Theological Method and Content

truth. ¹ The book is a divine production; it is perfect, and is the last court of appeal —"the judge which ends the strife." I would as soon dream of blaspheming my

Maker as of questioning the infallibility of his word. ² Are the doctrines of grace essential verities with thee? Whatever God has said about sin, righteousness, judgment to come, art thou ready to accept it at once.

Whatever he has revealed concerning himself, his Son, his holy Spirit, the cross, life, death, hell, and the eternal future, dost thou believe it unfeignedly: This is to

walk in the light. All other teaching is darkness. ³ T wo traits of theological engagement that Spurgeon admired and sought to inculcate in his own extensive opportunities often seemed to conflict with each other. Both of these appear on the same page of book reviews in the April 1880 number of The Sword and the Trowel. One was kindness and the other was plainness. He commended Joseph Cook's discussion of transcendentalism with the words, "There is not trace of bitterness, however, in him, no mark of that

savage Red Indian ferocity which is so usual in a theological debater." ⁴ One column later Spurgeon gave advice concerning "one of the most poetic, beautiful, pseudo-philosophical books on the Fatherhood of God which we ever read." Noting that it was altogether subversive of the truth of Man's ruin, redemption, and regeneration, he gave a recipe for its proper use. It is like preparing a cucumber: "Carefully peel and slice it, flavour with pepper, salt, and

vinegar, and then—eat it?—oh no! throw it on the dung hill." ⁵ Kindness can be interpreted as toleration, and plainness can be interpreted as unkindness, but they need not be antagonistic. In the execution of Christian theology, however, these boon companions must be kept aligned with arms locked together as they stride toward purity in thought and life. The Christian theologian must be clearly Christian and no less clear a theologian.

Whatever else he was, Spurgeon was a Christian theologian, and,

preeminently as a "Pastor/Theologian," he must covet the rightness of both the head and the heart of his people. For him the only true theology was a fully Christian theology and any attempt to gain a hearing by stopping short of a fully evangelical presentation of the gospel, even in apologetic situations, was a betrayal of the call of the Christian.

Going for the Jugular

"That department of polite literature called Natural Religion leads nowhere and profiteth nothing," Spurgeon maintained. An apologetic attempt by R. A.

Redford in The Christian's Pleas Against Modern Unbelief failed in the lead task of making a truly Christian plea, Spurgeon pointed out. Redford made a noble attempt to create a neutral intellectual position by breaking down the citadel of objections in order to show that theism, the possibility of revelation, the existence of the miraculous, and other foundational issues were not irrational positions. "Our author imagines," Spurgeon observed, "that simple theism may become an adytum to the inner sanctuary of more select evidences." In his attempt to tear down the negative he has made a fundamental error by omitting an aggressive proposal of the positive. Spurgeon believed this approach mistakenly assumes that the philosophical argument for possibilities creates receptivity. Spurgeon was skeptical of the method and felt that best approach was always an insistence on the full package of the gospel. Bare theism and natural theology filled the air "with volatile sentiment, and expresses itself in lackadaisical phrases about 'the benevolence of the Creator,' 'the beauty of his works,' or 'the traces of design that are scattered through the universe.'" Such affirmations are a "paltry subterfuge" when what such poor souls need is saving faith; no good comes from dalliance with their prejudices.

Spurgeon, therefore, believing that it was preposterous for a Christian minister to plead with an infidel to become a theist, proposed a more robust and aggressive approach to dealing with "Modern Unbelief." His first postulate was, "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." The second was, "He that believeth in God must accept Christ as a mediator." The third continued, "He that accepteth the one mediator between God and men must receive the atonement." Any method that encourages less leaves a person with no reason to rejoice in God or sing praises to him with spirit and understanding. Apologetic methods that focused on creating neutrality and failed to embrace the full presentation of the gospel would be like trying to solve a crime problem by "intreating burglars not to carry

fire-arms." ⁶ Spurgeon wanted no theology or apologetic that was not fully Christian and eschewed any method of presentation intended to bring unbelievers only half way to truth. Such methods tended toward the opinion that openness to theism constituted right standing before God. The cure for limp and languid convictions on theology was a good soaking in the reality of one's own sin, a perception of the "sovereignty of divine grace, a participation in the renewing work of the

Holy Ghost, and an abundant entrance into that life which deals with spiritual and eternal verities." Theology was not just a right head, much less a half-right head, but a healed heart. Without that, "savage orthodoxy usually begets a frivolous unbelief." ⁷

A Fully and Exclusively Biblical Theology

Spurgeon was, nevertheless, fully in favor of apologetic works that aimed at disproving the validity of attacks, either direct or indirect, on the inspiration of Scripture. All parts of the Bible had been "vigourously assailed" at some time, but great powers of faith and ability had come to its defence and "left it more confirmed than before." Luthardt's defense of the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel was worthy of the immense labor it involved in its establishment of the authenticity of the history of that book. All biblical students should be grateful to such defenders of the faith for "an attack upon the outworks of inspiration is aimed in reality at the citadel itself." Zeal for one must accompany

zeal for the other. ⁸ Spurgeon had a robust appreciation for the science of textual criticism. He knew that copyists of the various manuscripts had made several different types of errors—"minor errors of copyists" ⁹ —and investigated the work of such men

as B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort. ¹⁰ "It is of no small consequence for us to be as clear as possible," Spurgeon affirmed, "about the validity of the original

tongue in which revelation was given." ¹¹ Also, the work at recovering the original text, in light of the minor discrepancies between manuscripts, was welcome. "Provided we have an exact text," Spurgeon asserted, "we regard the

words themselves as infallible." ¹² Since Protestants have no magisterium standing between them and the text of Scripture, since "You and I find our anchorage in the infallibility of Scripture," and "we believe that every word of it is inspired," we have abundant confidence "that if we could get absolutely the exact words in which it was written at the first, we should have a book as

perfect, certain, and immutable as God himself." ¹³ Textual criticism was moving close to that reality and had showed that the critical mass of Scripture was indisputably authentic textually.

Spurgeon advocated a pure Biblicism for theological construction. He loved the historic confessions and the pious and helpful writings of the Reformers and Puritans as well as selected numbers from the early Fathers and even some medieval writers, such as Bernard of Clairvaux, but all of these edified only to the degree that they opened to the mind that which already abided in scriptural revelation. Theology certainly is not new; nor has it been the product of tradition or development. One must "Ask for the Old Paths" for "the infallible Word of God is older than the supposed infallible pope." The priesthood of believers antedates the "priestcraft of the clergy," while "the epistles are older than the thirty-nine articles." God's true church is older "than any one of the sects."

Lovers of antiquity must assure that their "antiquity is antiquity. Let the old be

old enough." ¹⁴ He believed, confirming the position of Robert Rainy, that the Scripture contained a perfect system "gradually developed in the Old Testament, and speedily completed in the New." When Rainy, however, filled out this biblical system with doctrinal developments in church history and the discoveries of modern times, and pointed to the "corporate teaching capacity" of the church, Spurgeon resisted. He knew of no corporate church and thus of no such teaching capacity. We may gain assistance through others that interpret Scripture doctrines, but no addition to the doctrines themselves may be allowed. "Development of Christian doctrine in the Scriptures is one thing, and the development of those doctrines after the completion of the Scriptures is

another." ¹⁵ These things should not be confounded. Christian doctrine, to the degree that God wants us to know, has mature development in Scripture. Neither individual theologian nor church corporate may add to, diminish, amend, or dilute by false synthesis any assertion of the biblical text. We may find a way to give clear teaching on a variety of subjects and seek to show their mature biblical development and relations, and we may surely benefit from the way Christians through the ages have formulated these biblical truths and their practical applications; any effort, however, to go beyond the biblical text and its own internal development perverts the truth. "Fathers, schoolmen, reformers, Puritans, bishops, and even ecclesiastical courts are nothing in comparison with

this oracle of God." ¹⁶ For example, his treatment of indwelling sin and the enmity of the carnal mind against God focuses immediately on the text of Scripture. His knowledge of confessional statements and Puritan development of this idea was profound, but he wanted to draw his people into a square confrontation with the biblical text —"Let us, then weigh the words of the text, for they are solemn words, they are well put together by that master of eloquence, Paul, and they were moreover, dictated by the Holy Spirit, who telleth man how to speak aright. May he help us

to expound, as he has given us the passage to explain." ¹⁷ Likewise, in a sermon on the Lord's Supper, Spurgeon noted the changes made in it by Rome and said, "Let us be warned by these mistakes of others never either to add to or take from the Word of God so much as a single jot or title. Keep upon the foundation of the Scriptures, and you stand safely." An allowance of personal notions, whims, or fancies to determine "what is proper and right," instead of Scripture "and you have entered upon a dangerous course,"

that will result in mischief. "The Bible is our standard authority; none may turn

from it." ¹⁸ In the Inaugural Address at the Pastors' College Conference 1881, Spurgeon spoke of the necessity of fixity of belief. One's belief system must not look like an Italian peasant's garment, a marvel of patches pieced together in all kinds of patterns and colors accumulated from generation to generation. So are the creeds of some, "an agglomeration of philosophic rags, metaphysical tatters, theological remnants, and heretical cast-offs." But the preacher must believe that "when the Lord our God gave forth a revelation he knew his own mind, and that he expressed himself in the best and wisest manner, and in terms that can be understood by those who are teachable and truthful." God's revelation came with its own determined fullness and no new revelation is needed. An expectation of further revelation or inspired development is practical unbelief. Though sacrilegious hands twist and turn the Bible, "it is still the infallible revelation of God." Our religion is determined on the humble acceptance of what God has revealed with no additions or subtractions. Given all that is involved in human blindness to spiritual things, and our absolute dependence on divine grace for the content and grace of faith, Spurgeon proposed that "the highest form of adoration possible on this side the veil is the bowing of our entire mental and spiritual being before the revealed mind of God," that is, "the kneeling of the understanding in that sacred presence whose glory causes angels to veil their faces." Others may worship science, reason, and their own clear judgments, but

the God we worship is the God of Scripture. ¹⁹ As Spurgeon summarized the religious and philosophical commitments of cultures in the past and their virtual unintelligibility and complete obscurity today, he reflected that today's systems that sought to render noxious any claim to supernatural revelation would likewise soon be mere curiosities. But the Bible, God's revelation, would still rule over minds and hearts as surely as Christ himself would rule. "For as surely as this book is the infallible word of

God, so surely must Christ win the day." ²⁰ Human systems, no matter how aggressively they ridicule systems of revelation, especially the Bible, and no matter how tightly they argue their system or highly they value their insight, soon pass and are merely intellectual curiosities. "Systems of infidelity pass away like a dew-drop before the sun," Spurgeon reminded his simple hearers. But the Bible, the book that expresses the mind of the only and eternal God, "is the stone that shall break in powder philosophy; this is the mighty battering ram that shall dash all systems of philosophy in pieces; this is the stone that a woman may yet hurl upon the head

of every Abimelech, and he shall utterly be destroyed." ²¹ Not only shall all false systems finally fail, and God's Word alone remain, yet even while they prevail temporarily, they destroy all that comes under their power. France in 1797 demonstrated the terror of living under a godless, Bible-less system. "The gospel of Pandemonium brought forth its Millennium, and anarchy created upon earth the express likeness of hell. If you would settle the pillars of order upon the basis

of liberty, let the word of God be in the hands of all your citizens." ²² Knowledge of God in its specific saving character so far exceeded the limits of human philosophy and reason that all systems must give way to the inexhaustible wonder of divine revelation. Nothing exceeded in importance the knowledge and nothing about the knowledge was more vital than a vision of God's glory in the provisions of the gospel. "In vain dost thou jeer and mock, for eternal verities are mightier than thy sophistries, nor can thy smart saying alter

the divine truth of a single word of this volume of Revelation." ²³ The way Spurgeon related ideas of biblical fullness and historical systematization served as a foundation for his criticism of R. W. Dale's Laws of Christ for Common Life. Spurgeon questioned, if not the candor, at least the relevancy of Dale's approach in his statement, "A man may believe in the Nicene Creed, and in the Creed attributed to Athanasius, or in the confession of Augsburgh, or the confession of the Westminster divines; but if he does not believe in the Sermon of the Mount—believe it seriously as containing the laws which must govern his own life—he has denied the faith, and is in revolt against

Christ." ²⁴ Spurgeon considered such paragraphs to assert a "vicious irrelevancy," of the nature of asking if a person preferred Jotham's parable in the book of Judges to Calvin's Institutes. The inference drawn from this contrived comparison amounts to a discrediting of the "choicest standards of orthodoxy."

Spurgeon asked pointedly if Dale were revolting against all creeds including those "ancient Catholic Creeds, which sound Protestants, with one consent, were willing to accept."

As for his own part Spurgeon was jealous for such ancient landmarks, and believed that Dale's resistance to the imposition of any creed on the ministers or members of the Congregational churches could only lead to fragmentation and eventual decline as a force for truth and godliness. "What can you expect if you lack any element of cohesion"? How all of this confessional concern relates to biblical authority Spurgeon revealed when he put forward another inquiry that he felt equally pertinent to Dale's strange proposition. "Why put forward an early discourse of our blessed Redeemer before he had set forth the full purpose of Redemption," Spurgeon queried, "or ever he said, 'The good Shepherd lays

down his life for the sheep'—as if the Sermon on the Mount is to be accounted a

complete body of divinity?" ²⁵ Dale's failure at the confessional level extended from an interpretive method that pushed him into misapplication and disfigurement of biblical truth. If one does not see the moral teaching of Christ in light of his redemptive work and his own humanity's dependence on divine grace, then Dale's supposed preference of the words of Christ to the words of a creed is not that at all—rather, it amounts to a preference of one's own narrow idiosyncratic creed to the confession of the church at large through the centuries. Which of these actually presents the greatest faithfulness to the Bible?

Loved With Everlasting Love

Spurgeon, therefore, looked at the meaning of all texts as expressive as one part of the larger biblical synthesis of meaning. The synthesis that satisfied Spurgeon's overall grasp of biblical teaching was covenant theology. "The subject is the basis of all theology, and ought to be a chief point of study among

believers," he contended. ²⁶ This idea he found perhaps the single most encouraging concept in the Bible. He began a sermon entitled "The Wondrous Covenant" with the words, "The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root

of all true theology." ²⁷ A preacher who grasps and maintains clarity on the distinctions within the covenant is a master of divinity. "I am persuaded," he affirmed, "that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of

law and of grace." ²⁸ Novelty in doctrine is not needful and may be fatal, he wrote to his American audience. "I have preached what I believed and delighted in," he told them, "and all my hopes for time and eternity rest in that everlasting covenant of grace which from my youth up has been my theme.

In "The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant," Spurgeon asserted that every relation we have with God has a covenant character and "that he will not deal with us except through a covenant, nor can we deal with him except in the same

manner." ²⁹ He described the covenant of grace as "made before the foundation of the world between God the Father and God the Son; or to put it in a yet more scriptural light, it was made mutually between the three divine persons of the adorable Trinity." In this covenant "Christ stood... as man's representative."

Though individual men would benefit personally from this arrangement, no individual man stood as a party to the arrangement. "It was a covenant between God with Christ, and through Christ indirectly with all the blood-bought seed

who were loved of Christ from the foundation of the world." ³⁰ The power of Spurgeon's theological conceptions and the joy of preaching consisted in

grasping and conveying a clear vision of this divine initiative.

It is a noble and glorious thought, the very poetry of that old Calvinistic doctrine which we teach, that

long ere the day-star knew its place, before God had spoken existence out of nothing, before angel's

wing had stirred the unnavigated ether, before a solitary song had distributed the solemnity of the

silence in which God reigned supreme, he had entered into solemn council with himself, with his Son,

and with his Spirit, and had in that council decreed, determined, proposed, and predestinated the

salvation of his people. He had, moreover, in the covenant arranged the ways and means, and fixed and

settled everything which should work together for the effecting of the purpose and the decree. 31

Founded in the mysteries of eternal love, the perfect bond of unity within the

triune God flung itself outward to bring in creatures for the enjoyment of that same love. Some among the sinful race of man, distinguished from others only by the words of Jehovah, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love," would have given to them every blessing that can flow from this infinite omnipotent love. That first blessing and the one that determined the necessary existence of

all others flowed from the Father's selection in predestination.

