CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON was born June 19, 1834, at Kelvedon, Essex, England. His parents were Congregationalists, his father and grandfather both ministers. In his youth, Mr. Spurgeon was very early impressed with things divine, and after several years under the weight of sin, Spurgeon was convicted and converted to Christ at the age of 15 while listening to an uneducated Primitive Methodist layman, speaking to a small group, roughly comment upon Isaiah 45:22 — "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else."

Spurgeon describes the occasion as follows —

When he (the layman) had gone to about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me, as if he knew my heart, he said, "Young man, you look very miserable." Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow, struck right home. He continued, "and you always will be miserable: if you don't obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved." Then, lifting up his hands, he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist could do, "Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! 'Look Unto Me!' You have nothin' to do but to look and live." I saw at once the way of salvation.

Immediately after he was saved, Spurgeon began to work for the Master. A few months later he was baptized. Being born into a Congregationalist family, it took him a brief period to see his way clear as to the sacred ordinance. But when he did, he went to a Baptist church and was baptized. Mr Spurgeon said, "According to my reading of Holy Scripture, the believer in Christ should be buried with Him in baptism, and so enter upon his open Christian life." "I became a Baptist through reading the New Testament — especially in the Greek — and was strengthened in my resolve by a perusal of the Church of England Catechism, which declared as necessary to baptism, repentance and the forsaking of sin."

Spurgeon's godly mother later said to him, "Ah, Charles! I often prayed the Lord to make you a Christian, but I never asked that you become a Baptist." Spurgeon could not resist the temptation to reply, "Ah, mother! The Lord has answered your prayer with His usual bounty, and given you exceeding abundantly above what you asked or thought."

From then on, Spurgeon never ceased to preach "Christ and Him Crucified," except when the physical afflictions he had to endure [such as gout] were too sore for him to speak of write. From "The Boy Preacher" in the villages, he became "The Boy Preacher" in the great city of London. He was called as pastor of the New Park Street Baptist Church in 1854, after having pastored a church at Waterbeach, his very first pastorate. This London church was the church that in years past had for its pastor such spiritual giants as Benjamin Keach, John Gill, and John Rippon.

Once he had begun his ministry in London, it never ceased to prosper. The church was a praying church, and undoubtedly God had prepared the church and the minister for each other. Immediately the crowds began to flock to hear the young minister, and though some perhaps came out of curiosity, their hearts were captured by the Christ the young man preached. The conversions were quite numerous, though Mr. Spurgeon used none of the tactics of our moderns. His were conversions, not "decisions." He plainly preached the Word, pressing the Law and the Gospel upon his hearers — the Law to convict and break the hardened, and the Gospel to heal the broken.

With the great increase in membership and attendance came need for more space. In 1854, the church took steps toward this end, and in 1861, an enormous, beautiful tabernacle was completed. It was called "Metropolitan Tabernacle." Here Spurgeon preached until his death in 1892.

In 1856, Mr. Spurgeon was married to Miss Susannah Thompson, who proved to be a Godsend in the young minister's busy life. Mrs. Spurgeon gracefully and lovingly attended to her husband in his afflictions, and later, Mr. Spurgeon was called upon to do likewise for his wife, as she became an invalid. Two sons, twins, were born to this godly home, Charles and Thomas, and both of them became Baptist ministers of great usefulness.

Again in 1856, beginning with one student, Spurgeon began what developed into The Pastors' College; Mr. George Rogers was the teacher, and Mr. T. W. Medhurst the young student-minister. Soon there were eight others, then twenty, and later nearly one hundred men were enrolled in The Pastors' College.

Mr. Spurgeon was very careful about the faculty and students that came into the College. The theological views were Calvinistic, after the Puritan fashion. It was not an interdenominational school, but Baptistic. Spurgeon said, "We know nothing of new ologies; we stand by the old ways... 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."

"We confine our college to Baptists; and in order not to be harassed with endless controversies, we invite those only who hold those views of divine truth which are popularly known as Calvinistic... Latitudinarianism with its infidelity, and Unsectarianism with its intolerance, are neither of them friends of ours: we delight in the man who believes, and therefore speaks."

