This paper was delivered in the context of the Grace Preachers Conference (2019), sponsored by the Eastside Baptist Church in Windhoek
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born on 19 June 1834
in Kelvedon, Essex, to John (1810-1902) and Eliza (Jarvis)
Spurgeon. Spurgeon's father was an independent pastor[1]. For reasons of financial constraint, little Charles
went to live with his grandparents in Stambourne when he was about 18 months
old. His grandfather, James Spurgeon
(1776-1864), was a popular
preacher, who had served the same congregation for more than 50 years. His grandmother gave him a penny for each hymn
by Isaac Watts he could memorize. Charles was so good at memorizing that
she had to cut it down to a half–penny. These memorized hymns turned
up in his sermons years later. Charles loved books from an early age.
He read his grandfather’s theological books and fell in love with Puritan
writings even before his conversion. In particular he loved the ‘Pilgrim's Progress’ by John Bunyan (1628-1688) and Foxe’s Book
of Martyrs. In his autobiography and
sermons he quotes from Bunyan
many times. His love for books lasted a lifetime. At his
death, Spurgeon had 12,000 books in his personal library.[2]
When Spurgeon was only 10 years old, a visiting missionary,
Richard Knill, said that he would one
day preach to thousands. This 'prophecy' came true. [3]
Conversion
This happened on the 6th of January 1850 when he
was 15 years old and it is best repeated in his own words:
"It
snowed so much, I could not go to the place where I had determined to go, and I
was obliged to stop on the road, and it was a blessed stop to me - I found
rather an obscure street, and turned down a court, and there was a little
chapel. I wanted to go somewhere, but I did not know this place. It was the
Primitive Methodists' chapel. I had heard of these people from many, and how
they sang so loudly that they make people's heads ache; but that did not
matter. I wanted to know how I might be saved, and if they made my head ache
ever so much I did not care. So, sitting down, the service went on, but no minister came. At last a very thin
looking man came into the pulpit and opened his Bible and read these words: "Look
unto Me, and be ye saved all the ends of the earth." (Isa 45:22). Just
setting his eyes upon me, as if he knew me all by heart, he said: "Young
man, you are in trouble." Well, I was, sure enough. Says he, "You
will never get out of it unless you look to Christ." And then, lifting up
his hands, he cried out, as only I think, a Primitive Methodist could do,
"Look, look, look. It's only look!" said he. I saw at once the way of
salvation. Oh, how I did leap for joy at that moment! I know not what else he
said: I did not take much notice of it -- I was so possessed with that one
thought. Like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, they only looked and
were healed. I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard this word,
"Look!" what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh, I looked until I could
almost have looked my eyes away."[4]
He was baptized in the
river Lark, near Cambridge on the 3rd May 1850.
In Cambridge he joined St. Andrews Street Baptist Church,
where famous Baptists like Robert Hall
(1764-1831) and Robert Robinson
(1735 – 1790) [5] had been pastors. There he taught in the Sunday school and also became a member of the Lay Preachers
Association.
On one Saturday he was assigned to take a service for a small
group of people in the village of Teversham.
His first sermon text came from 1 Peter 2:7. He preached so effectively
that an old woman asked him, “How old are
you?” Spurgeon said, “I am under
sixty.” “Yes, and under sixteen”,
said the old lady. “Never mind my age”,
replied the boy preacher, “think of
Jesus and His preciousness.” [6]
Spurgeon was a Christ centred preacher all
His life.
Soon he was taking other preaching appointments and one of
the places where he began to preach regularly was the little Baptist chapel of Waterbeach, about 8
kilometres from Cambridge. The members
of this little church were so taken in with him that they called him to be their pastor in 1851, when he was only 17 years old. His very first sermon as pastor was from Matthew 1:21, “You shall call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their
sins.” [7] Notice again, his focus on the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. God used him greatly there. There was a marked
spiritual and moral transformation of Waterbeach
village, which was known for its
drunkenness and vices.[8]
In 1854, much to the dismay of his people at Waterbeach
Baptist chapel, he was called to become the pastor of London's New Park Street
Chapel. The origins of this church go
back to 1650. Many notable Baptist pastors
served there: Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) who had a
hand in producing the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith), Dr.John Gill (1697- 1771), a
great Baptist scholar, and Dr.
