Was William Carey in the right to contemplate leaving his wife to go to India to preach the gospel there? If Carey had been able to ask some of his Puritan forebears like Richard Baxter, they would have encouraged him to do so. Here is Baxter answering the question, “May ministers leave their wives to go abroad to preach the Gospel?” [Note: the question from a Puritan who some suppose to have had missionary interest!] “If they can neither do God’s work so well at home, nor yet take their wives with them, nor be excused from doing that part of service, by other men’s doing it who have no such impediment; they may and must leave their wives to do it.”
I am not necessarily in agreement with either Baxter or Carey, but it is vital to view Carey in the context of his tradition.