Spurgeon’s Theology of Baptism

By / Sep 11

In the previous article, I considered how Spurgeon became a credobaptist at an Anglican school of all places, and from the Church of England catechism. A few years later, Spurgeon was baptized in the River Lark by Mr. Cantlow, and we considered his own retelling of that day which was May 3, 1850 from his Autobiography.[1] In this piece, I will consider that account again, drawing out aspects of his baptismal theology.[2]

Convinced, but catholic in spirit

When Spurgeon was baptized as a believer at the age of fifteen, he was acting out of his personal convictions. As he read the Bible, he could not find the paedobaptism he observed his entire life and received as an infant. He writes, “I knew that my father and my grandfather took little children in their arms, put a few drops of water on their faces, and said they were baptized; but I could not see anything in my Bible about babes being baptized.”[3] Such a view placed him squarely in the Baptist tradition. Yet, to be a Baptist was not his highest aim. “If I thought it wrong to be a Baptist,” wrote Spurgeon, “I should give it up, and become what I believed to be right. . . . If we could find infant baptism in the Word of God, we should adopt it.”[4] Thus, above all, Spurgeon desired to be biblical.

While Spurgeon was persuaded of the Baptist teaching, he maintained a catholic spirit towards other believers. On one occasion, Spurgeon’s grandfather wanted to assure that his grandson would “not be one of the tight-laced, strict-communion sort.”[5] The reference here is to those who practice closed communion which barred paedobaptists from the Lord’s Table. Spurgeon assured his grandfather that on this issue, they were in agreement and that each man should follow his own conscience. Open communion was practiced at The New Park Street Chapel and The Metropolitan Tabernacle under Spurgeon’s leadership and paedobaptists who belonged to evangelical churches were welcomed to the Table. Membership, however, remained closed, being available only for those baptized as believers.[6]

The nature of baptism

What was Spurgeon’s understanding of the nature of baptism? In a letter to his mother, Spurgeon wrote, “Conscience has convinced me that it is a duty to be buried with Christ in baptism, although I am sure it constitutes no part of salvation.”[7] In his testimony, he says, “I had no superstitious idea that baptism would save me, for I was saved” even prior to being baptized.[8] Thus, baptism was an act of obedience for Spurgeon. He answers his own question, “Why was I thus baptized?” by saying, “because I believed it to be an ordinance of Christ, very specially joined by Him with faith in His name.”[9] So, even though he did not believe baptism as essential for salvation, he would reject the notion that baptism is non-essential.[10]

Though baptism did not save, it symbolized or was emblematic of salvation. Spurgeon says, “I regarded baptism as the token to the believer of cleansing, the emblem of his burial with his Lord, and the outward avowal of his new birth.”[11] That word avowal conveys the idea of baptism as a public profession or declaration to the world that a person belongs to Christ. At the time, there was a practice developed by Doddridge where a believer could prayerfully sign and seal a document as a sign of dedication.[12] While not entirely condemning the practice, Spurgeon said, “I conceive that burial with Christ in baptism is a far more Scriptural and expressive sign of dedication.”[13] Peter J. Morden calls this aspect of Spurgeon’s baptismal theology, “a solemn pledge of absolute commitment,” and a “complete consecration to Christ.”[14] Thus, baptism was the ordained means whereby a person dedicated himself to Christ.

There were two further realities that baptism signified according to Spurgeon. First was the union of a believer to Christ’s dying and rising which is best displayed by dipping, or immersion. When the believer goes under the water and comes back up, his death to the world and his being raised to newness of life are visibly signified. Second is separation from the world. Morden says of baptized believers that “they had crossed the Rubicon and there was no turning back.”[15] A believer cannot go back to the world in the same way because he has crossed a point of no return. He must sever all ties with the world, for he has died to the world.

The final aspect that I will consider is the integral connection of baptism and the local church.[16] Spurgeon says, “Baptism is the mark of distinction between the Church and the world.”[17] Spurgeon makes clear that such profession ought to happen through believers’ baptism: “I never dreamed of entering the Church except by Christ’s own way, and I wish that all other believers were led to make a serious point of commencing their visible connection with the Church by the ordinance which symbolizes death to the world, burial with Christ, and resurrection to newness of life.”[18] Baptism is the entry point into the church.

Application for today

How can Spurgeon’s baptismal theology help pastors today? First, Spurgeon’s resolve to be baptized out of his biblical convictions while maintaining a spirit of honor towards his parents is instructive.[19] Spurgeon was driven by sound conviction based primarily on a reading of the New Testament, and not so much from familial, historical, traditional, or even doctrinal sources. At the same time, he maintained respectful relations with his family and sought to obtain their approval prior to his baptism.

Second, we should not miss the significance of the occasion of baptism for Spurgeon. In his journal entry for that day, he wrote, “In the afternoon, I was privileged to follow my Lord, and to be buried with Him in baptism. Blest pool! Sweet emblem of my death to all the world! May I, henceforward, live alone for Jesus!”[20] Baptism should result in joyful reflection in our union with and devotion to Christ.

Third, the combined practice of closed membership and open communion, in the way that Spurgeon understood it, seems a wise approach.[21] It upholds a Baptist ecclesiology, while maintain a catholic spirit towards our paedobaptist brothers and sisters.

Fourth, Spurgeon’s understanding of baptism—non-salvific, emblematic in nature, an act of obedience, a pledge of consecration, and a public profession—undergirds, clarifies, and sharpens our own baptismal theology and practice.

[1] This account can be found in C. H. Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography, vol. 1,  The Early Years, 1834–1859, vol. 1 (London: Banner of Truth, 1962), 145–52.

[2] “In Spurgeon’s accounts of his baptism as a believer the main features of his baptismal theology appear.” Tim Grass and Ian Randall, “C. H. Spurgeon on the Sacraments,” in Baptist Sacramentalism, ed. Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson, Studies in Baptist History and Thought 5 (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2003), 57. This insight was first pointed out to me by Michael Haykin who advised me to “begin with his accounts in his autobiography of his baptism. In that you have the essence of his baptismal theology.”

[3] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:145.

[4] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:152.

[5] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:119.

[6] Grass and Randall, “C.H. Spurgeon on the Sacraments,” 61.

[7] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:113.

[8] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:151.

[9] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:151.

[10] Grass and Randall, “C. H. Spurgeon on the Sacraments,” 59.

[11] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:151. Two helpful articles on Spurgeon’s baptismal theology are by Peter J. Morden. In the first article, Morden argues that Spurgeon’s baptismal theology was non-sacramental. Peter J. Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Question of Baptismal Sacramentalism,” The Baptist Quarterly 43, no. 4 (October 2009): 196–220. In the second article, he presents Spurgeon’s baptismal theology more positively and then proceeds to critique his non-sacramental view. Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Importance of Baptism,” The Baptist Quarterly 43, no. 7 (July 2010): 388–409.

[12] Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Importance of Baptism,” 395.

[13] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:148.

[14] Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Importance of Baptism,” 394.

[15] Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Importance of Baptism,” 394.

[16] Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Importance of Baptism,” 396.

[17] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:147.

[18] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:150.

[19] Our church receives two interns from a German missions organization each year. Since many of them were baptized in the state church, some of them will end up wrestling with the issue of baptism during their time at our Baptist church. Perhaps reading Spurgeon’s correspondence with his parents, along with his recounting of his own baptism, would be a helpful starting point. Those who are convinced of the soundness of credobaptism should have a sense of urgency to pursue baptism in obedience to Christ.

[20] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:131.

[21] Spurgeon’s reticence to participate in the Lord’s Table prior to his (believer’s) baptism should be a check to those who take Spurgeon to be supportive of an open communion in which the only requirement for partaking is belief in Christ and the gospel. In other words, Spurgeon seems to be saying, one may partake in communion at this church if they are a genuine believer, have been baptized (whether by pedobaptism or credobaptism), and belong to a local church. To those who would call themselves Christians but are not yet baptized, the words of Spurgeon should be instructive, “I was invited to the communion table, although I had not been baptized [i.e., as a believer]. I refused [to take communion], because it did not appear to me to be according to the New Testament order.” Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:145.