Long before those stars were kindled into flames—long before the sun begun his mighty course—long

before the mountains lifted their hoary heads, or the deep clapped its hands in the tumultuous joy of

tempest. Long before time began, or space was created, God had written upon His heart the names of

His elect people. He had selected them, never to change His choice. He had united them unto the

Person of His Son Jesus Christ by a Divine Decree never to be revoked. He had predestinated them to

be conformed unto the image of His Son and had made them the heirs of all the fullness of His love,

His Grace and His Glory. 32

Within the framework of the covenant, originating in predestinating love, Spurgeon found his only source for the encouragement of Christians; his understanding of the gospel was built on covenant theology; all of God's actions toward creation, sin, redemption, providence, and final consummation were built on the covenant; his own exhilarating spiritual experiences flowed from lengthy meditation on the eternal and sure provisions of the covenant. "My soul flies back now, winged by imagination and by faith, and looks into that mysterious council-chamber, and by faith I behold the Father pledging himself to the Son, and the Son pledging himself to the Father, while the Spirit gives his pledge to both, and thus that divine compact, long to be hidden in darkness, is completed and settled—the covenant which in these latter days has been read in the light of

heaven, and has become the joy, and hope, and boast of all the saints." ³³ The sweetest consolation for the despondent saint comes in reflection on the everlasting covenant, an understanding of "what God did for us in past times."

Nothing can give joy to the spirit and steel to the soul like a song of "electing love and covenanted mercies." When you are low, Spurgeon advised, it is well to sing of "the fountain-head of mercy," the "blessed decree wherein thou wast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertook thy

redemption." ³⁴ To see the "solemn covenant signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered well," reflecting that one is an object of eternal electing love,

is a "charming means of giving thee songs in the night." ³⁵ For the sake of planting the reality of the covenant firmly in the minds of his people, Spurgeon loved to set it forth as a discussion between the persons of the triune God, though he knew clearly that he could not tell it "in the glorious celestial tongue in which it was written" but would "bring it down to the speech

which suiteth to the ear of flesh, and to the heart of a mortal." ³⁶ The substance was the same in each successive libretto, though the exact words differed in accordance with context. In "The Gracious Lips of Jesus," a sermon preached around 1857, Spurgeon said, "When God the Father originally made the

covenant, it stood somewhat in this form."

My Son, thou desirest, and I agree with thee, to save a number, that no man can number, whom I have

elected in thee. But in order to their salvation, that I may be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly, it

is necessary that some one should be their representative, to stand responsible for their obedience to

my laws and their substitute to suffer whatever penalties they incur. If thou, my Son, wilt stipulate to

bear their punishment, and endure the penalty of their crimes, I on my part will stipulate that thou shalt

see thy seed, shalt prolong they days, and that the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in thy hands. If

thou to-day art prepared to promise that thou wilt bear the exact punishment of all the people whom

thou wouldst save, I on my part am prepared to swear by myself, because I can swear by no greater,

that all for whom thou shalt atone shall infallibly be delivered from death and hell, and that all for

whom thou bearest the punishment shall hence go free, nor shall my wrath rise against them, however

great may be their sins. 37

The conversation continued with an appropriately worded response from the Son in scriptural language, "I delight to do thy will, O my God." On the basis of that covenantal arrangement all the saints were justified in the mind of God prior to the shedding of one drop of the Redeemer's blood. "The surety's oath was quite enough; in the Father's ears there needed no other confirmation," for by his Son's oath, the Father's heart was satisfied. His Son had sworn to his own hurt

and would not change. ³⁸ Another of these dialogues constructed by Spurgeon included the stipulations made by the Spirit, as well as the agreement entered into by Father and Son. The Father and the Spirit carried one side of the covenant, and the Son the other. The Son carried the side that related to man while the Father and Spirit, in ways appropriate to each, pledged to honor the work of the Son on behalf of man. He

imagined the Father speaking thus:

I, the Most High Jehovah, do hereby give unto my only begotten and well-beloved Son, a people,

countless beyond the number of stars, who shall be by him washed from sin, by him preserved, and

kept, and led, and by him, at last, presented before my throne, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such

thing. I covenant by oath, and swear by myself, because I can swear by no greater, that these whom I

now give to Christ shall be for ever the objects of my eternal love. Them I will forgive through the

merit of the blood. To these will I give a perfect righteousness; these will I adopt and make my sons

and daughters, and these shall reign with me through Christ eternally.

In the same vein he envisions the Spirit, in viewing how the Father had given a

people to the Son, joined in full harmony with these words:

I hereby covenant that all whom the Father giveth to the Son, I will in due time quicken. I will show

them their need of redemption; I will cut off from them all groundless hope, and destroy their refuges

of lies. I will bring them to the blood of sprinkling; I will give them faith whereby this blood shall be

applied to them, I will work in them every grace; I will keep their faith alive; I will cleanse them and

drive out all depravity from them, and they shall be presented at last spotless and faultless.

That pledge in the covenant presently is operative, being scrupulously kept.

Christ himself then took the other side as the representative of the people, and

covenanted with his Father:

My Father, on my part I covenant that in the fullness of time I will become man. I will take upon

myself the form and nature of the fallen race. I will live in their wretched world, and for my people I

will keep the law perfectly. I will work out a spotless righteousness, which shall be acceptable to the

demands of thy just and holy law. In due time I will bear the sins of all my people. Thou shalt exact

their debts on me; the chastisement of their peace I will endure, and by my stripes they shall be healed.

My Father, I covenant and promise that I will be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. I will

magnify thy law, and make it honourable. I will suffer all they ought to have suffered. I will endure the

curse of thy law, and all the vials of thy wrath shall be emptied and spent upon my head. I will then

rise again; I will ascend into heaven; I will intercede for them at thy right hand; and I will make myself

responsible for every one of them, that not one of those whom thou hast given me shall ever be lost,

but I will bring all my sheep of whom, by thy blood, thou hast constituted me the shepherd—I will

bring every one safe to thee at last. 39

On the side of the Son, the covenant is perfectly fulfilled. Only now he continues to intercede to bring all his blood-bought ones safely to glory.

Given the reality that all things are included in this covenant, should a sinner come to be sure of just one part of it, then he may assume that all of it is his. All parts of it stand or fall together, for the one true God, the triune Jehovah has pledged as a manifestation of his own glory, faithfulness, and truth to accomplish every part of it—nothing of all events and things can be omitted from the provisions of this covenant because creation, providence, and redemption all serve its end. Thus if the most lowly and meek of sinners can be assured of forgiveness, he can be denied nothing from the eternal bounties of divine mercies or the temporal goodness of his providence. "When I know I am

pardoned, then I can say all things are mine." ⁴⁰ Spurgeon exuded an exhausting amount of spiritual energy on this point and stretched his gifts to the limit in

emphasizing it.

I can look back to the dark past—all things are mine there! I can look at the present—all things are

mine here! I can look into the deep future—all things are mine there! Back in eternity, I see God

unrolling the mighty volume, and lo! In that volume I read my name. It must be there, for I am

pardoned; for whom he calls, he had first predestinated, and whom he pardons, he had first elected.

When I see that covenant roll, I say, It is mine! And all the great books of eternal purposes and infinite

decrees are mine! And what Christ did upon the cross is mine! 41

Spurgeon continued in an unrestrained accounting of all the things that the

pardoned person could count as his on the basis of the unity and immutability of the covenant. On he went through the list, giving some indications as to the purpose of each gift contained in the covenant of grace. All the wheels and circumstances of providence, afflictions, prosperity, all the promises of the Bible, the future of the earth's dissolving in a great conflagration, the great judgment, the river of death, the resurrection, and heaven—all belong to the pardoned sinner. "What though there be palaces there of crystal and of gold, that sparkle so as to dim mortal eyes; what though there be delights above even the dream of the voluptuary; what though there be pleasures which heart and flesh could not conceive, and which even spirit itself can not fully enjoy the very intoxication of bliss; what though there be sublimities unlawful for us to utter, and wonders which mortal men can not grasp; what though the Divinity hath spent itself in heaven, and doth unravel his glory to make his people blessed—all

is mine!" ⁴² The covenant not only served as the basis for coherent theological construction, but embraced every point of the shield of faith wherewith one could quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.

In his devotional study Morning and Evening the covenantal arrangements of the triune God consistently make their way into the text. For example, on

December ²⁶ for the morning Spurgeon wrote:

Jesus is the federal head of his elect. As in Adam, every heir of flesh and blood has a personal interest,

because he is the covenant head and representative of the race as considered under the law of works; so

under the law of grace, every redeemed soul is one with the Lord from heaven, since he is the Second

Adam, the Sponsor and Substitute of the elect in the new covenant of love. The apostle Paul declares

that Levi was in the loins of Abraham when Melchizedek met him: it is a certain truth that the believer

was in the loins of Jesus Christ, the Mediator, when in old eternity the covenant settlements of grace

were decreed, ratified, and made sure forever. Thus, whatever Christ hath done, he hath wrought for

the whole body of his Church. We were crucified in him and buried with him (read Col. 2:10-13) and

to make it still more wonderful, we are risen with him and even ascended with him to the seats on high

(Eph. 2:6). It is thus that the Church has fulfilled the law, and is "accepted in the beloved." It is thus

that she is regarded with complacency by the just Jehovah, for he views her in Jesus, and does not look

upon her as separate from her covenant head. As the Anointed Redeemer of Israel, Christ Jesus has

nothing distinct from his Church, but all that he has he holds for her. Adam's righteousness was ours

so long as he maintained it, and his sin was ours the moment that he committed it; and in the same

manner, all that the Second Adam is or does, is ours as well as his, seeing that he is our representative.

Here is the foundation of the covenant of grace. This gracious system of representation and

substitution, which moved Justin Martyr to cry out, "O blessed change, O sweet permutation!" this is

the very groundwork of the gospel of our salvation, and is to be received with strong faith and

rapturous joy.

The theme occupied Spurgeon's thoughts again on the morning of August ²⁶, when he commented on Psalm 111:9, "He hath commanded his covenant forever."

The Lord's people delight in the covenant itself. It is an unfailing source of consolation to them so

often as the Holy Spirit leads them into its banqueting house and waves its banner of love. They

delight to contemplate the antiquity of that covenant, remembering that before the day-star knew its

place, or planets ran their round, the interests of the saints were made secure in Christ Jesus. It is

peculiarly pleasing to them to remember the sureness of the covenant, while meditating upon "the sure

mercies of David." They delight to celebrate it as "signed, and sealed, and ratified, in all things ordered

well." It often makes their hearts dilate with joy to think of its immutability, as a covenant which

neither time nor eternity, life nor death, shall ever be able to violate—a covenant as old as eternity and

as everlasting as the Rock of ages. They rejoice also to feast upon the fulness of this covenant, for they

see in it all things provided for them. God is their portion, Christ their companion, the Spirit their

Comforter, earth their lodge, and heaven their home. They see in it an inheritance reserved and entailed

to every soul possessing an interest in its ancient and eternal deed of gift. Their eyes sparkled when

they saw it as a treasure-trove in the Bible; but oh! how their souls were gladdened when they saw in

the last will and testament of their divine kinsman, that it was bequeathed to them! More especially it

is the pleasure of God's people to contemplate the graciousness of this covenant. They see that the law

was made void because it was a covenant of works and depended upon merit, but this they perceive to

be enduring because grace is the basis, grace the condition, grace the strain, grace the bulwark, grace

the foundation, grace the top-stone. The covenant is a treasury of wealth, a granary of food, a fountain

of life, a storehouse of salvation, a charter of peace, and a haven of joy.

During the year Spurgeon encouraged spiritual growth by meditation on the covenant in seventy-two different devotions. March contained only one that spoke of the covenant while December had nine. The least amount, other than March, was four in June and August.

Sermons regularly employed the covenantal arrangement of salvation as a vital part of his proclamation. The covenant of works made with all mankind through Adam posited life, corporate life, on the basis of obedience, but death for the whole on the occurrence of disobedience. When he fell, we all fell and became inheritors of sin and heirs of wrath, bound to sin and subject to misery.

Though the covenant of redemption was made before creation within the eternal will of God appropriate to the distinct operations of each person of the Trinity, Spurgeon viewed its effectuality as dependent most significantly on the Son. In "Christ in the Covenant," he dealt with the place of Christ in the "covenant of eternal salvation" under the assumption that "Christ is the Sum and

substance of the covenant." ⁴³ He then summarized his attributes as eternal God and perfect man, his offices as prophet, priest, and king both in his humiliation and his exaltation, all the works of Christ that he did in our stead, all the fullness of the godhead in bodily form put in motion for empty sinners, the life of Christ in whom his people are hid, and the very person of Christ in his glorious, ravishing, delightful, endearing presence that contains all these other gifts and transcends them by taking us into the depths of pleasure that only may be found at his feet. Consistent with but beyond all the offices and descriptions of attributes, "the person of Christ is the covenant conveyed to you." ⁴⁴ For

Spurgeon, the Bible was a covenant book, and therefore, all its doctrines are particular distributions of the perfect covenantal provisions, both for the divine glory and human redemption.

Doing Theology Within the Bounds of Safety

Such a lofty center of theology some would convert into an excuse for passivity and pessimism. Not Spurgeon. He saw reason for action and great hope.

Scripture was filled with ideas, doctrines and motives to drive us to make our calling, and thus, our election, sure. The covenant embodied all of divinity in its rich fullness and perfect symmetry—God and man, sin, judgment, and salvation, faith and action, heaven and hell. None need overstep the established boundaries of revelation or understate the things surely revealed. If we know that where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more, we need not conclude that we magnify grace by pursuing sin. Spurgeon discovered as one of the treasures of divine revelation its power to halt the fallacious journeys of our sophomoric and sinful logic.

In a sermon on Deuteronomy 22:8, entitled "Battlements," Spurgeon expressed his view of the expositor's task in deriving theological ideas from Scripture. Battlements were placed around the roofs of houses to protect children, or inattentive adults, from falling off the roof to their death. While this implies, from the practical side, our obligation to do what we can for the temporal safety and well-being of our fellow man, its more profound application is that we not overstep designated boundaries for the spiritual and eternal safety

of our own souls and the souls of others. ⁴⁵ Spurgeon affirmed that none need fear the "most high and sublime doctrines" of divine revelation, for God had "battlemented" it. No one need fear the doctrines of election, eternal and immutable love, or any point of revelation concerning the covenant of grace. It is a high and glorious truth, a truth of clear revelation, that "God hath from the beginning chosen his people unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth." Many simpletons, however, have perverted this doctrine, perhaps some purposefully, into antinomianism, leaping over the battlements God has placed around it. Not only does God have a chosen people, but those will be known by the fruits of holiness, and their zeal for good works; not only will they be forgiven of sin, but

purged from sin. ⁴⁶ Spurgeon had already noticed, much earlier, that antinomianism prompted a reaction that led to others leaping over the battlements in the other direction. Because antinomianism, "through its perversions of truth," had made good men too wary of high doctrine, they had

"run into the opposite extremes of error." ⁴⁷ Thus ministers had begun to "prune the truth, and conceal the great distinguishing doctrines of grace, in a manner to be lamented." The result of this over-reaction was that "Arminianism lurks

among us." ⁴⁸ The same divine cautions guard the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints —"A housetop doctrine indeed!"—in that while it holds great promise and comfort for the believer, yet battlements are in place to prevent its abuse.

