Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A Preachers Progress

Patricia Stallings Kruppa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351588362
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

Originally published in 1982. This biography of Charles Haddon Spurgeon attempts to place the man within the framework of his time. The emphasis is upon Spurgeon as a representative Victorian, who succeeded because his values were those of the dominant middle class. This study also seeks to illuminate the motives which drove him, time after time, to seek the spotlight of controversy. C. H. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations to this day.

CHAPTER III

The Pastor of the Tabernacle

In March 1861, Spurgeon moved his flock into the new Metropolitan Tabernacle, soon to become, in W. T. Stead’s words, “one of the pilgrim shrines of the nineteenth century, one of the unifying nerve-centers of our race.”¹ “Spurgeon’s Tabernacle,” as it was immediately known, was a monument to an extraordinary personal accomplishment and a physical symbol of the staying power of evangelical doctrine. The Tabernacle, with its congregation of nearly five thousand, was the base around which a complex of educational and philanthropic institutions arose, all presided over by Spurgeon, who revealed in his new setting a talent for painstaking administration that few would have suspected of the preaching sensation of Exeter Hall. His success as a preacher and an administrator was noteworthy, but not unique in a century which celebrated the saga of the self-made man. Spurgeon thought of himself as cast in the Puritan mold, but he was far more a child of his century than he realized. He succeeded in a variety of roles—pastor, teacher, author, administrator—precisely because he was an accurate reflection of the virtues of his times, a man who perfectly embodied the shrewd, pragmatic qualities of the dominant middle class.

Spurgeon’s energy, determination, and vision were responsible for the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and the building bore the firm impression of his personality. He personally supervised every aspect of the project. He chose the site over the objections of his deacons, he selected the name, he even dictated the architectural style of the building. His innate shrewdness is certainly revealed in his choice of a site. In spite of the reservations of many members of his congregation, he selected a section of land in Newington Butts, Southwark, opposite a famous old public house, The Elephant and Castle. The area seemed unpromising; it was neither centrally located nor in a fashionable suburb, but six major roads converged at the spot, and Spurgeon predicted that the area would be likely to grow rapidly. He also insisted from the beginning that the building be erected on a freehold, which required an act of Parliament. In the end he prevailed, and the land was purchased from the Fishmongers’ Company for £5,000.

Spurgeon invited architects to submit designs for the projected new building, but stipulated in advance that only Grecian designs would be considered. In this he deliberately flouted the current vogue for Gothic architecture, and his chapel was built in a style which was rapidly becoming dated. The Baptists, as Horton Davies has pointed out, were the architectural conservatives of the day, for by mid-century much Dissenting architecture reflected the growing popularity of the Gothic.² As the largest and most important of Baptist buildings, Spurgeon’s Tabernacle was a significant model for “Baptist classical style,” and an important influence upon architectural style within the denomination. Spurgeon rejected Ruskin’s argument that the Gothic style was the best expression of Christian architecture, and instead saw in the Gothic revival a return to the superstitions of the middle ages. Greek, he argued, was the Christian tongue and the language of the New Testament, and therefore should be “the Baptist tongue.” Latin was “Rome’s mongrel tongue,” and it followed from this that “every Baptist place of worship should be Grecian—never Gothic. We owe nothing to the Goths as religionists.”³ Spurgeon had his way, and there were no “hobgoblins and monsters” on his church. The completed Tabernacle resembled a Victorian Parthenon, a pristine contrast to the Elephant and Castle across the way. While it is possible to question Spurgeon on aesthetic grounds, time has proved him correct in his choice of a site. The Tabernacle—”the Tab” to its neighbors—still stands on its freehold facing one of the busiest intersections in London. The original Tabernacle burned in 1898, and was rebuilt according to the original plans. (Significantly, the total seating capacity was reduced, for after Spurgeon’s death no one else could fill such a large building.) During World War II the whole Elephant and Castle area was heavily bombed, and the Tabernacle was once again destroyed. After the war the Tabernacle was rebuilt again, but this time only the old facade was retained. The present structure preserves Spurgeon’s original exterior design of six Grecian pillars supporting a triangular arch, but the interior has been completely remodelled. The old Elephant and Castle public house which gave the area its name has disappeared, replaced by a modern shopping complex. The only reminder of the Victorian past which still remains in this modern center is the outline of that venerable antique, Spurgeon’s Tabernacle.