Yuta Seki serves as the Associate Pastor of Youth at Maple Avenue Baptist Church in Georgetown, Ontario. He earned a Master of Divinity at The Master’s Seminary and is pursuing a Doctor of Educational Ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is happily married to Alyssa, and they have three boys.



“A Seal of Consecration”: Spurgeon’s Account Of His Own Baptism

By / Aug 28

Spurgeon’s “Conversion” to Credobaptism[1]

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was sent to an Anglican school, St. Augustine’s College of Maidstone, Kent, at the age of fourteen.[2] He excelled in the school and rose to the top of his class, his intellectual acumen being evident even in those early years. Ironically, it was there at an Anglican school, during an instruction given by one of the clergymen on the Church of England Catechism, that the young Spurgeon came to a conviction concerning believer’s baptism. Spurgeon, reflecting on this event forty years later, wrote, “When I afterwards became a Christian, I also became a Baptist; and here I am, and it is due to the Church of England Catechism that I am a Baptist.”[3]

At the school, Spurgeon was given a homework assignment to locate any passages that denied that faith and repentance must come before baptism. This was the teaching in the Anglican Prayer Book. Spurgeon’s teacher was seeking to demonstrate that the Anglican Church’s teaching on this matter was superior to that of the Congregationalists. This was motivated by the fact that Spurgeon had been baptized by his grandfather who was a dissenter. Congregationalists did not require godparents to act as sponsors, but Anglicans did.[4] Thus, Spurgeon’s teacher was contending that the Anglican practice was more in line with scriptural teaching, as the godparents made promises of faith and repentance on behalf of the infant.

The plan backfired, however, and Spurgeon came to the conclusion that both the Church of England and the Congregationalists were wrong regarding baptism. Spurgeon could not find any biblical passages that denied that faith and repentance must come before baptism. This was in contrast to what his father and grandfather believed. But he was also not convinced by the argument of his teacher that a godparent legitimatized the Anglican practice. Instead, Spurgeon, who had not yet been converted, resolved, “If ever Divine grace should work a change in me, I would be baptized” as a believer by immersion.[5] Thus, Spurgeon departed from the conviction of his forebearers, and he was never won to the Anglican position.

Spurgeon’s Baptism

Spurgeon would follow through on that commitment on May 3, 1850, incidentally on his mother’s birthday. In the spring of that year, Spurgeon was away at school in Newmarket and exchanged letters with his parents. He was converted to Christ on January 6, 1850 and began thinking about baptism.[6] In his Autobiography, there are six letters written prior to his baptism and five of them mention some aspect of baptism. The thrust of those letters is twofold: to convey his personal convictions concerning credobaptism and to ask his parent’s blessing for acting on those beliefs.

From that same period we also have Spurgeon’s diary entries from April to June.[7] In the diary, the references to baptism are far less, proportionately speaking—in the twenty-seven entries up until he was baptized, he mentioned thinking seriously about baptism, receiving a letter from Mr. Cantlow, a comment his father had made, an anticipation of baptism, and an exuberant entry on the actual day of his baptism. All this clarifies Spurgeon’s thoughts at this juncture of his life. While he felt the tensions of familial relations (and departing from his religious upbringing) expressed in the letters, the diary entries do not reveal an inner wrestling concerning baptism. To put it slightly differently, Spurgeon seemed to have made up his mind regarding baptism and he was now navigating how to live out his convictions while still honoring his mother and father (Eph 6:2).

This brings us to the baptism event itself.[8] Michael Reeves recounts the events of the day succinctly: “Unable to find a Baptist church any nearer where he was then living, in Newmarket, Spurgeon arranged to be baptized by immersion in the river Lark, eight miles away.”[9] Spurgeon took a day off of work and spent a few hours in “prayer and dedication to God” before embarking on an joyful and prayerful eight-mile walk to Isleham, which took two to three hours.[10] Together with Mr. Cantlow, who was the minister that conducted the baptism, Spurgeon walked to the Isleham Ferry on the River Lark. Spurgeon commends the Isleham believers for they “had not degenerated to indoor immersion in a bath by the art of man, but used the ampler baptistery of the flowing river.”[11] This river served as the baptistry for no less than five churches across seven or eight miles. Mr. Cantlow, Spurgeon and two women, found the customary spot where there is sure footing and a gentle flow of water. There was a service prior but Spurgeon relates no details concerning it, claiming that “all remembrance of it has gone from me.”[12] He does recall, however, the weather conditions of the day, saying that there was a chilling wind and that it was a not so warm day.

It was a glorious day for Spurgeon. He remembers there being observers on both shores, on the ferry-boat, and in other boats. He says that all the cosmos could have been looking on, for he was unashamed of following the Lord Jesus in baptism and “to own myself a follower of the Lamb.” He continues, “My timidity was washed away; it floated down the river into the sea, and must have been devoured by the fishes, for I have never felt anything of the kind since. Baptism also loosed my tongue, and from that day it has never been quiet.”[13] Indeed, Spurgeon would have great boldness throughout his life, and became a mighty herald of the gospel from that time forth.

Spurgeon never really got over his baptism. Towards the end of the account that we have been considering, he writes, “That open stream, the crowded banks, and the solemn plunge, have never faded from my mind, but have often operated as a spur to duty, and a seal of consecration.”[14] His baptism, thus, anchored him and spurred him on over the course of his life and ministry.

[1] C. H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, vol. 1, The Early Years, 1834–1859 (1962; repr., London: Banner of Truth, 2018), 33–36.

[2] Peter J. Morden dates this event to “sometime in the academic year 1848–49.” Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Question of Baptismal Sacramentalism,” The Baptist Quarterly 43, no. 4 (October 2009): 198.

[3] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:38.

[4] Morden, “C. H. Spurgeon and Baptism: The Question of Baptismal Sacramentalism,” 199.

[5] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:35.

[6] For Spurgeon’s account of his conversion, see Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:78–96.

[7] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:123–43.

[8] For details concerning his baptism, see C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:145–52.

[9] Michael Reeves, Spurgeon on the Christian Life: Alive in Christ, Theologians on the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 87.

[10] In his account of the baptism, Spurgeon says that he enjoyed “the two or three hours of quiet foot-travel,” then mentions being greeted by a smiling Mr. Cantlow. Yet, in his diary entry for that day (May 3), Spurgeon wrote, “Started with Mr. Cantlow at eleven, reached Isleham at one o’clock.” Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:131. It is unclear to me whether Mr. Cantlow accompanied Spurgeon from his walk from Newmarket to Isleham, or not. That is besides the point, though.

[11] Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:148.

[12] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:149.

[13] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:149.

[14] Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 1:150.

Yuta Seki serves as the Associate Pastor of Youth at Maple Avenue Baptist Church in Georgetown, Ontario. He earned a Master of Divinity at The Master’s Seminary and is pursuing a Doctor of Educational Ministry at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is happily married to Alyssa, and they have three boys.



Personal Hurt in Ministry: Spurgeon on Feelings of Betrayal

By / Aug 14

Anyone engaged in pastoral ministry will need to grapple with feelings of personal hurt at some point or another. Occasionally these feelings are the fruit of misunderstanding, sin, or leadership failure on the part of the pastor. But other times, they arise from a genuine sense of abandonment or betrayal.

Spurgeon knew well the hurt that can accompany the departure of close friends. The latter portion of his ministry seemed acutely marked by convictional stands that brought with them a deep personal cost. But would Spurgeon’s later reactions to personal abandonment mirror his earlier writings on the topic? Would he, in short, practice what he preached? The record seems to indicate so.

Spurgeon and the Bible on Personal Hurt

Psalm 55 represents a touchstone passage on the visceral nature of relational breakdown. In it, David lamented over his broken relationship, likely with Saul or Ahithophel.[1] Indeed, David’s hurt is magnified not merely by the devices of his enemy, but by the close personal connection previously shared between them.

For it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me— then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.

