Introduction

truth. Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to us. You may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is revealed you ought to know, for these things belong to you and to your children. Take care you know what the Holy Ghost teaches. Do not give way to a faint-hearted

ignorance, lest you be great losers thereby. ¹ O n February ¹¹, 1892, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was carried in a five-milelong funeral procession. Bells rang from St. Mary's in Newington and St. Mark's in Kennington. Even public houses were closed and flags hung as half staff. Thousands of people in black lined the street and curved in a graceful line all the way to the grave site in Norwood Cemetery. Blue sky appeared above as the casket was lowered amidst palms and lilies, and a dove flew from the Metropolitan Tabernacle to Norwood and paused briefly over the crowd. A William Cowper hymn was sung, Archibald Brown spoke, A. T. Pierson prayed, and the Bishop of Rochester pronounced the benediction. An open Bible pointing to his conversion text was removed before the burial, for the Word of God was not dead. The text read, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: For I am God and there is none else" (Isa. 45:22).

At the same time, a memorial was held in Mentone ² in France, where Spurgeon had died twelve days before. Austin Phelps related to those gathered at Mentone that he had been asked the previous day what he thought was the secret of Spurgeon's power. He answered: "Two things; first, he had one single object before him always, 'to win souls for God by preaching Christ, and Him crucified and risen'; second, his own personal faith in Christ was always feeding on Christ as revealed in Holy Scripture." Phelps continued to emphasize the centrality of Christ in Spurgeon's life and message but never disconnected from "As the Scripture speaks of Christ." Again he insisted, "His subject was always one— Christ; but it was Christ afresh from his view of him in God's written Word.

Ever the same sun, but the sunshine is fresh every day." ³ Phelps had caught the driving force of Spurgeon's life as succinctly as any.

Spurgeon lived with all his might, while he did live, in the felt presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ, gaining each day and in each message fresh floods of spiritual nourishment as the Spirit witnessed to Christ's completed work, while,

at the same time, none of his views of experience or his statements about Christ were other than that which is communicated in revealed truth, the written word of God. There have been others in the history of the church for whom the richness of relationship and the settledness of proposition meshed in perfect harmony to support a life of richly experiential and inviolably prescribed worship. One may find this beauty of Spirit and truth in Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Bunyan, and Edwards; but I would not fear successful contradiction in saying that none of these surpassed Spurgeon in the pursuit and natural expression of that synthesis.

The approach here involves an effort to suggest that Spurgeon, in every aspect of his ministry, was driven by a well-developed, clearly articulated systematic theology and by a commitment to a conversion ministry, both of which were conceived as consistent with revealed truth. A challenge to his viewpoint at the first dawning of the Downgrade Controversy elicited the response from Spurgeon that he only asked to be "clear of complicity in this boastful progress beyond what is plainly revealed." His theology was not

regulated by the clock or calendar but "by eternal truth." ⁴ His preaching, the development of institutions and services, his publications, his perception of church life, his evangelism, his suffering, and the controversies in which he played a part all reflect a commitment to a system of truth developed from the Bible and expressed most clearly in Puritans and evangelicals such as Owen, Charnock, Bunyan, Newton, Whitfield, Romaine, Brooks, Manton, and Sibbes.

Both denominationally and theologically Spurgeon saw himself as a devotee of the Particular Baptists as defined by the Confession of 1689. Every enterprise that claimed his energies emerged as a self-conscious commitment to a particular outworking of some part of this theology.

One sees it in the manner of his conversion and the way he related it throughout his life. One finds it again in the quiet conviction that he must be baptized as a believer though he had been sprinkled in his infancy. The immediate entrance into an evangelistic lay ministry blended the same rich ingredients of truth and life, while his call to preach embraced a desire to glorify the ever-present living Christ through the proclamation of the faith once delivered to the saints in the inspired Scriptures. In the founding of the orphanage and alms houses and other benevolent ministries his deep compassion was initiated and fueled by his thorough biblical knowledge and complete commitment to the enactment of doctrinal principles. The Pastors' College developed from his loving concern about one individual combined with his theological commitment to the necessity for a thorough grounding in biblically based systematic theology, sound exegesis, expository preaching, and

scripturally mandated pastoral theology. In reviewing Systematic Theology by A.

H. Strong in 1886, Spurgeon gave vent to his weighty opinion on the value of theology when it is perceived as a tool serving the clarity of the Bible and produced in the confidence of the unerring coherence of revealed truth: "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." ⁵ The seamlessness of Spurgeon's mental movements within parameters that included both policy and ideal became more evident through his life. He did not fear to speak his mind on political issues and policies of the Prime Minister and Members of Parliament while relating his analysis to biblical issues and gospel issues that, to him, seemed self-evidently true and thus irrational, Byzantine, and counter-intuitive to deny. His exuberant enjoyment of nature, as well as his keen observation of human nature, provided an overflowing stream of theological, evangelistic, and moral application. He did not seem to mind at all, or feel it a burden or a curse, that his thoughts ran constantly in paths of theological reflection on every natural observation, human encounter, or personal conversation.

