Jeremy WalkerThis article was originally a series of articles. It has been combined into one long article. You can easily navigate the different parts of this article using the table of contents below.
Table of contents
Part 1: Spurgeon, the Young Recruit
The life of Charles Spurgeon was so full of grace, gifts and labour, and so much has been written by and about him, that we must leave out much that is of interest and usefulness in reviewing his life and ministry.
He was born in Kelvedon, a village in the county of Essex in the east of England, on 19th June 1834. For the first few years of his life he lived with his grandparents in a town called Stambourne, returning to his parents’ home when about five years old (his grandfather, James, was a Congregational [Independent] minister of the gospel, as was Charles’ father, John). Even in youth, his earnestness, boldness, and intelligence became rapidly apparent. From the earliest years of his life young Charles would plunder his grandfather’s shelves of their Puritan treasures, if only initially to look at pictures in, for example, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Still, he learned to read and practiced the art from an early age. As the years progressed, his schooling continued to reveal a precocious intellect and a ready tongue.
At the age of fifteen he entered a school in Newmarket as both student and a teacher of younger boys. One of his own teachers in theology was the cook at the home in which he boarded, who loved and lived a vigorous Calvinism, and helped the young man with many difficult questions of faith and practice. He was spiritually sensitive, but still unconverted, although for many years he had been alive to the reality of his sin, painfully convinced of his wretchedness.
At the beginning of the next year, having returned home for Christmas, he set off for church one Sunday. This was the day appointed by God for his great work of grace in the young man’s heart. The circumstances are striking, and the honour is God’s alone. As he travelled, the Lord sent a snowstorm which eventually turned him into a Primitive Methodist chapel. As it happened, the regular minister was unable to be there – perhaps prevented by the same snowstorm – and eventually a thin man got up to preach. To this day, no-one knows who he was. His text was Isaiah 45:22: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” The man was no practiced speaker and, after about ten minutes of vigorous but curious exposition, he was running out of steam. Spotting the young stranger, he found a new aspect to his message: “Young man, you look very miserable, and you will always be miserable – miserable in life, and miserable in death – if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved. Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live!” This came with divine power to young Spurgeon’s soul. He had doubtless heard many good and powerful sermons in his youth, but now the Word of God came by the power of God’s Spirit with saving strength. Spurgeon looked and lived, and the joy of salvation flooded into his heart as he trusted in Christ to deliver him from sin, death and hell. It was 6th January 1850. The excellence and preciousness of Christ would colour all the subsequent labours of Charles Spurgeon.
It was not long before Satan roared in again at Charles. The young man had fondly imagined that he would now be free of such attacks, but doubts, foul thoughts and blasphemies again assailed him. This bitter experience was brief, as Christ helped his young lamb to wrestle against his sinful heart, but it taught Charles that Christian living was a battle, not a bed of roses. It was a battle which he earnestly joined as a Christian warrior.
Having been converted, Charles was admitted as a member of a Congregational church in April of that year. However, by now some of his thinking had matured, and he had been convinced from Scripture that believers, and only believers, ought to be baptised. He therefore applied to a local Baptist minister for baptism, and on 3rd May 1850 he walked eight miles to a village called Isleham where he was baptised by Mr. Cantlow in the River Lark (where a stone still stands to mark the spot). He received communion for the first time on 5th May (he would not take the Lord’s supper until he had been baptised), the same day on which he entered upon his labours as a Sunday School teacher, rapidly proving popular with the children, and with many adults also.
In the summer of 1850 he moved to the university city of Cambridge. In this city he continued as a teacher-student, and joined a Baptist church. As he entered into the life of the church, and advanced in his understanding, new opportunities for service arose; one in particular was unceremoniously thrust upon him. A man called James Vinter was responsible for organising various men to preach in outlying villages, and one day called Spurgeon to him. Vinter explained that a young man was going to preach at a village called Teversham, and – as the fellow in question was not much used to services – would probably be very glad of some company. Spurgeon accordingly met up with an older Christian lad, and they set off together to Teversham one Sunday afternoon. Their conversation soon revealed that this other young man was expecting Charles to preach, and nothing would induce the older boy to change his mind. With this new responsibility pressing upon him, he decided to preach his first sermon on “Unto you therefore which believe he is precious” (1 Peter 2:7), and did so to the profit and pleasure of the few villagers gathered in a cottage.