Psalm 55:12-14

Spurgeon treated this Psalm in his first volume of The Treasury of David. This work was likely finalized in late 1869 and was being sold from bookstore shelves by November 1870.[2] In it, Spurgeon taught the following:

None are such real enemies as false friends. Reproaches from those who have been intimate with us, and trusted by us, cut us to the quick; and they are usually so well acquainted with our peculiar weaknesses that they know how to couch us where we are the most sensitive, and to speak so as to do us the most damage. The slanders of an avowed antagonist are seldom so mean and dastardly as those of a traitor, and the absence of the elements of ingratitude and treachery renders them less hard to bear. . . We can find a hiding-place from open foes, but who can escape from treachery?[3]

Spurgeon waxed poetic on the deep hurt of betrayal:

“But thou.” Et tu, Brute? And thou, Ahithophel, art thou here? Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man? “A man mine equal.” Treated by me as one of my own rank, never looked upon as an inferior, but as a trusted friend. . . Religion had rendered their intercourse sacred, they had mingled their worship, and communed on heavenly themes. If ever any bonds ought to be held inviolable, religious connection should be.[4]

It is true that the closer the relationship, the greater the propensity for hurt when a relationship breaks down. David knew this from experiencing outright betrayal. Spurgeon knew it from experiencing the departure of those he’d mentored during a time of doctrinal upheaval.

One of My Own Rank

As far back as two decades before the Down Grade Controversy got fully underway, Spurgeon was engaged in a debate with the Baptist Missionary Society over who could be a member and to what degree the society would be unabashedly evangelical. Spurgeon had a vested interest in these questions since he was a prominent member and some of his own Pastor’s College graduates had served under the BMS’s auspices.[5]

After a season of sustained advocacy for orthodoxy and prudent organizational parameters among these affiliations, Spurgeon decided to withdraw. By October 1887, Spurgeon withdrew from the Baptist Union. In November 1887, Spurgeon announced his rationale for withdrawal from the BU.[6] In April 1888, he withdrew from the London Baptist Association, which he had helped to found. He desired to go quietly, seeing no fruit in continued advocacy within these organizations. In truth, the process hurt him deeply. The Baptist Union Council charged him of making ill-founded accusations of doctrinal infidelity and censured him.[7] The resolution to censure was moved by William Landels, an erstwhile stalwart companion during Spurgeon’s Baptismal Regeneration Controversy. To make matters worse, Spurgeon’s own brother, James, believing himself to be helping Charles’s cause, advocated for the adoption of a would-be conciliatory statement seeking to appear more in line with Spurgeon’s view. The statement was adopted, but for Charles, he wasn’t sufficiently vindicated from the false accusations.[8] The damage was done, and the Council wasn’t relenting. He lamented,

My brother thinks he has gained a great victory, but I believe we are hopelessly sold. I feel heartbroken. Certainly he has done the very opposite of what I should have done. Yet he is not to be blamed, for he followed his best judgment.[9]

While the distancing from Spurgeon of such figures as Landels and the disappointment brokered by his brother proved palpable, Spurgeon was only entering the storm. After he felt it necessary to reorganize his Pastor’s College under clearly evangelical auspices, adopting a statement of faith very similar to the proposal rejected by the Baptist Union, some 80 students revolted. They refused to follow Spurgeon into his re-tooled College. This proved devastating to Spurgeon. He penned to one friend,

“I cannot tell you by letter what I Have endured in the desertion of my own men. Ah me! Yet the Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock!”[10]

Spurgeon’s Prescription Considered

In commenting on how one might be sustained during times of abandonment and betrayal, Spurgeon provided a few prescriptions.

First, he encouraged looking to the example of Christ, who too “had to endure at its worse the deceit and faithlessness of a favored disciple.” He continued,

“let us not marvel when we are called to tread the road which is marked by his pierced feet.”[11]

Second, he counseled calling upon God alone as a source of solace.

“As for me, I will call upon God.” The Psalmist would not endeavor to meet the plots of his adversaries by counterplots, nor imitate their incessant violence, but in direct opposition to their godless behaviour would continually resort to his God.[12]

He pointed to the victory to be had in the privacy of the prayer closet:

Some cry aloud who never say a word. It is the bell of the heart that rings loudest in heaven.[13]

Finally, he entrusted himself to the vindication of God, believing that even God’s stripping us of friends is a vehicle of his kind, sanctifying power.

The Lord can soon change our condition, and he often does so when our prayers become fervent. The crisis of life is usually the secret place of wrestling. . . He who is stripped us of all friends to make us see himself in their absence, can give them back again in greater numbers that we may see him more joyfully in the fact of their presence.[14]

Physician, Heal Thyself

The exhortations written years before Spurgeon’s controversy convey one level of credence when surveyed in isolation. But when considered in light of Spurgeon’s practicing of his own remedies, they prove all the more meaningful.

Where Spurgeon could speak, he spoke. He advocated for truth in the institutions where he had a platform. But when that influence proved ineffectual, he withdrew, preferring not to “meet plots with counterplots,” and instead entrusting himself and his cause to the Lord in quiet submission.

Yet at his Pastor’s College, a realm more squarely under his purview, Spurgeon effected reform, and at great cost. When his mentees departed by the score, he rehearsed a refrain similar to the one penned from Psalm 55: “Yet the Lord liveth, and blessed be my rock!”

Spurgeon wrote powerfully of the personal hurt David endured when seeking to be faithful to the Lord. Little did he know that he too would be called upon to live out his own creed. Readers today do well to follow Spurgeon’s pattern in this regard: contending for the truth, yes, but looking to the Lord for final vindication.

[1] Spurgeon took the betraying friend of Psalm 55 to be Ahithophel. Charles H. Spurgeon, “Psalm LV,” in The Treasury of David, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 447-48. While Calvin took David’s enemy here to be Saul, other scholarship agrees with Spurgeon on this point. Cf. John Calvin Commentary on the Book of Psalms, vol. 2, trans. James Anderson (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 327; Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 5 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 381.

[2] Spurgeon notified his The Sword and the Trowel readers of the impending project release in November 1869. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Sword and the Trowel, November 1869, p.524. See also Thomas J. Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Fearn, UK: Mentor, 2013), 400-401.

[3] Spurgeon, “Psalm LV,” in Treasury of David, vol. 1, 448.

[4] Ibid., 449.

[5] Larry James Michael, “The Effects of Controversy on the Evangelistic Ministry of C. H. Spurgeon” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989), 194.

[6] Spurgeon, “A Fragment Upon the Down-Grade Controversy,” Sword and Trowel, November 1887, 558.

[7] Ernest A. Payne, The Baptist Union: A Short History (London, UK: The Carey Kingsgate Press Ltd., 1958), 136.

[8] It should be noted that at some points, scholars leave open the question of whether the objective actions of others or the subjective interpretation of Spurgeon caused his feelings of abandonment. These questions notwithstanding, the history of the Baptist Union’s trajectory largely vindicates Spurgeon in his feeling that men with whom he had once held fast to sound doctrine were drifting.

[9] W. Y. Fullerton, Charles H. Spurgeon: London’s Most Popular Preacher (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1966), 256.

[10] Miscellaneous correspondence, Spurgeon’s College, London. Quoted in Michael, 251.

[11] Spurgeon, “Psalm LV,” in Treasury of David, vol. 1, 449.

[12] Ibid., 450.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.



Sermon of the Week: “As Thy Days, so Shall Thy Strength Be.”

By / Jun 26

“As thy days, so shall thy strength be,” Deuteronomy 33:25

Introduction

As a preacher who struggled with periods of depression, Spurgeon proclaimed the power and grace of God amid spiritual darkness. This strange paradox enabled him to declare, “How much reason have we to bless God for nights! for if it were not for nights how much of beauty never would be discovered…were it not for winter we should never see the glistening crystals of the snow; we should never behold the beauteous festoons of the icicles that hang from the eaves.” For Spurgeon, such times were the reason that God could declare the promise of Deuteronomy 33:25 to his people in their weakness. This is the truth that he sought to bring out in his sermon “As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be.” Spurgeon understood that “we must shudder at our own trembling weakness, but we still do bless God that we are weak because it makes room for the display of his own invincible strength in fulfilling such a promise as this.”

The Sermon

In the first point, Spurgeon speaks of “the self-weakness hinted at in the text.” Here, he emphasizes that before we have the ability to “behold the brightness of this rich and exceeding promise,” we need, “a good fair idea of the great depth of our own weakness.” Spurgeon describes four contexts in which weakness is most clearly felt: 1) the day of duty, as we our overwhelmed by the work set before us; 2) the day of suffering, as we find ourselves frail and falling to sickness and impatience; 3) the pursuit of spiritual progress, when the Lord seeks to “grow us downward when we are only thinking about going up;” and 4) the time of temptation, when Satan has his arrows trained on the Achilles’s heel of our heart. Spurgeon states that the key declaration of these experiences is that “every child of God will be ready to confess that he is weak.” But God’s people are not left alone in this state.

