Some Snips From C.H.'s Letters

I have owned Letters Of Charles Haddon Spurgeon for quite some time.It contains scores of letters in it's 192 pages.As is my habit, I will give select extracts of just a few.I will note the date and occasionally identify the person he was addressing.Once in a while I'll give some extra info beyond what Iain Murray has furnished.

April 6,1850 [To his dad]

Were it not all of sovereign,electing,almighty grace,I,for one,could never hope to be saved.

June 11,1850 [To his mom]

One of our Deacons,Mr --,is constantly inviting me to his house,he is rather Arminian,but so are the majority of Newmarket Christians.

[C.H.S.was just baptized the previous month.Newmarket was a congregational church.]

June 3,1851

Last Sunday we had old Mr Jay of Bath;a real wonder he is.The place was crammed everywhere.He is eighty three or eighty four,I think.

[Mr Jay was 82.He was a link to Rowland Hill.Hill was almost in the mold of Whitefield.Jay used to read Matthew Henry so much CHS says in his book on commentaries one would wonder if it really was Jay or Henry doing the preaching.Once a student at the Pastor's College was accused of copying one of Spurgeon's sermons.CHS didn't want to deal with it personally -- it was kind of awkward.But the young man kept denying that he had borrowed it from Spurgeon.It turned out that the latter had unconsciously gleaned the substance from a Jay sermon.Maybe its source was really Henry!]

December 1853 [To his dad]

The London people are rather higher in Calvinism than I am;but I have succeeded in bringing one church to my own views,and will trust,with Divine assistance,to do the same with another.I am a Calvinist;I love what someone called 'glorious Calvinism',but 'Hyperism' is too hot-spiced for my palate.

It is Calvinism they want in London,and any Arminian preaching will not be endured.

 

Jan.27,1854

[Regarding the five folks who had voted not to have the 19 year old as their minister.]

I respect the honesty and boldness of the small minority,and only wonder that the number was not greater.

[ John Rippon (1751-1836 was only 20 when given probation by New Park.He was 22 when he began his 63 year ministry.JR confessed the same thing as Spurgeon did.Only in Rippon's time 40 had left the church because they thought him too young and not sound enough compared with the illustrious John Gill.But those 40 had started their own chuch with the help of Rippon and New Park's blessing.Their new pastor -- William Burton,was 19!]

Early 1854 [To his father]

The portraits of Gill and Rippon -- large as life -- hang in the vestry.Lots of them said I was Rippon over again.

...have been for two years as much a minister as any man in England;and probably very much more so,since in that time I have preached more than 600 times.

 

A Snip Of A Letter To His New Park Congregation

April 28,1854

The first note of invitation from your deacons came quite unlooked-for,and I trembled at the idea of preaching in London.I could not understand how it had come about,and even now I am in the hands of our covenant God,whose wisdom directs all things.He shall choose for me;and so far as I can judge,this is His choice.
I feel it to be a high honour to be the Pastor of a people who can mention glorious names as my predecessors,and I entreat of you to remember me in prayer,that I may realize the solemn responsibility of my trust.Remember my youth and inexperience,and pray that these may not hinder my usefulness.I trust also that the remembrance of these will lead you to forgive mistakes I may make,or unguarded words I may utter.
Blessed be the name of the Most High,if He has called me to this office,He will support me in it, -- otherwise,how should a child,a youth,have the presumption thus to attempt the work which filled the heart and hands of Jesus?

 

Thanks Jim.It is interesting to read the letters of saints gone by -- John Newton,John Calvin,A.W.Pink,Lloyd-Jones and so many others.

 

August 25,1854

Our harvest is too rich for the barn...On Sabbath days the crowd is immense,and seat-holders cannot get into their seats;half-an-hour before time,the aisles are a solid block,and many stand through the whole service,wedged in by their fellows,and prevented from escaping by the crowd outside who seal up the doors,and fill the yard in front,and stand in throngs as far as the sound can reach.

Souls are being saved.I have more enquirers than I can attend to... have to send many away without being able to see them.The Lord is wondrous in praises.

 

No,the meetings were held at the New Park Street Church.

C.H.S's reference to the harvest being "too rich for the barn" was metaphoric.

The fire-alarm (because there was no fire) happened at the Surrey Music Hall,Surrey Gardens on October 19,1856.That was more than two years after his remarks about the crowded situation at New Park.

 

A profitable exercise.

How's that 'developing'?

 

March 23,1855

I believe I could secure a crowded audience at dead of night in a deep snow.

I have heard of parties coming to the hall,from ten to twelve miles distance,being there half-an-hour before time,and then never getting so much as near the door.

What on earth are other preachers up to,when,with ten times the talent,are snoring along with prosy sermons,and sending the world away?The reason is,they do not know what the gospel is;they are afraid of real gospel Calvinism and therefore the Lord does not own them.

 

I don't have that one.I do have Volume 2 :The Full Harvest 1860-1892"published by The Banner of Truth Trust.It's a revised edition,originally compiled by Susannah Spurgeon and Joseph Harrald.

As much suffering that CHS had,I think John Calvin had even more.Spurgeon died in his 57th year and Calvin died in his 54th.Both accomplished so much in so little time.

 

Feb. 23,1856

The Chief Commissioner of Police also came,and paid me a visit in the vestry;but,better still,some thieves,thimbleriggers,harlots,etc.have come,and some are now in the church...

July 14,1854

There is the cross,and a bleeding God-man upon it;look to Him,and be saved! There is the Holy Spirit able to give you every grace.Look,in prayer,to the Sacred Three-one-God,and then you will be delivered.

 

No,that was a new word for me.Thanks for the explanation Jim.But I did know that these "thimbleriggers"had to be up to no good if they were mentioned alongside the likes of thieves and harlots.

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On a completely unrelated note -- we had a party at a restaurant for a young married couple last night.They're going back to Canada after five years here.Reformed Baptist Canadians here in South Korea are so rare! We'll miss them a lot.

 

I'm not sure.I know they must have told me in the past;but I've forgotten.They are living way out west in British Columbia.

 

Sept. 13,1879

I want a good and cheap copy of Gill's Commentary for my son Charles. Whitefield's sermons -- the one by Legg,and also Lange on Gospels if you can get them pretty cheap in the 7 vols edition.These are for a birthday present for next Friday and must not be very shabby but of course are secondhand.
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Sept.13,1884 [To Alexander Whyte]

I am glad that some one loves sound doctrine as I do.I am beginning to be banned as a stupid old fogey,who sticks in the mud,and will not advance. When they have gone round the whirligig they will pass some of us again,but they will there and then again begin to be behind us,and not before us as they dream.
May your handbook do real service among your own countymen.Alas,these degenarate lowlands know not 'the Shorter Catechism', and this makes them all the shorter of grace and truth.
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May 18,[?] [To his brother]

I do not want them very millenarian,I want Second Advent Hymns -- not in Watts and Rippon.

 

1877 [ To his son Tom]

We met some awful donkeys when travelling,but a lady at San Remo is beyond all others. She said that she regretted that our Lord Jesus was a Jew.When asked if she would have preferred his being an Englishman she replied, "No,but you see it is such a pity that he was a Jew : it would have been far better if he had been a Christian like ourselves'!!