In 1855, Mr. Spurgeon's sermons began to be published each week, first under the head, The New Park Street Pulpit, later, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. In his magazine, The Sword and the Trowel, for February, 1897, five years after Spurgeon's death, a report was given, stating that the 2,500th publish sermon had been reached. Hundreds of thousands of his sermons were reprinted — printed in pamphlet form, in newspapers (including those in the United States), magazines, with many of them translated into other languages. Through his great sermons, Spurgeon continues his ministry on earth, though he is "absent in body." It can be said of him in a very real sense, "he being death yet speaketh." People today still read his messages and are blessed by the Christ-centered spiritual food Mr. Spurgeon set upon the Gospel-table. The late well-known W. Robertson Nicoll wrote: "Spurgeon's sermons are invariably worth buying, and a man who has a set of them possesses a very good theological library." A "set" at that time comprised fifty volumes, containing 2,915 sermons; the series finished in 1917 with 63 total volumes.

Though outstanding as a fluent and gifted preacher, Mr. Spurgeon was also blessed with the mind of a theologian, and fathomed deep theology as easily as a Gill or an Owen. Actually, his sermons are as full of theology as anyone's Body of Divinity or Systematic Theology. But his theology is in plain, simple language, set forth in a straight-forward, to the point, common-sense manner.

Mr. Spurgeon's theology flowed from his experience with God and His Word. His spiritual life and his theology were one and the same — two, yet one. He believed that the Lord alone was his Saviour, and thus could see nothing but Calvinism as the

He also said, "I ascribe my change wholly to God." "If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, 'He is one who says, SALVATION IS OF THE LORD.' I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. 'He ONLY is my rock and my salvation.' Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental rock-truth, 'God is my rock and my salvation.' "

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Though often railed upon by Arminians as a "hyper-Calvinist," his doctrine and practice gave the lie to the slander. He freely preached the Gospel to all, but he knew that the purpose of his preaching was to call out the elect, through the Spirit's power going before and accompanying the Word. Once he said, "If, indeed I believed there was not a number who must be saved, I could not go into a pulpit again. Only once make me think that no one is certain to be saved, and I do not care to preach. But now I know that a countless number must be saved; I am confident that Christ 'shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days.' I know that, if there is much to dispirit me in my ministry, and I see but little of its effect, yet He shall keep all whom the Father has given to Him; and this makes me preach. I come into this chapel tonight with assurance that God has some child of His, in this place, not yet called; and I feel confident that He will call someone by the use of the ministry, so why not by me?"

On the other hand, a few hyper-Calvinists denounced Spurgeon as an Arminian because he followed in the path of John the Baptist and the Apostles, using the Law, the Gospel, exhortations, promises — God's appointed means — to warn sinners to "flee from the wrath to come." But Mr. Spurgeon knew well that God had ordained the means as well as the end, and the peers of neither the "free-will" loving Arminians, nor the anti-Gospel Hyper-Calvinists moved him from his clear Calvinistic scriptural ground —

While I was minister at Waterbeach, I used to have a man sitting in front of the gallery, who would always nod his head when I was preaching what he considered sound doctrine, although he was about as bad an old hypocrite as ever lived. When I talked about justification, down went his head; when I preached about imputed righteousness, down it went again. I was a dear good man in his estimation, without doubt. So I thought I would cure him of nodding, or at least make his head keep still for once; so I remarked, "There is a great deal of difference between God electing you, and your electing yourself; a vast deal of difference between God justifying you by His Spirit, and your justifying yourself by a false belief, or presumption; this is the difference," said I, (as the old man at once put me down as a rank Arminian) — "that you who have elected yourselves, and justified yourselves, have no marks of the Spirit of God; you have no evidence of genuine piety, you are not holy men and women, you can live in sin, you can walk as sinners walk, you have the image of the devil upon you, and yet you call yourselves the children of God. One of the first evidences that anyone is a child of God is that he hates sin with a perfect hatred, and seeks to live a holy, Christlike life." This old Antinomian man did not approve of that doctrine; but I knew that I was preaching what was revealed in the Word of God.

