C.H. Spurgeon: Pastor-Theologian (Part 3)
Expanding Ministry
Not surprisingly, the three-month trial period at New Park Street was unnecessary. By April of 1854, a petition signed by fifty men of the congregation called for a special business meeting to invite Spurgeon to become their permanent pastor. On April 19, the church sent him a unanimous invitation which he humbly accepted: “No lengthened reply is required; there is but one answer to so loving and cordial an invitation. I ACCEPT IT.”[1] Spurgeon’s ministry at New Park Street immediately yielded tremendous fruit. In the first few months of his tenure the 1200 seat auditorium was filled, and people stood around the room to participate in the service and hear him preach.
The Popular Public Theologian
At once the New Park Street chapel could not hold the number of people pressing in to hear Spurgeon preach. A collection for new facilities was quickly initiated.[2] As expansion work began on the chapel, the people of New Park Street had to select an alternate meeting place for their massive Sunday morning gatherings. Exeter Hall, with seating for five thousand was chosen as a suitable temporary home for the growing congregation. It was filled from the first Sunday. One observer quipped, “If Exeter Hall had been twice its size, it would have been inadequate still.”[3] The media both positively and negatively covered the vast crowds at Exeter Hall and Spurgeon’s popularity grew still further. James Grant, editor of The Morning Advertiser wrote:
Never since the days of George Whitefield has any minister of religion acquired so great a reputation as this Baptist preacher, in so short a time. Here is a mere youth, a perfect stripling, only twenty-one years of age, incomparably the most popular preacher of the day. There is no man within Her Majesty’s dominions who could draw such immense audiences.[4]
As the audiences grew more immense, the renovation of New Park Street proved to be an exercise in futility. After one year of crowded meetings in the renovated chapel, the congregation returned to Exeter Hall. It was soon determined that a new facility must be constructed for New Park Street and that Exeter Hall could not hold the current Sunday crowds. An even larger venue would have to be secured until a new facility was complete.
Surrey Gardens
Surrey Gardens Music Hall was chosen next as a suitable venue. It held 12,000 and on the evening of October 19, 1856, was filled to capacity. An additional 10,000 people surrounded the facility seeking entrance. After a brief introduction, exposition, and hymn, a shout rang through the throng. “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! The galleries are giving way! The place is falling!” A panic ensued. In the rush to exit the building, seven people were killed and many injured. Spurgeon did his best to quiet the crowd, attempting to preach, but to no avail. Overwhelmed by the pandemonium, he sang a hymn and dismissed the crowds. He was carried from the hall by friends, carefully avoiding the seven corpses on the ground outside.[5]
Spurgeon spent two weeks with his wife in Croydon at the home of church members as he battled despair over the horrific incident at Surrey Gardens. Aside from personal recovery, the people of New Park Street sought to protect their young pastor from the media assault that ensued. The press, as will be made evident, were already critical of Spurgeon. This tragedy provided full vent to their vitriolic rhetoric.[6] As reports and commentaries were published, news of the young pastor spread rapidly. Instead of decreasing his influence, the results of the tragedy were to the contrary. On November 23, 1856, Spurgeon went back to Surrey Gardens and the crowds filled the structure yet again. He continued to preach at Surrey Gardens until 1859 when the permanent church home for his congregation was completed.
Surrey Gardens Music Hall
The Metropolitan Tabernacle
The opening service of the Metropolitan Tabernacle was held on March 25, 1861. Spurgeon thundered from the new pulpit as to his gospel intentions.
I would propose (and O may the Lord grant me grace to carry out that proposition) that the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist, although I claim to be rather a Calvinist according to Calvin, than after the modern debased fashion. I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist... but if I am asked to say what is my creed, I think I must reply: “It is Jesus Christ.”[7]
The Tabernacle itself held over 5,000 worshippers, and it was weekly filled beyond capacity to hear Spurgeon speak on his gospel subject.[8] The Tabernacle thus became the center of Spurgeon’s ministry until his death.