Spurgeon’s second point is the proclamation of, “the great promise,—‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be.’” For those discouraged by their weaknesses, “this is a well guaranteed promise.” As we see in Job 38-41, we can be confident that God will fulfill His promise because He is omnipotent. But Spurgeon does not make room for his words to be mistaken for a prosperity gospel. There are limits to this promise because, “it says our strength is to be as our days are…not as our desires are.” For Spurgeon, this was a reminder that God’s people need His grace and strength every day of the week, and that God will give His grace to His people according to their needs. Spurgeon further demonstrated that the power of this promise is its omniscient quality. During, “a fine sunshiny morning; all the world is laughing…‘My strength shall be as my day is declares the pilgrim,’” and in, a day of tempest…wherever you may be and whatever trouble awaits you, ‘As thy days, so shall thy strength be.’” It is here the preacher reflects on his own daily weaknesses and the Lord’s supply of strength in the midst of weakness. Spurgeon transitions to his conclusion by staunchly declaring, “You may live till you are never so old, but this promise will outlive you.”

Therefore, Spurgeon concludes with one “inference” or point of application, “Children of the living God be rid of your doubts, be rid of your trouble and fear…your day shall never be more troublesome, or full of temptation, than your strength shall be full of deliverance.” For those in Christ, Spurgeon calls for them to press on in the confidence of God’s strength. But for those who do not know God, Spurgeon warns that their strength is fleeting and in opposition to God, and he called such people to repent lest they not know God’s strength as their own in the day they meet Him.

Conclusion

Spurgeon understood both the pain and beauty seen in the complexity of this life. In the midst of sorrows, he guarded his congregation from despair at its seeming endlessness. And in earthly pleasures, he warned his people not to revel in their own strength. In all this, our confidence should remain fixed in the Lord’s promise, “As thy days, so shall be thy strength.”

Read the sermon here.



The Queen of Preachers?: Spurgeon, his Sister Eliza, and Women Preachers

By / Jun 6

Baptists these days are once again debating the Bible’s teaching on women preachers. But this is not an entirely new phenomenon. In Charles Spurgeon’s day, he saw the growing popularity of women preachers, particularly among the Salvation Army and Quakers. Such a practice was largely unheard of among Baptists. But there was one notable exception: his sister, Eliza. Even as she grew in popularity as a preacher, we see in Spurgeon’s teaching and letters that he held fast to historic biblical convictions.

Eliza Jackson, “the Queen of Preachers”

Eliza Rebecca was the second child of John and Eliza Spurgeon, younger only to her big brother Charles. She would go on to marry a Baptist minister, Rev. W. Jackson of Waltham Abbey. It’s unclear when she begins to preach, but by mid-1870, we begin to find reports on Eliza’s preaching.

One newspaper gives this account of her preaching at Ridgmount Baptist Chapel on October 14, 1874: “On Sunday last, two sermons were preached at the Baptist Chapel in support of the ministry, by Mrs. W. Jackson, sister to the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. In the morning the chapel was crowded to excess, many being unable to obtain admission.”[1] Eliza’s preaching at Ridgmount received significant attention and may have been her first public preaching occasion. Later that week, Eliza preached at a Tuesday night service in Wellington-street Chapel to help raise funds for the Luton College Hospital.[2] In 1876, she preached again, this time at the 147th-anniversary celebration of Paradise Row Chapel. On this occasion, her husband preached in the morning service and “Mrs. Jackson, sister of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, at the evening service.”[3] Such accounts continue into the 1880s and 90s, though they seem to receive less attention as the years go on.

It’s clear from these accounts that Eliza was not being ordained as a pastor, but these were occasional preaching opportunities, mostly for fundraising events or special celebrations. It’s evident that part of her appeal was her ability to draw a crowd. A big part of her attraction was the novelty of a female preacher. Victorians loved to hear sermons and, as one paper comments, “The presence of a female in the pulpit on Sunday evening will no doubt succeed in attracting a large congregation.”[4] But just as appealing, if not more, was her connection to her famous brother. Like her brother, Eliza clearly had speaking gifts. One newspaper gives this comparison: “Mrs. W. Jackson is very much like her rev. brother in face, voice, and talent. The following brief analysis of the services conducted by her will give but a brief idea of her Spurgeonic talents for preaching.”[5] For these special services in Baptist churches, Eliza was a way to bring a connection to the most famous Baptist preacher of their day. One paper concludes, “If the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon is the prince of preachers among men, Mrs. Jackson, his sister, is the queen of preachers among women. The services will long be remembered in the village of Ridgmount.”[6]

Spurgeon’s Teaching on Women Preachers

How did Spurgeon feel about all this? He never spoke publicly against Eliza or his brother-in-law. In fact, from his correspondence with Jackson, it’s clear that they maintained a good relationship throughout their lives. At the same time, Spurgeon made clear his position on women preachers. For example, preaching in 1885 on Matthew 8:14-15 and the example of Peter’s mother-in-law, Spurgeon declares,

But notice that what this good woman did was very appropriate. Peter’s wife’s mother did not get out of bed and go down the street and deliver an address to an assembled multitude. Women are best when they are quiet. I share the apostle Paul’s feelings when he bade women be silent in the assembly. Yet there is work for holy women, and we read of Peter’s wife’s mother that she arose and ministered to Christ. She did what she could and what she should. She arose and ministered to him. Some people can do nothing that they are allowed to do, but waste their energies in lamenting that they are not called on to do other people’s work. Blessed are they who do what they should do. It is better to be a good housewife, or nurse, or domestic servant, than to be a powerless preacher or a graceless talker.[7]

Throughout his ministry, Spurgeon exemplified this balance: On the one hand, upholding Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy 2 about the complementary roles of men and women in the church; on the other, promoting the countless ways women are called to serve.[8]

But his sister’s preaching likely put Spurgeon in an awkward position. His celebrity was being used by a family member to promote something he believed to be unbiblical. In public, he restrained himself from commenting on Eliza. But in private, this seems to have been a topic of lively conversation.

Spurgeon’s Letter to His Father

In a letter dated September 23, 1876, Spurgeon wrote to his father, letting him know that he was still planning on preaching for him in an upcoming service, but he was battling “a very bad cold & headache” that made his arrival “a little dubious.” Then, Spurgeon writes,

What an advantage it would be to have a wife to preach for me!! I fear you are envious of Mr. Jackson. Perhaps if I don’t come, Mother will fill my place & then you will no longer be averse to women preaching. Why should not the pretty dears preach? Paul forbids it, but then Paul did not live in these enlightened times. I think the darlings deserve a testimonial & I will subscribe to it if it takes the form of a pair of leather breeches. I do not believe that your wife will ever come up to Mr. Jackson’s in that respect – so dismiss all envy & give your wife two warm kisses for me.[9]

Three observations stand out from this letter.

First, in his characteristic wit, it seems that Spurgeon does not see the issue of women preaching as a first-order gospel issue but as a second-order issue. Being a Baptist and his father being a Congregationalist, they had learned to get along despite differences in second-order issues. Hence, his tone is more humorous rather than serious. His suggestion of being “envious of Mr. Jackson” and that Mother should preach likely brought a chuckle from his father.

Second, Spurgeon seems to echo the arguments he heard in his day supporting women preachers. First, there was the sentimental argument: “Why should not the pretty dears preach?… I think the darlings deserve a testimonial.” In an age of growing concern for equality and liberality, many argued that it would be unfair not to allow women to preach. This concern was likely connected to the second argument of progress: “Paul forbids it, but then Paul did not live in these enlightened times.” This was the tactic of the Modernists, whom Spurgeon would battle in the Downgrade Controversy. They applied this same hermeneutic of progress to gospel doctrines, veering away from historic orthodoxy. Of course, Spurgeon, here, is speaking tongue in cheek. From his teaching elsewhere, we know that he rejected both sentimentality and chronological snobbery as sufficient to contradict the clear teaching of Scripture.