His preaching labours increased in number and effect, until – aged only seventeen – he was called to pastor a church in the godless village of Waterbeach, not far from Cambridge. His zealous labours and keen insight into the sin of men and the grace of God meant that, before too long, Waterbeach was transformed. Although there is evidence of development and maturing in these early years, surely there are few preachers who have been so fully and so early equipped by God as was Spurgeon! After two years in Waterbeach, and aged only nineteen, Spurgeon was invited to preach at New Park Street Chapel in London. There was a good pedigree to the church there: previous ministers had included Benjamin Keach, John Gill, and John Rippon, all differently but greatly used of God in their day. But a good pedigree was not enough. Iain Murray speaks of the prevailing spiritual conditions in England at the time:
Protestant Christianity was more or less the national religion . . . The church was not lacking in wealth, nor in men, nor in dignity, but it was sadly lacking in unction and power. There was a general tendency to forget the difference between human learning and the truth revealed by the Spirit of God. There was no scarcity of eloquence and culture in the pulpits, but there was a marked absence of the kind of preaching that broke men’s hearts. Perhaps the worst sign of all was the fact that few were awake to these things.
In this context, Spurgeon entered London and began to declare God’s Word.
The chapel at New Park Street had seats for some twelve hundred people. On the morning Spurgeon first preached, there were perhaps between one hundred and two hundred people present. God so owned his preaching to the congregation that they – excited by what they heard – called out friends and neighbours, so that by the evening the congregation was significantly larger.
Spurgeon agreed to return for further preaching dates, and within a few weeks, the church had called him to become their pastor. The young preacher offered to come on three months’ trial, and called for earnest prayer from the church. It was not long before the building was packed with eager hearers as Spurgeon, himself earnestly praying and enjoying the same with and from the people, preached the sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus, and the church urged him to receive the pastorate on a full time basis. Spurgeon accepted on the condition of this earnest and urgent prayer continuing.
Part 2: Spurgeon, the Calvinist
Rapidly, rapidly, the gospel spread, and crowds flocked to hear this unorthodox and “unschooled” preacher. This country boy, who had learned vigorous and full-orbed evangelical Calvinism—as if true Calvinism were anything else!—from his parents and grandparents, from libraries of Puritan authors, and from an old cook, soon saw multitudes being converted, and his fame spread. As Spurgeon often remarked, Calvinism was merely a nickname for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how that gospel was effectual as he preached! His prodigious intellectual ability, consecrated to the service of his Saviour and in constant dependence on the grace of God, enabled him to maintain a constantly fresh and vigorous ministry.
The building in which the church met soon proved too small to contain the thronging crowds, and extensions to the building and temporary visits to other larger halls in which he could preach provided no final answer. The preacher himself, always conscious of the spiritual burden of his work, soon began to feel the physical and emotional effects as well. It was, however, during these early years in London that Spurgeon came to know, admire and then love a young lady called Susannah Thompson. The demands on his time and energy did not make courtship easy, but the deep love the two shared, and Susannah’s increasing spiritual maturity, happily led to their marriage on 8th January 1856.
In the meantime, Spurgeon’s increasingly varied and blessed labors brought him under increasing scrutiny, and often into conflict, quite naturally with the world, but also – sadly – with other professing Christians. His unashamed proclamation of the doctrines of grace antagonized both Arminians and hyper-Calvinists. His spiritual vigor and holy bluntness often enraged those who did not share his understanding of God’s Word. In 1855, partly in answer to his slanderers, Spurgeon nailed his colors even more firmly to the mast with the re-publication of The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. More importantly, he wanted to furnish the people to whom he preached with a plain statement of the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. Spurgeon stood firmly in the stream of historic Biblical Christianity, as manifested among his Particular Baptist forefathers. In introducing the volume to the church, Spurgeon wrote:
This ancient document is a most excellent epitome of the things most surely believed among us. By the preserving hand of the Triune Jehovah, we have been kept faithful to the great points of our glorious gospel, and we feel more resolved perpetually to abide by them. This little volume is not issued as an authoritative rule, or code of faith, whereby you are to be fettered, but as an assistance to you in controversy, a confirmation in faith, and a means of edification in righteousness. Here the younger members of our church will have a Body of Divinity in small compass, and by means of the Scriptural proofs, will be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in them.