A Rev. John Anderson of Helensburgh, Scotland commented in a letter (published in The Scottish Guardian, April 18, 1856) after reading a Spurgeon sermon for the first time —

When Mr. Spurgeon was in Glasgow, last summer, the fame of his eloquence had reached me in my seclusion here, by the shores of the sounding sea, the noise of whose waves delights me more than the "din of cities" or the tumult of the people. I had heard him "spoken against" by some, but spoken of by others as a preacher of remarkable, and, since the days of Whitefield himself, of unprecedented popularity. But being one of those who judge for themselves in the matter of preaching, and whose opinions as to what constitutes good preaching are somewhat peculiar, I did not attach much, I may almost say, any importance whatever to what I heard of Mr. Spurgeon and his popularity in Glasgow. One of his printed sermons, however, having fallen in my way, I had no sooner read a few paragraphs of it than I said, "Here at last is a preacher to my mind, — one whom not only I, but whom Paul himself, I am persuaded, were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own." I forget what was the subject of the discourse; but I remember well saying to myself, "I would rather have been the author of that sermon than of all the sermons, or volumes of sermons, published in my day." I had lately before this been reading Guthrie and Caird, but here was something entirely different, and, to my mind, in all that constitutes a genuine and a good gospel sermon, infinitely superior.

For some time after this, I heard little, and thought little, about Mr. Spurgeon. Having been, however, in London, on the last Sabbath of March, and having been unexpectedly released from an engagement to preach, I thought I could not do better than go and hear for myself the preacher of whom I had heard so much in my own country... Though, from the crowd which choked the doors and passages, we did not see the preacher very well, we (and this was what we wanted), heard him distinctly. When we entered, he was expounding, as is his custom, a portion of the Scriptures. The passage expounded was Exodus, 14th chapter, which contains an account of the Israelites at the Red Sea, — a passage of Scripture peculiarly interesting to me, having stood on its shore, and sailed on the very spot where the waters were so wondrously divided. The remarks of the preacher on each of the verses were very much in the style of Henry, and were rich and racy. His text was from the 106th Psalm, and the subject of the discourse was the same with that of the chapter he had just expounded, — "The Israelites at the Red Sea"...

Such was the method of one of the richest and ripest sermons, as regards Christian experience, I ever heard, — all the more wonderful as being the sermon of so young a man. It was a sermon far in advance of the experience of many of his hearers; and the preacher evidently felt this. But, notwithstanding this, such was the simplicity of his style, the richness and quaintness of his illustrations, his intense earnestness, and the absolute and admirable naturalness of his delivery, it told upon his audience generally, and told powerfully. Many, indeed most of them, were of "the common people," and when I looked on their plebeian faces, their hands brown with labour, and, in many cases, their faded attire, I could not help remembering Him of whom it is said, "the common people heard Him gladly." Yes, Mr. Spurgeon is the minister of "the common people;" I am told he considers himself to be such, and well he may be. Happy London people, if they but knew their happiness, to have such a minister!

...Mr. Spurgeon is equally great in the tender and the terrible. Nor is he without humour. Here, many will refuse him their sympathy, and think him censurable. I scarcely think he is. Others will think, and do think differently. His taste, according to others, is bad. It is, I admit, often so. But then, think of the immaturity of his years. I was told he was conceited. I saw no proofs of it; and if I had, was I on that account to think less of his sermons? I do not say I will not eat good bread, because the maker of it is conceited. His conceit may be a bad thing for himself; — his bread is very good for me. I am far from thinking Mr. Spurgeon perfect. In this respect he is not like Whitefield, who from the first was as perfect as an orator as he was at the last. In respect of his power over an audience, and a London one in particular, I should say he is not inferior to Whitefield himself.  Mr. Spurgeon is a Calvinist, which few of the Dissenting ministers in London now are. He preaches salvation, not of man's "free will," but of the Lord's good Will, which few in London, it is to be feared, now do. On all these accounts, we hail the appearance of Mr. Spurgeon with no ordinary delight, and anticipate for him a career of no ordinary usefulness. "Happy are they which stand continually before him, and hear his words of wisdom." As for myself, I shall long remember with delight the day on which I stood among them, and recommend such of my countrymen as may have a Lord's-day to spend in London, to spend it, as I did, in New Park Street Chapel, in hearing Mr. Spurgeon.