Spurgeon quoted Hebrews 6 and other warnings as applicable to Christians in order to show that "if the first salvation could have spent itself unavailingly, there would be no alternative, but a certain looking for of judgment and of fiery

indignation." ⁴⁹ Even so, in the doctrine of justification—the free, unmerited declaration of righteousness by which God pronounces the ungodly forgiven and esteemed as law-keepers—if no sanctification follows, then the presence of justifying faith is dubious. "Where faith is genuine, through the Holy Spirit's power, it works a cleansing from sin, a hatred of evil, an anxious desire after

holiness, and it leads the soul to aspire after the image of God." ⁵⁰ Paul and James cooperate in making sure both tower and battlement are in place. "Thus is

each doctrine balanced, bulwarked, and guarded." ⁵¹ On the matter of providence Spurgeon affirmed that "every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes." All events of creation are so controlled by divine purpose; there is a massive difference between this and fate, however, for fate is blind but providence is full of eyes. Fate operates without any personal purpose of either mercy or justice, while providence arises from the wisdom of God who "never

ordains anything without a purpose." ⁵² The Christian's involvement in ministry with reliance on the omnipotence and purposes of God, rightly seen, "never degenerates into fatalism." When one uses God's purposes as an excuse to do nothing, he has indulged a "terrible piece of mischief." Spurgeon would give way to no fatalist in his firm acceptance of "the fixity of God's decrees and the certainty of their fulfillment." But when one draws from that the inference, "therefore, I need not do anything towards the conversion of men, I do not tell him so, but I think that he is a fool." One might as well conclude that it is

unnecessary to eat, drink, breathe, and work. ⁵³ Spurgeon explained the necessity of seeking such biblically integrated doctrinal fullness as a special stewardship for the preacher. Expounding the subject of faith and regeneration in 1871, Spurgeon gave insight into the dangers and difficulties involved in this pastoral delicacy. In making "full proof of his ministry" a pastor requires much divine teaching, not only in the manner and spirit of his ministry, but also much in the matter of his ministry. "One point of difficulty," Spurgeon advised, "will be to preach the whole truth in fair proportion, never exaggerating one doctrine, never enforcing one point, at the

expense of another, never keeping back any part, nor yet allowing it undue prominence." Practical result depends on an equal balance, (symmetry and proportion as Jonathan Edwards would say), and a right dividing of the Word.

One vital doctrinal area where much depends on such proper relationship is in the positioning of the work of Christ for us, and outside of us, and the operations of the Spirit within us. "Justification by faith is a matter about which there must be no obscurity, much less equivocation; and at the same time we must distinctly and determinately insist upon it that regeneration is necessary to every soul that shall enter heaven," for Christ himself has made it essential. Spurgeon feared that "Some zealous brethren have preached the doctrine of justification by faith not only so boldly and so plainly, but also so baldly and so out of all connection with other truth, that they have led men into presumptuous confidences, and have appeared to lend their countenance to a species of antinomianism." A dead, inoperative faith should be dreaded and special attention must be given to avoiding it. To stand and proclaim, "Believe, believe, believe," without explanation as to the nature of faith, "to lay the whole stress of salvation upon faith without explaining what salvation is, and showing that it means deliverance from the power as well as from the guilt of sin, may seem to a fervent revivalist to be the proper thing for the occasion, but those who have watched the result of such teaching have had grave cause to question whether as much hurt may not be

done by it as good." ⁵⁴ At the same time, Spurgeon saw an equal danger in the other extreme. While the emphasis on the new creature as necessary to salvation is clearly biblical, "some have seen so clearly the importance of this truth that they are for ever and always dwelling upon the great change of conversion, and its fruits, and its consequences, and they hardly appear to remember the glad tidings that

whosoever believeth on Christ Jesus hath everlasting life." ⁵⁵ Some have set so high a standard of experience and have been so "exacting as to the marks and signs of a true born child of God, that they greatly discourage sincere seekers, and fall into a species of legality" that is just as necessary to be avoided as antinomian fideism. The sinner, deeply aware of his damnable failings, must never receive the impression that he is to look within for the ground of his acceptance before God, but must see clearly "the undoubted truth that true faith in Jesus Christ saves the soul, for if we do not we shall hold in legal bondage many who ought long ago to have enjoyed peace, and to have entered into the

liberty of the children of God." ⁵⁶ Spurgeon proposed that the perfectly proportioned treatment in the connection of these doctrines appears in the third chapter of John's Gospel where both the

necessity and secret sovereignty of the Spirit is taught along with the powers of simple faith in Christ. "So, too, in the chapter before us," Spurgeon said in calling his congregation's attention to John 3, "he insists upon a man's being born of God; he brings that up again and again, but evermore does he ascribe wondrous efficacy to faith; he mentions faith as the index of our being born again, faith as overcoming the world, faith as possessing the inward witness, faith as having eternal life—indeed, he seems as if he could not heap honour enough upon believing, while at the same time he insists upon the grave

importance of the inward experience connected with the new birth." ⁵⁷ As a true pastor/theologian, Spurgeon insisted, "I earnestly long that these two doctrines

may be well balanced in your souls." ⁵⁸ The matter of hating the world and loving the world also called for deep theological understanding and refined powers of discrimination. Hearing the apostle say "Love not the world," resonates with the Christian love of holiness and the glory of Christ, and he feels it to be true that "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." One expected response, therefore, is a natural and visceral detestation of the world's putrid mass of evil. Nevertheless, Christ came to such a world and has said, "Ye are the salt of the earth." We are useless to God's glory if we refuse the preserve and do not give savouryness to

the world even as a "nurse does to the little babe put into her arms."

Unless you feed it, it will die; unless you clothe it, it will starve with cold; unless you bear it in your

bosom, there is no shelter for it. The Lord has committed this poor world into the tender hand of His

Church; and the very miseries of the world make us pity it; and love it in the next degree. 59

By "next degree" Spurgeon meant that we could not love the world in its moral condition with a love of complacency but with a love of benevolence. The purposeful pursuit of such love constituted the imitation of Christ in his lamentations of concern for the hardness, blindness, and hostility of the response of Jerusalem to his works of mercy and teachings of true righteousness. "We shake our heads at the world, and as a sinful world we can only loathe it; but as a world of men with immortal souls, as a world of men that shall yet be washed cleansed, if God's Spirit go forth with us to the blessed work, we feel that we do not hate the world, after all, in that wrong sense." If indeed we are friends of

God, we must be friends of man. ⁶⁰ Spurgeon's grasp of the entirety of the redemptive narrative in breadth and depth gave him an ever-present sensitivity to the necessity of a proper relation of the dizzying variety of truths that ever leapt forth from the pages of Scripture saying, "Do not forget me." He had no sympathy for those who would press this

variety into an assertion of contradiction, nor did he look with approval on those that would harp on one without listening for the sympathetic vibrations of the strings of the other. Every part of biblical instruction exerted a defining discipline throughout the entire system, and made the conscientious doctrinal preacher work for precision in his explanation of each item of revealed truth.

Spurgeon did not so much seek balance, as if all truths must be given equal weight, but he sought the right integration with each truth being given its due proportion.

The Problems and Strengths of Systems

When Spurgeon viewed the historic conflict between Wesleyans and Calvinists, Spurgeon saw many doctrinal points in common that would allow them to continue in friendly conversation with each other. When the two systems narrowed, however, in focus and the Calvinist discussion of depravity morphed into hyper-Calvinism and Wesleyan affirmation of human responsibility shriveled into self-righteous Pelagianism, he believed some merciless deconstruction was necessary. "It is time that we had done with the old and rusty systems that have so long curbed the freeness of religious speech." Systems that are doctrinally oppressive rather than freeing aids to biblical exposition should be "broken up" to allow "sufficient grace in all our hearts to believe everything

taught in God's Word, whether it was taught by either of these men or not." ⁶¹ By saying that all systems should be broken up, Spurgeon did not reject the systematization of doctrine as contained in Holy Scripture. He believed firmly in this approach and approved it frequently in his public statements. In a review of The Age and the Gospel Spurgeon pointed to the overconfidence that Wesleyans had in their own system. When Benjamin Frankland touted Wesleyanism as the balancing position between rationalism and ritualism on the one hand and Calvinism and Unitarianism on the other, Spurgeon felt that he had opened his mouth a little too wide. Wesleyanism had been very successful in its conversion work and had held its own against the destructive modernism of the day. But beyond those truths held in common by all evangelical Christians, Spurgeon saw "nothing in the distinguishing peculiarities of its doctrine or discipline from which we could gather any strong assurance of its ultimate predominance as the

choicest form of Christianity." ⁶² His great admiration and encouragement toward Arminians focused, therefore, on truths held in common, not at all in the distinctions. On reading a biography of the Arminian apologist John Fletcher, Spurgeon remarked, "We do not sympathize with Fletcher's views in the great Calvinistic controversy, but none the less we reverence his holy character and admire his ardent zeal." ⁶³ Wesleyanism, in Spurgeon's eyes, saw too little of

"what Christ has done for us in comparison with what we are to do for him." ⁶⁴ That did not indicate any slovenly spirit about work for Christ, but that Spurgeon clearly saw the necessity of an intense Godward focus in theology.

A review of a "holiness" book brought from Spurgeon comments on the need of theology for clarity. He mused concerning the doctrinal foundation of Pearsall Smith's new school of higher life teaching. "We begin to be utterly bewildered as to what Mr. Smith's disciples are publishing, since what they teach one day

they appear to us to deny the next." Overall they are in a "mixed-up state."

Though he commended their aim at a noble mark, Spurgeon recommended "some master mind to turn it over, arrange it, label it, and let the church know what is really meant by it." One should be able to tell whether it is fish, flesh,

fowl, or "good red herring." ⁶⁵ The right integration of doctrines, "position and proportion in the faith," was essential as Spurgeon viewed the issue; the holiness and perfectionist schools muddled matters on that score. William Woods Smyth's Life and Holiness provided an aggravating example of how doctrines arranged with "unusual disproportion" profited little and confused much. "Holiness is in this author's work set forth in a manner disproportionate to faith; the love of God in the gift of his Son to the love of Christ in giving himself for us; the righteousness of sanctification to the righteousness of justification; the working out of our own salvation to the working of God in us to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Without more proportion, clarity of expression, and logical arrangement it fell

for short of its pious designs. ⁶⁶ Preaching in which no system could be discerned was unprofitable preaching.

Rhetoric or eloquence without content amounted to a "finely, gloriously,

polished nothing." ⁶⁷ Saints, as well as sinners, must hear "about the Lord Jesus Christ … my soul's welfare … the heaven that is to come, or the hell that is to be

shunned … communion with Christ, … the eternal covenant." ⁶⁸ Many can preach without ever giving a hint as to any system of divinity that they hold, so Spurgeon lamented. For they consider it the glory of the age that creeds have been cast to the wind. So it is with those that have nothing to say; but a preacher with principles soon will have a system. "It is impossible for a man to believe the things in God's Word without insensibly to himself forming a creed of some sort or other." Creeds, in Spurgeon's estimation, constituted an orderly way of laying out things more easily to communicate them to others. At least he was sure that one could hear him preach for a few times and "be pretty tolerably

acquainted with our ideas of the truth of God." ⁶⁹ So it was for sure, because Spurgeon's sermons were virtually an overflowing stream of systematic theology riveted to his soul and reaching out to his hearers with the earnest conviction that each one was responsible for a truthful and hearty response to each item of divine truth.

A marvelous example of the kind of theological arrangement he approved, Spurgeon found in Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology. In an 1872 review, he wrote that men like Hodge were valuable as well as rare. Spurgeon enjoyed seeing "the old theology rising in its wonted majesty, and clothed with its own

verdure and fruitfulness into prominence in modern times." Both sides of the Atlantic would hail its publication as a token for good. Hodge refuted attempts to bring systematic theology "into disrepute, and to substitute a more unrestrained method of interpretation in its place." New approaches in both England and Germany were "carefully analyzed and weighed in the balances and found wanting." Men of "advanced thinking" would be compelled to see that they had

no corner on intelligent reflection of the highest genius and scholarship. ⁷⁰ Spurgeon viewed the current outcry against creeds and confessions as coming "with an ill grace from those who profess to be governed by scientific principles and by a literary taste." If one viewed an account of great research from which a large number of truths had been distilled with no attempt at organization on the assumption that it is "impossible to systematize without weakening each separate truth, and frustrating the design of the whole," the observer would view this as a "serious reflection upon the author's wisdom and skill." How much greater an insult accrues to divine revelation to say it forbids any coherent organization. "Systematic theology is to the Bible what science is to nature. To suppose that all the other works of God are orderly and systematic, and the greater the work the more perfect the system; and that the greatest of all his works in which all his perfections are transcendently displayed, should have no plan or system, is altogether absurd." Faith in Scripture, if genuine and positive and abiding and consistent with itself, "must have a fixed and well-defined creed." Merely to assert that the Bible is one's creed and avoid expressing its many truths in one's own words is an empty and pointless boast. It is no better than infidelity. "Since we must have a system of truth, if our religion is in the Bible, the more perfect and enlarged that system is, the better." Hodge's work provided a good model of

such a system. ⁷¹ Fourteen years later, in 1886, Spurgeon called A. H. Strong's Systematic Theology "a remarkable body of divinity which may serve for Baptists as Hodge does for Presbyterians." He did not like it better than Hodge but found many similarities. He preferred the Princeton explanation of the atonement over the Rochester explanation, and would register a weighty exception to Strong's view of the second advent. The work, nevertheless, is useful and will add genuine manliness to the doctrinal grasp of one that will study it. He used the occasion of this review to give strong objection to the anti-theological tendency he felt around him. "The silly outcry against 'theology,' which is so common nowadays, reminds us of the babble of illiterate bumpkins against all larnin. " This was not spoken of the naïve but sincere believer but of the sophisticated rationalist that sought to debunk the historic faith by ridiculing the historic

creeds and weighty theological discussions of vitally important doctrinal issues. "If our young ministers knew more of theology" Spurgeon urged, "that is to say of the word of God —they would not be so easily duped by pretenders to knowledge, who endeavour to protect their own ignorance by crying down a thorough and systematic study of revealed truth." Strong's work was an

"invaluable Cyclopaedia." ⁷² The inculcation of systematically arranged truth in the lives of children and young people could arm against the slide into heterodoxy observed in many denominations. He would have children "taught all the great doctrines of truth, without a solitary exception," so that in their later years they will be capable of

holding them fast. ⁷³ To facilitate this he proposed catechizing as the best method and promised to make available one "reprinted as cheaply as possible."

His concern for this practice reached the level of absolute certainty as he instructed his congregation, "If we would maintain orthodoxy in our midst, and see good old Calvinistic doctrines handed down from father to son, I think we must use the method of catechizing, and endeavor with all our might to impregnate their minds with the things of God." The formal synthesis of scriptural categories involved in "catechizing of the children in the essential

doctrines of the gospel" ⁷⁴ gave witness to Spurgeon's conviction that the Bible was learned best, not in an isolated verse by verse study, but by imbibing a coherent arrangement of doctrinal ideas related to the central importance of the covenant of grace. Verse by verse exposition would then yield exponentially greater understanding of the Bible when each text is related to its proper doctrinal context, and the whole is seen in the light of Christ as the covenant head.

Spurgeon's advocacy of breaking up the systems, therefore, did not involve a negation of systematic theology or of the intrinsic coherence of Scripture. He knew from his knowledge of historical theology that straightforward biblical exposition offered the only cure to doctrinal deformities caused by uninterrupted reasoning on pet ideas. Men of greatness all showed the weakness of their humanity in peculiar areas. Zwingli, Calvin, the Puritans, and Augustine all were "creatures full of incongruities and contradictions;" all made practical and doctrinal errors in pressing a system logically instead of allowing some of its

edges to be contoured by closer submission to the biblical text. ⁷⁵ A striking example of this Spurgeon saw in Augustine. Augustine made serious errors on the "sacramentarian heresy" but is "most excellently inconsistent." He is "as clear on the doctrines of grace as if he had not been beclouded by mistaken views on baptism." On some points, Spurgeon wondered

how Augustine could ever have been listed among the Romish saints; as he read the "utter rubbish" of Augustine's sacramentalism, "we equally marvel how he could have been so mighty a teacher of grace." These errors are allowed to

become manifest that "no man may glory in men." ⁷⁶ Spurgeon also thought that it was possible to become so focused on the epitome of Calvinism as a system, that one might forget that some doctrines of genuine gospel power were not isolated to one of the five points of Calvinism. "I believe, most firmly, in the doctrines commonly called Calvinism," he affirmed, "and I hold them to be filled with comfort to God's people." Should one claim, however, that an isolation of those points is the "whole of the preaching of the Gospel, I am at issue with him." Some can preach those points without preaching the gospel, and some that do not preach those points, in fact, "to our great grief," deny those points, preach the gospel nonetheless, and "God has saved souls by their ministry." The doctrines of election, final perseverance, and so on, "go to make up a complete ministry, and are invaluable in their place," yet the "soul and marrow of the Gospel is not there," but is to be found in the great facts of the incarnation, substitutionary atonement, the operations of the Spirit, the resurrection and ascension of Christ. Paul gave the outline in 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Timothy 3. "Facts about Christ Jesus, and the promise of life through Him—these are the faith of the Gospel!" ⁷⁷

A Historical Misrepresentation

Spurgeon's careful observations about systems, theologians, Arminianism, evangelism, and the bare-boned facts of the gospel, combined with his undeniably genuine fervor for the conversion of sinners, led Kruppa to judge that "He never escaped the rhetoric of Calvinism, but he managed to extricate himself from most of Calvinism's rigors." She puts herself in the camp of A. C.

