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.
Some Snips From C.H.'s Letters
Discussion in 'Baptist History' started by Rippon, Feb 24, 2009.
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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? -
It is interesting to read about the day-to-day things the men we value so highly went through as conveyed through their letters.....Can you even imagine our early thoughts and letters being published? Thanks mate.
Cheers,
Jim -
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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. -
Looking at the date, if that was Spurgeon, it must have been the meetings held in a literal stable near London. He held several meeting there. It was obviously before the great fire that so devastated him. After that fire, seating was greatly controlled by ticket at the Tabernacle......fire control was up front on his mind the rest of his life.
Cheers,
Jim -
C.H.S's reference to the harvest being "too rich for the barn" was metaphoric.
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I need to get my Spurgeon biographies down from the shelves. It has been a few years since I read them.
Perhaps when I finish my course on Human Development I will do that.
Cheers,
Jim -
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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. -
Not wishing to rob from your most interesting thread, but it is interesting to see how secular man views the psychology of human development from that point of view. I write the final examine in March. I like to take some sort of course each year just to keep the brain alive; and that is a challenge in itself.
Cheers,
Jim
By the way, another good read is the letters from Susannah, his wife, especially when she speaks of Spurgeon's health problems. Hard to imagine the work he accomplished whilst suffering continual head aches. Perhaps migraines caused by his various maladies. And we dare to complain about a sniffling cold! -
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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. -
Rippon, matey, did you know what a thimblerigger was? thimbleriggers,
It is like a card shark in American language...He is fast with his hands, usually in some kind of criminal activity. I hadn't heard that term in years.
I love Banner of Truth Trust..marvellous books
Cheers,
Jim -
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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 come from criminal England; East London..Cockneyland.....One of the largest funerals we had, complete with police escort, was for a criminal who died in prison,,,one of the Kray brothers...just round the corner from me.
Must have been nice fellowshipping with some Canadian Baptists...I wonder if they are members of the same Reformed Baptists that split from the Regular Baptists and Fellowship Baptists. The founder was a fellow student at Toronto Baptist Seminary (TT Shields). Very strong calvinists.
Cheers,
Jim -
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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'!!
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