When a renowned missionary team sets down an agreement governing the principles of their ministry, a wise missionary will pay attention and compare notes. The missionary team in question was led by William Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward. Their agreement was the Serampore Compact of 1805, a document closing with “the resolve that this agreement shall be read publicly, at every station, at our three annual meetings.”

As you will see in the following summary, the team uses unequivocal language: “we are firmly persuaded,” and “it is absolutely necessary.” It is refreshing to hear these heartfelt convictions. They represent values of missionaries two centuries ago who paused to ponder the effectiveness of their ministry and the principles that governed its success.

An Outline Summary of the Serampore Compact of 1805

(Note: Dr. Loescher has outlined the major points and added numbering. He has also added a few editorial comments in italics, added emphasis with bold type and all caps, and updated some terminology, i.e., “heathen,” “natives.”  To see the full document, visit the Wholesome Words website.)

Introduction: Balance Between God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility

We are firmly persuaded that . . .

1. God gives the increase . . . .
2. Those ordained to eternal life believe.
3. God alone can add to the church such as shall be saved.

Nevertheless, we also observe . . .

1. The example of Paul (his personal zeal in persuading men to be reconciled to God).
2. The imitation of Jesus (fishers of men implies a personal work in drawing men to the shores of eternal life).
3. The saying of Solomon, “He that winneth souls is wise,” implies winning methods and great wisdom.

Upon these points, we think it right to fix our serious and abiding attention.

First: Our Preparation: Growing in our Burden for the Lost

1. It is absolutely necessary that we set an infinite value upon immortal souls . . . .
2. It becomes us to fix in our minds the fearful doctrine of eternal punishment.
3. We need to realize the terrible condition of the people who are in the arms of Satan. Summary: “OH! MAY OUR HEARTS BLEED OVER THE LOST.”
4. We must have confidence in the power of God to save. He can raise these slaves of superstition to sit in heavenly places in Christ, purify their hearts by faith, and make them worshippers of the one true God in spirit and in truth.
5. We must recognize the sufficiency of the promises of God

Second: Improving our Abilities to Interact with Those who are Lost

It is very important that we should gain all the information we can about their snares and delusions.

1. Know their modes of thinking, habits, propensities, antipathies, the ways they reason about God, sin, holiness, salvation, heaven.
2. Be aware of the bewitching nature of their idolatrous worship, feasts, songs, etc.

In this way, we can . . .

1. Gain their attention.
2. Avoid being barbarians to them.

This can be done by . . .

1. Having conversations with those who are sensible.
2. Reading parts of their works.
3. Attentively observing their manners and customs.

Third: Improving in our Interaction with the Lost (cont’d)

1. It is necessary . . . to identify and abstain from those things which would increase their prejudices against the Gospel.
   • Those parts of English manners which are most offensive to them should be kept out of sight.
   • We should avoid every degree of cruelty to animals.
   • We should not attack their beliefs with acrimony nor do violence to their images or stop their worship.
   • The real conquests of the Gospel are those who are loved: “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”
2. Remember the example of Paul: becoming all things to all men and having a disposition to not offend the weak.
3. Cultivate a spirit of humility: he that is too proud to stoop to others, in order to draw them to Him, though he may know that they are in many respects inferior to himself, is ill-qualified to be a missionary.

Fourth: Improving our Interaction with the Lost (cont’d)

1. Watch for all opportunities of doing good.
2. Take opportunities to carry on conversations, as often as opportunity offers; be instant in season out of season:
   • At almost every hour of the day.
   • Go from village to village and market to market.
   • Talk to servants, laborers, etc.
   • “THIS IS THE LIFE TO WHICH WE ARE CALLED IN THIS COUNTRY.”
3. Take heed to do this:
   • We are apt to relax, especially in a warm climate.
   • Life is short.
   • All around are people perishing.
   • We incur a dreadful woe if we proclaim not the glad tidings of salvation.

Fifth: Improving our Preaching to the Lost

Make the greatest subject of our preaching CHRIST CRUCIFIED: the doctrine of Christ’s expiatory death and all-sufficient merits.

1. This doctrine has been and must ever remain the grand means of conversion.
2. This doctrine has constantly nourished and sanctified the church.
3. This doctrine must be the joy and strength of our soul so that it will not fail to become the matter of our conversation to others,
4. This doctrine was the key to the rapid spread of the Reformation.
5. This doctrine filled the sermons of men during the great revivals: Whitefield, Wesley, the Puritans, the Moravians.
6. So far as our experience goes in this work, we must freely acknowledge that every Hindu among us who has been gained to Christ, has been won by the astonishing and all-constraining love exhibited in our Redeemer’s propitiatory death.
7. O then, may we resolve to know nothing among Hindus and Muslims but Christ and Him crucified.

Sixth: Gaining the Confidence of the Lost

It is absolutely necessary that the nationals should have an entire confidence in us and feel quite at home in our company. To gain this confidence, we must on all occasions:

1. Be willing to hear their complaints.
2. Give them the kindest advice.
3. Make decisions in the most open, upright, and impartial manner.
4. Be accessible.
5. Condescend to them, treating them as equals.
6. Avoid passionate behavior (anger).
7. Shun with the greatest care all force and everything haughty.
8. No sacrifice is too great, except those which would cause us to sacrifice the commands of Christ