Underwood who believed that Spurgeon was caught in a "fundamental conflict between the theological demands of his Calvinism, and the emotional demands

of his evangelism." ⁷⁸ She accepted Underwood's statement that "the old Calvinistic phrases were often on Spurgeon's lips, but the genuine Calvinistic

meaning had gone out of them." ⁷⁹ An earlier biographer of Spurgeon, J. C. Carlile, sought to remodel Spurgeon along the same lines. In what can at best be viewed as a strange chapter, Carlile does all he can to blunt the perceived impact of Calvinism in Spurgeon's theology. While he views Calvin's doctrines of predestination and depravity

("one of the most terrible chapters in literature") ⁸⁰ as dark and tragic, he sought to highlight Calvin's areas of Christology, skills in biblical interpretation, the authority of the Bible, and the church as a fellowship of holiness as rightly influential on the Baptists, especially Spurgeon. Though Spurgeon used Calvinistic terms, his real joy, Carlile was confident, lay in the freeness and universality of gospel truth. "Spurgeon made the centre and soul of his teaching the love of God, revealed in the mercy of Jesus Christ;" true enough but stated in a context in which he emphasized his judgment, "Theoretically there were limits

to redemption, but practically the barriers were all taken down." ⁸¹ Though Spurgeon preached eternal punishment, and brought it home clearly with his "vivid imagination and dramatic conception," Carlile focused on Spurgeon's tears and unceasing insistence "that there was no reason why any

soul should be lost, that whosoever would trust Christ would find salvation." ⁸² Commensurate with that, Carlile observed that Spurgeon "loved to linger" over the tender aspects of the gospel, always emphasizing the invitation "whosoever will, let him come," focusing, not on the narrowness, but on the wideness of God's mercy. Carlile's presentation, the attempt of a former student that remained in the Baptist Union and served as an officer in it—his attempt, I say, to reconstruct Spurgeon, is not false as far as it goes, but de-emphasized ideas in which Spurgeon gloried, and made impotent and infertile doctrines that Spurgeon saw as vibrant and productive.

Carlile, Underwood, and Kruppa made their misjudgment that Spurgeon only

reluctantly and superficially held to traditional Calvinist vocabulary at least partly because of Spurgeon's strategic resistance to his hyper-Calvinist brethren, his personal emphasis on evangelism, and his open-hearted spirit toward nonCalvinist evangelicals. He definitely parted company with the hyper-Calvinists, but doing so did not mean that "the Calvinistic meaning had gone out of" Spurgeon's theology. The points at which they resisted him, and that therefore led to his refusal to capitulate to their criticisms, were areas in which he believed he practiced true as opposed to false Calvinism. It was not a decline from, but a loyalty to, Calvinism that engendered this fissure.

The fact that Spurgeon was evangelistic, and fervently so, demonstrated clearly elsewhere in this book, only means that he did not see Calvinism as a muffling or suffocating theology, and did not see it as a theology that minimized either the warrant for or the usefulness of a universal proclamation of the gospel.

Rather, he maximized it by seeing evangelistic proclamation as one fitting and pre-ordained element of the calling of the elect to salvation and as a presentation of the glory of God with such power that none should be exempt from approving, embracing, and finding delight in the God of the doctrines of grace. "If you come to Him, you need not trouble about the secret decrees and purposes of God," Spurgeon emphasized. "There are such decrees and purposes, but they cannot, any one of them, be contrary to the Truth which Christ so explicitly declares here, 'Him that comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.'" His declarations of sovereign purpose are true and his clearly stated promise of reception for all that come is equally true, and in the end both will all embrace the same people. But those that do not come, fail of the invitation out of their own stubborn refusal. "There is no secret purpose of God, nothing written in the great book of human destiny," Spurgeon clearly and insistently preached, "nothing in the mysteries of eternity which can ever make this declaration of

Christ untrue to you, or anyone else!" ⁸³ Spurgeon had a real conviction that Reformation Calvinism filtered through Puritan pastoral theology manifests itself most purely in an evangelistic presentation of the gospel. "The doctrines of grace and Puritanic practice are not attractive to the flesh," Spurgeon reasoned, "but they are safe, they have been long tried, and their end is peace." These teachings constitute the "good way, made by a good God in infinite goodness to his creatures, paved by our Lord Jesus Christ with pains and labours immeasurable, and revealed by the good Spirit to those whose eternal good he seeks. It is the way of holiness, of peace, of

safety, and it leads to heaven." ⁸⁴ Spurgeon professed not to be ignorant of the novelties of modern thought and did not reverence mere antiquity, but he

insisted that "the doctrines of grace are the marrow of the Gospel, and that the further men advance upon the teaching of Jonathan Edwards, Bunyan, Calvin,

Augustine, and Paul, the further they go astray." ⁸⁵ Perhaps intensifying their misjudgment on this point is the manner of Spurgeon's practice of setting forth Christ as the only hope of all sinners in making an earnest and passionate plea for all his hearers to come to Christ with the personal assurance, biblically founded, that he will turn away none that come. On at least five separate occasions, Spurgeon preached on John 6:37 with the emphasis of Christ's willingness to save the worst of sinners, the utter dregs of mankind. He pledged to stop preaching if Christ would not receive them. "If it were ascertained that one soul came to Christ and yet He had cast him away, what would happen?" Spurgeon asked. "Why, there are thousands of us who would never preach again! For one, I would have done with the business."

Should Christ refuse one he could not "with a clear conscience, go and preach

from His Words, 'Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.'" ⁸⁶ If theology justifies the warrant to present Christ to all sinners with the assurance that if they repent and believe in Christ he will save them, the infinite and eternal issues at stake in this presentation warrant an insistent and passionate presentation. Christ's inexhaustible power and God's own character are on the line. In former days, even the devils might taunt, he saved harlots, and publicans and "sinners came and gathered about Him and He spoke to them in tones of love." But now one is come that is too vile for the Savior's grace! Jesus could not restore and cleanse him. Once he made a fine show but now but his power is exhausted. Spurgeon disclosed the horror of such a thought to him by exclaiming, "Oh, in the halls of Hell, what jests and ridicule would be poured upon that dear name and, I had almost said, justly, if Christ cast out one who

came to Him!" But that can never be, for God's oath is as sure as his being. ⁸⁷ Following an urgent argument that no filthy and begrimed sinner need consider himself outside the circle of those that Christ would receive, coming just as they are, Spurgeon placed his own eternal well-being alongside theirs, taking an

anathema to himself if Jesus refused to receive them.

Sinner, trust in Jesus: and if thou dost perish trusting in Jesus, I will perish with thee. I will make my

bed in hell, side by side with thee, sinner, if thou canst perish trusting in Christ, and thou shalt lie there,

and taunt me to all eternity for having taught thee falsely, if we perish. But that can never be; those

who trust in Jesus shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand. Come to Jesus, and

He will in no wise cast thee out. 88

On the third matter, Spurgeon's openness to non-Calvinist evangelicals, he felt true fellowship with these brethren, especially in light of so much ritualism and

rationalism in other forms of Christian profession, and found no reason to provoke controversy with those that "equally hold by the atonement, the fall of man, regeneration by the Spirit of God, and justification by faith" and do not leave those doctrines as moot questions. Both Toplady and Wesley appealed to Spurgeon, though both showed great bitterness and denunciatory rhetoric toward each other. Both had equal "sweetness as to love to Jesus and devotion to the cause of the gospel." Spurgeon claimed to be "almost, if not altogether, of Toplady's mind in matters of doctrine," but nonetheless deprecated "the mode of warfare which led him to speak of John Wesley as 'an old Fox tarr'd and

feathered'." ⁸⁹ Rancor from the other side would be equally as verbose and energetic. Spurgeon worked to maintain both his distinctive theology as well as his friendship with believers that were zealous for souls and humbly and lovingly submissive to Christ. As shown elsewhere, he did not approve their distinctive theological ideas, but only those that were the shared commitments of all evangelicals.

His evangelical catholicity showed with particular strength in his relation with D. L. Moody. Here we can point to Spurgeon's focus on central evangelistic truth as sufficient for cooperation and encouragement of godly and zealous brethren. "Brother, do you desire God's Glory?" Spurgeon would ask. Hearing a positive note, he would respond, "So do I!" He continued, "Do you desire the salvation of souls? So do I!" And to clarify his concern that this salvation is seen through that central truth of the gospel, he asked, "Brother, do you preach salvation by the precious blood? So do I!" And still another important point of agreement, "Brother, do you believe in regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit? So do I!" Once more, "Do you tell sinners to believe and live? That is

exactly what I am telling them." ⁹⁰ When Moody and his associates were criticized for the simplicity of their conversionist message, Spurgeon's ire soared against such impertinent objections: "So far as salvation through faith in the atoning blood is concerned, they preach nothing but what we have preached all our lives! They preach nothing but what has the general consent of Protestant

Christendom." ⁹¹ The presence of saving truth in a sincere and zealous heart, free of corrupting error and heresy, would endear a man and his ministry to Spurgeon even without the depth and beauty and power of a clear display of the doctrines of grace.

True Theology is Rightly Integrated Theology

In preaching on the Bible, Spurgeon mentioned that though all things in the Bible are important, there are epitomes of truth around which all other things revolve. One of the ways of presenting these summary truths was in the form of the three Rs—ruin, redemption, and regeneration. He told Sabbath School teachers, "Be sure whatever you leave out, that you tell them of the three Rs, Ruin, Regeneration, and Redemption." They are ruined by the fall, and if they are redeemed by Christ, Spurgeon put it, "they can never know until they are

regenerated by the Spirit." ⁹² Beyond that, Spurgeon believed that "there is a better epitome in the five points of Calvinism;—Election according to the foreknowledge of God; the natural depravity and sinfulness of man; particular redemption by the blood of Christ; effectual calling by the power of the Spirit; and ultimate perseverance by the efforts of God's might." He followed that list with the statement, "I think that all those need to be believed, in order to

salvation." ⁹³ In his sermon "The Sum and Substance of all Theology" Spurgeon argued that preachers should not avoid declaring the pre-mundane election of individuals to salvation while proclaiming, at the same time, the openness to all of the gospel

call. His definition of election shows no halt in Spurgeon's step at all.

The doctrine of Election is God's purposing in His heart that He would make some men better than

other men; that He would give to some men more grace than to other men; that some should come out

and receive the mercy; that others, left to their own free will, should reject it; that some should gladly

accept the invitations of mercy, while others, of their own accord, stubbornly refuse the mercy to

which the whole world of mankind is invited. All men, by nature, refuse the invitations of the gospel.

God, in the sovereignty of His grace, makes a difference by secretly inclining the hearts of some men,

by the power of His Holy Spirit, to partake of His everlasting mercy in Christ Jesus. I am certain that,

whether we are Calvinists or Arminians, if our hearts are right with God, we shall all adoringly testify:

"We love Him, because He first loved us." If that be not Election, I know not what it is. 94

Nor was Spurgeon hesitant about the obligation, and great privilege, of preaching this truth. Spurgeon knew of Baptists, excellent brethren, who never preached this "precious and glorious doctrine" and of others, excellent brethren, that dwelt solely on the five distinctive doctrines of Calvinism. "They have a kind of barrel-organ that only plays five tunes, and they are always repeating them." The former believe that these biblical ideas are not good for the pulpit, particularly in a mixed assembly. Spurgeon protested that this idea was "very wicked" and that there was no such thing as an unmixed assembly. The Bible was sent into a mixed world, and the gospel is to be preached everywhere to every creature. To a Welsh audience he proclaimed: "Yes," they say, "preach the

gospel, but not these special truths of the gospel; because, if you preach these doctrines, the people will become antinomians and Hyper-Calvinists." Not so; the reason why people become Hyper-Calvinists and antinomians, is because some, who profess to be Calvinists, often keep back part of the truth, and do not, as Paul did, "declare all the counsel of God"; they select certain parts of Scripture, where their own particular views are taught, and pass by other aspects of God's truth. Such preachers as John Newton, and in later times, your own Christmas Evans, were men who preached the whole truth of God; they kept back nothing that God has revealed; and, as the result of their preaching, antinomianism could not find a foot-hold anywhere. We should have each doctrine of Scripture in its proper place, and preach it fully; and if we want to have a genuine revival of religion, we must preach these doctrines of Jehovah's sovereign grace again and again. Do not tell me they will not bring revivals.

There was but one revival that I have ever heard of, apart from Calvinistic doctrine, and that was the one in which Wesley took so great a part; but then George Whitefield was there also to preach the whole Word of God. When people are getting sleepy, if you want to arouse and wake them up thoroughly, preach the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty to them; for that will do it right

speedily. ⁹⁵ An American publisher of Spurgeon's sermons in introducing his sermon on the "Blood of the Everlasting Covenant", preached in 1859, noted that Spurgeon was a "sincere high Calvinist of the old puritanic school, holding the personal election of the saints by the sovereign good pleasure of God, wholly aside from the creature; and as sincere a hater of all free-will Arminianism, technically so

called." ⁹⁶ That Spurgeon was a "hater" of Arminianism at this point in his ministry might not be far from the truth. He loved Arminians as sincere persons and loved the emphasis on Christ that they shared in common with him, but he truly abominated the distinctive elements of their doctrine. "The Arminian holds the unnatural, cruel, barbarous idea, that a man may be God's child, and then God may unchild him because he does not behave himself." This was not the God of the covenant that Spurgeon saw in Scripture; it was another God. "I do not serve the God of the Arminians at all; I have nothing to do with him, and I do not bow down before the Baal they have set up; he is not my God, nor shall

he ever be; I fear him not, nor tremble at his presence." ⁹⁷ God never will cast away any of his elect; they are his by covenant with Christ himself as their representative and mediator. God cannot abrogate his covenant or break his promise. "If one of them for whom the Saviour died might be damned, then might the Saviour's blood be utterly void and vain." ⁹⁸ The Arminian attempt to

tame God, in Spurgeon's view, created an idol unworthy of respect and adoration.

Not only was theirs another God, their gospel was another gospel, at least in its peculiarities. "Good God!" Spurgeon exclaimed, "and do any persons teach that men can be quickened by the Spirit, and yet that quickening Spirit has not power enough to keep them? Do they teach that God forgives, and then condemns? Do they teach that Christ stands surety for a man, and yet that man is damned himself on his own responsibility?" Spurgeon had not learned Christ in that way and felt that such concepts were derogatory to divinity and dishonorable to the Savior. His substitution was an "actual, real, effectual deed."

It produced positive deliverance, for Christ paid a penalty that God cannot exact twice. If Christ discharged the debt, the debt is discharged and cannot be revived. If sin was imputed to Christ, then did he suffer for it and "heaven itself can not accuse the sons of God any more of sin." Is this bold or presumptuous?

Did not Paul himself say it, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's

elect, if God hath justified and Christ hath died?" ⁹⁹ To those that taught otherwise Spurgeon could only say, "Go, ye who believe in another gospel, and

seek comfort. Yours is not the justification of the blessed God." ¹⁰⁰ If Spurgeon eventually became less exaggerated in his statement of disgust with the leading peculiarities of Arminiansim, he was no less convinced or less clear in his portrayal of Calvinism as truth, the only saving truth. Perplexity over Spurgeon's transparent, even aggressive, Calvinism alongside his fever-pitch evangelism ran high in virtually everyone but himself. Divine sovereignty did not seem a hindrance to him but an aperture to freedom and a sure promise of success in the most aggressive and innovative gospel preaching ventures in England. From the first to the last of his ministry Spurgeon never hesitated in affirming the complete consistency of these biblical truths, and if we might struggle with gaining clarity concerning their consistency, we could be convinced that no final contradiction in fact existed. Others noted Spurgeon's view, felt uncomfortable with it themselves, but knew that he had no difficulty.