John Rippon[9]
(1751-1836). New Park Street Baptist
Chapel was one of three leading churches of the 113 churches belonging to the London
Baptist Association.[10]
C. H. Spurgeon, then only 19 years old, was torn away from the people who had come to love him so
dearly in such a short time. New Park
Chapel, although it had a long and distinguished history, and some famous ministers had, by this time,
shrunk considerably. When Charles Spurgeon first preached there, only 80
people were present. There would have been more people gathered at Waterbeach Baptist chapel on the Lord’s day.[11]
But his preaching from James 1:17 was so well received, that
many more came back to hear him in the evening, preaching from Revelation
14:5 - “They are without fault
before the throne of God”. Not for a long time had the congregation heard
Christ preached in this way. His future
wife, Susanna Thompson was present that night. She thought little of him at
that time, because he looked more like a country bumpkin than a reverent
preacher.
And thus a remarkable ministry began at the New Park Street
Chapel in March 1854, a ministry
which lasted for 38 years, until his death in 1892. The church grew very
rapidly, from the outset, and in 1855
the membership had doubled in size. By 1856
the church membership was close to 900. [12]
By 1875 the membership was 4500 and
at his death in 1892 there were 5300
members on the roll.
It is hard to imagine
that by the age of twenty-two, he was the most popular preacher in England, and
remained so for the latter half of the 1800s. He became known as the "Prince of Preachers".
Marriage
In 1855, Spurgeon
baptized Susannah Thompson and,
after proposing to her in her grandmother’s garden, he soon married her in 1856. Soon thereafter she gave birth to
twin boys, Thomas and Charles. Both became preachers.
Due to a chronic illness,
Susie, as he affectionately called her, was
incapacitated and housebound by the time
she was 33 years old. Despite her health challenges she was a very active
woman. She laid the foundation stone of the Pastors college which he started and she started her book fund, to supply needy pastors with good books! By the time
she died in 1903, through the Book Fund and the Pastor’s Aid Fund, Susie had
raised enough money in her married life to give away over 200,000 books to
impoverished pastors. She also provided funds, clothing, stationery, and other
necessary items for them. She urged fellow Christians to rise up and help
relieve the pathetic circumstances plaguing the homes of many faithful servants
who struggled to survive. She was a
wonderful encourager to Charles. At times when he came home exhausted and
depressed she would read to him from Richard Baxter’s ‘The Reformed Pastor’.[13]
At this time the congregation had become so large that it
could no longer be accommodated in the New Park Street Chapel. The church
services moved to Exeter Hall, which could seat 5000 but soon also outgrew the
place. From 1856 to 1859, the church met at the Royal Surrey Gardens music hall.
It could accommodate 12,000 people – and Spurgeon preached to all without a
microphone! Spurgeon's voice apparently had
tremendous volume, remarkable clearness, and traveling power. His style was devout, humorous, and earnest. It
is said that he was once testing the acoustics in this huge
building when no one was around and he shouted, “Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.”
A workman was later to tell Spurgeon that he had heard the words while
working in the rafters, and had been led to conversion.
On the 19th
October 1856, on a Sunday afternoon ten
to twelve thousand eager worshipers squeezed into the Hall when the doors
opened at 6:00 p.m. Another ten thousand were outside unable to get in. It was the
largest crowd ever gathered under a roof to hear this Baptist preacher.
After a few words of greeting came a prayer and a hymn. Then,
in his usual style, Spurgeon read the Scriptures with a running commentary. He
always did this in his New Park Street services; it was a common procedure in
many Baptist churches. The congregation sang another hymn and then Spurgeon
began his long pastoral prayer. After the “Amen”,
someone maliciously shouted, “Fire! Fire!
Fire! The galleries are giving way! The place is falling! The place is
falling!” A terrible panic ensued as
people tried to escape the building,
and in that process they trampled upon
each other, crushed one another, jumped over the rail of the galleries, while
the banisters of one of the stairs gave way and many were injured. Seven people died on
that occasion and twenty-eight had been taken to a local hospital seriously
injured.
Charles Spurgeon became so seriously depressed over the
tragedy that he almost wished himself dead. The thought that he had in some
sense contributed to the death and injury of several people
absolutely devastated him. For many years he spoke of being moved to tears for
no reason known to himself.
At this time also he was often slandered by the press, but
instead of affecting his ministry, it made him even more popular with the
common man.
