1788 Part 1.

There is a monument in Sydney to the arrival of the gospel message in Australia. It’s down at the Circular Quay end of Castlereagh street – on the corner of Bligh and Hunter Streets. In a little square, there’s a monument – passed by and unread by hundreds of people every day.

Imagine you are standing in that spot, but instead of looking up at the tall buildings, and hearing the noise of the cars and the buses, above you is a great tree. You are in a wilderness – and the sounds you hear are the sounds of kookaburras – and the sounds of marching feet. For it is very near that spot – at the corner of Bligh and Hunter Streets – that, on Sunday 3rd February 1788, the first Christian church service was held in the Colony of New South Wales.

Just imagine it… Out in the harbour are moored eleven ships – the ships of the First Fleet, having carried just over a thousand people from Southampton.

There’s the Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, twenty officials and their servants, 213 marines with some wives and children, more than 750 convicts – one chaplain and his wife – as well as one eternal optimist – a certain James Smith, the man who had actually stowed away on the First Fleet!

The Fleet has taken 36 weeks to reach Botany Bay – and they arrive just four days before the two French frigates commanded by la Perouse also turn up – and after a few more days they transfer the site of the new colony to Farm Cove in Port Jackson on January 26.

And so, just over a week later, on Sunday February 3rd, the assembled crowd stands under a great tree, just a few dozen yards from the shore, as the chaplain opens the Word of God.

What will he preach on? What message will he give to this new nation after such a difficult journey? The psalm set for that day in the Book of Common Prayer is most appropriate, so he turns to Psalm 116:12

“What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He has done for me?”

We would do well to ask that same question. Why?

Most of us didn’t learn anything about Richard Johnson in Australian history lessons… he rarely figures at all. As we’ll see, he is a man very much after our own heart, and from whom we can learn a great deal.

Another reason is that the reactions of two key men in the colony to the gospel preached by Johnson illustrates our responses – and those of our friends – to the gospel today.

And lastly, we need to think about what we might render to the Lord for what he has done for us.

But why would anyone volunteer to come as Chaplain on a fleet of convicts to sail to the end of the world?

There was tremendous excitement in England after the discoveries of Captain James Cook in 1770. There was much talk about sending an expedition to Botany Bay – and the news that a Colony was going to be established fired the imagination of many people… including men like John Newton, the ex-slave trader who had written the hymn “Amazing Grace” after his turning to Christ.

John Newton was a leading gospel minister and the main figure in a group of evangelical clergy and laymen called The Eclectic Society. It was founded in 1783.

They discussed how they could further the cause of the gospel at Botany Bay – and became interested in the choice of a Chaplain to sail with the First Fleet.

Who would be the best man for the job? And who would choose him? John Newton knew that such an appointment would be a very difficult one. He wrote,

A minister who should go to Botany Bay without a call from the Lord and without receiving from Him an apostolical spirit, the spirit of a missionary, enabling him to forsake all, to give up all, to put himself into the Lord’s hands, to sink or swim, had better run his head against a stone wall.

Yes – the man to be the Chaplain for Botany Bay must not be the stereotypical English country clergyman with interests in nothing more challenging than cake stalls and model railways! John Newton and his friends knew that they needed a gospel man. A man called by God.

John Newton was a friend of William Wilberforce (the evangelical Christian man who had worked hard to abolish slavery) and Wilberforce was the closest friend of the newly-elected 25 year-old British Prime Minister, William Pitt.

Through Wilberforce, they suggested to the Prime Minister a name – that of a 31 year old Yorkshireman – the Rev Richard Johnson.

As a result, in October 1786, Johnson received a royal warrant as Chaplain to the Colony of New South Wales.

Who was this man?