Third, Spurgeon did not see women preachers as part of the Baptist tradition. His comment, “I will subscribe to it if it takes the form of a pair of leather breeches,” refers to George Fox, the leader of Quakerism. Fox traveled so widely in his preaching that he made himself a coat and pants (breeches) out of leather as a practical measure to warm and protect himself during his extensive travels. This was a strange sight, and so the title, “the man in leather breeches,” stuck. Spurgeon here seems to be saying that he would subscribe to women preachers if he were a Quaker, given their understanding of the Holy Spirit, inner light, and preaching. But as a Baptist and his parents Congregationalists, both in the larger Reformed tradition, Spurgeon was convinced that their understanding of preaching was more faithful to Scripture. So instead of innovating, they should “dismiss all envy” and continue to walk in obedience.

To be sure, this letter was not a theological treatise on women preachers. It was a humorous private letter written to his father. But it reveals that despite his sister’s talents and ability to draw a crowd, Spurgeon believed there were more important concerns to guide Christians on this issue.

Conclusion

The questions that Baptists face in our day are very different from those that Spurgeon faced in his. But as is so often the case, his biblical and theological convictions are so helpful for us as we navigate these difficulties. On the issue of women preachers, Spurgeon’s faithful restriction of the function and office of elders to men, fervent support of women’s ministry, differentiation of first and second-order issues, holding to the authority of Scripture, and clear understanding of the Baptist tradition, should all guide our discussions today.

[1] The Luton Reporter, Wednesday, 14 October 1874.

[2] The Bedfordshire Mercury, Saturday, October 17, 1874.

[3] Waltham Abbey and Cheshunt Weekly Telegraph, Saturday, Sept. 9, 1876.

[4] Waltham Abbey and Cheshunt Weekly Telegraph, Saturday, Sept. 9, 1876.

[5] The Leighton Buzzard Observer, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 1874.

[6] Ibid.

[7] MTP 31:225. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/first-healing-and-then-service/#flipbook/

[8] For more on this, see https://www.9marks.org/article/charles-spurgeon-womens-ministry-and-female-preachers/

[9] C. H. Spurgeon, Letters to His Father and Mother 1850-84, Angus Library and Archive, Regent’s Park, Oxford.



Spurgeon Library Conference 2023: “The Gospel Devotion and Evangelical Activism of Charles Haddon Spurgeon”

By / May 9

The goal of the Spurgeon Library Conference is to look not to but through Spurgeon so that we might encounter the risen Christ and be encouraged and equipped in our service to Him. This year’s theme was “The Gospel Devotion and Evangelical Activism of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.” Through these lectures, we consider Spurgeon’s example and encouragement for our private devotional life AND our outward gospel activism. In other words, we want to be helped in our obedience to Paul’s words in 1 Tim. 4:16:

16 Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

We want to avoid what Spurgeon warns his students about in the first lecture in Lectures to My Students:

Too many preachers forget to serve God when they are out of the pulpit, their lives are negatively inconsistent. Abhor, dear brethren, the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being, under the stress of the hour of ministering, but cease to be ministers when they descend the pulpit stairs. True ministers are always ministers. Too many preachers are like those sand-toys we buy for our children; you turn the box upside down, and the little acrobat revolves and revolves till the sand is all run down, and then he hangs motionless; so there are some who persevere in the ministrations of truth as long as there is an official necessity for their work, but after that, no pay, no [prayer]; no salary, no sermon.

Well, what an awful thing that would be for church leaders to be “clockwork ministers” and for our churches to have “clockwork ministers.” Rather, for the sake of Christ and his people, we want to be ministers who pay careful attention to our life and doctrine, who preach out of our nearness to Christ and who model a life of active obedience to Him. That’s the kind of ministry that we trust the Lord will bless. May these lectures encourage you to pursue that kind of faithfulness wherever the Lord has you serving.

Session 1: “Spurgeonic Women: Five Women Who Embodied the Evangelical Ideals of C. H. Spurgeon” with Alex DiPrima

Session 2: “Spurgeon’s Devotional Life” with Don Whitney

Session 3: “The Ministry of C. H. Spurgeon and the Metropolitan Tabernacle to the Poor of London, 1854-1892” with Don Whitney

Session 4: “The Pastors’ College: Spurgeon’s Vanguard in the Fight for Souls” with Alex DiPrima

Session 5: “The Pastoral Burdens of C. H. Spurgeon in his Unpublished Poems” with Geoff Chang



“On the Borders of the Infernal Lake”: Spurgeon on Church Revitalization

By / Apr 3

When Spurgeon first arrived at the New Park Street Chapel in the winter of 1853, the church was dying. But in the coming years, through the preaching of the Word, God would do a remarkable work. With the thousands being drawn to Spurgeon’s ministry, church membership would grow dramatically, elders would be called, and the church would become an engine for gospel ministry throughout the world. It was this vision of the power of God’s Word to revive dying churches that fueled the Pastors’ College.

From the beginning, Spurgeon’s plan “was not only to train students but to found churches,”[1] and this included both church planting and church revitalization. As demographics in London shifted from the city to the suburbs in the 19th century, urban congregations began dwindling. Young pastors were drawn more to church plants in the suburbs than to historic churches in the city. Spurgeon himself recognized that “the resurrection and salvation of an old church is often a more difficult task than to commence a new one.”[2]

At the same time, Spurgeon encouraged his students not to neglect these dying churches. After all, it is God who resurrects and saves, not the student. The privilege of the church revitalizer is to see God work miraculously through His powerful Word.

To encourage his students in church revitalization, Spurgeon once gave two motivations and three practical admonitions for his students.

Motivation 1: Chances are, things will get better

When you take a dying church, chances are, your ministry will lead to the improvement of the church’s condition.

Brethren, do not be afraid when you go to a place, and find it in a very bad condition. It is a fine thing for a young man to begin with a real downright bad prospect, for, with the right kind of work, there must come an improvement some time or other. If the chapel is all but empty when you go to it, it cannot well be in a much worse state than that; and the probability is that you will be the means of bringing some into the church, and so making matters better. [3]

Spurgeon was not guaranteeing to his students that their ministries in a dying church would always flourish. It is quite possible that under God’s providence, your role might simply be to help that church close well and steward its resources faithfully in that transition. At the same time, the encouragement is that things cannot get much worse than they already are, and yet chances are that under a faithful ministry, the Lord will use you to make things better. As the church brings in a new pastor, as the people are energized under his ministry, as they begin to pray and invite others, the probability is that the Lord will use you to bring new life to the church.

Motivation 2: Chances are, the congregation will love your ministry

Rather than taking over a successful church and dealing with constant comparisons with previous pastors, a dying congregation will gratefully love the young pastor who comes and serves them sacrificially. This will be especially true as sinners are brought to faith under your ministry.

If there is any place where I would choose to labour, it would be just on the borders of the infernal lake, for I really believe that it would bring more glory to God to work among those who are accounted the worst of sinners. If your ministry is blessed to such people as these, they will be likely to cling to you through your whole life.[4]

In an established church, gaining the love and trust of your congregation may prove to be a decade-long process. But in church revitalization, you have the opportunity to care for people who know their need and are grateful for your ministry.

Along with those encouragements, however, Spurgeon recognized that the greatest challenge in church revitalization is entrenched nominalism. Whereas in a church plant, a pastor can pull together a team that has fresh vision and spiritual life, in so many dying churches, many who remain “are destitute of grace, having a name to live, and yet being dead.”[5] Such nominalism can exist among church members and even church leaders. Revitalization, then, is the work of pushing back nominalism and bringing spiritual life back into the church.

In such a context, Spurgeon gave these three pieces of advice to his students:

Advice 1: Be patient

In seeking to imitate Spurgeon’s practices of church discipline and regenerate church membership, too many young pastors ended up dividing their churches and making a mess of their ministry. But Spurgeon urged them towards patience.

It is dreadful to have dead members where every single part of the body should be instinct with divine life; yet in many cases it is so, and we are powerless to cure the evil. We must let the tares grow until the harvest.[6]

This is not a call to passivity, but it is a call to prayerful dependence on God. In such a context, the pastor must recognize the need for God to work in the hearts of these nominal church members. This is not an organizational matter or an administrative challenge. This is fundamentally a spiritual problem. But even while the pastor prays, he must also begin to preach and teach faithfully.