An early (1857) sympathizer with Spurgeon pointed out that "his success in winning souls to the cross," came precisely at the point of his "open and

uncompromising declaration of the doctrines in question." ¹⁰¹ When the Scottish lawyer, political theorist, historian, and philosopher James Mackintosh observed that the more ardent Christianity became, the more closely it approached to the Calvinistic form, Spurgeon's supporter, G. N. Hervey, explained the

philosophical difficulty.

To a mere philosopher, it might indeed seem strange, that a system which ascribes so much to the

divine sovereignty and grace, and whose practical workings seem to him to be intended to waste the

energies of the soul in the barren contemplation of what was in the Infinite mind before the world was,

and to paralyze all its moral powers, by leading it to brood over its own helplessness—that such a

system should, in its actual operation, rouse it to the most strenuous endeavors to obtain the free and

unmerited gift of salvation. 102

In Spurgeon's ministry and personal life, these doctrines produced all the positive benefits with none of the philosophically tortured difficulties. He felt that this should be so with everyone. In February 1874 Spurgeon published an article entitled "The Present Position of Calvinism in England." He was responding to an article by the Congregationalist Dale in which he stated that "Calvinism would be almost obsolete among Baptists were it not still maintained

by the powerful influences of Mr. Spurgeon." ¹⁰³ This was not an isolated judgment by Dale, because in 1881 he repeated the assertion, claiming "Mr. Spurgeon stands alone among the modern leaders of Evangelical Nonconformists in his fidelity to the older Calvinistic creed." On that occasion, in 1881, Spurgeon responded "If it be so, we are sorry to hear it, and we pray

God that it may not long be true." ¹⁰⁴ In 1874, however, Spurgeon was more sure that Dale's observation was not true. While admittedly flattering to his vanity, Spurgeon did not believe it, and set out to demonstrate the healthy condition of Calvinism among the Baptists.

He accepted without question the appellation, called it "eminently descriptive, though not perfectly so", for he was a good many things in addition to being a Calvinist. The Calvinism which it was Spurgeon's delight to preach was not obsolete but "growingly operative upon the minds of a large section of Christian

people." ¹⁰⁵ Spurgeon argued that the Calvinism of Owen, Charnock, Bunyan, Newton, Whitefield, Romaine, and "others of that class" was alive and well and provided the common matter for the sermons of men in the Baptist Union.

Ironically, Spurgeon could attest that "Among the ministers of the Baptist denomination, there was never greater attachment to evangelical principles than at this moment, and those principles are more or less flavoured with the Calvinism now under discussion." Even among the General Baptists, Spurgeon contended that they "give more prominence to the grace of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Godward side of salvation" and have among their

membership "a considerable proportion of lovers of the doctrines of grace." ¹⁰⁶ Friendly bantering between the two camps of Baptists indicated to Spurgeon that both were more content to allow the text to speak rather than to contend for the peculiarities of the respective confessions and the confrontive doctrinal angularities that arose in a time of contention and dispute. Overall, Spurgeon

summarized, "If the sermons now preached in Baptist pulpits could all be printed, they would be found to contain vastly more of what we call Calvinism than they did twenty years ago." Party names were less prominent, but "the essence and spirit of that side of truth which has for brevity's sake been called Calvinistic, are more powerful among us now than they ever were at any previous part of the century." If Arminian Baptists had biblical emphases that were ignored by earlier Calvinists, then it is good that some movement in that direction has occurred; "We have certainly not thrown away the Five Points," Spurgeon assured the readers, "but we may have gained other five." Many readers of his sermons, all of which contain that "dreadful Calvinism," were found among the General Baptists as well as the Wesleyans, and some of the best preachers of grace are among the Wesleyans. The real despisers of Calvinism were not to be found among the solid earnest experiential Christians of any denomination but among the "superfine pens of literary men" who know

"less of real religion than any other class in society." ¹⁰⁷ Like Mackintosh, he observed that Calvinism and ardency in religion went hand in hand.

Spurgeon's celebration of real Christianity wherever he saw it, merely argues for the breadth of his affection for all the redeemed, for those whom Christ had claimed as his own, and not for any muting of his understanding of historical Calvinism or softening of his commitment to all of its leading distinctive doctrines. Just for good measure, he felt he should assure his readers of his clear

commitment to the evangelical power of Calvinist doctrine.

Those who labour to smother "Calvinism" will find that it dies hard, and, it may be, they will come,

after many defeats, to perceive the certain fact that it will outlive its opponent. Its funeral oration has

been pronounced many times before now, but the performance has been premature. It will live when

the present phase of religious misbelief has gone down to eternal execration amid the groans of those

whom it has undone. To-day it may be sneered at; nevertheless, it is but yesterday that it numbered

among its adherents the ablest men of the age; and tomorrow, it may be, when once again there shall

be giants in theology, it will come to the front, and ask in vain for its adversaries. Calvinism, pure, and

simple, is but one form of Evangelism; it is not perfect, for it lacked some of the balancing truths of the

system which arose as a remonstrance against its mistakes, but still it contains within it so large a

measure of divinely immortal truth that it will never die. "Modern thought" is but the thistle-down

upon the hill-side; the wind shall carry it away, but the primeval mount of "Calvinism," which is none

other than Pauline or Christian doctrine, shall stand fast for aye. 108

More than a decade later, 1885, Spurgeon reviewed The Life of John Calvin by W. Wileman, a friendly portrait of Calvin who had had his share of hostile presentations. For good measure, Spurgeon opined, "We do not believe that Calvinism is dead, but on the contrary we believe that its essential spirit permeates all Evangelical Christendom." It may seem out of style for a while, but within twenty years the tide of opinion will change. That is a small matter,

however, for it is "far more to the point that the doctrine is true, and can never be

crushed out while Holy Scripture remains." ¹⁰⁹ In a conscious demonstration of his catholicity of spirit as well as his unflinching commitment to Calvinism, Spurgeon reviewed The Other Side of Things by Wickham Tozer, a popular Congregationalist preacher and writer with a lively style and an imaginative approach to his subjects. In the preface to this work he had written, "Men differ in their capacities as widely as they do in their prejudices … Calvin had a clear head and a cold heart. John Wesley had a warm heart and an uncommon understanding. The former originated the system known

as Calvinism, and the latter destroyed it—gave it its death blow." ¹¹⁰ Though impressed with the book overall, Spurgeon was amused, and amazed, at this particular claim, and countered, "Calvinism was never in better heart than now, and its power over human minds will increase as time rolls on, for although it does not comprehend all truth, it takes so clear a view of the Godward side of it, that it must abide." Spurgeon then invited Mr. Tozer to look at the "other side"

of Calvinism. ¹¹¹ That which Spurgeon resisted was the epitomization of a singular idea from Scripture and using it to form a system unforgivingly consistent with that leading idea to the exclusion of other equally clear biblical propositions. This is what he meant when he viewed changes among the General Baptists and noted the possibility that he had gone down to them as much as they had come up to him. "If truth lies in the valley between the two camps, or if it comprehends both, it is well for us to follow it wherever it goes." He did not want a metaphysical system constructed from a narrow reading of the text, but a fully coherent system in which each biblical truth had its proper place, each portion of revelation feeding one's perception of the whole and unleashing the fullness of God's selfdisclosure.

At the laying of the first stone of the Tabernacle in 1859, Spurgeon introduced one of the hyper-Calvinist brethren that had been friendly rather than ornery toward him. In his introduction he referred briefly to that conflict by saying, "I have been treated somewhat severely by that class of Brethren who are exceedingly strong in their Calvinism." They suspected him of being a great heretic. He confessed it to be so "if it is heresy to judge of the Scriptures as God the Holy Spirit gives me ability and not to bend myself to the dictates of man!"

His own experience of the depravity of the human heart had confirmed him as "a High Calvinist in the best sense of that term." He was not bitter towards others and loved "to preach the fullness of the decree of God." At the same time, he loved "so to preach it that I may combine it with practical exhortation and

fullness of precept." ¹¹² If a person viewed total depravity in a way that diminished the true guilt and human responsibility for sin, his system opposed the Bible. If one constructed divine sovereignty in election in such a way as to render inoperable the appointed use of means and the legitimacy of calling on sinners to repent of sin, the Bible opposed him. If one viewed effectual calling as closing the mouth of a preacher in calling on sinners to trust in Christ with the promise that, if they would, he would receive them and save them, his doctrine sidestepped biblical practice. If one viewed God's preservation of his elect as indicative that the persevering quest for holiness on the part of the believer was presumptuous and mere legality, his system was a corpse. If one taught the doctrine of indwelling sin and consequently insisted that mortification of sin was futile and unnecessary for sanctification, he must be sure to correct the apostles in heaven. Spurgeon's Calvinism affirmed the first in each case and did not deny the second.

A robust view of divine providence secured this holistic and integrated approach to doctrine. He wanted his people to observe how the "hand of God's providence causes little things to lead on to great matters." If Saul is to be led into the path of the prophet, beasts of burden must be lost and searched for in the ordinary way of duty. The wild will of asses brought Saul to Ramah and Samuel. "Hence it is most important for us to learn that the smallest trifles are as much arranged by the God of providence as the most startling events." God not only counts the stars, but the hairs of our head; not only are our lives and deaths predestinated, but our downsittings and uprisings. The events that shall be emblazoned on the eventual pages of history are not more providential that the fall of a grain of wheat, the leap of a fish, the trickle of a dew-drop, or the flight

of a swallow. ¹¹³ Everything moves in its proper sphere according to its own nature, including the will and interactions of man, but all respond to the decree of providence.

God's hand is as much in "each stone of our pathway as in the revolutions of the earth." Often he saves in extraordinary ways just to show that all the power and the prerogative is his, and grace is utterly free. Often he saves those that have sought salvation for a long time, in order to encourage seekers by the truth that he may be found. It is foolish to believe that salvation will come without the use of means. Even in the most remarkable interventions of divine sovereignty in salvation, ordained means have been employed, and, so, "remarkable cases must never be used as a reason why we are not to do all that we can to bring sinners to

Christ." ¹¹⁴ Instruments are channels for sovereign grace.

When Spurgeon could be of aid to a preacher of the gospel by influencing him

to retain his hold on the doctrines of grace and preach them as truth, he saw it as a reason to be glad. He received a letter from an American reader in 1881 relating an incident in a pastor's life in which Spurgeon had been the key stimulant. The pastor went to England with the purpose of attending services in many churches to hear all the "men of note" in London. Upon arriving he learned that Spurgeon was to speak one afternoon in a nearby hotel. The visiting pastor heard Spurgeon and suspended his plans to hear others, and for six weeks followed Spurgeon's trail of preaching wherever he went, both in the Tabernacle and at special meetings. "Your vindication of God's grace," the informant reported, "and advocacy of his sovereignty in salvation, and your clear presentation of faith and assurance so filled him, and confirmed his own views of divine truth that he returned to his own country strong in the Lord and in the power of his might." Like Spurgeon, the visitor was a champion of orthodoxy in his own American setting, "providing a striking contrast to the vapid utterances of the humanitarians and sentimentalists who abound in all our cities," and in being "truly a witness to the sufficiency of the Atonement, and a noble opposer of that science falsely so-called which belittles the word of Revelation." Though so like minded, he was too modest to introduce himself to Spurgeon. ¹¹⁵

God's Truth is Our Truth

Given Spurgeon's commitment to proportion and symmetry as well as systematic arrangement in the preacher's doctrinal calling, one should not be surprised at his efforts to show the internal implicit nexus of relations in the doctrines of the Christian faith, and their particular coherence as manifestations of the covenant of grace. His sermons demonstrate his commitment to coherence and integration, indeed to the singularity of truth, in two ways. First he put every doctrine in its proper place and showed how each was related to the others in a way consistent with the revealed character and purpose of God. Second, he consistently sought an infusion of these doctrines, so integrated, into the experience of God's people.

Preaching on "God in the Covenant," Spurgeon assured the listener that the coherence of both truth and experience found expression in the provisions of the new covenant. "And if any blessing is in the Covenant," he contended, "I am as certain to receive that blessing as if I already grasped it in my hands—for the

promise of God is sure to be followed by fulfillment!" ¹¹⁶ Covenantal provision, manifest in revelation by promise, conveys the whole in any of its parts. It is made sure in the eternal purpose of God and secured in all secured in the covenantal promise, "I will be their God." The Christian must lay hold on this, for in that promise, that is, in God himself, all blessings reside, and he himself is their blessing. He has elected, justified, adopted, granted hope, and made himself the guarantee that all present needs shall be provided. His promise to be the God of his people is a "very sea of bliss, a very ocean of delight." In it the Christian may bathe his spirit, may swim to eternity and never find a shore, may dive "to the very infinite and never find a bottom." God's immutable promise purposes to make one's eyes sparkle, his foot dance, and his heart beat high with bliss. The objective certainty of these blessings comes into human experience in the effectual call of God. Though many of the aspects of God's activities are met with coldness and unbelief, his determination to bestow the blessings of the covenant cannot be resisted. "The effectual working of the Holy Ghost with the determination to save, could not be resisted, unless you suppose God overcome by his creatures, and the purpose of Deity frustrated by the will of man, which were to suppose something akin to blasphemy." God has made a covenant within

himself, and will not fail to bring it to effect. ¹¹⁷ Most indicative of the immediate relation that the eternal covenant has to the experience of the elect is the doctrine of justification. Spurgeon linked its objective reality to Christian experience when he said, concerning faith, "Still to us personally one of the most wonderful of its effects is that it brings us

justification and consequent peace." ¹¹⁸ Objective peace with God must precede peace of soul. Conscience could never rest as long as any well-founded fear existed that God might justly withdraw his favor. But according to Spurgeon's proclamation of the Reformed doctrine of justification, no fear need intrude, because nothing can remove from the elect the forgiveness procured by the blood of the God-man Jesus Christ. In the vindication of justice, we find the magnification of mercy, resulting in the strange combination of words, a just forgiveness. "Strange fusion of vehement Grace and vindictive wrath!"

Spurgeon exclaimed, punctuating this point with a quick assertion of orthodox Christology, soteriology, and divine attributes in a call to the congregation to wonder: "Behold how Judgment and Mercy have linked hands together in the

Person of the dying, bleeding, rising Son of God!" ¹¹⁹ More extended expositions of the doctrinal interweavings of justification bolstered these rapid volleys of admonition and amazement. "The point wherein faith comes into contact with pardon," Spurgeon explained, "is when faith believes that the Son of God did come and stand in the sinner's place." Accepting and resting in substitution as a divine gift allows the sinner to reason, as Spurgeon used the image of the dawning of truth on the conscience of a seeker: "Now I see how God is just, and smites Christ in my place. Seeing He condemned me before I had personally sinned, because of Adam's sin, I see how He can absolve me, though I have no righteousness, because of Christ's righteousness." By another he fell and by another he rises. "By one Adam I was destroyed: by another Adam am I restored! I see it! I leap for joy as I see it and I accept it as from the Lord."

120

The same truth he put in more formal theological and confessional language in another sermon. "Notice," Spurgeon explained simply and concisely, "how this great work is done." The single word, substitution, suffices. "As the first Adam stood before God as the representative and federal head of the whole human race, and as it was by his sin that our whole race fell, it became possible for God to regard our race as a whole and to find for us another Adam who would come and stand in our place and represent us as the first Adam did." In the first Adam we fell, so in the second we are raised. "That second Adam is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, the Lord from Heaven," who upon earth "kept the Law of God in every jot and tittle and has woven a righteousness

which covers the sinner from head to foot." ¹²¹ Spurgeon needed to go further, however, to seal this truth to the experience of his needy sheep. When such a guilty one has acknowledged the justness of his condemnation, and also accepted it as put upon another, he may take his place as no longer liable to that sentence of death. "The penalty cannot be exacted twice.

It were neither in accord with human or Divine righteousness that two individuals should be punished for the same offense unless both were guilty."

The substitute of the guiltless Surety brought exemption to the guilty sinners.