The Pastor-Theologian and Philanthropy
Spurgeon wasn’t content to carry out his ministry within the walls of the newly built Tabernacle. He intentionally and strategically engaged the culture around the church with gospel tenacity. By the time he turned fifty, he had launched over sixty-six ministry organizations from the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
The Pastor’s College
During his early and rapidly expanding London ministry, Spurgeon saw the need to establish a place of education for ministers.
When, in early days, God’s Holy Spirit had gone forth with my ministry at New Park Street, several zealous young men were brought to a knowledge of the truth; and among them some whose preaching in the street was blessed of God to the conversion of souls. Knowing that these men had capacities for usefulness, but labored under the serious disadvantage of having no education, and were, moreover, in such circumstances that they would not be likely to obtain admission into any of our Colleges, it entered into my heart to provide them with a course of elementary instruction, which might, at least, correct their inaccuracies of speech, and-put them in the way of obtaining information by reading.[9]
Beginning with a single student in 1856, the “Pastor’s College Evangelical Association of Ministries” attracted many seeking training from Spurgeon for the ministry. In 1879 the college was celebrating twenty-five years in ministry as 548 men had passed through the school, 432 of which were still in active ministry positions. The college was deeply important to Spurgeon. In an 1875 Sword and Trowel article he explained, “Our assured conviction is that there is no better, holier, more useful or more necessary Christian service than assisting to educate young ministers.”[10] The college thus became a powerful ministry arm of the Tabernacle into the life of Londoners. The Missionary Association of the college was a sending force, placing missionaries in areas where no gospel witness was known. The Evening School began in 1862, providing basic education for those who had neither the time nor funds to attend school.[11] Many who attended Evening School went on to study at the Pastor’s College to prepare for ministry themselves. Students from the college planted churches in London and throughout England based on their training with Spurgeon. “By 1866, in London alone the Spurgeon men had formed eighteen new churches.”[12]
Lectures to My Students
Every Friday, Spurgeon would personally lecture the men of the Pastor’s College. Some of those lectures were later published and complied in a book entitled Lectures to My Students. One student remembered his Friday deliveries with delight. “What weighty and wise discourse he gave us on the subject of preaching! How gently he corrected faults and encouraged genuine diffidence!”[13] Spurgeon lectured often on the Puritans and explicitly marked out the theology of the college as “Puritanic.”
We endeavor to teach the Scriptures, but, as everybody else claims to do the same, and we wish to be known and read of all men, we say distinctly that the theology of the Pastors’ College is Puritanic. We know nothing of the new ologies; we stand by the old ways. The improvements brought forth by what is called ‘modern thought’ we regard with suspicion, and believe them to be, at best, dilutions of the truth, and most of them old, rusted heresies, tinkered up again and sent abroad with a new face put upon them, to repeat the mischief which they wrought in ages past. We are old-fashioned enough to prefer Manton to Maurice, Charnock to Robertson, and Owen to Voysey. Want of knowing what the old theology is, is in most cases the reason for ridiculing it. Believing that the Puritanic school embodied more of gospel truth in it than any other since the days of the apostles, we continue in the same line of things, and, by God’s help, hope to have a share in that revival of Evangelical doctrine which is as sure to come as the Lord Himself. Those who think otherwise can go elsewhere; but, for our own part, we shall never consent to leave the doctrinal teaching of the Institution vague and undefined, after the manner of the bigoted liberalism of the present day.[14]
The Stockwell Orphanage
The Pastor’s College was the first of Spurgeon’s engagements with the culture of London, but it was far from his only enterprise. In an 1866 article for The Sword and Trowel, Spurgeon described the need for an institution to care for the orphans of London. Not long after the article’s publishing, a widow of a clergyman of the church of England contacted Spurgeon with a donation. She had recently joined the covenant members of the Metropolitan Tabernacle and Spurgeon’s compassion toward the fatherless of London resonated with her. She wrote to the church, saying, “I have now about £20,000, which I should like to devote to the training and education of a few orphan boys. Of course, bringing the little ones to Jesus is my first and chief desire.”[15] Land was purchased the following January and the Stockwell Orphanage began to take shape. Spurgeon personally designed the structure of the orphanage to mimic, as closely as possible, the nuclear family. “Sensitive to the fact that institutional life could be very impersonal, he wanted the children to grow up in smaller family units, although it would be more expensive.”[16] Each “home” became its own family, with a mother in the place of authority. Spurgeon’s vision for the orphanage was innovative for the 1860’s and it greatly impacted the community of orphans in London. The boys home was completed in 1869 and ten years later expanded to include a girls’ home, completed in 1880.