The Metropolitan
Tabernacle
In the meantime the congregation had built the Metropolitan
Tabernacle, which could seat 5,000. The building was
dedicated on Monday afternoon, March
25th 1861, at which time he was only 25 years old. Spurgeon’s
text on that occasion was taken from Acts
5:42, ”And daily in the temple, and
in every house, they ceased not to teach and
to preach Jesus Christ.” His opening words at the dedication of the building, by way of
an excerpt were (and again notice the
Christ centred, Christ exalting
preaching of Spurgeon):
“I would propose that
the subject of the ministry of 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,
although I claim to be rather a Calvinist according to Calvin, than after the
modern debased fashion. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist. You have
there (pointing to the baptistry) substantial evidence that I am not ashamed of
that ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ; but if I am asked to say what is my
creed, I think I must reply: "It is Jesus Christ." My venerable
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 for
ever, God helping me, is not his system of divinity 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.” [15]
For three weeks the opening services and meetings continued. The
Metropolitan Tabernacle was the largest church building of its day. Spurgeon
continued to preach there several times per week until his death 31 years
later. He never gave altar calls at the conclusion of his sermons, as was
common in many evangelical churches of
that day, but he always extended the invitation that if anyone was moved to
seek Christ by his preaching on a Sunday, they could meet with him at his
vestry on Monday morning. Without fail, there was always someone at his door
the next day.
The ‘Sword and the
Trowel’ and his Books
Around 1865, Spurgeon began publishing a monthly magazine, entitled,
The Sword and the Trowel, which he
edited for 27 years. During the height of his ministry, Spurgeon spoke 10 to 12
times per week. He typically took just one page of notes into the pulpit and
preached for an average of 40 minutes.
His sermons were written down by stenographers and then they were edited by
him, and printed, and distributed throughout England weekly as well as being
sent by telegraph to the United States where they were printed in many newspapers.
Spurgeon authored several books. Among his most read and used
are, Lectures to My Students (1890) -
a collection of talks delivered to the students of his Pastors' College. The Treasury of David (1869) was his best–selling
devotional commentary on the Psalms.
This work took him 20 years
to complete. His sermons
were re–issued in book form. The first
series, called “The New Park Street Pulpit”, consisted of 6 Volumes
and contains his sermons from 1855–1860. This was followed by the publication
of his 57–volume, known as “The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit”, sermons published from 1861 to 1917.
Although throughout his career Spurgeon preached to large
audiences, his greatest influence was by means of the written page - his weekly published sermons. These sermons amounted to sixty-three volumes. By 1899 more than a hundred million copies of
his sermons had been printed in twenty-three languages.
Today— more than a century after Spurgeon’s death—there is more
material in print by Charles Haddon Spurgeon than by any other Christian
author, living or dead.
Besides sermons, Spurgeon also wrote several hymns and
published a new collection of worship songs in 1866 called "Our Own Hymn Book".
It was mostly a compilation of Isaac Watts's Psalms and Hymns that had been
originally selected by John Rippon, a Baptist predecessor to Spurgeon. Singing
in the congregation was exclusively acappella under his pastorate.
Charitable Institutions
Many charitable institutions grew up around the Tabernacle,
including an orphanage, a pastors' training college, and organizations for the
distribution of religious tracts. Following the example of George Müller,
Spurgeon founded the Stockwell Orphanage, which opened for boys in 1867 and for
girls in 1879, and which continued in London until it was bombed in the Second
World War.
Downgrade Controversy
During the last decade of his life, Spurgeon fought against
what he called the "Downgrade Movement", that is, the rise of higher criticism, liberalism, and
rationalism within Baptist circles in England, by which many pulpits had begun to
"downgrade" the Bible, and therefore the principle of Sola Scriptura. He withdrew from the
Baptist Union in 1887, remaining independent, but he retained his Baptist
convictions until his death. Although he never sought controversy, he never
shied from it. In his own words, "Controversy
for the truth against the errors of the age is the peculiar duty of the preacher."
Health and Suffering
Charles Spurgeon was not a healthy man. He suffered from frequent
depression, rheumatism, gout, and
Bright’s disease (a kidney disease) which sometimes forced him to take
retreats for weeks at a time. We noted
too that Spurgeon's wife was often too ill to leave
home to hear him preach.
Final years and Death
Spurgeon often recuperated at Menton, near Nice in France, where he died on 31 January 1892 (aged
57). He lies buried at West Norwood Cemetery in London. When Spurgeon died, all
of London mourned. Spurgeon lay in state at the Metropolitan Tabernacle for
three days—as 60,000 mourners filed past. On the day of his burial, shops and
pubs closed their doors. Flags flew at half-mast. As the hearse made its way to
the cemetery, 100,000 people lined the way to witness a funeral procession that
stretched for more than 4 kilometres.
His son, Thomas, became the pastor of the Metropolitan
Tabernacle sometime after his father
died.
Summary and Conclusion
Dr. Albert Mohler
writes [16]: His unprecedented ministry defies
summarization
… Before he was twenty
a significant church in London called him as pastor.
Within two years he was preaching to audiences of 10,000 people;
At twenty-two he was the most popular
preacher of his day.