With forceful rhetoric Spurgeon sealed the point with certitude: "That Jesus should suffer vicariously and yet those for whom He paid the quittance in drops of blood should obtain no acquittal could not be!" The eternal intent of such a substitution gave unending delight to Spurgeon and showed the inexhaustible storehouse of divine wisdom and loving-kindness in conjunction with immutable

holiness and justice.

When God laid sin upon Christ, it must have been in the intent of His heart that He would never lay it

on those for whom Christ died. So then, there standeth the man who was once guilty, but he is no more

condemned because another has taken upon Him the condemnation to which he was exposed. Still

more, inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ came voluntarily under the Law, obeyed the Law, fulfilled the

Law and made it honorable according to the Infinite purpose and will of God, the righteousness of

Christ is imputed to the believer. While Christ stands in the sinner's place, the believing sinner stands

in Christ's place. As the Lord looked upon Christ as though He had been a sinner, though He was no

sinner, and dealt with Him as such, so now the Lord looks upon the believing sinner as though he were

righteous, though, indeed, he has no righteousness of his own; and He loves him, and delights in his

perfect comeliness, regarding him as covered with the mantle of his Redeemer's righteousness and as

having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing! 122

Only by this are sinners justified, and when so justified the soul may have a settled peace. "The Lord has not winked at sin. He has not treated sin as if it were a trifle. The Lord has punished transgression and iniquity. The rod has been made to fall and the blessed shoulders of our Lord have been made to smart

under the infliction." ¹²³ No flaw either in his suffering or his righteousness can be found. This massive operation of wise, just grace accrues to the sinner's account through faith. "God's plan, my Friend," Spurgeon explained, "is that you should hide yourself in Christ." As the Israelite laid his hands on the sacrificial animal under the Mosaic dispensation, so the sinner consents to Christ's bearing all and being all for him. He places his sin where God long ago

laid it. ¹²⁴ Unless the sinner comes with such unhalting reliance, the doctrine does him no good. To believe is not merely to receive a set of doctrines as true and "say that such and such a creed is yours, and then to put it on the shelf and forget it. To believe is to trust, to confide, to depend upon, to rely upon, to rest

in." ¹²⁵ All the effectuality of such belief rests, however, not in itself, but in the object of such trust.

Inextricably connected with justification other doctrines move in streams flowing in and out so that all the streams mix and none can be seen to flow without the influx of water from each of the others. No justification could be

hoped for apart from One whose obedience and honor render God's mercy toward us consistent with his own immutable justice. Spurgeon viewed orthodox Christology as necessary to the doctrine of justification. He affirmed the deity of Christ as a manifestation of divine immutability. "When Christ in past years did gird Himself with mortal clay, the essence of His divinity was not changed— flesh did not become God, nor did God become flesh by a real actual change of nature." The orthodox language was employed to affirm the mystery of two natures in one person. "The two [that is, humanity and deity] were united in hypostatical union, but the Godhead was still the same." His deity in the manger was no less in essence or activity than it was "when He stretched the curtains of Heaven." When the blood of his humanity "flowed down in a purple river," he still was that "self-same God that holds the world upon His everlasting shoulders and bears in His hands the keys of death and Hell." The incarnation produced no change in his essence; "He remains everlastingly, eternally, the one unchanging

God." ¹²⁶ Spurgeon looked at the union of the Eternal Son of God with genuine humanity as essential both for the ontological elevation of humanity and for redemption. For these results, the humanity must be real. "Our Lord's Manhood

was no phantasm, no myth, no mere appearance in human shape." ¹²⁷ Every aspect of his life showed the reality of his flesh, his human spirit, his human emotions, and his human dependence on the work of the Spirit and the will of his Father. Spurgeon's oratorical skills soared to their highest when he considered

the purpose of the manhood of the Christ.

O you whose loving eyes have looked upon the ensanguined rills which gush from the wounds of your

bleeding Lord and have delighted to behold the Lily of the Valleys reddened into the Rose of Sharon

with the crimson of His own blood—you can see God in Christ as you behold rocks rending, the sun

darkened and the dead arising from their tombs at the moment of His departure from the earth! Behold

in the writhing form of the Crucified Man the vengeance and the love of God, nor less behold Divine

power sustaining the load of human guilt, and Divine compassion enduring such agonies for rebels so

ill deserving. Truly this Son of Man was also the Son of God! 128

God's assuming human nature gave a true union of humanity with the Godhead and elevated it to a position beyond the intrinsically superior angelic beings. "What do you think of a Man who was in union with the God who is a consuming fire?" This truth indeed is great "if you consider the great honor which is thereby conferred upon manhood" by God's assuming "the nature of man into union with Himself." This gives humanity the preeminence among creatures, even above those angelic flames of fire that are ever before the throne of God. "Behold, and be astonished—a worm is preferred—a rebellious child of

the earth is chosen! Human nature is espoused into oneness with the Divine!

There is no gulf between God and redeemed man at this hour. God is first, over all, blessed forever, but next comes man in the Person of the Man Christ Jesus."

129

Superior to ontological blessings, however, for fallen creatures is the divine purpose in redemption. Spurgeon called on hearers to wonder. "My Brothers and Sisters, the mystery appears greatest of all because it is so nearly connected with our eternal redemption." No putting away of sin by vicarious suffering would have been possible "if God had not become Incarnate." Sin is not removed except by atonement, and no atonement could be made except by One "of like nature to those who had offended." Death came by man and the resurrection must come by man. Jesus took human nature in order to take "the sins of His

people upon Himself" and offer a propitiation for them. ¹³⁰ The dying Redeemer is the focus of all human history. All the ages meet in Calvary for in this event "Jesus is the central Sun of all events." One can never exhaust the wonder that "God should put Himself into the place of His offending creature, and in the Person of His dear Son should offer to eternal justice a compensation for the insults which sin had cast upon law and rule!" When considered in the dimensions of wisdom, mercy, power, and purpose, "there is no greatness in Heaven or earth if it is not here in the bleeding flesh of Jesus, the

Son of God!" ¹³¹ More than obvious it is that a particular view of human sin is presupposed in the doctrines of atonement and justification. Adam as federal head of humanity has brought the entire race under condemnation. "The fall of Adam was our fall; we fell in him and with him," Spurgeon often repeated; "we were equal sufferers; it is the ruin of our own house that we lament, it is the destruction of

our own city that we bemoan." ¹³² That federal standing, in Spurgeon's development of sin, more closely relates to justification than does our corruption. Corruption is an element of our punishment and relates more directly to regeneration in a comprehensive view of salvation. Flowing from the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, are sins that must be forgiven, sins that are damning and must be covered by the blood and righteousness of Christ; but the source of which is dealt with by an internal and effectual operation of the Spirit.

Spurgeon thus viewed human depravity as a fundamental biblical doctrine that, once apprehended, put in place all facets of redemptive truth. None could deny any other aspect of the doctrines of grace if human sinfulness was viewed in its proper weight. The Arminian, by leaving some remnant of free will by which a sinner may and must lift himself to faith, "diminishes the desperate

character of the fall of man." ¹³³ Should God provide all in salvation except the will to believe, then all of what he has done might as well not have been done, for the sinner is just as impotent to do the step of faith as complete the righteousness of the law, or provide an atonement for himself. "And if God does require of the sinner—dead in sin," Spurgeon explained, "that he should take the first step, then he requireth just that which renders salvation as impossible under the gospel as ever it was under the law, seeing man is as unable to believe as he is to obey, and is just as much without power to come to Christ as he is without

power to go to heaven without Christ." ¹³⁴ The antinomian, who believes that man's inability renders his responsibility to believe null and void, also misstates the issue of depravity. "But once get the correct view," Spurgeon conceived, "that man is utterly fallen, powerless, guilty, defiled, lost condemned, and you

must be sound on all points of the great gospel of Christ." ¹³⁵ Depravity then becomes, in Spurgeon's perspective, a source of coherent development of doctrine.

That depravity involved utter dependence as well as utter guilt infused Spurgeon's preaching with an intensity of Edwardsean proportions in his utterances of the divine prerogative over depraved humanity. The curse is universal not only in its condemning verdict but in its corrupting power. "It is an awful thought," Spurgeon groaned, "that the trail of the serpent is on the whole earth; that the poison is in the fountain of every heart, that the stream of the

blood in all our veins is corrupt; that we are all condemned." ¹³⁶ And though universal in both these dimensions flowing from Adam as a covenant head, it is just—just with no exceptions, no mitigation of the sentence of condemnation for anyone. "But, careless sinner," he addressed his audience, "learn that thy salvation now hangs in God's hand." His language in more than a few sermons indicates his familiarity with Jonathan Edwards. He continued, "Thou hast sinned against him, and if he wills to damn thee, damned thou art. Thou canst not resist his will or thwart his purpose." Human helplessness not only magnifies the dimensions of divine sovereignty and freedom but does nothing to diminish human responsibility and culpability. "Thou hast deserved his wrath, and if he chooses to pour the full shower of that wrath upon thy head, thou canst do nothing to avert it." That is, nothing that originates from the sinner himself either objectively or subjectively can suffice to assuage divine anger. But God, for his own purposes and glory, might show mercy. "If, on the other hand, he chooses to save thee, he is able to save thee to the uttermost." Salvation and damnation both are in the full power of an enraged deity. "But thou liest as much in his hand as the summer's moth beneath thine own finger. He is the God whom thou art

grieving every day. Doth it not make thee tremble to think that thy eternal destiny now hangs upon the will of him whom thou has angered and incensed?"

137

Salvation of Children

Native and total depravity did not exclude children. Adam stood for all his

posterity, whether adult or infant, and when he fell he fell for them all. ¹³⁸ Spurgeon could describe their natural condition in terms as graphic as those he would use with a vile voluptuary. Any qualification that a new-born had for

heaven was not through its innocence, for it had none. ¹³⁹ Taking David's lament as of universal application, Spurgeon presented the infant as "born in iniquity; in sin did his mother conceive him." Because of this, "He has an evil heart; he knows not God." Infants do not have good seed in them waiting to burst forth in works of benevolence and righteousness; nor are they merely neutral, spiritually susceptible to the earliest and most dominant religious influences, but "he hath evil seed within his heart." ¹⁴⁰ His mind is a carnal mind, consisting of "enmity

against God." ¹⁴¹ To those that claimed sin enters human experience by imitation, Spurgeon proposed a strikingly different reality. Suppose a child from its first day to live under carefully guarded pious influences, so that "the very air it breathes be purified by piety; let it constantly drink in draughts of holiness. Its ears hear nothing but "the voice of prayer and praise" and "notes of sacred song." That child, Spurgeon supposes, contrary to all its environmental influences, "may still become one of the grossest of transgressors" and "if not directed by divine grace, march downwards to the pit." Not by imitation, but by

nature, the child is evil. ¹⁴² To parents with unconverted children Spurgeon assured them that "the wrath of God abideth on them. Die they must; and should they die now, to a certainty you are aware that the flames of hell must engulf

them." ¹⁴³ Mitigating circumstances do exist, however, and parents may take action and hope accordingly. Though no predisposition to good exists, and though teaching in itself is ineffectual apart from the internal efficacy of divine grace, the child should be taught. The parent and other teachers may be used of God to place good seed, the good seed of the Word of God, in the child's mind. "Your child wants [lacks] teaching!" Though sinful, parents may be "instruments to scatter seed upon that child's heart," and if it be not sown it is a certainty that "he will be lost forever, his life will be a life of alienation from God, and, at his death,

everlasting fire must be his portion." ¹⁴⁴ Another mitigating influence was something like an age of accountability.

Spurgeon believed that there was a particular point when a child became capable of sinning; at that point it was also a candidate for hell and susceptible to the saving influences of the Spirit of God. "As soon as a child can sin, that child can,

if God's grace assist it, believe and receive the word of God." Though the heart itself is enmity against God, Spurgeon said that "it is not developed." At some point, therefore, the child "can learn evil," and thus "are competent, under the

teaching of the Holy Ghost, to learn good." ¹⁴⁵ Until that point of learning evil, Spurgeon saw infants as under some gracious provision. When he spoke to mothers that he knew had lost children in infancy, he assured them that they would yet "know those dear Babes of yours." They had "marked their features when they lay panting and gasping for breath," and had "hung over their graves when the cold sod was sprinkled over them." They could be comforted with the thought, however, that "ye shall hear those loved voices again: ye shall hear those sweet voices once more; ye shall yet know that

those whom ye loved have been loved by God." ¹⁴⁶ Dying infants were a powerful means of evangelism in their deaths, for they provoked desires for heaven in the parents. "The darlings die, and in this they often do more than by their lives." How so one might ask, is a life cut so short better than a life that reaches full potential? "How many hard hearts have been broken, and stubborn wills subdued," Spurgeon answered, "by the deathbeds of infants!" He continued with the point, "How many a mother has had her first desires for heaven kindled

by the flight of her little cherub up to the bosom of Christ!" ¹⁴⁷ Carlile recounted his knowledge of Spurgeon's view on this matter, when "It was represented that in the early days he taught that children dying in infancy who were not of the number of the elect, would be lost." Spurgeon responded in a letter to The Baptist averring that he had never, "at any time in my life, said, believed, or imagined that any infant under any circumstances would be cast into hell." He always had believed in the salvation of all infants, and intensely detested the opinions attributed to him. "I do not believe that on this earth there is a professing Christian holding the damnation of infants, or if there be, he must

be insane or utterly ignorant of Christianity." ¹⁴⁸ Claiming both Calvin and Gill for his contention, he insisted in unambiguously powerful terms that he "never dreamed of such a thing," nor had ever "imagined that infants dying as infants

have perished." ¹⁴⁹ In his introductory address on the doctrines of grace at the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon said that the accusation that Calvinists hold to the damnation of little infants is a "wicked calumny." The person that would dare say that an infant was in hell, Spurgeon labeled a "miscreant." All infants dying in infancy, Spurgeon opined, "are elect of God and are therefore saved."

He saw this as one of the means (surely this shows that their salvation is an operation of grace and not of innocence) by which "Christ shall see of the travail

of his soul to a great degree, and we do sometimes hope that thus the multitudes

of the saved shall be made to exceed the multitude of the lost." ¹⁵⁰ In a sermon preached later that year on "Infant Salvation" Spurgeon reaffirmed this by saying, "I do not see how it is possible that so vast a number should enter heaven, unless it be on the supposition that infant souls constitute the great majority." He considered a great relief to his mind that there would be more saved than lost, but did not have confidence that this majority would come from the present world of adults when in the present condition of the world, even the Christian world, so few were clearly Christian. "We must have the children saved, … because we feel anyhow they must be numbered with the blessed, and

dwell with Christ hereafter." ¹⁵¹ Infant salvation, therefore, was indeed salvation and required operations of grace on their behalf both external to them and internal in them. Christ's death and the work of the Spirit wrought salvation. Infants dying in infancy were saved because they were elect; because elect they are redeemed by the "precious blood of Christ;" and because bought, they are regenerated. "No doubt, in some mysterious manner the Spirit of God regenerates the infant soul, and it enters

into glory made meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light." ¹⁵² The same provisions of salvation are made for all those that the Father gave to the Son, whether adult or infant. Spurgeon dismissed any idea that baptism bestowed a state of salvation, nor the faith of parents, nor a godly progeny.