In the same year began the regular publication of a weekly sermon, soon gathered into annual collections, continuing throughout Spurgeon’s life and – using up unpublished sermons – after his death, so that 63 such volumes of sermons are now in existence.
It is worth pausing here to emphasize again that Spurgeon was thoroughly committed to true Calvinism in all its Scriptural, evangelical vibrancy. He declared his position in this way:
I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.
In taking such a stand, Spurgeon had to defend himself from the charge of Arminianism. The hyper-Calvinists claimed that he had no right to plead with sinners to turn to Christ and be saved and that he was mistaking the gospel. In another sermon from the New Park Street Pulpit (on “Particular Redemption”) Spurgeon declares his adherence to the biblical gospel in all its fullness and freeness (in opposition both to Arminian and hyper-Calvinistic abuses and misunderstandings):
I must now return to that controverted point again. We are often told (I mean those of us who are commonly nicknamed by the title of Calvinists—and we are not very much ashamed of that; we think that Calvin, after all, knew more about the gospel than almost any man who has ever lived, uninspired)—we are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, “No, certainly not.” We ask them the next question—Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer “No.” They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent. They say, “No; Christ has died that any man may be saved if”—and then follow certain conditions of salvation. We say, then, we will go back to the old statement—Christ did not die so as beyond a doubt to secure the salvation of anybody, did he? You must say “No;” you are obliged to say so, for you believe that even after a man has been pardoned, he may yet fall from grace, and perish. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ’s death; we say, “No, my dear sir, it is you that do it.” We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only may be saved but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.
How did such convictions work themselves out in practice? How did Spurgeon not only hold his ground but advance the cause of Christ? We gain a glimpse into his heart if we listen to his earnest pleadings with sinners.
I cannot plead as I could wish. Oh! if I could I would plead with my heart, with my eyes, and my lips, that I might lead you to the Saviour. You need not rail at me and call this an Arminian style of preaching; I care not for your opinion, this style is Scriptural. “As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” Poor broken-hearted sinner, God is as much preaching to you this morning, and bidding you be reconciled, as if he stood here himself in his own person; and though I be a mean and puny man by whom he speaketh, he speaketh now as much as if it were by the voice of angels, “Be reconciled to God.” Come, friend, turn not thine eye and head away from me; but give me thine hand and lend me thine heart whilst I weep over thine hand and cry over thine heart, and beseech thee not to despise thine own mercy, not to be a suicide to thine own soul, not to damn thyself. Now that God has awakened thee to feel that thou art an enemy, I beseech thee now to be his friend. Remember, if thou art now convinced of sin, there is no punishment for thee. He was punished in thy stead. Wilt thou believe this? Wilt thou trust in it, and so be at peace with God? If thou sayest, “No!” then I would have thee know that thou hast put away thine own mercy. If thou sayest, “I need no reconciliation,” thou hast thrust away the only hope thou canst ever have. Do it at thine own hazard; I wash my hands of thy blood. But, but, but, if thou knowest thyself to need a Saviour if thou wouldst escape the hellish pit, if thou wouldst walk among them that are sanctified, I again, in the name of him that will condemn thee at the last day, if thou rejectest this invitation, implore and beseech thee to be reconciled to God. I am his ambassador. When I have done this sermon, I shall go back to court. Sinner, what shall I say of thee. Shall I go back and tell my Master that thou intendest to be his enemy for ever? Shall I go back and tell him, “They heard me, but they regarded not?” they said in their hearts, “we will go away to our sins and our follies, and we will not serve your God, neither fear him!” Shall I tell him such a message as that? Must I be driven to go back to his palace with such a fearful story? I beseech thee, send me not back so, lest my Master’s wrath wax hot, and he say,
“They that despised my promised rest,
Shall have no portion there.”But oh! may I not go back to court to-day, and tell the Monarch on my knees, “There be some my Lord, that have been great rebels, but when they saw themselves rebels, they threw themselves at the foot of the cross, and asked for pardon. They had strangely revolted, but I heard them say, ‘If he will forgive me I will turn from my evil ways, if he will enable me!’ They were gross transgressors, and they confessed it; but I heard them say, ‘Jesus, thy blood and righteousness are my only trust.’” Happy ambassador, I will go back to my Master with a gladsome countenance, and tell him that peace is made between many a soul and the great God. But miserable ambassador who has to go back and say, “There is no peace made.” How shall it be? The Lord decide it! May many hearts give way to Omnipotent grace now, and may enemies of grace be changed into friends, that God’s elect may be gathered in, and his eternal purpose accomplished.
