Chapter 53: Spurgeon and the Clergy

Chapter 53.
Spurgeon and the Clergy

Baptismal Regeneration Controversy—Attack on the Evangelical Clergy—The Hon. Baptist Noel's Letter—Mr. Bardsley's Reply—The Gorham Case—Mozley's View—Dr. Campbell's View—Other Disputants.

What is known as the Baptismal Regeneration Controversy belongs to the year 1864; and as that dispute occasioned the publication of a large number of pamphlets on both sides, this chapter may properly be devoted to it. The matter is even now not wholly forgotten; for Mr. Spurgeon's discourses on the subject have commanded an extensive sale, which has, in some measure, continued to the present day.

I have heard that the idea of exposing the unscripturalness of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration originated in Mr. Spurgeon's mind at Bury St. Edmunds, where he saw some things in a church which displeased him. Be that as it may, he resolved to preach on the subject, although at the time he seriously believed that the publication of such views would have a disastrous effect on the sale of the weekly sermon. When he had attacked slavery as "the sum of all villainies," the preacher had been burnt in effigy in the Southern States of the American Republic, and the fire had been stimulated with volumes of his sermons, which appear to have been withdrawn from circulation because no bookseller would have dared to sell them. It was thought that this experience, or something similar to it, was about to be repeated in England. Mr. Spurgeon told his publishers that he was about to ruin the weekly publication of the sermons; but he did not on that account flinch for a moment in carrying out his resolve of preaching the sermon on "Baptismal Regeneration," which he full well knew would be distasteful to a very large section of the Christian public. This discourse was given at the Tabernacle on Sunday morning, June 5, the text being St. Mark 16:15-16, "Go ye into all the world," etc. The preacher felt that the burden of the Lord was upon him; and that although his opposition to what he believed to be serious error might result in the loss of friends and the stirring up of enemies, he was obliged to go forward. Belief in baptismal regeneration seemed to be spreading, so that there was need of an antidote. It was shown that baptism without faith could not save; and if the Church of England taught that it did, even the morality of evangelical teachers might be questioned, when they remained in such a communion for the sake of retaining their livings. Thus, as it was worked out, the sermon was virtually a formidable attack on the evangelical clergy for holding an invidious position. The High Church party, if they believed in baptismal regeneration, were of course held to be more consistent than the others, and were on that account to be commended. In speaking as he did, it will be noticed that the preacher boldly assumed that the Prayer Book really taught the doctrine he denounced; and if so, it naturally followed that men who taught one thing and subscribed to another occupied a position which was more than anomalous. Hence, the controversy was not one on the question as to whether baptismal regeneration in itself was right or wrong; the question was, Does the Prayer Book teach it as a Scriptural doctrine? If this could be proved to be the fact, Spurgeon was master of the field; but if, on the contrary, the Church of England favoured no such teaching, her evangelical pastors had been misrepresented and maligned in a way which they might well be excused for resenting with some warmth or even indignation. The manner in which such men regarded the determined onslaught which Spurgeon had made upon their honour was well shown by an article in The Gospel Guide, a weekly newspaper of that time:—

"A nice little country boy comes to London; he loves the Lord; he preaches (at least some of) His Gospel; his voice is of an amazing, yet' well-balanced, power; his face, and all his features, are full of affection and zeal; he preaches, he prays, he weeps; he wrestles with God and with man, and prevails. Thousands flock to hear him; thousands profess to be converted by him; all the world is talking about him; he is the wonder of the age. No chapel, no church, no hall, no tabernacle, is large enough to hold the people who crowd to hear him; he resolves to erect a Metropolitan Tabernacle of his own. He outsteps David, for when David essayed to build a house for God, and Nathan encouraged him, and all the people were ready to help him, the Lord stepped in to stop him. It was not Heaven's will that David should build the temple, therefore he did not build it; but when C. H. Spurgeon said, 'I will build a tabernacle for God,' he did it. And clergymen and laymen—yea, men of all sorts and sizes, shapes and characters—stepped forward and poured their thousands into his lap. The Tabernacle was builded, and, as far as sight and sense was concerned, its opening was grand and significant. And from the day of its opening until now it is believed by many that the glory of the Lord has filled the house; and that the once little country lad is, in a few years, become the pastor of an immense people, the preacher to an overwhelming congregation. His College lads are building chapels in all directions, and Spurgeon's name and influence is immense, beyond all calculation.

