martyn’s.
The allure of Martyn’s Journal, in comparison with Brainerd’s, is due in part to its pathos and romance. A massive part of Martyn’s story that I can’t tell today is the long-distance, heart-wrenching romance he felt toward his childhood love Lydia Grenfell. Solitude and seriousness, love and longing, reality and romance permeate the pages.
What I want to do for the rest of the time is direct your heart to consider two applications that Martyn’s life brings for us today.
While laying fever-stricken in Persia, Martyn was asked, “How is the missionary spirit to be called forth and intensified?” He answered, “Live more with Christ, catch more of His Spirit; for the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him the more intensely missionary we must become.”[2]
Let us first note how Martyn’s life calls us to see the Spirit of Christ pursues holiness. At the close of January 24, 1803, Martyn wrote: “Went to bed with a clear view of the infinite necessity of an ardent pursuit of holiness.”[3] In November of that same year, “My soul has been struggling with much corruption, summoning up courage in the name of God to fight the fight of faith with never-ceasing exertion, and yet soon sinking again into evil tempers, distrust, and despondency. Oh, my spirit faints for holiness! When shall God be glorified by the entire renewing of this sinful heart?”[4]
It seems, while reading his Journal, that you can’t make it five pages without observing Martyn breathing, groaning, rising, and seeking personal holiness. Martyn knew that usefulness for Christ demands sincere holiness.
This emphasis was prized in Martyn’s ministry and time but has too regularly fallen from favor in our time. We must return to the ancient paths of Scripture, taking the words of Christ and his apostles at their face value.
John 15 starts with a stunning and challenging metaphor about union with Jesus Christ. Jesus says that disciples are the branches and Christ is the vine. Notice 15:4–5, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Life in Christ means abiding in Christ. Abiding in Christ means bearing fruit. If you don’t abide, you won’t bear fruit. And look down at 15:6 to see what happens to non-abiding, fruitless professors and preachers: “If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
The relevance of these truths to pastoral holiness cannot be denied. Preachers must abide in Christ, living through His nourishment. When we do that, we bear fruit—we burst, slowly but surely, in spirituality. If such growth is necessary for the apostles and every disciple, we are on solid ground to say that Jesus requires it from his ministers. But we don’t have to make our argument only by good and necessary consequence. That pastoral epistles are undeniably clear. Go to 1 Timothy 1.
One of the best things you can do at the outset of your ministry is to memorize the Pastoral Epistles. Paul’s instructions to his young friend will yield a lifelong harvest if your soul lives in these texts.
You know the story of Timothy. Paul told the Philippians that he had no one like Timothy, one who earnestly seeks Christ’s interest above all others (Phil. 2:20–22). The great apostle refers to Timothy as “my beloved son” (2 Tim. 1:2). Paul likewise calls Titus “my true child in the faith” (Titus 1:4). The Pastoral Epistles are thus the manual on gospel ministry. Paul writes with the concern of a father, one who wants his children to faithful and successful for Christ. We want to know what his Spirit-inspired pen demands of ordinary preachers following in the apostolic model. 1 Timothy 1:5 gives us the goal for which we strive: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Love is our telos. Love for Christ and love for His people. Such love comes, notice, through a holy heart, conscience, and faith. This is why Paul will soon command his protégé in 1 Timothy 4:7, “Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness.” The zeal many pastors today have for CrossFit and all other forms of physical training must pale in comparison to their passion for piety.
I’m building a case for personal holiness being an indispensable requisite for ministry. As Spurgeon said, “Whatever ‘call’ a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry.”[5] I trust we are feeling the gravity of piety’s centrality falling on us. Jesus demands we abide in him and bear an abundance of fruit. The apostle says piety must be a central passion in our ministry. But we haven’t yet gotten to the clear-cut clarity in Paul. Turn now to 2 Timothy 2.
This passage comes in a long series of images to describe a gospel minister. In 2:3, he’s to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” In 2:5, he’s “an athlete” who competes “according to the rules.” In 2:6, he’s a “hard-working farmer.” In 2:15, he’s “a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” The sixth image in this chapter comes in 2:24, which speaks of the pastor as, “the Lord's servant.” But we’re interested in the fifth image, that of the pastor as a “vessel.” Notice what Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:20–21: “Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”
Now, we have arrived. Paul reminds Timothy that insofar as he is “set apart as holy” he will be “useful.” God loves to use holy ministers. The Lord delights to employ those who are humble toward Him and hungry for truth. The word for vessel is one that was used for a household utensil. Just as a knife isn’t useful to eat Lucky Charms or a plate isn’t useful to hold your morning coffee, so does a lack of holiness mean a preacher isn’t useful to the Lord or ready for every good work. Could the Lord use such a person? Of course. He has done it repeatedly throughout history. I could point to men in recent years who have failed, but the Lord used to bless countless people.
Yet, we don’t make impiety the norm for brings hearts into the kingdom. We don’t expect God to save sinners and sanctify saints through pastors not burning with the flame of pure piety that burns with love for Christ.
While serving in India, Martyn spent numerous days in fasting and prayer. At the close of one such day, he confessed, “Afterwards, in prayer for my own sanctification, my soul breathed freely and ardently after the holiness of God, and this was the best season in a day.”[6] Or, on another occasion, “Alas! What signifies the number of times I bow my knees, unless I get good to my soul; and what will it profit me to have given my body to be burned, and my goods to feed the poor, if I have not personal holiness!”[7]
The Spirit of Christ works through His word. The apologetic controversy which swallowed much of Martyn’s final year convinced him, more than ever, that the only key to piercing the errors of Islam was the integrity, authority, and clarity of Scripture. God’s word alone would shine light into the darkness.
Martyn’s missionary efforts was little more than a preoccupation with God’s word: teaching and translating. In one entry, he recorded, “O how refreshing and supporting to my soul was the holiness of the word of God; —sweeter than the sweetest promise.”[8]Other entries express his delight, comfort, and satisfaction in God’s word. The sufficiency of God’s word excites the soul to minister its saving truth to lost sinners. “By continual prayer with the word of God, my spirit became more serious and fervent.”[9]
Archibald Alexander, the venerable starter of Old Princeton, urged his students, “You recollect the resolution of the pious Henry Martyn. He never would allow himself to peruse a book one moment after he felt it gaining a preference to the Bible. As long as he could turn to his Bible with a superior relish, so long he would continue reading, and no longer. God thou and do likewise.”[10]
Reformation and revival among Farsi speakers will happen, and can only happen, by God’s Spirit working through God’s word. While on his way to the land that would take him, Martyn explained, “Arabia shall hide me till I come forth with an approved New Testament . . . I cannot devote my life to a more important work than that of preparing the Arabic Bible.”
[1] Bonar, MAR 12.
[2] The Spirit of Missions: Issued by the Board of Missions of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America,90
[3] Sargent, Journal and Letters, 1:30.
[4] Sargent, Journal and Letters, 1:70.
[5] LTMS, 9.
[6] Sargent, Journal and Letters, 1:323.
[7] Sargent, Journal and Letters, 1:423.
[8] Smith, A Memoir, 203.
[9] Sargent, Journal and Letters, 1:276.
[10] Alexander quoted in Garretson, Princeton, and Preachers, 72.