Advice 2: Preach faithfully

The first thing that the pastor of a dying church is to give himself to is the faithful ministry of God’s Word. Only God’s Word is able to bring the dead to life.

But the best thing to do, when you cannot root up the tares, is to water the wheat, for there is nothing that will keep back the tares like good strong wheat.[7]

The way to end nominalism in the church is not by uprooting nominal members through church discipline right away. Rather, it is by watering the church patiently with the faithful teaching of the Word so that the Word begins to take root in the congregation and change the culture of the church. Rather than being characterized by preferences and traditions, the church begins to be marked by gospel unity and spiritual vitality so that nominalism will slowly become more and more out of place.

This, then, will lead to Spurgeon’s final piece of advice.

Advice 3: Be willing to lose people

As the Word of God takes root by the Spirit, this will result either in the conversion of the nominal or in such discomfort for them that they eventually leave. Though perhaps sad, this sometimes is the best outcome.

I have known ungodly men who have had the place made so hot for them that they have been glad to clear right out of the church. They have said, “The preaching is too strong for us, and these people are too Puritanical and too strict to suit us.” What a blessing it is when that is the case! We did not wish to drive them away by preaching the truth; but as they went of their own accord… we will leave them where they are, praying the Lord, in the greatness of His grace, to turn them from the error of their ways, and to bring them to Himself, and then we shall be glad to have them back with us to live and labour for the Lord.[8]

Sometimes, their departure will prove difficult. Some church members will not want to see long-time friends depart. Their departures might lead to other departures. But in the end, the pastor must understand that the mission of the church is not simply to hold hands and remain all together. Rather, the church must be built on Christ and His mission. If people depart because of the preaching of the truth, we send them off with our prayers, we do our best to connect them with other churches, and we carry on with a faithful ministry of the Word.

Conclusion

Spurgeon understood that there was no programmatic formula for church revitalization. But like Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones, he believed in the power of the Word of God to raise dead church members to life and to make them into an army for gospel ministry. This is what he saw happen at New Park Street Chapel, and this is the confidence he sought to instill in his students as they stepped into dying churches.

This post was first featured on the Replant Blog of NAMB.

[1] The Sword & the Trowel, 1878, 240.

[2] Ibid., 263.

[3] The Soul-Winner, 147.

[4] Ibid., 147-148.

[5] Ibid., 148.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.



Spurgeon and the Poor

By / Mar 27

The following excerpt is from the Preface of Spurgeon and the Poor by Alex DiPrima. Learn more about this important new work here.

The American temperance activist John B. Gough stepped off the train in London. He had come to visit England’s greatest preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The year was 1879, and the preacher was at the height of his powers. Gough himself had described Spurgeon’s ministry as “a career thus far unparalleled in the history of ministers.”[1] Indeed, there had never been a preacher like him. In his teenage years, he gained a reputation as the famous “boy preacher of the Fens.”[2] He arrived in London at the age of nineteen to command the pulpit of the city’s most historic Baptist church in the heart of the metropolis, just south of the Thames. He preached for nearly forty years from that pulpit to thousands upon thousands, winning souls, planting churches, and ministering to the poor.

During Gough’s visit, Spurgeon provided him with a tour of the Stockwell Orphanage. Ten years prior, Spurgeon began this ministry to orphaned boys with the help of an elderly widow who will appear later in these pages. While the two men were visiting the orphanage, Spurgeon received a call to the bedside of a boy who was terminally ill. As he sat with the dying boy, Spurgeon placed the child’s hand in his and told him, “Jesus loves you. He bought you with His precious blood, and He knows what is best for you. It seems hard for you to lie here and listen to the shouts of the healthy boys outside at play. But soon Jesus will take you home, and then He will tell you the reason, and you will be so glad.”[3] Spurgeon then inched forward in his chair, laid his hand on the boy’s head, and quietly prayed aloud, “O Jesus, Master, this dear child is reaching out his thin hand to find thine. Touch him, dear Saviour, with thy loving, warm clasp. Lift him as he passes the cold river, that his feet be not chilled by the water of death; take him home in thine own good time. Comfort and cherish him till that good time comes. Show him thyself as he lies here, and let him see thee and know thee more and more as his loving Saviour.”[4] After a moment’s pause, he said with a warm smile, “Now, dear, is there anything you would like? Would you like a little canary in a cage to hear him sing in the morning? Nurse, see that he has a canary tomorrow morning. Goodbye, my dear; you will see the Saviour perhaps before I shall.”[5] Gough, who had quietly witnessed the scene, recorded his recollections in his autobiography, writing, “I had seen Mr. Spurgeon holding by his power sixty-five hundred persons in a breathless interest; I knew him as a great man universally esteemed and beloved; but as he sat by the bedside of a dying pauper child, whom his beneficence had rescued, he was to me a greater and grander man than when swaying the mighty multitude at his will.”[6]

The book in your hands is about this greater and grander man—a man who, in a sense, history has obscured amid the widely chronicled sensation his preaching genius created. Ask many evangelicals today about Spurgeon, and they can likely tell you something about his storied preaching. However, how many have heard of Spurgeon’s activities as a philanthropist, activist, or friend of poor orphans and needy widows? How many would imagine that Spurgeon, the famous Prince of Preachers, whose preaching commanded the rapt attention of tens of thousands, took appointments to pray hand in hand with sick children? Yet this is the Spurgeon who was and who must again be reintroduced to the church today.

From the very beginning of his Christian experience, Spurgeon zealously devoted himself to good works. Within days of his conversion at the age of fifteen, Spurgeon began giving his time to ministry among the needy of his community in Cambridgeshire. He filled his days distributing tracts, ministering to the poor, and teaching Bible classes to young children. Spurgeon said of this period in his life, “I could scarcely content myself even for five minutes without trying to do something for Christ.”[7]

The same was true when he arrived in London in 1854 at the age of nineteen. The sprawling metropolis was, to Spurgeon, one towering monument to human need. Almost immediately, Spurgeon established himself as a friend to London’s indigent. Just a few months into his new pastorate at New Park Street Chapel (later to change its name to the Metropolitan Tabernacle), Spurgeon found London in the midst of a deadly cholera epidemic, which would claim the lives of over ten thousand of its citizens. Without hesitation, Spurgeon threw himself into the fray, traveling from house to house to visit the sick and dying. He did this for weeks on end, all the while expecting that he would die from the disease himself, as many in those days believed cholera to be contagious. This concern was insignificant to him in the face of the tremendous need all around him.

As Spurgeon gained more exposure to the acute and diverse exigencies facing London, he aggressively launched dozens of ministries and organizations to combat suffering and poverty in the city. By 1884, these benevolent ministries numbered sixty-six in total and included an orphanage, a ministerial college, subsidized housing for poor widows, a clothing bank, a ministry to prostitutes, several street missions, and a host of children’s ministries.[8] Whether it was London’s widows and orphans, the poor of her many crowded slums and back alleys, or the city’s forgotten blind, Spurgeon opened his arms wide to the needy and the afflicted. In addition, his private philanthropy was prodigious, from supporting needy saints out of his own pocket to providing the means for new churches to be planted. Throughout his life, money flowed freely through his hands into the many benevolent institutions he himself founded.

Still more remarkable is that Spurgeon was not content to advocate only for the afflicted and the oppressed of his homeland. On the eve of the American Civil War, Spurgeon spoke out courageously against the evils of slavery, leading to significant personal criticism, financial loss, and even occasional death threats. Spurgeon’s godly stand against the wicked institution of slavery (which will be considered in greater depth in chapter 11) provides a striking example of what it looks like to fight injustice from biblical convictions and principles.

Even from his deathbed in Mentone, France, when most men would be attending to the details of their estate, Spurgeon steadfastly gave to the church and the poor. His last conscious act was to give one hundred pounds to the Metropolitan Tabernacle thank offering for the support of the church and its various ministries. His final telegram before he died read, “Self and wife, £100, hearty thankoffering towards Tabernacle General Expenses. Love to all Friends.” Spurgeon’s secretary, Joseph Harrald, recorded, “That was his last generous act, and his last message.”[9]

Spurgeon lived a life filled to the brim with good works of benevolence and charity. However, too few today are familiar with this vital aspect of his life and ministry nor the theological convictions that undergirded it. I have written this book because I find in Spurgeon a most compelling example of the proper wedding of faithful gospel preaching with earnest social concern. Evangelicals have frequently failed in correctly understanding the relationship between these two biblical burdens. I am convinced that Spurgeon can help us. He eagerly invites pastors and churches to devote themselves to the fervent preaching of evangelical truth while showing us how that truth moves Christians toward practical concern for the needy. As the subtitle of this book suggests, the gospel compels Christian social concern (Titus 2:11–14).