"Is it any marvel that such a man should, at length, be found turning round upon the brethren with whom he has fraternised, laboured, and prayed; and in an unguarded moment publicly censuring, condemning, and almost anathematising them? Wonder or not, he has done it; and all the unthinking masses of the community applaud this grand onslaught made upon the clergy. The doctrine of baptismal regeneration is decidedly a Popish error; but the Church of England does not hold it, nor do her good ministers preach it; and this is proved by nearly all the published replies made to Mr. Spurgeon's sermon."

Undoubtedly one of the most effective of the replies to this famous sermon was "The Evangelical Clergy Defended," by the Hon. Baptist W. Noel, who had given up a distinguished position in the Established Church to take the more humble standing of a Baptist minister. Mr. Noel accused Spurgeon of violating the fourth of the General Resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance, of which he was then a member—the resolution in which everyone promised "to avoid all rash and groundless insinuations, personal imputations, or irritating allusions." Mr. Noel then addressed these words to his brother in the faith at the Metropolitan Tabernacle:—

"When you spoke of evangelical ministers of the Church of England as unworthy of the friendship of honest men, did you remember that your words were blasting, as far as they were received, the memory of some of the most excellent men who have ever lived? Thomas Scott was eminently honest, conscientious, devout, and useful; Henry Martin, with talents of the highest order, relinquished all the objects of ordinary ambition that he might preach Christ among the heathen; Charles Simeon bore bravely, for many years, the scorn of the ungodly at Cambridge; John Newton was full of love to God and man; few men have been so heavenly minded as Fletcher of Madeley; and John Venn, when dying, was so filled with joy at the thought of being speedily with Jesus, that for three days he could not die. All these, when on earth, belonged to that class which you denounce as unworthy of your friendship. Had you criticised the services, and said nothing of the men, you would have done more for the cause of truth. I shall not attempt to explain or to justify their views; but I may mention one obvious fact. According to the Articles which contain the recognised doctrines of the Establishment, persons are justified by faith through the call of God; those who are thus justified by faith become the sous of God by adoption; and those who are adopted attain to everlasting felicity, so that it follows, according to their doctrine, that ungodly persons, who live and die in sin, never were adopted or regenerated. To these Articles the evangelical ministers in the Establishment adhere, endeavouring to explain the Liturgy in harmony with them; while their opponents, by teaching baptismal regeneration, contradict them. Let me ask, therefore, why you accuse of 'gross and pestilential immorality' those who maintain the Articles which they have subscribed, while you compliment the honesty of those who subscribe and contradict them? When, further, you charge those brethren with dishonesty, without hearing their defence, you violate your own rule; for in one page you say, 'I shall not judge the peculiar views of other men,' and in the next page you do judge them."

Those who are old enough to remember this dispute will not need to be told that the rebuke of a man like the pastor of John Street Chapel, Bedford Row, produced immense effect on the public mind. Mr. Noel was more than respected, he was regarded by Nonconformists pretty generally as a hero in their camp, who, as the scion of an honourable house, had made such great sacrifices for conscience sake that there could be no doubt about his earnestness and sincerity. By leaving the Established Church to join the Baptists he had to some extent sacrificed a social position of commanding influence, such as even a devoted Christian man might highly value. Indeed, we can hardly doubt that he also turned his back on a prospective bishopric; for when the Earl of Shaftesbury became Lord Palmerston's "bishop-maker," Baptist Noel would probably have advanced to the episcopal bench had he been eligible.

When, therefore, such a man spoke on this unhappy controversy between Spurgeon and the clergy, he stood forth as an ex-clergyman of the very class which was so bitterly assailed. At the same time, he spoke for himself as well as for others; and the calm Christian dignity of his letter added force to words which to large numbers were already irresistible as regarded their conclusive testimony.

Though equally respectable, Mr. Bardsley, the secretary of the London Diocesan Home Mission, was of another class; but he forcibly stated the case of himself and his brother clergymen in opposition to Mr. Spurgeon's representations:—