— from C. H. Spurgeon's AUTOBIOGRAPHY Vol II, pgs. 114-116

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In conclusion, holding to a system of doctrine throughout one's life does not necessarily mean that the system is the truth, nor does it mean that the one who holds to it is possessed of superior qualities. However, those who know the truth and have realized to some extent the value of an unmovable adherence to it, will appreciate Mr. Spurgeon more, in the light of the following statement. This statement was made in his later years and was occasioned by the necessity of doing some revision work on his earlier sermons, which were being re-issued. He stated —

"There were mistakes in orthography and typography which needed to be corrected; but I was happy to find that I had no occasion to alter any of the doctrines which I preached in those early days of my ministry. I might here and there slightly modify the expressions used thirty or five-and-thirty years ago; but as to the truths themselves, I stand just where I did when the Lord first revealed them to me by His unerring Spirit."

As we think upon the matchless gifts and miraculous labors of this great man, we are inclined to think of him as being super-human, if not angelic or even divine. But he was none of these. Mr. Spurgeon is simply a testimony to the Sovereign God who can do what He will with His Own.

A few years before the famous servant of God went to his eternal reward, he was invited by an American lecture bureau to come to America and deliver fifty lectures. He was to speak in all the large cities of the country. As compensation, the lecture bureau offered to pay all of Spurgeon's expenses, and those of his wife and private secretary, from the time they left London until they returned; and in addition, Spurgeon would receive a thousand dollars a night for each of his fifty lectures. [A thousand dollars then would be worth some five thousand now (1958).] Spurgeon promptly declined this tempting offer to make fifty thousand dollars in fifty days. He said, "I can do better. I will stay in London and try to save fifty souls." No wonder that at his death more than twelve thousand converts rose to bless his memory.

Speaking in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon once said of his life —

I have often told you, dear friends, that, if I possessed the powers of a novelist, I might write a three-volume novel concerning the events of any one day in my life, so singularly striking has my experience been. I should never need to describe things from the outside, as I should have plenty of material from within. My life seems to me like a fairy dream. I am often both amazed and dazed with its mercies and its love. How good God has been to me! I used to think that I should sing among the saints above as loudly as any, for I owe so much to the grace of God; and I said so once in a sermon, long ago, quoting those lines —

...I thought that I was the greatest debtor to Divine grace, and would sing the loudest to its praise; but when I came down out of the pulpit, there was a venerable woman who said to me, "You made a blunder in your sermon this evening." I said, "I daresay I made a dozen, good soul, but what was that particular one?" "Why, you said that you would sing the loudest because you owed most to Divine grace; you are but a lad, you do not owe half as much to grace as I do at eighty years of age! I owe more to grace than you, and I will not let you sing the loudest." I found that there was a general conspiracy among the friends that night to put me in the background, and that is where I meant to be, and wished to me; that is where those who sing the loudest long to be, to take the lowest place, and praise most the grace of God in so doing.

— from C. H. Spurgeon's AUTOBIOGRAPHY Vol I, pg. 3

What possible chance of success would a 19-year old country boy have if he assumed the pulpit of a tradition-rich but dying church located in a large metropolitan area during a skeptical time in world history? The boy was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the city was London, and the era was the second half of the 19th century. Anyone making a purely rational assessment of young Spurgeon's chances for success would have to say, "There is no way this venture can succeed!"

When Spurgeon arrived in London on December 18, 1853 for his trial sermon, he was a raw, country preacher who had only been a Christian for about three years. His only previous experience was a two-year stint as pastor of the little Baptist Church at Waterbeach. But London was a far cry from Waterbeach! You would have thought that sophisticated, worldly London would have made short work of this teenaged preacher. On his first night in London, Spurgeon stayed in a boarding house where the regulars kidded him unmercifully about how London would devour this little country preacher.