Here is a man convinced that Christ died for his people, and that Christ will therefore save his people from their sins by the application of his blood, bringing them to himself through the preaching of the Word.
There were other particular trials and assaults. Denied the use of Exeter Hall (where he had often preached because of overcrowding at New Park Street) he undertook to preach at Surrey Gardens Music Hall, where as many as ten thousand people might be able to come to hear him. The first service was due to take place on the Lord’s day, 19th October 1856, shortly after the Spurgeons had moved house, and become happy parents to twin boys, Charles and Thomas. However, soon after the service began, a pre-arranged series of cries (claiming fire, falling galleries, and a general collapse of the building) caused a fearful panic, and in the ensuing rush for the exits, seven people died, and almost thirty were hospitalized, some in a serious condition. Spurgeon was publicly vilified by many. The deacons of the church protected their sensitive pastor from the trauma of the event as much as they could, but his soul was torn up by the tragedy, and it was some time before the Lord was pleased to restore him to his usual health and strength.
Despite this fearful event, Spurgeon eventually returned to preach at Surrey Gardens, usually on the Lord’s day mornings, and God graciously blessed his ministry. Multitudes made credible professions of faith, the church at New Park Street grew both in numbers and in the grace and knowledge of Christ, and various believers and other churches enjoyed a revival of true religion. During this period, plans were afoot for the construction of a building sufficient to hold on a regular basis a gathered congregation of the sort accustomed to hear Mr. Spurgeon. Thus was built the Metropolitan Tabernacle, able to hold some six thousand hearers (though it was not designed for quite so many). Labors to open the building free of debt were prodigious. The first meeting in the unfinished building took place on 21st August 1860, and the first Sunday service was on 31st March 1861, as part of two weeks of celebrations of God’s goodness and mercy. The “five points of Calvinism” were preached on as part of these opening services. In those first months many testified to their faith in baptism and were added to the church, as God continued to own his servant’s labors.
Spurgeon’s first formal words in the new building were these:
I would propose that the subject of the ministry in this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist; I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist; but if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, “It is Jesus Christ.” My venerated predecessor, Dr. Gill, has left a Body of Divinity, admirable and excellent in its way; but the Body of Divinity to which I would pin and bind myself forever, God helping me, is not his system, or any other human treatise; but Christ Jesus, who is the sum and substance of the gospel, who is in himself all theology, the incarnation of every precious truth, the all-glorious personal embodiment of the way, the truth, and the life.
These massive efforts were not the sum of Mr. Spurgeon’s labors. Alongside his preaching and the pastoring of the flock other enterprises developed. One of the more significant was the Pastors’ College. This “school of the prophets” was dear to Spurgeon’s heart. It began in about 1855 when a young man who had been converted under Spurgeon’s ministry began to spend a few hours with Mr. Spurgeon every week with a view to preparing for the ministry. In these early years, several godly and zealous young men came to his attention, and soon – fashioned by the Triune God and through the principled care and instruction of his servant – they were going out to preach the gospel. Some of Spurgeon’s weekly lectures to the students were published as Lectures to my Students, an excellent textbook of pastoral theology. In addition, in 1865 a magazine was begun called The Sword and the Trowel: A record of combat with sin and labour for the Lord. Spurgeon published books, a volume of daily readings, a hymn book used by the church at the Tabernacle, and began working on a massive and profound commentary on the Psalms entitled The Treasury of David.
Charles Spurgeon’s passion for winning souls
An organization for the distribution of good books was begun, with men of rugged character and warm hearts spreading the gospel by word of mouth and page throughout the country. There were almshouses for widows; an orphanage was constructed for boys, and then an addition for girls. Spurgeon’s convictions galvanized him to work for the good of the bodies of men and women and children, while he never lost sight of the enduring value of winning their souls. The Metropolitan Tabernacle was a constant hive of godly industry, open all day, every day. After twenty-five years in London, Spurgeon’s secretary had a list of some sixty-six institutions over which Spurgeon presided, all of them maintained by faithful giving and willing labor from the Lord’s people.