"I ask for the reader's attention to the reasons why he should not believe the fearful charges to be true which Mr. Spurgeon brings against a large body of the Church of England. He accuses them, as we have seen, not only of shuffling and equivocation, but of perjury and lying. He argues thus: The Church of England teaches baptismal regeneration, the evangelical clergy do not believe in this doctrine, and yet for the sake of keeping their livings they swear that they do believe it. I meet this statement with a simple denial: the evangelical clergy do not, in the sense described by Mr. Spurgeon, believe that the Church of England teaches baptismal regeneration, and therefore do 'not swear before God that they do when they do not;' and in this lies the whole fallacy of Mr. Spurgeon's statements. Is he ignorant of this fact, that the 'evangelical clergy' do not believe that the Church of England teaches the doctrine which, in the 'gentlest' manner, he describes as 'one of the most atrocious of all the lies which have dragged millions down to hell'? They do not believe that the Church teaches it, and this of itself disposes of the charge which he brings against them of being dishonest, by 'swearing before God that they do when they do not.' Mr. Spurgeon believes the Bible teaches that God has decreed from all eternity to save a definite number of Adam's posterity which can neither be increased nor diminished. The whole body of the Methodists, with but few exceptions, reject this doctrine; they not only do not believe it, but teach the very opposite; both accept the Bible as an infallible revelation from God, yet both would repel with indignation the foul charge that either party was guilty of perjury and dishonesty. The simple matter of fact is this. Mr. Spurgeon and those who hold his views on election believe that the Bible teaches that doctrine; the Methodists do not believe that the doctrine, as held by Mr. Spurgeon, has any place in the Bible. There are between thirty and forty bodies of Dissenters who accept the Bible as their rule of faith; on some question or other they all hold different opinions. Now, if they are allowed, without being charged with dishonesty, to differ as to the teaching of the Bible on these questions, why are clergymen to be branded with infamy because they differ among themselves as to the meaning of some portions of the Book of Common Prayer? People who live in glass houses should never throw stones." This is plain speaking from the standpoint of an uncompromising evangelical within the Episcopal pale. Of course, all the objectors were not of this class. Thus one incumbent, whose Arminianism must have closely resembled that of Laud himself, remarked in a letter to Mr. Spurgeon: "The fact is, infant baptism does not, and never can be made to, square with the sour doctrine of election which you are so strongly pledged to uphold." He then defends regeneration:—

"All that I can gather from your sermon is, that in your opinion regeneration means the salvation of the soul. I am bold to aver that from no part of our Service Book can you legitimately draw such a conclusion. True, the catechumen is taught to express his thankfulness to his Heavenly Father for having, through baptism, called him to 'a state of salvation;' but, and in order to show that this is a distinct thing from salvation itself, he is immediately instructed to pray unto God to give him His grace, that he 'may continue in the same all the days of his life.' It is a state or condition of salvation which can only lead to a successful issue by the use of the means of grace, and by the fulfilment of the obligations which the covenant, entered into at baptism, of necessity involves."

Concerning this question, however, What does the Church of England really teach in regard to baptismal regeneration? the authorities have seemed to give forth contradictory statements. Of this the historical Gorham case was in itself a notable example. When Dr. Phillpotts, the High Church bishop of Exeter, refused to institute Mr. Gorham into the living of Brampford-Speke, because spiritual regeneration in baptism was rejected as being contrary to the teaching of the Church, the bishop maintained that he was upholding what the Church demanded should be taught as Christian doctrine. When the case was tried in the Court of Arches, Mr. Gorham lost his case; but on the occasion of its being heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the decision of the Court below was reversed, so that the appellant had to be allowed to take his living after all. The bishop instituted proceedings in three courts of law successively; and, by losing the case in each instance, learned a lesson of a very wholesome kind. This shows in what sense Phillpotts himself understood the language of the Prayer Book. We find that when he preached, this was apparently a favourite theme; and he would go to the Homilies and the Prayer Book for proofs to show that the Church taught the doctrine of spiritual regeneration in baptism. No wonder that the evangelical clergy were greatly chagrined when Mr. Spurgeon maintained that such teachers as this were alone consistent when they subscribed to all that was contained in the Prayer Book.

One of the most remarkable contributions to this controversy appeared in The Record; and singularly enough, this was merely the reprint of an article which had appeared two years previously. In the course of a brief preface, the editor recommended the article—a critique upon Mozley's "Review of the Baptismal Controversy"—to the notice of Mr. Spurgeon himself, and offered this explanation:—

"Mr. Mozley is a well-known scholar of the Ultra-Church school. He was one of those who signed the protest against the Gorham judgment, and conscientiously believed that the literal interpretation of the baptismal service ought to exclude evangelicals from the Church; but when he came to examine the subject calmly he saw reason to change his opinions, and, with a candour which entitles him to the highest respect, he has declared that he was mistaken, and that the words of the baptismal service were not intended to 'impose the doctrine that all infants are regenerated in baptism.'"

According to The Record, the great value of the Gorham judgment consisted in its defeating the attempt to put a Popish interpretation on the Protestant Formularies. "It was also important as silencing, by the interpretation of the highest judicial authority, the unworthy taunt of insincerity which has often been thrown upon evangelical clergymen, who receive the baptismal service and the catechism in the sense understood by the fathers of our Reformation; because those words may appear to assert something different." It cannot be denied that the words may have had a somewhat different meaning in other days, that being the case with many other old English words.