[1] John B. Gough, Sunlight and Shadow; or, Gleanings from My Life Work (Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington, 1881),407.

[2] C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records by His Wife and His Private Secretary (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1897), 1:199–212. The Fens (or the Fenlands) is a relatively flat and marshy region of East Anglia comprising parts of the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire. It is the region where Spurgeon did most of his early preaching and is just north of where Spurgeon grew up.

[3] Gough, Sunlight and Shadow, 407–8.

[4] Gough, 408.

[5] Gough, 408. This was not an unusual occurrence. Arnold Dallimore notes that Spurgeon “made it a particular point to call on any children who might be in the infirmary, to pray for them and show whatever special kindness he could.” Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1985), 129.

[6] Gough, 408.

[7] C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, 1:181.

[8] Memorial Volume, Mr. Spurgeon’s Jubilee: Report of the Proceedings at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Wednesday and Thursday Evenings, June 18th and 19th, 1884 (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1884), 7–8; C. H. Spurgeon, “Mr. Spurgeon’s Jubilee Meetings,” Sword and the Trowel, July 1884, 373.

[9] C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, 4:371.



The Marks of Regeneration for Church Membership

By / Feb 27

One of the most important responsibilities of the elders of a church is to examine all who come forward for membership. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, they implemented an interview process where both lay elders and the pastor would have a chance to meet with every candidate coming forward, culminating with a congregational vote. Given the remarkable fruitfulness of that church’s ministry, this was a lot of people to interview! And yet, Spurgeon never relaxed his church’s membership process but maintained his responsibility to discern a credible profession of faith.

But how did the elders discern whether a profession of faith was credible? What guidelines did Spurgeon provide for his leaders, if any? We get a hint of this in one of Spurgeon’s lectures to his students in The Soul Winner, where he gives the following marks of regeneration.

Conviction of Sin

First, regeneration will be shown in conviction of sin. This we believe to be an indispensable mark of the Spirit’s work; the new life as it enters the heart causes intense inward pain as one of its first effects.[1]

One of the first things an elder should look for in a convert is the conviction of sin. Is there any recognition of the reality of sin in their hearts and the sinfulness of that sin? Is there any sorrow over not only the consequences of sin but sin itself and the offense that it is against God? Spurgeon advises, “When you meet with persons in whom there is no trace of conviction of sin, you may be quite sure that they have not been wrought upon by the Holy Spirit.”

However, it’s important that we do not require this conviction of sin to look or sound a certain way. For some people, this conviction may be accompanied by tears and loud weeping. For others, the same conviction may be quiet and reflective. Spurgeon writes,

Do not be astonished if you find this conviction of sin to be very acute and alarming; but, on the other hand, do not condemn those in whom it is less intense, for so long as sin is mourned over, confessed, forsaken, and abhorred, you have an evident fruit of the Spirit.[2]

Here, the pastor must exercise pastoral judgment and labor to discern true conviction of sin rather than simply emotional responses.

A Simple Faith in Jesus Christ

The production of faith is the very centre of the target at which you aim. The proof to you that you have won the man’s soul for Jesus is never before you till he has done with himself and his own merits, and has closed in with Christ.[3]

One important aspect of this faith to discern is whether or not the individual is trusting in Christ for all his salvation, rather than just a part of it. Here the pastor has an opportunity to teach and foster a greater of assurance of faith for the believer.

Numbers of persons think that the Lord Jesus is available for the pardon of past sin, but they cannot trust Him for their preservation in the future. They trust for years past, but not for years to come; whereas no such sub-division of salvation is ever spoken of in Scripture as the work of Christ. Either He bore all our sins, or none; and He either saves us once for all, or not at all. His death can never be repeated, and it must have made expiation for the future sin of believers, or they are lost, since no further atonement can be supposed, and future sin is certain to be committed. Blessed be His name, “by Him all that believe are justified from all things.” Salvation by grace is eternal salvation.[4]

For some membership candidates, this will be a brand-new thought. Though they might have trusted God for past sins, they have never been called to trust God for the whole of salvation. But the gospel is an ongoing reality in the Christian life. Is there evidence of an ongoing trust of Christ since their conversion? Or do they think that the Christian life is to be lived in their own strength?

To be sure, such assurance should not produce complacency, but there should be evidence of good works that accompany genuine faith. Spurgeon writes, “The sense of being saved, completely saved in Christ Jesus, is not, as some suppose, the source of carnal security and the enemy of holy zeal, but the very reverse.” What we are looking for, then, is “clear evidence in your converts of a simple, sincere, and decided faith in the Lord Jesus.”[5]

Repentance of Sin

Repentance is an old-fashioned word, not much used by modern revivalists. “Oh!”‘ said a minister to me, one day, “it only means a change of mind.” This was thought to be a profound observation. “Only a change of mind”; but what a change! A change of mind with regard to everything! Instead of saying, “It is only a change of mind,” it seems to me more truthful to say it is a great and deep change—even a change of the mind itself. But whatever the literal Greek word may mean, repentance is no trifle.[6]

True conversion will be evidenced by not only a holy hatred of sin, but now by a practical turning away from sin. The inward transformation that has taken place will be evidenced by a change in the external life of the believer.

So when hearing the testimony of the candidate, look evidences of repentance. Reject any notion that a person can receive Jesus as Savior, without receiving Him also as Lord. “True belief and true repentance are twins: it would be idle to attempt to say which is born first.” This is not to say that repentance is ever perfected in this life. While we live in this flesh, we will continue to battle against temptation and sin. But what the pastor is looking for is not perfection, but repentance. Is there an ongoing struggle against sin? Is there any evidence of real change?

In the course of pastoral ministry, you may very well encounter those who, like the Rich Young Ruler, make a profession of faith but refuse to follow Jesus in practical obedience. For such candidates, you should not assure them of their salvation by bringing them into membership but should pastorally warn and call to repentance of faith.

If the man does not live differently from what he did before, both at home and abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of, and his conversion is a fiction.[7]

True Prayer and Obedience

Faith is the great gospel grace; but still we cannot forget that true faith always prays, and when a man professes faith in the Lord Jesus, and yet does not cry to the Lord daily, we dare not believe in his faith or his conversion.[8]

But more than just fighting against sin, we must also look for the positive fruit of obedience. One of the best signs of this is a life of prayer. This may include mealtime prayers and prayer at church, but it should also involve private prayer. For the Christian, prayer is like breathing, and breathing is a sign of life.

Beyond prayer, however, we also want to look for evidence of obedience, even when it is costly.

Has not the Lord said, “He that taketh not up his cross, and cometh after Me, cannot be My disciple”? Mistakes as to what the Lord’s will may be are to be tenderly corrected, but anything like wilful disobedience is fatal; to tolerate it would be treason to Him that sent us.[9]

There will be some acts of obedience that will seem very simple to some but excruciatingly difficult for others. For Muslim background believers, the decision to profess their faith publicly through baptism could be life-threatening. For the new convert engaged to a non-Christian, calling off the engagement could be heart-breaking and deeply disappointing. Pastorally, we want to call people to obedience to Christ, but we also do all we can to bring the church around these new believers as they seek to walk in obedience.

Conclusion

Referring to the membership process at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, James Spurgeon (the associate pastor) writes,

We have found this a means of grace and a rich blessing… We have never yet found it tend to keep members out of our midst, while we have known it of service in detecting a mistake or satisfying a doubt previously entertained.[10]

This is the great blessing of elders who take their responsibility seriously to guard the membership of the church. Those who are brought into membership receive the wonderful gift of assurance. And those who are kept out are called to a clearer hope in the gospel.

[1] Soul Winner, 25.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Soul Winner, 26.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Soul Winner, 27.