Salvation always and only arises from the sovereign gracious acts of the triune God. "All of them without exception," Spurgeon said speaking of infants dying in infancy, "from whosesoever loins they may have sprung, will, we believe, not by baptism, nor by their parents' faith, but simply as we are all saved through the election of God, through the precious blood of Christ, through the regenerating influence of the Holy Ghost, attain to glory and immortality, and wear the image

of the heavenly as they have worn the image of the earthy." ¹⁵³ Seemingly, the differences lay in two points. One, forgiveness did not relate to actual transgression (for infants were not held accountable), but only to original imputed guilt and to the root of enmity in the heart. Two, both their justification and regeneration came without hearing the word, for no true hearing is possible for those whose understanding is not formed for engaging a command, much less to follow discursive reasoning. When Spurgeon said, "I do hold that there is no doctrine of the word of God which a child, if he be capable of salvation, is not capable of receiving," he not only encouraged doctrinal teaching to children, but did so on the assumption that the need of salvation was concurrent with an age of discretionary thought. ¹⁵⁴ Moreover, when he preached, "He who can

change the course of a river when it has rolled onward and become a mighty flood, can control a new-born rivulet leaping from its cradle fountain, and make it run in the channel he desireth," he not only taught the possibility of childhood conversion but that infants also were susceptible to, and under the necessity of, the saving influence of the Holy Spirit. ¹⁵⁵

New Birth

Regeneration, therefore, for the most settled in their hostility, like Manasseh, ¹⁵⁶ or the least practiced in rebellion is equally necessary. Regeneration, as a grace, gives spiritual life to the human spirit and makes it a willing recipient of all the blessings inherent in the atoning work of Christ. "Other parts of salvation are done gradually," Spurgeon observed, "but regeneration is the instantaneous work

of God's sovereign, effectual, and irresistible grace." ¹⁵⁷ So Spurgeon viewed the nature of the new birth. That work of the Spirit occurred in an instant and was fundamental to every other manifestation of spiritual life. Justification, of course, in Spurgeon's theology, was not a gradual process. The declaration of righteousness, proceeding from God as a judge watching over the just dispensation of his law, came also in an instant upon the first movement of genuine Spirit-wrought faith in the perfection of Christ's obedience. But for all the operations of God by his Spirit subsequent to regeneration and justification, a progressive realization of transforming influences and the chastened pursuit of freedom from corruption continued throughout this earthly life. Repentance, faith, mortification of sin, vivification of life and holiness, perseverance, all other sanctifying graces flowed into, and then from, the person that had been the subject of this sovereign operation of the new birth. God bestowed the source of spiritual life in an instant, and the rivers of living water gradually gave a sustained life to all spiritual fruit. "You shall never find simple faith in Jesus exercised by any life," Spurgeon instructed, "except the life that is born of divine seed in the new birth." In that way, "faith is as much the gift of God as Jesus Christ himself. Nature never did produce a grain of saving faith, and it never

will." ¹⁵⁸ Spurgeon reminded his preaching students that no soul winning would ever be accomplished apart from the Holy Spirit's working of regeneration. Its "essence lies in the implantation and creation of a new principle with the man." Nursing something of a doctrinal idiosyncrasy, Spurgeon believed that in his fallen nature, prior to regeneration, man consists only of body and soul and "that when he is regenerated there is created in him a new and higher nature—the spirit

which is a spark from the everlasting fire of God's life and love." ¹⁵⁹ Thenceforward he may be said to consist of body, soul, and spirit. This is what Peter meant by "partakers of the divine nature," Spurgeon believed. Thus by regeneration, the formerly "soulish" man becomes a "spiritual man" capable of and naturally exhibiting the spiritual realities of repentance, toward God, faith in Jesus Christ, and increase of love for God and man. Because man's spiritual life

is as dependent upon this divine creative act of regeneration as the world's existence was dependent upon God's power and prerogative, that work must precede all else.

Though Spurgeon used different images in explanations of this phenomenon from time to time, man's spiritual destitution and God's creative prerogative always sustained the substance of his teaching. Preaching on covenant blessings in 1872, Spurgeon, as he so often affirmed, said that God's "very first operation upon our nature is to pull down the old house and build Himself a new one that He may be able to inhabit us consistently with His holy spiritual Nature. A new heart is absolutely essential. We must be born-again or the Spirit of Truth cannot

abide within us." ¹⁶⁰ The same truth he asserted in a sermon All of Grace: " The man believes, but that belief is only one result among many of the implantation

of divine life within the man's soul by God himself." ¹⁶¹ Again in preaching on "Human Inability," he taught that coming to Christ is "the first effect of regeneration. No sooner is the soul quickened than it at once discovers its lost estate, is horrified thereat, looks out for a refuge, and believing Christ to be a suitable one, flies to him and reposes in him." In a defense of justification by faith as a doctrine that does not induce moral frivolity, Spurgeon asserted, "When a man turns his eyes to Jesus and simply trusts Him—for we adhere to that as being the vital matter—there is accompanying that act—no, I must correct myself, there is as the cause of that act a miraculous, supernatural power which in an instant changes a man as completely as if it flung him back into nothingness and brought him forth into new life! If this is so, then believing in

Christ is something very marvelous." ¹⁶² The grace of regeneration, stressed by Spurgeon's intended rhetorical emphasis of introducing self-correction, neither follows nor merely accompanies trust, but is the miraculous, God-driven cause of it. "The Spirit of God," Spurgeon reminded his congregation in 1888, "implants a love which is of heavenly origin, and renews the heart by a regeneration from above; and then we seek to be one with Jesus, but not till

then." ¹⁶³ A refusal to come to Christ is infallible evidence "that there is as yet no quickening; where there is no quickening, the soul is dead in trespasses and

sins, and being dead it can not enter into the kingdom of heaven." ¹⁶⁴ In such a work of grace, the soul is necessarily passive. Arminianism falls to the ground in its explanation of this transaction and nothing will do but that "old-

fashioned truth men call Calvinism." ¹⁶⁵ This portion of Calvinistic thought, "the immutable truth of the living God," gave all the glory to God and put man in his proper place as an absolute dependent in this matter because it is impossible for a man to make a new heart for himself. The heart, as the center of life, cannot

create itself a new center. The exertions of the old heart cannot bring forth a new heart. A tree dead at its core cannot generate for itself a new core. Even so, "there never was a man yet, that did so much as the turn of a hair towards making himself a new heart. He must lie passive there—he shall become active afterwards—but in the moment when God puts a new life into the soul, the man is passive." Though he actively resists the early stages of God's call upon him, in the moment of regeneration all resistance falls and the positive infusion of new life is all of God; at that point, the recipient of this effectual call finds it indeed to be an "irresistible grace," does nothing, and must be described as passive as to any spiritual progress. "God, by overcoming, victorious grace, gets the mastery

over man's will." ¹⁶⁶ In giving a more elaborate statement on the order of God's operations, Spurgeon explained in Christ's Glorious Achievements: "You were already from of old in the covenant of grace ordained to be the woman's seed, and now the decree began to discover itself in life bestowed upon you and working in you."

Though the sinner might be unaware of its initial bestowment, "in infinite mercy" God dropped "divine life... A spark of the celestial fire, the living and incorruptible seed which abideth for ever" into the soul of his elect. From this initiative of God, the elect person begins to hate and groan under the reality of personal sin as under a galling yoke to the point of its being unbearable. Such blessed persons become the enemies of the serpent and of sin and are more and

more the sworn enemies of evil. ¹⁶⁷ It is a work of omnipotence, a unilateral and irresistible action of God, one that he necessarily does without the aid of any creature, including the sinner who is the object of this action. It gives not only misery under sin and hatred of that misery-giving reality, but a heart, affection, for God. "So in the regeneration of our nature—in the changing the heart—the Lord alone is seen," Spurgeon proclaimed. "Who shall pretend to give another a new heart? Go, boaster, and suspend the laws of gravitation! Recall the thunderbolt! Reverse the chariot of the sun! Transform the Atlantic to a lake of fire and then attempt to change the

nature of the heart of man!" ¹⁶⁸ As God alone created and sustains the natural order by his wisdom and omnipotence, so the time of regeneration is his alone. The voice of God in grace carries the same force as the voice of God in creation. "If God says: 'Let there be light,' the impenetrable darkness gives way to light; if he says: 'Let there be grace,' unutterable sin gives way, and the hardest-hearted sinner melts before the

fire of effectual calling." ¹⁶⁹ Creation exhibits the same power found in resurrection. The call, therefore, as well as consisting of a new creation,

produces a resurrection from the dead. Effectual call "finds the sinner dead, it

gives him life, and he obeys the call of life and lives." ¹⁷⁰ Life precedes action and as surely as Adam could not resist being given life when God breathed into him the breath of life, neither can the sinner resist this life-giving call of God. "Every man that is saved," Spurgeon insisted, "is always saved by an overcoming call which he cannot withstand; he may resist it for a time, but he cannot resist so as to overcome it, he must give way, he must yield when God

speaks." ¹⁷¹ Spurgeon believed that the affections were the "most powerful part of our nature," so powerful, that "to a great extent", they "mold even the understanding itself." If the affections are defiled and fully corrupted by the fall, they prompt in every son of Adam a powerful disaffection toward God. The mental faculties, thus, "become disturbed in their balance." God, therefore, must commence his restoration of his elect at the heart. "Therein begins a work in which man cannot

compete with Him, nor can he even help Him. God must do it." ¹⁷² The same God, who made men, must, in dealing with the fountain of all affection and thus action (the heart), make them new. "And again, we repeat it," Spurgeon said at another place, "until these affections be renewed, and turned into a fresh channel by the gracious drawings of the Father, it is not possible for

any man to love the Lord Jesus Christ." ¹⁷³ If not, then it is also impossible for a person to have faith apart from this same renewal, for the assumption of faith is that a sinner has come to hate the life of sin and love righteousness as he sees it in its beauty in the obedience of Jesus Christ. "When the Spirit of God breathes on us, that which was sweet becomes bitter; that which was bright becomes dim.

A man cannot love sin and yet possess the life of God." ¹⁷⁴ When a Christian reflects on the reality of such a conversion, he cannot believe that he himself has effected it. "Men may hold free-will doctrine as a matter of theory, but you never find a believer hold it as a matter of experience." ¹⁷⁵

Human Responsibility

Given this absolute dependence on God for the new birth, and therefore, all the consequent manifestations of spiritual life and blessings of salvation connected to it, one might legitimately wonder if Spurgeon held to any robust and realistic concept of human responsibility. In reading his sermons none can doubt that he called on sinners to come to faith in Christ while he maintained their dependence on the sovereign pleasure of God. He was able to embrace both of these ideas by holding resolutely to the distinction between natural inability and moral inability.

In his Sermon Notes, a text from Joshua, "Ye cannot serve the Lord," was treated under the title "Moral Inability." In his introduction, Spurgeon stated, "Man's inability lies in the want of moral power so to wish and will as actually to perform." Inability is not, therefore, "physical" inability but "moral inability."

It does not come of man in the created nature but in the fallen nature. Since the inability is the result of sin, those that have it are culpable in the very possession of it, since it consists of a carnal mind, "self-will, self-seeking, lust, enmity, pride, and all other evils." None of these moral traits can be subject to the law of God and all are worthy of punishment. The doctrine discourages a sinner in the best possible way because it lets him know that nothing he does can save him, for it all is unrighteous. He must be given a new nature because "an impure fountain must pour out foul streams. The tree must be made good, or the fruit

will not be good." ¹⁷⁶ Concerning the guilt of such an inability Spurgeon never wavered. If a man's heart is against God, then "we ought to tell him it is his sin; and if he cannot repent, we ought to show him that sin is the sole cause of his disability—that all

his alienation from God is sin—that as long as he keeps from God it is sin." ¹⁷⁷ Spurgeon made sport of any that would deny either the physical or mental abilities of any sinner to come to Christ. A sinner can walk to church and sit in a pew and listen to a sermon, and he can pray as easily as he can utter blasphemy.

He can sing the hymns. "It is as easy for a man to sing one of the songs of Zion

as to sing a profane and libidinous song." ¹⁷⁸ Nor is his inability mental. He can believe the testimony of a person about Christ as easily as he can believe a testimony about any earthly event; He can believe the Bible to be true or any of its individual statements to be true as easily as he can believe the statements of any other book presented with some plausibility. He can understand the guilt involved in sin as well as he can understand the guilt involved in assassination. "I have all the mental strength and power that can possibly be needed, so far as mental power is needed in salvation

at all." ¹⁷⁹ There is, however, in the mind a certain kind of corruption, a vitiation that is "the very essence of Man's inability." Something deep in his nature constitutes his inability. Spurgeon used the illustration of a sheep and a wolf in their eating.

The wolf would never respond to the voice of the shepherd nor would he eat the grass that the sheep eats. Though he has both mouth and stomach, he has no desire for such food. Can a mother stab her babe in arms through the heart with a knife? She can with physical strength but she cannot by disposition of love. Both the natural ability and moral inability are real and it is just to call them so.

Spurgeon explained moral inability by the confluence of four traits of the fallen human condition. First, he spoke in terms of the "obstinacy of the human will"—built on Christ's affirmation that "you will not come to me that you might have life." Second, he observed that the "understanding is darkened." One may talk of all the glories of the most beautiful aspects of divine mercy and wisdom and the unregenerate understanding cannot perceive that beauty and sees nothing spiritually attractive in any of them. Third, Spurgeon pointed out that the affections are depraved. "We love that which we ought to hate, and we hate that which we ought to love" and until "these affections be renewed, and turned into a fresh channel by the gracious drawings of the Father, it is not possible for any

man to love the Lord Jesus Christ." ¹⁸⁰ Conscience is the fourth human capacity that has been so perverted that man is rendered incapable of faith in Christ. A fallen conscience may discern a good many things because it has not been obliterated, but the evil conscience never did lead any man "to feel an abhorrence of sin as sin." It is not dead but it is "ruined, its power is impaired, it hath not that clearness of eye, and that strength, and that thunder of voice, which it had before the fall."

Spurgeon, however, wanted to go a step further than these four elements and say that the inability to come to Christ transcended the mere lack of a willingness to do so. "There is in man, not only unwillingness to be saved, but

there is a spiritual powerlessness to come to Christ." ¹⁸¹ He appealed to the experience of Christians on the one hand, that willingness often led to a prayer for strength. If it is so in the Christian experience, how much more so in the unregenerate! "Do not all men see that there is a distinction between will and power?" A corpse not only is unwilling but quite unable; what is lacking, therefore, is not only a will but actual power. The Holy Spirit enables, as two distinct realities, both the willing and the doing of God's good pleasure. Where he gives the will, he also grants the power and "to come to Christ truly is not in your power, until you are renewed by the Holy Ghost." ¹⁸²

When Spurgeon was accused of preaching that Christ grabbed people by the hair of the head to drag them to him, he responded that "I believe that he draws

them by the heart quite as powerfully as your caricature would suggest." ¹⁸³ This drawing, though infallibly irresistible, is not compulsion that violates a resisting will. "Christ never compelled any man to come to him against his will." The Spirit makes a man willing by going to "the secret fountain of the heart" and

through a "mysterious operation" turns the will "in an opposite direction." ¹⁸⁴ In the interests of demonstrating this symmetrical and integrative approach at the core of Spurgeon's theology, we will come full circle to show briefly the relation between effectual calling and atonement. "All for whom Christ died shall be pardoned, all justified, all adopted. The Spirit shall quicken them all, shall give them all faith, shall bring them all to heaven, and they shall, every one

of them, without let or hindrance, stand accepted in the Beloved." ¹⁸⁵ The will of sinners shall not be done in the matter of salvation but rather the will of Christ in dying for those whom the Father gave him. Though one may say or feel that he doesn't want salvation, Spurgeon countered, "The gospel wants not your consent. It knocks the enmity out of your heart." The hardness of sinners against Christ today is such that, should he appear, this generation would resist him again and put him to open shame, and execute him for "not one of you would consent if you were left to your will." But his death shall not be in vain and if some reject him others will not. "Christ shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hands." Some believe that many for whom Christ died will nevertheless be lost at last. "I never could understand that doctrine," Spurgeon replied; those for whom he died are as secure as the angels in heaven for "God cannot ask payment twice. If Christ paid my debt, shall I have to pay it again?" Certainly not; for those for whom he substituted himself certainly will come and "naught in heaven or on earth, nor in

hell, can stop them from coming." ¹⁸⁶ The success of this atonement is certain for the Spirit has pledged "I hereby covenant, that all whom the Father giveth to

the Son, I will in due time quicken." ¹⁸⁷ The Son's completion of his covenantal obedience brings about the gift of the Spirit for those for whom he died; and the Spirit induces the seeing, loving, trusting, and uniting of the elect person with Christ in the triumphs of his obedience.