During this period of sustained growth and massive expenditure of effort, the health of Mrs. Spurgeon failed quite drastically, leaving her substantially invalided. At the same time, Spurgeon’s health began to suffer. He was prone to depression, combined with and brought on to some degree, by severe gout. To gain some respite, Spurgeon eventually took a European tour in the company of his friend and publisher, Joseph Passmore, and found a place called Mentone in the south of France to which he would subsequently return almost every winter in an attempt to husband his strength.
Part 3: Spurgeon, the Faithful Veteran
As the years passed and Spurgeon continued to mature as a preacher, membership at the Tabernacle reached over five thousand. As his health allowed, Spurgeon preached faithfully to the church who gathered in the center of London, as well as undertaking numerous preaching and other responsibilities during the week. Despite the many typical trials of life and labor as a Christian in the world, together with the profoundly atypical pressures that he faced on account of his peculiar gifts and calling, Spurgeon enjoyed the rich blessing of the Lord and sweet fellowship with many of God’s people.
But we should not imagine that Spurgeon was some genial pulpiteer. As we have already seen, his doctrine and practice as a Calvinistic Baptist made him many enemies, and he appeared fearless in holding fast to the truth once for all committed to the saints. That meant, on occasion, that he must go into combat either to defend that truth or to assault particular errors. Indeed, one of his earliest compositions—while still in his mid-teens and unconverted—was an extended essay entitled Antichrist and her Brood; or Popery Unmasked. His earliest London forays for the truth long predated even The Sword and the Trowel. While Spurgeon was still preaching at New Park Street, a little book called The Rivulet was published, purporting to be a hymnbook for Christian worship. Spurgeon eventually made public his opinion, in which he recognized the poetic quality of the work but delivered a broadside against its theology, which was deistic—finding more of God in nature than anywhere else—and lacked anything distinctively Christian. At the end of his review, Mr. Spurgeon warned: “We shall soon have to handle truth, not with kid gloves, but with gauntlets—the gauntlets of holy courage and integrity. Go on, ye warriors of the cross, for the King is at the head of you.”
Four years later, in 1860, a minister called J. B. Brown published The Divine Life in Man. Spurgeon was one of seven prominent Baptist preachers who published a letter expressing their fear that the work contained “pernicious error . . . subversive of the gospel,” and cautioning young ministers against “that style of preaching which, under the pretentious affectation of being intellectual, grows ashamed of the old and vulgar doctrines of . . . that scheme of dogmatic Christian truth which is popularly known under the designation of ‘the doctrines of grace.’” Spurgeon continued to defend the truth from the pulpit and in print.
In 1864 Spurgeon again breasted the ramparts, this time by preaching a sermon entitled “Baptismal Regeneration.” He warned his publishers beforehand that he was taking a conscientious step that would damage sales. Despite his esteem for evangelical Anglicans who were holding the line against encroaching Roman Catholicism in the Church of England, he felt that the practice of infant baptism effectively contradicted the doctrine of justification by faith, being popularly understood as actually effecting regeneration. He robustly charged the evangelical clergy with unfaithfulness, but without any malice toward them. While recognizing that he spoke from conviction, many friends distanced themselves from him as a result of these words. Incidentally, the sales of his sermons and books increased.
Some of these controversies were the first sallies in the extended battle that was eventually to cost Spurgeon his very life. During the 1860s Spurgeon spoke with eager anticipation of blessing ahead for the Baptists, but at that very time a new approach to the Bible was being taught in many places, called Higher Criticism, or ‘the New Theology’ as it worked itself out in practice. These convictions—or the lack of them, for this was essentially theological liberalism that tended to undermine and eventually deny the central realities of gospel truth, and therefore robust Christian faith and life—made their way increasingly into the churches, and were soon infecting ministers in the Baptist Union, a country-wide association of churches to which the Metropolitan Tabernacle (in common with hundreds of other congregations) belonged. Spurgeon corresponded and met with officials from the Baptist Union about the number of men who had adopted this heterodoxy, and urged the adoption of a robustly evangelical statement of faith, upon acceptance of which continued membership in the Union would be conditional. This suggestion was voted down, showing the extent to which error had already crept in, and the blindness of well-meaning men who wanted to uphold a so-called liberty of conscience that required nothing more than that a man accept baptism by immersion, effectively allowing him to state other beliefs after his own whim. The tension built, and the storm broke in 1887.