The New Park Street Church had been one of the great churches of England. Previous pastors included some of the greatest men among early Baptists. In recent years the church had fallen on bad times, and although the building seated about 1,200, less than two hundred were present for Spurgeon's trial sermon. To make matters worse, the community around the church was undergoing socioeconomic changes, and the only way to reach the church from the heavily populated northern part of London was by a toll bridge across the Thames. There was little hope that the church could last much longer.

The later half of the 19th century was a difficult period for churches. London was heavily industrialized with people working such long hours that little time was left for church activities. Science and reason seemed to leave little place in life for religion.

Now what would you give for Spurgeon's chances of success. Well, here's what happened in the next 30 years: such crowds came that the church's facilities were soon inadequate; the great Metropolitan Tabernacle was constructed to hold the thousands who came to hear Spurgeon each week; over 10,000 people joined the church; a pastors' college was founded; an orphanage was started; dozens of mission churches were established; volumes of sermons were published...

Through the one hundred years since Spurgeon's death, many students of preaching have tried to discover HOW he did it. Jay Adams attributes much of Spurgeon's success to his striking illustrations, his ability to surprise the hear with the unexpected, and his appeal to people's senses [Jay E. Adams, Sense Appeal in the Sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975) pgs. 32, 35-36].

In his biography of Spurgeon, Ernest W. Bacon points to the following factors in his success: the power of the Holy Spirit, sound doctrine, a first-hand religious experience, a passion for souls, devotion to the Bible, and the preaching of Christ [Ernest W. Bacon, Spurgeon:  Heir of the Puritans (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1967) pgs. 172-175].

Dr. Craig Skinner of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary attributes much of Spurgeon's success to his fresh style, his uncommon clarity, his ability to provide solid doctrine upon which people could base their lives, and an ability to link his sermons to his hearers' needs. [Craig Skinner, "The Preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon," Baptist History and Heritage #19 (October 1984) pg. 16]

The people who actually heard Spurgeon preach offered interesting evaluations of his success. The Times said that he put old truth into new dress. The Daily Telegraph reported that his secret was his zeal, his earnestness, and his courage. The Daily Chronicle wrote that he was indifferent to popularity and had a genius for commanding an audience. The Pictorial World expressed the feeling that it was Spurgeon's extraordinary earnestness that endeared him to the people. The Speaker recorded that Spurgeon not only had great oratorical powers but that he also was absolutely sincere and straight-forward. The Referee, a sports paper, said, "He had no Sunday voice" (a "Performing" or "Acting" voice) [W. Y. Fullerton, Charles H. Spurgeon (Chicago: Moody Press, 1966) pgs. 262-267].

We will look at his books. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them.

Even an apostle must read. Some of our very ultra-Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon, must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men's brains — oh! that is the preacher.

How rebuked are they by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, "GIVE THYSELF UNTO READING."

The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, "Bring the books" — join in the cry.

Our second remark is, that the apostle is not ashamed to confess that he does read. He is writing to his young son Timothy. Now, some old preachers never like to say a thing which will let the young ones into their secrets. They suppose they must put on a very dignified air, and make a mystery of their sermonizing; but all this is alien from the spirit of truthfulness. Paul wants books, and is not ashamed to tell Timothy that he does; and Timothy may go and tell Tychicus and Titus if he likes — Paul does not care.

Paul herein is a picture of industry. He is in prison; he cannot preach: WHAT will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read. As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets. So if providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class — if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading. If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry.

He says, "but especially the parchments." I think the books were Latin and Greek works, but that the parchments were Oriental; and possibly they were the parchments of Holy Scripture; or as likely, they were his own parchments, on which were written the originals of his letters which stand in our Bible as the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and so on. Now, it must be "Especially the parchments" with all our reading; let it be especially the Bible.

Do you attach no weight to this advice? This advice is more needed in England now than almost at any other time, for the number of persons who read the Bible, I believe, is becoming smaller every day. Persons read the views of their denominations as set forth in the periodicals; they read the views of their leader as set forth in his sermons or his works, but the Book, the good old Book, the divine fountain-head from which all revelation wells up — this is too often left.

You may go to human puddles, until you forsake the clear crystal stream which flows from the throne of God. Read the books, by all manner of means, but especially the parchments. Search human literature, if you will, but especially stand fast by that Book which is infallible, the revelation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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