According to a report in The Times, Spurgeon announced that the land had “been as much given to them by the Lord as if an angel had come down from heaven and cleared it.” The hyperbole is obvious, but certainly Spurgeon might well have said, as the reporter claimed, that he would consider himself a “guilty sneaking sinner” if the Tabernacle were opened with any debts unpaid.⁴ Spurgeon insisted from the beginning that the building would be opened without any debt or not at all. He refused to allow the congregation to worship in the new structure until all the costs of the building were completely paid for. In order to raise money for the new building, Spurgeon preached for three years all over the kingdom, sometimes delivering as many as ten sermons a week. He regarded the Tabernacle as a crucial test case of the Nonconformist belief in religious voluntaryism. If his people could not raise the funds to pay for their building, how could they argue that the Church of England, if disestablished, would be supported by voluntary contributions? His insistence on opening the Tabernacle without debt also reflected an almost morbid fear of insolvency. He once confessed that since childhood he had “hated debt as Luther hated the Pope,”⁵ a sentiment he attributed to parental instruction. As a child he had once purchased a slate on credit from a local merchant, and had been severely chastised by his father, who made him return the slate and explain that he had taken it under false pretenses. Honesty and thrift were commonplace teachings in most evangelical households, but the early lessons made a deeper impression upon Spurgeon than upon most. During his lifetime he earned a great deal of money, but he put most of it back into his institutions. Despite his obvious earning power, he never felt financially secure, and was plagued throughout his lifetime by anxieties about money, which he admitted were largely unfounded. His homely wisdom and teachings on the virtue of solvency—”Better to go to bed without supper than to get up in debt”—masked a strange and perplexing anxiety about his financial resources that he did not hide and was unable to explain. In any event, he was a splendid fund-raiser, personally raising £11, 253, 15s. 6d. of the total cost (£31, 332, 4s. 10d.) of the Tabernacle. He was not only a generous man; he had the ability to inspire generosity in others.

Spurgeon was a man of fixed opinions and prejudices, many reflecting his background and some his experience. Most of his ideas concerning worship were grounded in the teachings of the Puritans. He had the Puritan’s horror of graven images and stained glass. He said of stained glass windows that Cromwell’s hammer was the best way to deal with them and the Romish superstition they represented.⁶ He was also in the Puritan tradition in his refusal to describe any Dissenting house of worship as a “church”—as Richard Mather said, “There is no just ground from scripture to apply such a trope as church to a house for public assembly.”⁷ Spurgeon quoted with approval the remark of the Quaker George Fox, that churches were “steeple houses,” and he insisted that his congregation, like the children of Israel, were still wanderers in the wilderness, and therefore still in the “tabernacle stage.” Since they had not reached the promised land, there could be no temple. In the great wilderness of Victorian London, they would erect a Tabernacle.

Spurgeon’s Tabernacle could hold as many as six thousand worshippers, slightly more than Exeter Hall. The interior was semi-circular, with two tiers of balconies facing a raised platform and baptismal pool. The design was intended to allow as many people as possible to see the preacher, for this was a preacher’s church. Only a few seats had an obstructed view, and the accoustics were excellent, as another seasoned speaker, John Bright, testified.⁸ In building such a large church, Spurgeon’s congregation gambled that his popularity would not fade. There were no lack of competitors, spiritual and secular, to lure the London populace, but for those who had argued that “Spurgeonism” was a passing fad, on an intellectual par with spirit-rapping, his continuing power to attract an audience was a tribute both to his abilities and the drawing power of the Victorian pulpit.

When the Tabernacle was opened in 1861, Spurgeon was twenty-seven years old. Though he was young, he managed his huge congregation with a sure hand. The control that he exercised was all the more remarkable considering his real lack of pastoral experience—a couple of years in rural Waterbeach followed by the frenzied years of his early London ministry. If he experienced any doubts about his ability to manage a large...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• I. The Education of a Preacher
• II. The Preaching Sensation of London
• III. The Pastor of the Tabernacle
• IV. Evangelist to the World
• V. Ritualism and Regeneration
• VI. A Political Dissenter
• VII. Defender of the Faith
• VIII. The Downgrade Controversy
• IX. Last Years
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Note on Additional Bibliography
• Index