Down-grade theology
During this year, Spurgeon published and wholeheartedly endorsed two articles in The Sword and the Trowel entitled “The Down-Grade,” written by Robert Shindler, a Baptist pastor and close associate of Spurgeon’s. The so-called Down-Grade Controversy had begun. In August 1887, Spurgeon personally entered the lists with “Another Word concerning the Down-Grade”:
It now becomes a serious question how far those who abide by the faith once delivered to the saints should fraternize with those who have turned aside to another gospel. Christian love has its claims, and divisions are to be shunned as grievous evils; but how far are we justified in being in confederacy with those who are departing from the truth? It is a difficult question to answer so as to keep the balance of the duties.
These articles exposed the doctrinal falsehoods being propagated, and the spiritual dullness and deadness that invariably followed. Further articles were written: there was a “Reply to Sundry Critics,” then “The Case Proved,” and after that, “A Fragment on the Down-Grade Controversy.” Spurgeon sadly came to the conclusion that he could not remain in union with errorists of this stripe. In October 1887, he wrote that
We cannot be expected to meet in any Union which comprehends those whose teaching is upon fundamental points exactly the reverse of that which we hold dear. . . . To us it appears that there are many things upon which compromise is possible, but there are others in which it would be an act of treason to pretend to fellowship.
He resigned from the Baptist Union over the apostasy in their ranks in the same month: “Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.” He was fifty-three years old. He took this step independently, but the Metropolitan Tabernacle followed their beloved pastor. He made no effort to form a new association, but stood back and waited for the outcome, believing that the articles in the magazine provided sufficient evidence and reasoning for men and women to reach their own righteous conclusions.
In November 1887, Spurgeon publicly declared,
We retire at once and distinctly from the Baptist Union. The Baptist Churches are each one of them self-contained and independent. The Baptist Union is only a voluntary association of such churches, and it is a simple matter for a church or an individual to withdraw from it. The Union, as at present constituted, has no disciplinary power, for it has no doctrinal basis whatever, and we see no reason why every form of belief and misbelief should not be comprehended in it so long as immersion only is acknowledged as baptism. There is no use in blaming the Union for harbouring errors of the extremest kind, for, so far as we can see, it is powerless to help itself, if it even wished to do so. Those who originally founded it made it ‘without form and void,’ and so it must remain.
In response to suggestions that he establish a new denomination, Spurgeon answered that
the expedient is not needed among churches which are each one self-governing and self-determining: such churches can find their own affinities without difficulty, and can keep their own coasts clear of invaders. Since each vessel is seaworthy in herself, let the hampering ropes be cut clean away, and no more lines of communication be thrown out until we know that we are alongside a friend who sails under the same glorious flag. In the isolation of independency, tempered by the love of the Spirit which binds us to all the faithful in Christ Jesus, we think the lovers of the gospel will for the present find their immediate safety. Oh, that the day would come when, in a larger communion than any sect can offer, all those who are one in Christ may be able to blend in manifest unity! This can only come by the way of growing spiritual life, clearer light upon the one eternal truth, and a closer cleaving in all things to him who is the Head, even Christ Jesus.
Spurgeon was attacked on every side. Having been the instrument, under God, of so much blessing to so many within Baptist and other circles, he now found himself to some extent isolated. When the Baptist Union met for its general assembly, they had to deal with his charges of apostasy. The evidence that Spurgeon had received from the Union itself as to the nature and extent of the problem was designated by those who had sent it as ‘in confidence’ and so Spurgeon’s charges appeared to be without cause.
In April 1888, the Baptist Union gathered in conference. A resolution was introduced in an attempt to paper over the cracks: it used evangelical language but was carefully worded to avoid hostility to the New Theology. Spurgeon’s own brother—seemingly blind to what was at stake—seconded the motion, under the mistaken notion that it would further the evangelical cause. When the vote was called, a mere seven men voted against the resolution; two thousand supported it. Admittedly, some of those voting for the motion appeared to believe they were standing with Spurgeon, but the vote was trumpeted as a slap in the face and a bold rejection of the great preacher’s position. The Baptist Union continued its decline; it soon merged with the General (i.e. Arminian) Baptists and rapidly lost its gospel distinctiveness and effectiveness.