Seventh: Improving our Discipleship

1. Building up and watching over the souls that have been gathered.
   • Simplify our first instructions as much as possible.
   • Press the great principles of the Gospel upon the minds of the converts.
   • Spend time with them daily, if possible.
   • Be patient, though they may grow very slowly.
2. With tenderness and forbearance, form in them habits of industry and assist them in procuring such employment as may be pursued with the least danger of temptations to evil.
3. Instruct our national brothers in their duty to honor the civil magistrate.
   • a. We must do the same, giving our converts an example.
   • b. Show authorities they have no need to fear: a believer will be a model citizen.
4. Bear their faults, reprove them with tenderness, and set them right in the necessity of a holy life.
   • Remember the gross darkness in which they were so lately involved, having never had any just and adequate ideas of the evil of sin or its consequences.
   • Remember how backward our human nature is in forming spiritual ideas.
   • Don’t give up after he has fallen many times if he manifests the desire to repent.
   • Be an example before them: “THEY KNOW ONLY THE SAVIOR AND HIS DOCTRINE AS THEY SHINE FORTH IN US.”
5. Wives of national converts:
   • Through them other women will be won to Christ.
   • Women missionaries have a vital role.
   • This is seen through the example of women involved in the early church (Priscilla, Lydia, etc.).
   • Many women cannot be reached but through women missionaries: consider how much the Asiatic women are shut up from the men.
   • It behooves us, therefore, to afford to our European sisters all possible assistance in acquiring the language, that they may, in every way which Providence may open to them, become instrumental in promoting the salvation of the millions of women who are in great measure excluded from all opportunities of hearing the word.

Eighth: Discipleship Cont’d (Forming Them for Useful Work, Developing Their Gifts)

“IT IS ONLY BY MEANS OF NATIVE PREACHERS THAT WE CAN HOPE FOR THE UNIVERSAL SPREAD OF THE GOSPEL THROUGHOUT THIS IMMENSE CONTINENT.”

1. Reason for Training Nationals:
   • Missionaries are too few.
   • Their subsistence costs too much.
   • They are often incapable of bearing the intense heat of the climate in their many journeys.
   • Their journeys are fraught with heavy expenses.
   • Prejudices of the nationals stand against their very presence.
   • They have great difficulty becoming fluent in their languages.
   • LET US THEREFORE USE EVERY GIFT(ED) PERSON, AND CONTINUALLY URGE ON OUR NATIONAL BRETHREN TO PRESS UPON THEIR COUNTRYMEN THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL OF THE BLESSED GOD.
2. Advise them to choose their pastors and deacons.
   • Reasons:
     • That the Word be statedly (regularly) preached.
     • That the ordinances be administered.
   • How:
     • As much as possible without interference of the missionary . . .
       • Superintend, giving advice in cases of order and discipline.
       • Correcting any errors into which they may fall.
       • Directing their efforts to plant new churches in other places.
     • National churches will also naturally care and provide . . .
       • For their ministers.
       • For their church expenses.
       • The raising of places of worship, etc.           
   • Results:  Doing this will ensure that . . .
     • The national churches identify the cause as belonging to their own nation.
     • Their prejudices at falling into the hands of foreigners will vanish.
     • That the pastors and members feel a new energy in spreading the gospel.
3. Don’t change certain intrinsic elements of their lives:
   • The names of converts.
   • Their dress or food.
4. Lead . . .
   • By example.
   • By mild persuasion.
   • By opening and illuminating their minds in a gradual way.
   • Rather than by using authoritative means.
   • In cases wherein force is used, though they may leave off that which is wrong while in our presence, yet not having seen the evil of it, they are in danger of using hypocrisy, and of doing that out of our presence which they dare not do in it.

Ninth: Translating the Word of God

1. It becomes us to LABOR WITH ALL OUR MIGHT in forwarding translations of the sacred scriptures.
2. We consider the publication of the Divine Word throughout India as an object which WE OUGHT NEVER TO GIVE UP TILL ACCOMPLISHED, looking to the fountain of all knowledge and strength to qualify us for this great work, and to carry us through it to the praise of His Holy name.
3. It becomes us to USE ALL ASSIDUITY in explaining and distributing the Divine Word on all occasion and by every means.
4. It is our duty also to distribute, AS EXTENSIVELY AS POSSIBLE, religious tracts. We should keep this continually in mind and watch all opportunities of putting even single tracts into the hands of those persons with whom we occasionally meet.
5. Establish visit and encourage national free schools.

Tenth: That Which is to Fit us for the Discharge of These Laborious and Unutterable Important Labors

1. BEING INSTANT IN PRAYER.
2. THE CULTIVATION OF PERSONAL RELIGION.
   • Look at the examples of others: Brainerd
   • “PRAYER, SECRET, FERVENT BELIEVING PRAYER LIES AT THE FOOT OF ALL PERSONAL GODLINESS.”
3. A COMPETENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE LANGUAGES CURRENT WHERE THE MISSIONARY LIVES.
4. A MILD AND WINNING TEMPER.
5. A HEART GIVEN UP TO CLOSET RELIGION.

These are the attainments which, more than all knowledge, or all other gifts, will fit us to become instruments of God in the great work of human redemption.

LET US THEN:

1. Be united in prayer when distance separates us.
2. Let each one of us lay it upon his heart that we will seek to be fervent in Spirit, wrestling with God, till He famish these idols and cause the unbeliever to experience the blessedness that is in Christ.

Finally: Consecration

• Let us give ourselves up unreservedly to this glorious cause.
• Let us not think that our time, our gifts, our strength, our families, or our clothes are our own.
• Let us sanctify them all to God and His cause. Oh, that He may sanctify us for His work!
• Let us continually watch against a worldly spirit and cultivate a Christian indifference towards every indulgence.
• Let us bear hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ and endeavor to learn in every state to be content.
• If in this way, we are enabled to glorify God with our bodies and spirits which are His— our wants will be His care.
• If we are enabled to persevere in the same principles, we may hope that multitudes of converted souls will have reason to bless God to all eternity for sending His Gospel into this country.

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