Other Ministries
Spurgeon deeply cared for the poor of London. When the New Park Street building was sold, he used the proceeds to fund Almshouses begun by Dr. Rippon, his predecessor. These facilities met the needs of elderly women in London with no family to care for them, and Spurgeon placed a high priority on their ministry.
In 1866 he also founded the Colporteurs Association “to extend the circulation of the scriptures, and to create the diffusion of sound religious literature…”[17] Men, many of whom were preachers from other denominations, would travel throughout England selling Bibles and other theological books. As they went, they often engaged in ministry with the homeowners to whom they spoke, extending the Tabernacle’s reach far beyond London.[18] In addition to the Colporteurs Association, Spurgeon founded the Pastor’s Aid Society in 1879 to help poor ministers in need of money and clothing. That particular society was connected closely with Susannah Spurgeon’s Book Fund Ministry founded in 1875. Mrs. Spurgeon saw it as a private undertaking to get a copy of the newly published Lectures to My Students into the hands of every minister in England. When she told her husband of this desire he quipped, “Then why not do so?” By the end of Spurgeon’s life, over 150,000 volumes had been sent to pastors.[19]
Spurgeon and the Tabernacle launched The Rock Loan Tract Society, The Ordinance Poor Fund, The Ladies’ Benevolent Society, The Ladies’ Maternal Society, The Poor Minister’s Clothing Society, The Flower Mission, and many other auxiliary ministries aside from Sunday School and Bible classes regularly offered.[20] His intentional engagement with London culture began in his early days of ministry and never waned in his later years.
The Pastor-Theologian and Publishing
Spurgeon engaged the public at an intense pace. His first published sermon was released in a magazine entitled The Penny Pulpit in 1854. Not long after this, Spurgeon came to terms with publisher and friend Joseph Passmore to publish his sermons weekly in a “Penny Pulpit” of his own. These messages had an average circulation of 25,000 per week, and when Spurgeon preached a special message, such as the controversial attack on Baptismal Regeneration, the number swelled to over 350,000. His printed messages were eventually compiled to form the multi-volume New Park Street Pulpit and later, the sixty-three volume Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.[21] Through Spurgeon’s relationship with Passmore, one hundred thirty-five books were produced. Mention has already been made of Lectures to My Students, the compilation of Spurgeon’s Friday lectures to the Pastor’s College, but his addresses to the annual conference at the college were also compiled in the volume An All Round Ministry. He wrote several works that became immediately popular at the time of their publishing because of the unadorned nature of their composition. He titled them John Ploughman’s Talks; or Plain Advice for Plain People, and John Ploughman’s Pictures; or More of His Plain Talk for Plain People. In 1865 he produced the devotional Morning by Morning, but his devotional commentary and magnum opus, The Treasury of David, took twenty-one years to complete. “It stands today as a monument to his insight, thoroughness, tenacity, and above all, his practical grasp of what the Word of God is saying.”[22] Spurgeon, like Rippon his predecessor, also produced a hymnal entitled Our Own Hymn Book to be used at the Tabernacle during worship.
The Sword and The Trowel
Spurgeon’s writing ministry extended beyond the books and published sermons, however. In 1865 he began production of a monthly periodical entitled The Sword and the Trowel. The intention behind the magazine was to report on the organizations connected with the Tabernacle and commend right doctrine to those who might never attend the tabernacle. He saw it as a supplementary resource to aid in the defense of biblical truth and advance the influence of the Tabernacle beyond the borders of London.