By the time he was twenty-seven,
a church seating 6,000 people had been built to accommodate the crowds which
flocked to hear him preach.
For over
thirty years he pastored the same church without decrease in power or
appeal.”
What can explain the power and substance of this ministry? Spurgeon
was, it must be granted, a particularly effective preacher. His voice was often
described as “silvery” in its effect and intonation. His voice was powerful
enough to be heard clearly by as many as 20,000 persons without amplification.
His voice was heard by an estimated 10 million persons during his ministry —
all before the invention of radio and television.
His voice was, though unique, not the secret of his pulpit
power. There were many other Victorian
preachers that were gifted with powerful voice-boxes and gifts of communication. The popular appeal of Spurgeon’s preaching
could be traced, in part, to his unique
method of preaching messages, which were both rich in substance and clear
in presentation.
· He spoke with unusual directness and used references to everyday life.
·
He spoke with utter conviction.
· His preaching was Christ centered. He said, “I take my text and make a beeline to the
cross".
·
He
would often preach as many as five to seven sermons a week, but the Sunday
sermons at the Metropolitan Tabernacle consumed most of his energies in
preparation. Spurgeon would seek texts for his Sunday sermons throughout the
week, seeking through prayer, Bible reading, and conversation with friends
(especially with Susannah) to find the most appropriate text
for Sunday’s sermons.
·
On Saturday night, he would excuse himself away from family and friends by six
o’clock and remain in his study until the morning message was in outline form.
From that outline, Spurgeon would preach an extemporaneous message lasting from
forty-five minutes to an hour, on average.
·
He
always preached with the expectation that people should be
converted under his ministry. A student
at the pastor’s college once asked Spurgeon how he
could focus more clearly on bringing unbelievers into the faith. “Do you expect converts every time you
preach?”, Spurgeon asked. The student quickly retorted, “Of course not.” “That is why you have none,” said Spurgeon.
·
Spurgeon trusted that God would use the
substance of his message to penetrate the hearts of his hearers. He warned his
students to evaluate their sermons by content — and not by structure or
design. He said, “To divide a sermon well may be a very
useful art, but how if there is nothing to divide? … The grandest discourse
ever delivered is an ostentatious failure if the doctrine of the grace of God
be absent from it; it sweeps over men’s heads like a cloud, but it distributes
no rain upon the thirsty earth; and therefore the remembrance of it to souls
taught wisdom by an experience of pressing need is one of disappointment, or
worse.” “Brethren,” he pleaded, “weigh
your sermons. Do not retail them by the yard, but deal them out by the pound.
Set no store by the quantity of words which you utter, but try to be esteemed
for the quality of your matter.”
·
Spurgeon strongly held to Calvinist theology, even as he
extended the free offer of the gospel to
all. When he was asked how he could
reconcile his understanding of divine election
and his evangelistic appeal, Spurgeon retorted quickly: “I do not try to reconcile friends.”
That quality of vigor and vitality produced one of the most
remarkable ministries of the church. Upon Spurgeon’s death, a Southern Baptist
Pastor, B. H. Carroll delivered an
address celebrating his British colleague’s life and ministry. He said,
“With whom among men can you compare him? He
combined the preaching power of Jonathan
Edwards and Whitefield with the
organizing power of Wesley, and the
energy, fire, and courage of Luther.
In many respects he was most like Luther. In many, most like Paul.”
[1]
Independent here means that he did not
belong to the established church (i.e. Anglican). He could have been a Baptist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian
or Methodist
[2]
William Jewell College in
Liberty, Missouri purchased Spurgeon's
library for £500 in 1906. The
collection was purchased by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas
City, Missouri in 2006 for $400,000 and can be seen on display at the Spurgeon
Center on the campus of Midwestern Seminary.
[3]
C.H. Spurgeon: The early years,p.27
[4] This
is an abbreviated testimony. The
best account of his conversion can be found in his Autobiography, Vol. 1, The Early Years , Banner of Truth (1976),
Chapter 7, p. 79ff
[5]
Robert Robinson: author of the hymn, “Come thou Fount of every blessing” ;
influential Baptist scholar who made a lifelong study of the antiquity and
history of Christian Baptism.
[9]
John Rippon had a long ministry there, for 63 years. Frequently, before his
death in 1836 he would pray for a successor who would be used to restore the
church to brighter days. Three ministers came and went and
the congregation shrank from about 1200
to a mere 200 (Autobiography,p. 262)
[12]
Autobiography: p.335 footnote
[14]
This section which I have
abbreviated is quoted from, "Spurgeon, Prince of Preachers", by
Lewis Drummond https://www.reformedreader.org/spurgeon/mhrsg.htm
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