During all this, Mrs. Spurgeon continued severely unwell, and the pressure of the combat, together with his other cares and labors, further eroded Spurgeon’s own strength. Among the most painful episodes to his heart was a rebellion from among the men trained at the Pastors’ College, offended by Spurgeon’s determined stance against heresy. He was forced to dissolve the regular College Conference and form a new meeting.
Spurgeon was proved right: the rapid upshot of this failure to defend the faith once for all committed to the saints was so-called gospel ministers who did not believe the Bible to be the inspired and infallible Word of God, did not believe men were sinners, did not believe in Jesus the God-man and one Mediator between God and men, did not believe in his atoning sacrifice, in the operations of the Spirit of God, and did not believe in heaven or in hell. In short, they abandoned the truth which, under God, brings life to sinners dead in their sins. The result was swift and grim: churches died an agonizing death, and Christ and his gospel were trodden underfoot.
Grieving over this assault upon his Saviour and the truth as it is in Jesus, Spurgeon’s health rapidly declined. His sensitive soul was deeply scarred: he hated the conflict but fought because he would not see Christ dishonored, and he fought to the death. Speaking to College students on the preacher’s power, he remarked
trimming [the gospel] now, and debasing doctrine now, will affect children yet unborn, generation after generation. Posterity must be considered. I do not look so much at what is to happen to-day, for these things relate to eternity. For my part, I am quite willing to be eaten by dogs for the next fifty years; but the more distant future shall vindicate me. I have dealt honestly before the living God. My brother, do the same.
In July of 1888 he was so sick that he could not even write. It was not until December that he was well enough to set off again to Mentone for a period of recovery. At the end of the year, still struggling with gout, he had a bad fall at Mentone, and it was not until February 1889 that he returned to London. He was trying to work as hard as ever that year, but by November he had to flee the pain again, heading for Mentone. Toward spring of 1890 he again returned to London, still facing assaults for his stance in the Down-Grade Controversy. Another winter in Mentone followed, and in early 1891 he seemed to have recovered somewhat. However, the continuing demands of the warfare were proving too much. He was conscious of the fight and its cost. In March 1891, a preacher from the College called E. H. Ellis left for Australia. Spurgeon bade him farewell: “Goodbye, Ellis; you will never see me again, this fight is killing me.” It was only a month later that the final illness set in. As summer wore on Spurgeon was once forced to retire from the pulpit by what he called “overpowering nervousness.”
He preached for several more weeks, though, culminating with a sermon on Sunday, June 7, 1891. The day after he set out to revisit Stambourne, a scene of happy childhood memories, but returned after a few days, and was utterly devoid of health for about three months afterward. By October he had recovered only sufficiently to attempt the trip to Mentone, and he set out on the 26 accompanied for the first time ever by his beloved wife, Susannah, whose own health problems had always prevented her from going beforehand. Spurgeon rallied a little, but the end was drawing near. His last act of public service to Christ was to give out the hymn that closed a time of worship at Mentone on 17th January 1892: it was Anne Ross Cousins’ paraphrase of Samuel Rutherford’s words: “The sands of time are sinking/ The dawn of heaven breaks . . . And glory, glory dwelleth/ In Immanuel’s land.” Toward the end of the month, he was no longer able to speak. By January 28 his health had degenerated to the point of complete unconsciousness. The saint went to be with his Saviour on the evening of Sunday 31st January 1892. His battle was ended, and he entered into the joy of his Lord.
Spurgeon’s olive-wood casket made its slow journey back to London, arriving on Monday 8th February. Several thousands of mourners came to pay their respects. Five separate funeral services for different classes of people were required to accommodate those wishing to attend. The final funeral service took place on Thursday, February 11, closing with one of Mr. Spurgeon’s favorite hymns: “Forever with the Lord!/ Amen, so let it be.” A five-mile journey to Norwood Cemetery followed the tearful benediction, with thousands lining the streets and gathering for the interment. Archibald Brown spoke the closing words of hope, bidding his beloved friend and brother “Good night” rather than “Farewell”:
Champion of God, thy battle long and nobly fought is over! The sword, which clave to thy hand, has dropped at last; a palm branch takes its place. No longer does the helmet press thy brow, oft weary with its surging thoughts of battle; the victor’s wreath from the Great Commander’s hand has already proved thy full reward. Here, for a little while, shall rest thy precious dust. Then shall thy Well-beloved come; and at His voice thou shalt spring from thy couch of earth, fashioned like unto His glorious body. Then, spirit, soul, and body shall magnify thy Lord’s redemption. Until then, beloved, sleep! We praise God for thee; and, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, we hope and expect to praise God with thee. Amen.