Our magazine is intended to report the efforts of those churches and Associations which are more or less intimately connected with the Lord’s work at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and to advocate those views of doctrine and church-order which are most certainly received among us. Our monthly message will be a supplement to our weekly sermon and will enable us to say many things which would be out of place in a discourse. It will inform general Christian public of our movements and show our sympathy with all that is good throughout the entire Church of God. It will give us an opportunity of urging the claims of Christ's cause, of advocating the revival of godliness, of denouncing error, of bearing witness for truth, and of encouraging the laborers in the Lord’s vineyard.”[23]
The magazine was widely circulated and became Spurgeon’s primary source of contact with Tabernacle members as well as the general public.[24] His published works stand alone in Christian history, with more books published than any other English author. The Metropolitan Tabernacle pastor was a prolific author and keen public theologian.
Notes
[1] Spurgeon, Autobiography, Vol. 1, 259.
[2] Pike, The Life and Work of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 131.
[3] Drummond, Spurgeon, 211.
[4] Ernest W. Bacon, Spurgeon, Heir of the Puritans, 1st U.S.A. ed. (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 1968), 52.
[5] Drummond, Spurgeon, 241.
[6] “Mr. Spurgeon is a preacher who hurls damnation at the heads of his sinful hearers. Some men there are who, taking their precepts from Holy Writ, would beckon erring souls to a rightful path with fair words and gentle admonition; Mr. Spurgeon would take them by the nose, and bully them into religion. Let us set up a barrier to the encroachments and blasphemies of men like Spurgeon, saying to them, ‘Thus far shalt thou come, but no further;’ let us devise some powerful means which shall tell to the thousands who now stand in need of enlightenment,—This man, in his own opinion, is a righteous Christian; but in Ours, nothing more than a ranting charlatan. We are neither strait-laced nor Sabbatarian in Our sentiments; but we would keep apart, widely apart, the theatre and the church;—above all, we would place in the hand of every right-thinking man, a whip to scourge from society the authors of such vile blasphemies as, on Sunday night, above the cries of the dead and the dying, and louder than the wails of misery from the maimed and suffering, resounded from the mouth of Spurgeon in the music-hall of the Surrey Gardens. And lastly, when the mangled corpses had been carried away from the unhallowed and disgraceful scene—when husbands were seeking their wives, and children their mothers in extreme agony and despair—the chink of the money as it fell into the collection-boxes grated harshly, miserably on the ears of those who, we sincerely hope, have by this time conceived for Mr. Spurgeon and his rantings the profoundest contempt.” Ibid., 241. The Daily News was also harshly critical. “The crowd had been assembled to collect a subscription toward the erection of such a mammoth chapel (the proposed Tabernacle), and Mr. Spurgeon and his friends were unwilling that the opportunity should be lost. Therefore, his intumesce reminder; therefore Mr. Spurgeon’s exclamation to the panic-stricken fugitives that they were more afraid of temporal than eternal death; therefore, the indecent rattling of money-boxes in their ears. We might go further and remark on the callous manner in which Mr. Spurgeon and his friends left the meeting, without one attempt to aid or soothe the sufferers; But we are willing to make allowance for the bewilderment which such a spectacle was calculated to produce.” Ibid., 242.
[7] C. H. Spurgeon, “The First Sermon in the Tabernacle,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 7 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861), 169.
[8] Drummond notes that after the Surrey Gardens tragedy, Spurgeon took personal care over the construction of the Tabernacle, insuring its safety. “The Tabernacle was a well-built structure and very sturdy. Spurgeon could never forget the tragedy at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall. He had constructed the building in such a fashion that, should the need ever arise that the people needed to leave the building quickly and safely, each gallery had its own set of stairways. They were of large size and ran all the way down to the individual exit doors. Drummond, Spurgeon, 351.
[9] Spurgeon et al., C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, 385.
[10] S&T, June 1875. Charles H. Spurgeon, The Sword and The Trowel (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1865-1892).