The God who created the world, cursed it at the fall, having already established the covenant of redemption in eternity, also revealed all this in increasingly clear increments in Holy Scripture until all was spoken at the close of the New Testament. The fullness of Scripture and the finality of redemption through Jesus Christ governed Spurgeon's understanding of all things and, in his view, should be the determining truth for all human thought and action. A challenge to Scripture or the gospel of sovereign grace made a crack in reality and introduced a magnetic pull into an abyss of unknowing, fragmentation, irrationality, self-destruction, death and, finally, the infinite horror of eternal divine wrath.

He expressed in many venues this ultimate confidence in Scripture as a superior form of knowledge. Frequently he was called upon to review books concerning the burgeoning scientific enterprise of the mid-to-late-nineteenth century. Upon examination of a book entitled A Catechism of Geology and Sacred History for Young People, Spurgeon reckoned the attempt to explain Scripture statements by the "infant science of geology" as "moderately successful." Yet, when science has done her fullest and best work, Spurgeon contended, "There will still be mysteries in the word of God that must be accepted as revelations rather than understood as the results of reasoning."

Spurgeon was not afraid to exercise faith in "receiving the statements of the

Scriptures." No independent confirmation of scriptural assertion was needed, for its authority was independent of human reason and research; its evidence was in itself and in its witness to the needs of the human soul, as interpreted through the entire fabric of redemptive truth, served as sufficient ground for receiving it as a revelation. "What we fear," Spurgeon observed, "is the attempt to reduce everything to the dead level of judgment by carnal reasoning." "Christian rationalism," he recognized, was very much the fashion, but also very dangerous to the doctrinal necessity of receiving the Bible on the basis of its own claims, its

intrinsic excellence, and the witness of the Spirit to Christ. ⁶ In his early ministry Spurgeon worked with virtually exhaustless energy. The schedule of speaking and writing occupied every waking hour. Mind and body aged exponentially after October 19, 1856, when the Surrey Music Hall disaster fixed a depression upon his spirit from which he never fully recovered. Derision, ridicule, and jealousy, from secular pundits and clergy alike, kept pace almost stride for stride with his rapidly increasing popularity. As the network of benevolent institutions developed, beginning with the Pastors' College, and the responsibility for the regular maintenance of them debt-free pressed on him, his physical and mental strength began to show signs of wear. He needed scheduled times to be away from the weekly pressures of the preparation and delivery of sermons, the oppressive weather and the thick floating muck called air in London, and the depressingly gray surroundings in earth and sky piled on top of the thick grime of the densely poor population of Southwark. Though some of his theologically offended contemporaries took advantage of Spurgeon's public admissions of physical malady and depression of spirit to dismiss the seriousness of his theological confrontations, there is no evidence that his mental acuteness or perfect sanity were ever threatened by his debilities. He had come to realize that he needed "Net Mending". "Our mind grows jaded, and our spirit depressed, our heart beats with diminished vigour, and our eyes lose their brightness, if we continue, month after month, and year after year, without a rest." Mental work, he believed, will as surely wear out the brain "as friction will destroy the iron

wheel." "It is bad policy to forego the regular vacation." ⁷ That was twenty-two years before he finally succumbed to the weakness of this present flesh.

Spurgeon loved and hated. Virtually without exception he loved people of all sorts. At the same time he truly hated the systems of religion and politics that blinded them to the clarity and purity and power of the gospel. "To hate error with perfect hatred, and yet to love the errorist, may seem a hard task; but the

Holy Spirit can help us to perform it." ⁸ He felt no bitterness toward those that erred, for he knew that sovereign grace had opened his mind and heart to the

light of truth. Bishops he loved, Episcopacy he hated; Arminians he embraced, while the peculiarities of Arminianism he found destructive; for Tories he had affection, but oppressive power and privilege gained by the mere fact of birth he not only opposed, but ridiculed; the poor he regarded highly, poverty and the indiscretions that created it he despised; those talented for business and thrift he celebrated, the quest for worldly splendor he resisted. The range of eleemosynary projects that he sponsored and supported could not have been sustained did he not have a marvelous capacity for love of all sorts of people and winsomeness with the rich that gained their full approval of his vision. The Earl of Shaftesbury expressed well the esteem won by Spurgeon for his benevolent ministries from many in places of influence. Shaftesbury expressed his regret that he could not attend at the Tabernacle a meeting of ragged school workers. "There is no man in the country, whose opinion and support in such matters I

prize more highly than those of my friend, Mr. Spurgeon." He continued:

It would give me singular pleasure after nearly forty years of work in the Ragged-school cause, to have

the testimony and counsel of so valuable a man. Few men have preached so much, and so well; and

few ever have combined so practically their words and their actions. I deeply admire and love him,

because I do not believe that there lives anywhere a more sincere and simple servant of our blessed

Lord. Great talents have been rightly used; and, under God's grace, have led to great issues. 9

Even Spurgeon's wit went unwasted, for it found its expression in the teaching of scriptural truth. W. Williams attended Spurgeon's Friday lectures for fourteen years and often went to the Thursday evening services. He had a standing invitation to Spurgeon's home "of which privilege," Williams confessed, "I availed myself as often as conscience would allow." In harmony with thousands of other observers, Williams reported that "the wit of Mr. Spurgeon was proverbial." Referring to him as a "bubbling fountain of humour," Williams confessed to having laughed more in Spurgeon's company than in the entire rest of his life besides. Spurgeon believed that laughter in itself was a good thing and helped tone the mind for many of the charming incongruities slung into our experience by divine grace. "The religion of Jesus," he said, "puts no restraint

upon innocent and healthy pleasure." ¹⁰ It is all the better if the quip or anecdote, or play on words becomes a barb by which an edifying point might remain lodged in the conscience. Browsing a bookshop brought an uninvited recommendation of a book on infant baptism with the cute remark, "Here, Mr. Spurgeon, is your thorn in the flesh." Undaunted, Spurgeon replied, "Finish the

quotation, brother—a messenger of Satan to buffet me." ¹¹ Through several pseudonyms, the most famous of which was John Ploughman, Spurgeon made many a moral and theological point with a bit of humorous irony and honeyed

vinegar. In a piece entitled "Great Thinkers Think Themselves Great Men," Spurgeon made many a pungent remark about feigned greatness and how little minds take little things to be marks of greatness. One such man thought he was great because he could stand on his head and drink a glass of beer and another because he knocked out a man's eye in a prize fight. The worst of the falsely great are those who deem themselves clever. At a distance they are swans but up close they are geese. And the worst of the clever are "those who know better than the Bible and are so learned that they believe that the world had no Maker, and that men are only monkeys with their tails rubbed off." Such talk one expects from Tom of Bedlam, but "now we get it from clever men. If things go on in this fashion a poor ploughman will not be able to tell which is the lunatic and which is the philosopher." Spurgeon went on to have John Ploughman bring

the discussion of cleverness to a penetrating point:

Many a drop of good broth is made in an old pot, and many a sweet comfort comes out of the old

doctrine. Many a dog has died since I first opened my eyes, and every one of these dogs has had his

day, but in all the days put together they have never hunted out a real fault in the Bible nor started

anything better in its place. They may be very clever, but they will not find a surer truth than that

which God teaches, nor a better salvation than that which Jesus brings, and so finding my very life in

the gospel I mean to live in it, and so ends this chapter. 12

Humor with no point, however, was indeed pointless. Ministers must not become "mere entertainers of the public, pouring out a number of stale jokes and idle tales." A scourge of small cords should be applied in some places that have become venues for entertainment assisted by ministers. "To make religious teaching interesting is one thing, but to make silly mirth, without aim or purpose,

is quite another." ¹³ Spurgeon interpreted his own ministry in terms of revealed truth. The content of Scripture's representation of human sin had been sealed in Spurgeon's own consciousness and the corresponding answer of the gospel satisfied his disturbed conscience. He found every proposition of Scripture surrounding him as a word of comfort, instruction, and conviction; divine truth "profitable for doctrine... and instruction in righteousness." Consequently the veracity of Scripture had been confirmed in his experience and by its own internal consistency and he needed no external verification of its truth. He argued with no one about "problems" in the biblical text or in the Christian faith. No good could come of it. Those who raised such problems had not yet felt the weight of their sin or of their need for a Redeemer. Mere intellectual jousting would solve no issue in their minds, for the Scripture is not given in order that the vain philosophical cavils of resistant intellects might be satisfied, but that wounded consciences

might be shown a perfect Redeemer. In that light, all he did in preaching, in controversy, and in benevolent ministries arose from his own perception of revealed truth. "We have received the certainties of revealed truth," he wrote, and "we do not bow to men's theories of truth." He did not argue, but declared that "there are certain verities—essential, abiding, eternal—from which it is ruinous to swerve." The only thing new in theology is that which is false, and Spurgeon rejoiced that he was considered an echo of the past, the biblical past

and the Puritan past, rather than a leading voice for error. ¹⁴ He did not regard modern thought or theology as Christianity at all, but a totally new cult.

In a benevolent way, Spurgeon considered himself as a universal filter for all human experience and its vicar for the sake of his people. Philosophers and sceptics could pose no question that had not rolled over him in the deep recesses of his own soul in his days of intellectual and spiritual turmoil before conversion. Compared to his struggles, the objections of current doubters were mere trifles and his people need not concern themselves with that which he already had answered. His opinion on books should serve as a shield for others; if he saw nothing edifying in it, then others merely would waste their time in investigating.