How can we summarize the character and labor of such a man as this? The great mark of distinction, out of which flowed all else, was Christ-centeredness: “I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist; I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist; but if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, ‘It is Jesus Christ.’ . . . the Body of Divinity to which I would pin and bind myself forever, God helping me, is . . . Christ Jesus, who is the sum and substance of the gospel, who is in himself all theology, the incarnation of every precious truth, the all-glorious personal embodiment of the way, the truth, and the life.” Spurgeon’s confessional and doctrinal standpoint was the product of this Christ-centeredness and demanded by it. Ever since Christ saved him by faith, Christ was his all-in-all. If standing with and for Christ meant standing alone or apart from all other men, Spurgeon was committed to his Lord and Saviour. Fail to grasp Spurgeon’s devotion to “the best of Masters” and we shall never understand the man.
Out of this attachment to Christ followed total commitment to the word of Christ as the rule of faith and life. Spurgeon received and obeyed the Bible as God’s Word, preaching and practicing all he found in it, as God helped him. It was his armory:
Whether we seek the sword of offence or the shield of defence, we must find it within the volume of inspiration. If others have any other storehouse, I confess at once that I have none. I have nothing else to preach when I have got through with this book. . . . Brethren, the truth of God is the only treasure for which we seek, and Scripture is the only field in which we dig for it.
With this was married great faith. Spurgeon, having believed upon the Living Word and accepted the written Word, lived before the eye of God, leaving the consequences of faithful belief and obedience with the living Lord of heaven and earth. The praises and scorn of men, though pleasant or painful, were nothing to him in comparison with the approbation of God. He lived with a simple and child-like faith in anticipation of God’s promises being brought to pass, if not immediately, then in due time.
Spurgeon acted out of pastoral concern for the sheep of Christ. Whether it was the men and women who heard him as sheep without a shepherd, or the gathered church at New Park Street and the Tabernacle, or the unborn generations for whose inheritance in the truth he fought in the Down-Grade, Spurgeon acted for the wellbeing of the souls of men. He understood truth as that which saved and blessed, and error as that which damned and destroyed. Spurgeon’s definition of a Christian was a Biblical one, and so he ministered to them Biblically and faithfully, showing himself cut from the same cloth as Bunyan’s Great-heart.
Even in controversy, Spurgeon acted out of a desire for true unity among believers. Those who accused him of divisiveness could not have more mistaken the character of the man who said, “Christian love has its claims, and divisions are to be shunned as grievous evils.” However, Spurgeon recognized that this unity could not exist apart from or outside Christ and his truth, and he was not prepared to sacrifice Christ and his truth in the misguided pursuit of nominal unity among those who did not follow the Saviour. One only has to see his heart revealed in his life, his labors, and his letters to see that his love and esteem for the true saints of God crossed every boundary except the unshakeable rampart of God’s truth. When those professing Christ walked beyond this wall, Spurgeon could not and would not follow.
With all his particular idiosyncrasies, and the failings and transgressions common to every saved sinner, Spurgeon was, above all, a man who followed Christ. Such men, following Paul as the apostle followed Christ, are themselves to be followed. While he lived, Spurgeon was disparagingly called “the last of the Puritans.” If the qualities outlined above—the faith and the life of a man whose existence was bound up in and with and for Christ and him crucified—are Puritanism, then it should be our earnest determination that this prophecy be proved wrong! Spurgeon once stirred up his fellow ministers in this way: “Brethren, we shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God’s grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible.” Our age is one in which many, both within and without the professing church of Jesus Christ, are bending all their powers to adjust the Bible to the age, to render the faith once and for all delivered to the saints acceptable to the fallen minds and carnal hearts of the ungodly. If we would follow Christ, we too must plant the flag of our Savior in the soil of Scripture, and—living or dying—hold the line and advance the cause of Christ, as enabled by the grace of God. If the fight kills us, then we die, having lived, honoring Christ according to the grace that is in us. Spurgeon’s testimony and challenge call to us still: “I have dealt honestly before the living God. My brother, do the same.”
Malcolm Foley
Brad Littlejohn
Michael F. Bird
Mitch Chase