[11] “The…curriculum included a Bible class, advanced English, elementary and advanced Greek and Latin, French, and lectures on science, as well as the traditional disciplines. Classes ran from 150 to 200 in attendance and required the basement of the Metropolitan Tabernacle as well as the buildings of the Pastor’s College.” Drummond, Spurgeon, 419.
[12] Arnold A. Dallimore, Spurgeon: A New Biography (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1985), 108.
[13] Charles Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography, Volume 2: The Full Harvest 1860-1892, Revised edition (Edinburgh ; Carlisle, Pa: Banner of Truth, 1973), 108-109.
[14] Spurgeon, Autobiography, Vol. 2, 387-388.
[15] Spurgeon, Autobiography, Vol. 2, 163. Spurgeon and the leadership of the Tabernacle were understandably surprised and met with her to confirm the amount, suggesting perhaps she meant £200. She reiterated her intentions to give the former amount. Spurgeon asked whether she might want to give it to George Müller instead for his Orphan Homes. She assured the men that the money was to be entrusted to Spurgeon, and him alone.
[16] Drummond, Spurgeon, 423.
[17] Charles Ray, The Life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (London: Ibister and Company Limited, 1903), 340-350.
[18] About the Colporteurs Spurgeon remarked, “I believe it to be one of the most efficient and economical agencies in existence and as education increases, it will be more and more so. The sale of vicious literature can only be met by the distribution of good books; these can best be scattered in rural districts by carrying them to the houses of the people; and even in towns, the book-hawkers’ work greatly stimulates their sale. The colporteur not only endeavors to sell the books, but he visits from door to door, and, in so doing, converses with the inmates about their souls, prays with the sick, and leaves a tract at each cottage. He is frequently able to hold prayer meetings, open-air services and Bible readings. He gets a room, if possible, and preaches; found Bands of Hope, and makes himself generally useful in the cause of religion and temperance. He is, in fact, at first a missionary, then a preacher, and by-and-by, in the truest sense, a pastor. We have some noble men in the work.” Ray, The Life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 356-357.
[19] Drummond, Spurgeon, 436.
[20] The Rock Loan Tract Society loaned copies of Spurgeon’s sermons to those who lived in isolated areas of England. The Ordinance Poor Fund centered on the members of the Metropolitan Tabernacle themselves who needed food and other supplies. The Ladies’ Benevolent Society collected and made clothes for the poor. The Ladies’ Maternal Society aided poor pregnant women in London in whatever way they were able. The Poor Minister’s Clothing Society, as might be expected, provided clothing for poor ministers. Spurgeon himself presided over this particular ministry as well. The Flower Mission began in 1877. Flowers would be collected, arranged, and delivered to people in the hospital by members of the church. Drummond, 437-438.
[21] “…on January 7, 1855, the first of a long series commenced. Passmore produced a weekly sermon from that date until 1917.” Drummond, Spurgeon, 314. Until very recently, the published sermons of Spurgeon in the New Park Street Pulpit were the earliest records of his preaching. Thanks to Dr. Christian George and Broadman and Holman Publishers, sermons from as far back as 1851 are now accessible and in print form. Drawn from Spurgeon’s own notebooks, George has compiled an elegant prequel to The New Park Street Pulpit referenced in various places throughout the current work. Christian T. George, The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon Volume I: His Earliest Outlines and Sermons Between 1851 and 1854, Critical Edition (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2017); Christian T. George, The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon Volume II: A Critical Edition of His Earliest Outlines and Sermons between 1851 and 1854: 2 (B&H Academic, 2017); Christian T. George, The Lost Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon Volume III: His Earliest Outlines and Sermons Between 1851 and 1854 (B&H Academic, 2018).
[22] Drummond, Spurgeon, 317.
[23] Spurgeon, Autobiography, Volume 2, 145.
[24] “In addition, the general Christian reader could learn first-hand, rather than through rumor or the press, what happened at the Tabernacle. After a decade of less than satisfactory experience with reports from other sources of news and information, and just plain nastiness, Spurgeon had a clear path to the public in mind.” Tom J. Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Scotland: Christian Focus, 2013), 400.