The Voices
Charles Spurgeon
Spurgeon's theology is Particular-Baptist Calvinism unashamedly preached as gospel.
Short bio
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (June 19, 1834 – January 31, 1892) — "the Prince of Preachers" — was an English Particular (Reformed) Baptist preacher whose 38-year pastorate at New Park Street Chapel, expanded as the Metropolitan Tabernacle (London, 1861), made him one of the most-heard Christian voices of the 19th century. Born in Kelvedon, Essex, raised by his Independent grandfather Rev. James Spurgeon, he was converted at age 15 in a snow-bound Primitive Methodist chapel under the text "Look unto Me, and be ye saved" (Isaiah 45:22). He preached his first sermon at 16, took his first pastorate at 17, and was called to London at 19. His weekly sermons, published from 1855 as the *New Park Street Pulpit* and after 1861 as the *Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit*, ran to 63 volumes — the largest collection of sermons by one preacher in Christian history. He founded the Pastors' College (1856), the Stockwell Orphanage (1867), and the Colportage Association (1866). His final years were marked by the Down-Grade Controversy (1887–1892), in which he resigned from the Baptist Union over its drift on biblical authority and the gospel.
What they believed
- Fear of the Lord Emphasis — Fear of the Lord is the right disposition of the soul before God's holiness. Spurgeon preaches reverence and tender-heartedness joined; his sermons routinely begin with awe before the divine attributes and end with evangelistic appeal.
- Cost of Following — Spurgeon preaches counting the cost as integral to genuine conversion; nominal evangelical assent without ongoing repentance and obedience is rejected as not the gospel. His Down-Grade resignation is itself the dramatized cost of doctrinal fidelity.
- Wealth and Money — Wealth is to be held loosely under God; the believer is steward, not owner. Spurgeon's own life was a model — he founded and sustained the Pastors' College, the Stockwell Orphanage, and the Colportage Association out of book royalties and donations rather than personal wealth. Anti-prosperity in posture.
- Rapture Timing — Spurgeon held a clear premillennialism — Christ returns visibly to inaugurate a literal millennial reign — but pre-dates and rejects the dispensational pre-tribulation rapture system (Darby's framing emerged in the 1830s but did not capture British evangelicalism in Spurgeon's day). He is a historic premillennialist in modern terms.
- Cessation — Functionally cessationist in the 19th-c. Reformed Baptist mode. Spurgeon does not engage modern continuationism (which postdates him). His pneumatology emphasizes the Spirit's anointing on preaching and the Spirit's regenerating, sanctifying work.
- Modern State Prophetic Significance — Spurgeon held the future literal national restoration and conversion of Israel as a clear teaching of Romans 11 and the prophets. He preached this repeatedly, often noting that the conversion of the Jewish people would be one of the great events of redemptive history.
Notable works
7 listed
| Title | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|
| The Treasury of David | 1869 | His verse-by-verse commentary on the Psalms — about twenty years' work, published in seven volumes from 1869 to 1885. Old enough to be public domain, so it can be read in full. |
| The New Park Street / Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit | 1855 | The largest single-author sermon corpus in Christian history. The primary source for any Spurgeon position on any topic. |
| Lectures to My Students | 1875 | Spurgeon's instruction to his Pastors' College — the standard 19th-c. handbook on evangelical preaching, prayer, and pastoral life. |
| A Defense of Calvinism | Spurgeon's own account of his Calvinism, from his Autobiography — "I have my own opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism." | |
| All of Grace | 1886 | Spurgeon's gospel of grace written for the unconverted reader — the most widely distributed of his books. |
| Morning and Evening | 1865 | The standard Spurgeon daily devotional, in continuous print since publication. |
| The Down Grade Controversy correspondence and articles | 1887 | Spurgeon's defense of biblical authority, penal substitution, and eternal judgment against the Baptist Union's emerging modernism. |
Where to find them
Their words on MannaFest
2,220 quotes across 1 book
Where this voice speaks on the site — each quote links to the verse it was chosen for.
“. Ver. 10. The tenth and last verse sets forth very forcibly the contrast between the righteous and the ungodly, thus making the blessedness of the godly appear all the more remarkable. Usually we see Ebal and Gerizim, the blessing and the curse, set the one o…”
“. Ver. 1. Praise ye the LORD, or Hallelujah, praise to JAH Jehovah. Praise is an essential offering at all the solemn feasts of the people of God. Prayer is the myrrh, and praise is the frankincense, and both of these must be presented unto the Lord. How can w…”
“. Ver. 2. Blessed be the name of the LORD. While praising him aloud, the people were also to bless him in the silence of their hearts, wishing glory to his name, success to his cause, and triumph to his truth.”