[6] Soul Winner, 27-28.

[7] Soul Winner, 28.

[8] Soul Winner, 30.

[9] Soul Winner, 31.

[10] S&T 1869:53.



Spurgeon the Evangelist

By / Feb 16

We typically think of Spurgeon as a bold, fearless preacher who regularly proclaimed the gospel to thousands throughout his 40-year ministry. But when it came to personal evangelism, Spurgeon confessed his timidity,

I often envy those of my brethren who can go up to individuals and talk to them with freedom about their souls. I do not always find myself able to do so…[1]

Spurgeon is not alone. Many Christians, including pastors, who have believed the gospel for decades, still struggle with sharing the gospel. And yet, knowing that Spurgeon also struggled with this makes him a more helpful guide for us. What would Spurgeon say to encourage our personal evangelism?

Be open to evangelistic opportunities

As a busy pastor, Spurgeon did not have time to go out for door-to-door evangelism or pass out tracts. Most of his day-to-day contact was limited to Christians, and any interaction with non-Christians tended to happen in his capacity as a pastor and preacher. Most pastors will find themselves “pulled from the front lines” of evangelism in their work for the church and find it difficult to evangelize.

Even so, Spurgeon would encourage pastors (and all Christians) not to overlook the opportunities that may arise throughout the course of everyday life – an Uber driver, a passenger next to you on a flight, a restaurant worker… or, in Spurgeon’s case, a cabman.

It is wonderful how God blesses very little efforts to serve Him. One night, many years ago, after preaching, I had been driven home by a cabman, and after I had alighted, and given him the fare, he took a little Testament out of his pocket, and showing it to me, said, “It is about fifteen years since you gave me that, and spoke a word to me about my soul. I have never forgotten your words, and I have not let a day pass since without reading the Book you gave me.” I felt glad that, in that instance, the seed had, apparently, fallen into good ground.[2]

On another occasion, while preaching away, Spurgeon had an opportunity to talk to a waterman.

Having promised to preach, one evening, at a certain river-side town, I went to the place early in the day, as I thought I should like to have a little time in a boat on the river. So, hailing a waterman, I made arrangements with him to take me, and, whilst sitting in the boat, wishing to talk with him about religious matters, I began the conversation by asking him about his family. [3]

This opening led to a conversation about the recent cholera epidemic and the hope of heaven through the gospel. Spurgeon could have easily excused himself from that evangelistic opportunity. After all, he was getting ready to preach later that evening, and this was a time for him simply to relax. Even so, these quiet moments with a waterman were an opportunity for intentional conversation, which eventually led to the gospel.

For those who find evangelism difficult because they don’t have ongoing relationships with non-Christians, pray that the Lord would open your eyes to spontaneous evangelistic opportunities around you. Pray for courage to speak, to hand out a tract or a Bible, or to invite someone to church. As Spurgeon reminds us, “it is wonderful how God blesses very little efforts to serve Him.”

Engage nominal Christians

For those who are regularly surrounded by professing Christians, recognize that there are often still many evangelistic opportunities. Especially in places where Christianity is established in the culture, nominalism may very well be an issue. As Christians, we can rejoice at people’s profession of faith, but never at the cost of assuming the gospel. Rather, we should look for opportunities to engage people’s understanding of the gospel and bring the truth to light where needed.

For Spurgeon, in 19th-century London, this often meant engaging members of the Church of England with the gospel.

Many who are nominally Christians appear to me to believe in a sort of sincere-obedience covenant, in which, if a man does as much as he can, Christ will do the rest, and so the sinner will be saved; but it is not so… Some people have a notion that going to church and chapel, taking the sacrament, and doing certain good deeds that appertain to a respectable profession of religion, are the way to Heaven. If they are put in the place of Christ, they are rather the way to hell; although it is strewn with clean gravel, and there be grassy paths on either side, it is not the road to Heaven, but the way to everlasting death.[4]

The initial goal of engaging nominal Christians is to warn them of the danger they are in. Often, this will mean talking about the danger of trusting in their own works and religious performance. But once that point is established, the evangelist must make the gospel clear. Never take for granted a person’s understanding of the gospel, even if they have grown up in the church. Spurgeon writes,

When I have spoken of my own hope in Christ to two or three people in a railway carriage, I have often found myself telling my listeners perfect novelties. I have seen the look of astonishment upon the face of many an intelligent Englishman when I have explained the doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ; I have even met with persons who had attended their parish church from their youth up, yet who were totally ignorant of the simple truth of justification by faith; ay, and some who have been to Dissenting places of worship do not seem to have laid hold of the fundamental truth that no man is saved by his own doings, but that salvation is procured by faith in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.[5]

As pastors and Christians called to do the work of an evangelist, sometimes that work will take place among those who are members of our churches; or among church-going neighbors and co-workers. These can be difficult conversations to have, especially if someone is convinced he is a Christian. Yet, apart from a right understanding of the gospel, the nominal are as lost as those who have never heard it. Sometimes the front lines of evangelism are right in our pews.

Create opportunities for personal follow-up

Spurgeon was a powerful preacher and often heard stories of how God worked powerfully through his sermons. Still, in many cases, he was astonished to find how easily people could avoid conviction and miss the point he was trying to communicate.  

One advantage of dealing personally with souls is, that it is not so easy for them to turn aside the message as when they are spoken to in the mass. I have often marvelled when I have been preaching. I have thought that I have exactly described certain people; I have marked in them special sins, and as Christ’s faithful servant, I have not shunned to picture their case in the pulpit, that they might receive a well-deserved rebuke; but I have wondered when I have spoken to them afterwards, that they have thanked me for what I have said, because they thought it so applicable to another person in the assembly.[6]

So, in addition to preaching excellent sermons, Spurgeon created opportunities for people to respond by meeting with him or one of the elders. Usually, this would mean setting aside an afternoon during the week for any new converts or seekers to come and meet with Spurgeon or another leader in the church to talk about the gospel. Spurgeon shares his experience,

From the very early days of my ministry in London, the Lord gave such an abundant blessing upon the proclamation of His truth that, whenever I was able to appoint a time for seeing converts and enquirers, it was seldom, if ever, that I waited in vain; and, usually, so many came, that I was quite overwhelmed with gratitude and thanksgiving to God.[7]

These one-on-one conversations proved to be fruitful evangelistic opportunities, as he answered questions, heard testimonies, and pointed people to the Saviour. On one occasion, Spurgeon was so encouraged in meeting with so many people that he lost track of time and went the entire day without having any break.

I may have seen some thirty or more persons during the day, one after the other; and I was so delighted with the tales of mercy they had to tell me, and the wonders of grace God had wrought in them, that I did not know anything about how the time passed. At seven o’clock, we had our prayer-meeting; I went in, and prayed with the brethren. After that, came the church-meeting. A little before ten o’clock, I felt faint; and I began to think at what hour I had my dinner, and I then for the first time remembered that I had not had any! I never thought of it, I never even felt hungry, because God had made me so glad, and so satisfied with the Divine manna, the Heavenly food of success in winning souls.[8]

Conclusion

Spurgeon had a long and remarkable ministry, but at any given time, there were seasons of varying fruitfulness. “There has been a greater increase sometimes, or a little diminution now and then.” But the overall picture was one of God’s surprising and powerful work through his evangelistic efforts alongside his church. Reflecting over his years of ministry, Spurgeon declared, “I thank God that I have not had to labour in vain, or to spend my strength for nought. He has given me a long period of happy and successful service, for which, with all my heart, I praise and magnify His holy Name.”[9]

We may not be able to see the fruit of our labors in the moment. And we may never experience the same evangelistic results as Spurgeon. Nonetheless, our goal is to remain faithful to the gospel and to our mission while the Lord enables us to serve Him. And one day, when we look back over the years of service, we may well rejoice and be surprised at how God used our small efforts to magnify His Name.

[1] Autobiography 2:131. The following quotes are drawn from chapter 45 of Vol. 2 of Spurgeon’s Autobiography.

[2] Autobiography 2:131.

[3] Autobiography 2:131.

[4] Autobiography 2:134.

[5] Autobiography 2:133.

[6] Autobiography 2:135.

[7] Autobiography 2:137.

[8] Autobiography 2:137.

[9] Autobiography 2:136.