This effectual call necessarily produces a change in perspective toward Christ and sin. Belief is "not merely to accept a set of doctrines and to say that such a creed is yours," but to feel one's personal need of each point of the creed. "To

believe is, to trust, to confide, to depend upon, to rely upon, to rest in." ¹⁸⁸ After a recitation of each point of Christ's work, Spurgeon asked, "Does thou therefore

lay the whole weight and stress of the soul's salvation upon him, yea, upon him

alone?" ¹⁸⁹ Faith also includes a clear perception of the evil of sin. Repentance as a clear constituent of faith means that the sinner and his sin must part. He must "forsake them, loathe them, abhor them, and ask the Lord to overcome them." The child of God cannot love sin but must hold it in contempt as long as he sees its presence anywhere. A desire for holiness grounds faith as a moral force in the true believer's life. While not saved by works, "the faith that saves us always produces works." Saving faith "renews the heart, changes the character, influences the motives, and is the means in the hand of God of making the man a new creature in Christ Jesus." ¹⁹⁰

Assurance

If saving faith may be analyzed as to its constituent parts, this leads naturally to the question as to how one may be assured that he has it. Spurgeon himself seldom experienced any lack of assurance that he was of the elect of God. The mental and spiritual change that happened at his conversion and the continual sensibleness of the glorious presence of Christ in his life left little room for him to have any insecurity of his gracious standing. He knew the same was not the experience of others, and so he gave constant attention to this issue.

Because of the ever-present oppressiveness of the state church and the nominalistic Christianity so rampant within it, Spurgeon often issued warnings about the danger of presumption. It was easy for the nominalistic mind-set to pervade all denominations and every Englishman, for after all, was not England a Christian nation? Because they had imbibed a presumptuous confidence of safety in Christ, Spurgeon observed many, "who, by hearing continually the most precious doctrine that belief in Jesus Christ is saving, have forgotten other truths, and have concluded that they were saved when they were not, have fancied they believed when as yet they were total strangers to the experience which always attends true faith." Their confidence was not grounded upon the divine word rightly understood, "nor proved by any facts in their own souls."

They resented any suggestion of self examination by gospel tests as "an assault upon their assurance" and "defended their false peace by the notion that to raise a question about their certain salvation would be unbelief." Their ill-placed certainty has put them in a hopeless condition and they ignore biblical warnings and admonitions by "their fatal persuasion that it is needless to attend to them."

Their historical knowledge of the work of Christ has settled them in a conviction "that godly fear and careful walking are superfluities, if not actually an offence

against the gospel." ¹⁹¹ On the other hand, both the witness of Scripture and his own experience led him to believe that some had so strong a sense of assurance combined with such a strong love of holiness as to make instruction in its elemental parts a superfluity. He believed that in some cases, the Spirit's witness prompted an infallible conviction of new birth, a knowledge beyond all question that one is a Christian. He wrote of Philip de Morny who stated "that the Holy Spirit had made his own salvation to him as clear a point as a problem demonstrated in Euclid." As clearly and as surely as the scholar of geometry solves or proves a proposition we may know that we have passed from death unto life. "The sun in the heavens is not more clear to the eye that his present salvation to an assured believer; such a man could as soon doubt his own existence as suspect his

possession of eternal life." ¹⁹² This kind of experiential persuasion characterized Spurgeon's confidence.

Though Spurgeon found many reasons for full assurance to flourish in Christian experience, he was not naïve about the fluctuations in confidence even of the heartiest believer. Instead of unjustified overconfidence, these had unwarranted despair. "Can a man's faith grow so strong that he will never

afterwards doubt at all. I reply, no." ¹⁹³ He could see seasons in which even he had sung with Newton, "'Tis a point I long to know, oft it causes anxious

thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am I his or am I not?" ¹⁹⁴ Though he had sung it, and others might sing it, it should be short meter, and not be sung too long. ¹⁹⁵ Even the strongest faith will have periods of despondency and well may

have "most painful doubts concerning his acceptance in the Beloved." ¹⁹⁶ Some Christians, however, take on the character of Little-Faith and live their entire pilgrimage under a cloud. Such will get to heaven, because the blessings of the covenant extend alike in full and unchangeably to every true believer, but they

very seldom think so.

If you meet him he is sometimes afraid of hell; very often afraid that the wrath of God abideth on him.

He will tell you that the country on the other side the flood can never belong to a worm so base as he.

Sometimes it is because he feels himself so unworthy, another time it is because the things of God are

too good to be true, he says, or he can not think they can be true to such a one as he is. Sometimes he is

afraid he is not elect; another time he fears that he has not been called aright, that he has not come to

Christ aright. Another time his fears are that he will not hold on to the end, that he shall not be able to

persevere; and if you kill a thousand of his fears he is sure to have another host by tomorrow. 197

Assurance of pardon and thus of all the blessings of the new covenant, in Spurgeon's theology, should be a primary aim of those that hope in Christ. There is no reason that such confidence cannot be solid and a source of great joy for the true believer in Christ. It is an earnest of heaven itself and the source, not of presumption or arrogance, but of praise, worship, humility, and heavenly mindedness. "Out of heaven," Spurgeon taught, "there is no state so rapturous

and blessed." ¹⁹⁸ The first grounds of assurance for Spurgeon came from the pure objective reality of the covenant of grace. For his own glory, God was determined, through his beloved Son, to save sinners. No sinner can ever have assurance apart from that reality of divine grace in which a number that no man can number will certainly be saved. Moving from that pervasive reality to the personal participation in it comes by way of knowledge of election. Spurgeon often dealt with the question concerning the personal knowledge of one's election. He did not believe that it was a moot point and that none should be concerned about it.

One can know its reality, however, not by seeing into heaven and the eternal counsels, and deducing one's state from that, but by searching out the effects of election and concluding one's participation in eternal love by its present effects. "Have you and I been chosen?" he queried. Two other rhetorical questions followed—"Can we see the connection between the link of calling and the link of predestination? Have we made our calling sure?" If one has seen that his life —mind, heart, and body—shows the evidences intrinsic to effectual calling, "we

may infer most certainly that we must have been predestinated." ¹⁹⁹ The short answer is, one may know that he is elect if he believes. It is not just any sort of belief, however, but a belief born out of a heaven-wrought fear of the Lord

coupled with a desire to find him as shelter.

Do you fear the Lord? Then so sure as you are a living man you are elect. You have the fear of the

Lord before your eyes? Then you need have no doubt but that your names are in the covenant. None

have feared the Lord who were not first loved by the Lord. Never one did come and cast himself at the

feet of Jesus because he feared the penalty of sin, and none ever came to embrace the loving skirts of

the Redeemer because he feared lest he should go astray, without having been first called and chosen

and made faithful. No, the fear of God in the heart is the proof of being God's elect one. 200

Enfolded in this fear of God were accompanying evidences. Have you cast aside your rags of self-righteousness for the seamless robe of the righteousness of Christ alone? Is your fear of hell a fear of sin and a fear of offending a loving and holy Father? Do you desire to be kept from disobedience to God's commands and to be consistently set free from both guilt and sin? Do you find Christ as the one in whom all these desires culminate, so that your life is surrendered to the Crucified? "Then you are elect; then you are justified; then you are accepted; and you have no more reason to doubt your acceptance and your election, than you will have when you stand before the throne of God amid

the blazing lustres of eternal glory." ²⁰¹ This great change from rebel to servant can be examined and internalized to such a degree that it stands as a sure witness of one's call and thus of being eternally secured by divine choice. "It is so great a change, and so wonderful an effect of irresistible grace upon a man to transform him from an heir of wrath into a servant of the living God, that we

have herein ground for comfort." ²⁰² The gaining of assurance honors Christ because it credits his work with success and fosters full submission to his lordship and sets him forth as the exclusive object of the penitent's affections. Neither the Arminian nor the hyperCalvinist had grounds as secure for this blessing as the historic confessional Calvinist. He characterized the hyper-Calvinist, whom he called "the great standard men," as averse to Christian cheerfulness, habitually making

declamation "against hopeful Christians, against people going to heaven who are not always grumbling, and murmuring, and doubting; fumbling for their evidences amid the exercises of their own hearts." These people rival Job and Jeremiah in grief and could themselves pen the distressful state of mind in Lamentations "vexing their poor hearts and smarting and crying, and wearying themselves with the perpetual habit of complaining against God, saying 'My

stroke is heavier than my groaning.'" ²⁰³ The hyper-Calvinists feared presumption and found the sovereign purposes of God to be so shrouded in the mists of eternal purpose that none could be assured except those that received an infallible impression from the Spirit that they were among the chosen of God or that prior to belief they discerned that an internal prompting was, in fact, the effectual call of God.

On the other hand, the Arminian found assurance virtually impossible because of the synergistic nature of salvation, as Spurgeon saw it. Because every aspect of the work was universal, and many therefore, through failure on their part, would fail to procure a full salvation that was provided for all without exception, full assurance would always escape the seeker. "The Arminian says Christ died for him," Spurgeon noted, "and then, poor man, he has but small consolation therefrom, for he says, 'Ah! Christ died for me; that does not prove much. It only proves I may be saved if I mind what I am after. I may perhaps forget my self; I may run into sin and I may perish. Christ has done a good deal for me, but not

quite enough, unless I do something.'" ²⁰⁴ Universal atonement, universal call, and free will provided little, if any, ground for assurance of salvation. Solid ground for confidence, however, was found in the certainties of God's success in procuring salvation. "I may be called antinomian or Calvinist for preaching a limited atonement," Spurgeon countered, "but I had rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than an universal atonement that is not efficacious for

anybody, except the will of man be joined with it." ²⁰⁵ Given all these qualifications, most Christians must seek assurance through the use of constituted means given by God to strengthen faith. Spurgeon suggested several. Faith may be strengthened, and along with it assurance, by meditation on the Word of God. One must be rigorous in this and not rest satisfied with just reading a passage "as long as your arm," but must take a smaller portion and demand that it yield its fruit and lay claim to any promise that may arise from it. When the promise arises, then prove it by thinking about its provisions and seeing that the experiences of your life show it to be so.

Accumulate these promises through the years and the instances of their proof—

even mark them down as tested and proven—and see what abundant evidence is yielded and what a testimony may be given of divine mercy.

Associate with Christians of mature and deep experience and find how their struggles have issued in a confidence in the preserving power of God. God himself increases our faith by bringing trouble so that, by the secret workings of the Spirit, we will exercise that implanted faith and it becomes strong.

One must also endeavor to be as free of self as possible, giving in neither to spiritual pride nor to self-centered despondency. "Beloved," Spurgeon tenderly addressed his flock, "the only way in which you can maintain your faith is to live above the praise of self and the censure of self; to live simply upon the blood and

merits of our Lord Jesus Christ." ²⁰⁶ Most importantly, one must cultivate communion with Christ. "When you can not see him, then you doubt him; but if you live in fellowship with him, you are like to the ewe lambs of Nathan's parable. For you lie in his bosom, and eat from

his table, and drink from his cup." ²⁰⁷ Spurgeon cultivated this sense of the presence of Christ with unfailing consistency, even though his experiential level of assurance was virtually intuitive. He realized that, apart from conformity to special revelation, a person's highest and most exhilarating and ethereal connections with the divine were useless and filled with the danger of delusion. Scripture must define all and inform the Christian's mind in order to detect false spirits and recognize the true work of the Holy Spirit. In following this path, by diligent cultivation, a high level of assurance may be attained. "May a man so cultivate his faith that he may be infallibly sure that his is a child of God—so sure that he has made no mistake —so sure that all the doubts and fears which may be thrust upon him may not be able at that time to get an advantage over him? I answer, yes, decidedly he may."

208 A man can be as sure of his acceptance in the Beloved as he is of his own existence.

Preaching about Hell

For those, however, that are not accepted in the Beloved in the eternal covenant, who do not have Christ as their substitute under the curse of the law, what then?

What about those that receive exactly the treatment they desire in this life, that is, to be left to their own free will, what then? What about those that are left to do with the gospel as they determine in their own hearts, what then? And of those that have adopted the thought that there is no eternal danger to avoid, what then?

Hell and the task of the preacher created a massive burden for Spurgeon. He saw every sermon as an attempt to take sinners by the hand and lead them away from their determination to enter into eternity as enemies of God and, therefore, sure subjects of his wrath. "My hearer, give me thine hand," he pleaded. "Never did father plead with son with more impassioned earnestness than I would with thee." And then the ultimate question, "Why wouldst thou sit still, when hell is

burning in thy face?" ²⁰⁹ And while his preaching had the potential to turn them, it also, if rejected, would "help to make their hell more intolerable." Their resistance to clearly stated truth would increase their responsibility and reveal more of their obstinacy and commensurately increase the intensity of their punishment. "O! ye that are left to your own free will, to choose the way to hell, as all men do when left alone—let these eyes run down with tears for ye,

because ye will not weep for yourselves." ²¹⁰ Hell manifested the glory of God. "God is so far sovereign, that he has a right, if he likes, to save any one in this chapel, or to crush all who are here. He has a

right to take us all to heaven if he pleases, or to destroy us." ²¹¹ Death certainly must come. It rides on his horse and his hot breath blows on the neck of every man and "thou must die!" But for the wicked man, what then? Spurgeon asked, "Will it be heaven or hell?" If it is hell that rides along with death after you, where will you be when you are cast away from God? "Ah, I pray, God deliver you from hell," Spurgeon exclaimed, but then followed, "He is coming after you

sure enough; and if you have no hiding place, woe unto you." ²¹² God's coming after his enemies, Spurgeon taught, was necessary. One cannot suppose a God without justice so as to leave sin and wickedness and wrong unpunished. To suppose God as all love—love without justice, love without holiness, love without standards of right and wrong—would be to undeify God.

If there is no punishment, there is no reward; evil receives the same as good and therefore its moral quality must be the same as good. "It were difficult to suppose him elevated high above his creatures," Spurgeon proposed, "beholding

their disobedience, and yet looking with the same serenity upon the good and upon the evil; you can not suppose him awarding the same meed of praise to the

wicked and to the righteous." ²¹³ Beyond such proper and compelling theological reflection, Spurgeon pointed to the Scripture as determinative of the reality of hell. Evidences of divine justice measured to the wicked appear sometime in this life, as Spurgeon illustrated by Scripture and anecdote, but the full display of wrath unmixed with any mercy would appear only in eternity. "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," summarized the fearsome reality indicated in many Scriptures and led to Spurgeon's expostulation with his congregation. "Do you feel that you are a fit subject for heaven now? Do you feel that God has changed your heart and renewed your nature? If not, I beseech you lay hold of this thought, that unless you be renewed all that can be dreadful in the torments of

the future world must inevitably be yours." ²¹⁴ Danger accelerated with the attempts of some to eliminate fear by eliminating hell. Spurgeon knew that his view was considered as unphilosophical fearmongering by a large number of nineteenth-century ministers. He preached about this tendency and the alarming result of it to his Surrey Music Hall

congregation in 1856:

Indeed, because this age is wicked, we are told it is to have no Hell—and because it is hypocritical, it

would have but feigned punishment! This doctrine is so prevalent as to make even the ministers of the

Gospel flinch from their duty in declaring the Day of Wrath. How few there are who will solemnly tell

us of the judgment to come! They preach of God's love and mercy as they ought to do and as God has

commanded them—but of what use is it to preach mercy unless they also preach the doom of the

wicked? And how shall we hope to effect the purpose of preaching unless we warn men that if they

"turn not, He will whet His sword"? I fear that in too many places the Doctrine of future punishment is

rejected and laughed at as a fancy and a fantasy—but the day will come when it shall be known to be a

reality! 215

Thirty-six years later, Edward White, a strong and able advocate of the doctrine of conditional immortality, admitted his deep admiration of Spurgeon but expressed his frustration at his uncompromising opposition to White's defining doctrine. He testified to the power of Spurgeon's influence when he wrote: "His refusal to listen to the doctrine of Life in Christ has formed a more serious obstacle to its popular diffusion than that of any other living man during the last twenty years." Spurgeon was not at all displeased with the complaint and hoped that he would have power "to be a more serious obstacle still." Spurgeon had tender regard for White but could express only regret that he had given himself to the propagation of "such mischievous doctrine, and that so many should follow him in it." ²¹⁶

Every single aspect of Spurgeon's theological method compelled him to a robust advocacy of the doctrine of hell. Biblical authority, distinguishing elements in the eternal covenant, an integration of all the doctrines of the faith left no alternative. Its reality left him no alternative but to see preaching as a continual burden that must be disposed of faithfully and earnestly week by week lest the gospel minister be reproached and hated more severely on the Day of

Judgment for having failed to warn an endangered generation.