“. Ver. 3. From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the LORD'S name is to be praised. From early morn till eve the ceaseless hymn should rise unto Jehovah's throne, and from east to west over the whole round earth pure worship should be render…”
“. Ver. 4. The Lord is high above all nations. Though the Gentiles knew him not, yet was Jehovah their ruler: their false gods were no gods, and their kings were puppets in his hands. The Lord is high above all the learning, judgment, and imagination of heathen…”
“. Ver. 5. Who is like unto the LORD our God? The challenge will never be answered. None can be compared with him for an instant; Israel's God is without parallel; our own God in covenant stands alone, and none can be likened unto him. Even those whom he has ma…”
“. Ver. 6. Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth! He dwells so far on high that even to observe heavenly things he must humble himself. He must stoop to view the skies, and bow to see what angels do. What, then, must be …”
“. Ver. 7. He raiseth up the poor out of the dust. This is an instance of his gracious stoop of love: he frequently lifts the lowest of mankind out of their poverty and degradation and places them in positions of power and honour. His good Spirit is continually…”
“. Ver. 8. That he may set him with princes. The Lord does nothing by halves: when he raises men from the dust he is not content till he places them among the peers of his kingdom. We are made kings and priests unto God, and we shall reign for ever and ever. In…”
“. Ver. 9. He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. The strong desire of the easterns to have children caused the birth of offspring to be hailed as the choicest of favours, while barrenness was regarded as a curse; hence…”
“. Ver. 1. When Israel went out of Egypt. The song begins with a burst, as if the poetic fury could not be restrained, but overleaped all bounds. The soul elevated and filled with a sense of divine glory cannot wait to fashion a preface, but springs at once int…”
“Ver. 4. The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs. At the coming of the Lord to Mount Sinai, the hills moved; either leaping for joy in the presence of their Creator like young lambs; or, if you will, springing from their places in affri…”
“Ver. 5. What ailed thee, O thou sea? Wert thou terribly afraid? Did thy strength fail thee? Did thy very heart dry up? What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? Thou wert neighbour to the power of Pharaoh, but thou didst never fear his hosts; stormy win…”
“Ver. 6. Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams; and ye little hills, like lambs? What ailed ye, that ye were thus moved? There is but one reply: the majesty of God made you to leap. A gracious mind will chide human nature for its strange insensibility, when t…”
“Ver. 7. Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob. Or "from before the Lord, the Adonai, the Master and King." Very fitly does the Psalm call upon all nature again to feel a holy awe because its Ruler is still in its…”
“Ver 8. Which turned the rock into a standing water, causing a mere or lake to stand at its foot, making the wilderness a pool: so abundant was the supply of water from the rock that it remained like water in a reservoir. The flint into a fountain of waters, wh…”
“. Ver. 1. It will be well to remember that this psalm was sung at the Passover, and therefore it bears relationship to the deliverance from Egypt. The burden of it, seems to be a prayer that the living God, who had been so glorious at the Red Sea and at the Jo…”
“. Ver. 2. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? Or, more literally, "Where, pray, is their God?" Why should the nations be allowed with a sneer of contempt to question the existence, and mercy, and faithfulness of Jehovah?”
“. Ver. 3. But our God is in the heavens where he should be; above the reach of mortal sneers, over hearing all the vain jangling of men, but looking down with silent scorn upon the makers of the babel. Supreme above all opposing powers, the Lord reigneth upon …”
“. Ver. 4. Their idols are silver and gold, mere dead inert matter; at the best only made of precious metal, but that metal quite as powerless as the commonest wood or clay. The value of the idol shows the folly of the maker in wasting his substance, but certai…”
“. Ver. 5. They have mouths, but they speak not. The idols cannot utter even the faintest sound, they cannot communicate with their worshippers, they can neither promise nor threaten, command nor console, explain the past nor prophesy the future. If they had no…”
“. Ver. 6. They have ears, but they hear not. The Psalmist might have pointed to the monstrous ears with which some heathen deities are disfigured, truly they have ears; but no prayer of their rotaries, though shouted by a million voices, can ever be heard by t…”
“. Ver. 7. They have hands, but they handle not. Looking lower down upon the images, the Psalmist says, "They have hands, but they handle not, "they cannot receive that which is handed to them, they cannot grasp the sceptre of power or the sword of vengeance, t…”
“. Ver. 8. They that make them are like unto them. Those who make such things for worship are as stupid, senseless, and irrational as the figures they construct. So far as any spiritual life, thought, and judgment are concerned, they are rather the images of me…”
“. Ver. 9. O Israel, trust thou in the LORD. Whatever others do, let the elect of heaven keep fast to the God who chose them. Jehovah is the God of Jacob, let his children prove their loyalty to their God by their confidence in him. Whatever our trouble may be,…”