Thus, the offence which the evangelical clergy held Mr. Spurgeon to have committed was the acceptance of the words of the Prayer Book in their modern sense, when the testimony of history showed that such meaning was directly opposite to what the compilers intended. Mr. Mozley carefully examined the English baptismal service and the catechism, as well as the Articles, giving some attention to the methods of interpreting "the baptismal language both of Calvinism and Lutheranism," and then he said:—

"The statement, therefore, that the Calvinistic hypothesis is inconsistent with the language of the Prayer Book, is an ill-considered statement, reflecting only a rough, offhand impression, which proper reflection would correct. It has obtained currency because it has appealed to this offhand impression; but an act of thought at once reveals its groundlessness.... The Prayer Book was submitted to the criticism of Calvinists after it was compiled; it was afterwards protected by Calvinists when it was attacked; it has been used quite naturally by thousands of pious and devout Calvinists of every generation, from the Reformation to the present day. The great battle of the sixteenth century in defence of the Prayer Book was conducted by two Calvinists—for Whitgift was the author of the Lambeth articles, and Hooker held the doctrine of the 'indefectibility of grace.'

"We have, then, in the facts appealed to in this chapter, the comment of an actual course of things upon the statement in the baptismal service; the truth being that this statement was inserted in the Prayer Book by men in intimate relation with divines of the Calvinistic school who distinctly held that only the elect were regenerate; that it was acquiesced in by the most rigid Calvinists of that period without a word of complaint; that the hypothetical interpretation of this statement was the dominant interpretation for a century after the Reformation; that the Laudian school, in its full power and highest ascendency, never thought of interfering with it; and that, lastly, an interpretation which was thus coeval with the very service itself was never legally called in question till the other day.

"The whole evidence, viewed collectively, appears to me conclusive in favour of the judgment of the Court of Appeal—viz., that our formularies do not impose the doctrine that all infants are regenerate in baptism." When the controversy reached its height, and every day during the summer some fresh contribution seemed to appear, some surprise was felt because the preacher's veteran champion, Dr. Campbell, remained silent. For weeks or months his paper had little or nothing to say on the subject beyond a passing reference; and when at length, on September 2, he commenced a series of seventeen articles, which were afterwards reprinted in a volume, the doctor did not write as a mere apologist of Mr. Spurgeon, the controversy was entered into on an independent footing. Both Churchmen and Nonconformists now urged him to publish his views. In the preface to his volume, Dr. Campbell attempted to define his position as a friend of Mr. Spurgeon, being careful to show that their relation to each other was not quite what it had been some years before, when the young preacher's friends had been far less numerous than his enemies. Apart from that, Spurgeon was no longer a sapling who needed holding up, but an oak of the forest and more than a match for all who assailed him. Dr. Campbell had, moreover, already written on the subject, and still professed to have much at heart "the correction and purification of the Liturgy of the Established Church." This led to his determination to go over the ground again. As, however, the matter in dispute was not whether baptismal regeneration was unscriptural—nearly all acknowledged that it was—but whether the evangelical clergy accepted the doctrine in their subscription to the Prayer Book, Dr. Campbell did not undertake to decide between the combatants. In the preface to the volume containing his articles, he thus referred to the controversy in general:—

"In my view, then, the statements of Mr. Spurgeon as to the general doctrine, in point of accuracy, are unimpeachable; truth has obviously, from first to last, been the sole object of his inquiry. His argument is, in my view, clear, cogent, and unanswerable. His complaints and remonstrances are, I think, well founded, and such as deserve the candid and serious consideration of those to whom they are addressed. His appeals and protests are, nevertheless, occasionally marked by an acritude of spirit, fitted to startle, scandalise, and exasperate.