Spurgeon knew enough of suffering and mental distress to be a sure guide to fellow sufferers and to shield others from needing the experience for themselves.

In explaining his suffering, he noted that " The complete Pastor's life will be an epitome of the lives of his people, and they will turn to his preaching as men do to David's Psalms, to see themselves and their own sorrows, as in a mirror. Their

needs will be the reason for his griefs." ¹⁵ The martyrdoms of the universal church recorded so poignantly by Fox found their way into his daily experience through the endlessly bothersome misrepresentations of the media and the mean-spirited opposition from many fellow-clergy. Lampooned and ridiculed with merciless glee by many whose fame was built on their ability to humiliate, he gathered these testimonies of opposition in large scrap-books as a memorial to his shouldering such humiliation for others as he patiently took his place with Christ outside the camp.

Biblical doctrine was verified for all his hearers because he knew it to be true; bibliology, Christology and soteriology, all flowed through his personal engagement to all that heard and read him. Their confidence in its power and sanctifying influences could be trusted largely on the credit of his thorough test of their genuineness. To an intellectually troubled inquirer he stated, "If you believe that I am a liar, you are free to think so if you like; but I testify what I do

know, and state what I have seen, and tasted, and handled, and felt, and you ought to believe my testimony, for I have no possible object to serve in

deceiving you." ¹⁶ Not only did Spurgeon's conversion make him a conduit for all human experience, it gave him the key to all knowledge. Christ crucified trumped by infinite measure the most celebrated wisdom, polity, art, science, and philosophy of all peoples everywhere that did not come from the treasures of revealed truth.

A true Christian in possession of God's wisdom in the cross is "in a right place to follow with advantage any other branch of science." It proved true for him. "I confess I have a shelf in my head for everything now. Whatever I read I know where to put it; whatever I learn I know where to stow it away." In former days all that he read and all that he observed just whirled together in mindless confusion, "but ever since I have known Christ, I have put Christ in the centre as my sun, and each science revolves round it like a planet, while minor sciences are satellites to these planets." Since Christ had become the center of his

personal universe, he declared with confidence, "I can learn everything now." ¹⁷ Most prominently in his preaching ministry did Spurgeon show that his mind and heart formed a receptacle and a dispensary for the constant outgo and income of revealed truth. Week after week he poured forth what seemed to him the captivating, heart-forming, sinner-saving power entrenched in Scripture texts. The killing frequency of proclamation in Spurgeon's life compelled him toward such a death because he believed that relentless distribution was divinely ordained as the means by which revealed truth manifests its liveliness in breathing, under the blessing of the Spirit, spiritual, saving life into sinners. His mouth became a channel through which revealed truth flowed as a life-giving stream. He viewed texts not only as having their peculiarly appropriate interpretation, but embodying an entryway into the whole truth of Scripture. He paid attention to peculiar context but also brought his historic confessional commitment to bear in the sermonic presentation arising from the chosen text.

The Bible could not be fragmented, in Spurgeon's view, to isolated pericopes or individualized developments of theology from book to book or era to era, but moved toward the fullest display possible in this life of the glory of God manifest in the Redeemer's redemption. Managing a biblical text without Christ and his saving work was a gross mismanagement, because the sum of all the truths revealed in Scripture finds expression in Christ.

This view of preaching expressed consistently his driving theological concern.

The covenant of redemption, precious to Spurgeon from the earliest days subsequent to his conversion until his dying moments, found its yea and amen in

Christ and embodied all the "I wills" of God. Nothing partook more of the very nature of revelation and summarized the fullness of its intent than the covenantal transactions of eternity, and nothing seemed more certain in his own experience and ministry than the security brought by knowledge of that covenant. Because it was at the farthest limits of revealed truth, and went deeper into the eternal purpose and self-knowledge of the triune God than any other idea of Scripture, it was most foundational to our reception of every other item in that body of truth.

It should be foundational to all theology and all confessional expressions of it. In his brief statement prior to his edition of the 1689 Baptist confession of faith

Spurgeon wrote:

This ancient document is the most excellent epitome of the things most surely believed among us. It is

not issued as an authoritative rule or code of faith, whereby you may be fettered, but as a means of

edification in righteousness. It is an excellent, though not inspired, expression of the teaching of those

Holy Scriptures by which all confessions are to be measured. We hold to the humbling truths of God's

sovereign grace in the salvation of lost sinners. Salvation is through Christ alone and by faith alone.

That constitutes the abiding testimony of Charles Spurgeon. That, to him, was the message of Holy Scripture. It was nothing less than the sovereign work of

the Redeemer explained for us in revealed truth.