"His style, too, more especially in the first discourse, is vehement and trenchant in a manner which has rarely been exceeded. His conceptions on the enormity of the evil in question are most vivid, and his convictions are in consequence exceedingly strong. The power of the discourse, however, arises less from its logical than from its rhetorical qualities. The error has been exposed and exploded in a manner the most convincing a thousand times; but never, I believe, was it exhibited to the public eye with colouring so vivid, and never was it pressed home on the clerical conscience with a force so thrilling, resistless, and terrible! But even Mr. Spurgeon's clinching logic, apart from his devastating eloquence, would have left things very much as it found them. In that case, Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster, the publishers, would not have had to report the unparalleled issue of 350,000 copies of these discourses. Mr. Spurgeon's opponents have been so dazzled, I might almost say, concerning some of them, so infuriated by the daring drapery, as to lose sight of the subject-matter. They have merged the essentials in the circumstantials. There has, I think, been a mutual oversight. Neither party has duly estimated the position of the other. Mr. Spurgeon, in my view, has not made the allowance which equity and charity required, and which is made in the following articles, for the clergy; and the clergy have not made the allowance, the large allowance, for which we equally contend, on behalf of Mr. Spurgeon, whose training has been thoroughly scriptural, and in all points anti-Romanist. They have not, moreover, duly estimated the condition of a gentleman still far short of manhood's prime—a gentleman endowed with great powers and strong passions—holding forth in the midst of five thousand hearts beating in unison with his own, and with ten thousand admiring eyes converged on him. The case of such a man is extraordinary, unparalleled, and when placed in the balances of critical judgment and severe propriety, charity apart, it is, I contend, but just and fair to make a very large allowance for strong language—language stronger than I could have used; but, with his talents, temperament, views, and convictions, and placed in his circumstances, I might have spoken as he spake, without at all feeling that I had violated the strict rules of verity, justice, and Christian propriety."

Dr. Campbell had spoken at last; and although his views of the matter as a whole may not quite have satisfied his younger and more vehement friend, it is hard to see how the veteran journalist could have said more or less than he did in relation to both sides. He looked at the question in a calm judicial spirit; and while strongly condemning the doctrine itself, he did not see any reason for breaking off' his friendship with evangelical friends in the Church of England. On account of the extreme bitterness which it stirred up, the dispute was to be regretted; some thought Spurgeon might have exposed the unscripturalness of a Romish figment without alienating friends in the Establishment who did not believe in it any more than he did himself. Some of those friends reminded Mr. Spurgeon that they had helped him to rear the Tabernacle; and they thought that he had broken faith with them, or, at least, that continued friendship was rendered impossible. In the end, however, old friendships seem to have been renewed, and to have remained strong until death. On the other hand, there were evangelicals whose harsh language far surpassed anything Spurgeon himself had said, and, as was pointed out, violated the rules of the Evangelical Alliance. Take this example by Dr. Goode, Dean of Ripon, a voluminous writer on the subject in hand:—

"As to that young minister who is now raving against the evangelical clergy on this point, it is to be regretted that so much notice has been taken of his railings. He is to be pitied, because his entire want of acquaintance with theological literature leaves him utterly unfit for the determination of such a question, which is a question, not of mere doctrine, but of what may be called historical theology; and his charges are just a parallel to those which the Romanists would bring against himself as well as others for the interpretation of the words, 'This is My body.' But were he a wiser man than he is, he would know better what his qualifications are for passing judgment on such a point, and be willing to learn from such facts, among others, as the Gorham judgment and the cases of Mr. Maskell and Mr. Mozley, what ground there is for his charges against the evangelical clergy. Let him hold and enforce his own view of doctrine as he pleases; but when he undertakes to determine what is the exclusive meaning of the Book of Common Prayer, and brings a charge of dishonesty against those who take a different view of that meaning from what he does, he only shows the presumptuous self-confidence with which he is prepared to pronounce judgment upon matters of which he is profoundly ignorant. To hold a controversy with him upon the subject would be to as little purpose as to attempt to hold a logically constructed argument with a child unacquainted with logical terms." At the best, Dr. Campbell did not find this controversy to be congenial to his taste; but though he did not acquit Mr. Spurgeon of using heated language, he vigorously properly resented such utterances as this of Dr. Goode.

Several deliverances on this dispute appeared in The Freeman, and among the letters were two by "A London Curate," which were written with some force. In the following passage the position of the evangelical clergy as they understood the matter themselves is very succinctly stated:—

"The real drift of Mr. Spurgeon's charge seems to me to be this, in rather quieter language—that the Church of England, by her doctrine of baptismal regeneration, teaches men to undervalue the necessity of a renewed and converted heart—the vital importance, that is, of spiritual life. This he might argue, giving even their real meaning to the phrases which I have quoted before. I shall at once endeavour to meet him by the example of the spiritual lives of the best Churchmen, by a claim for as much spiritual life amongst our 20,000 clergymen as there is amongst 20,000 ministers of any other form of religion, by an assertion that amongst the godly Church of England poor there is as much spiritual humility, as little confidence in mere privileges, as little trust in the flesh as will be found amongst any other godly men. I know that this would be only assertion, but Mr. Spurgeon's statements on these points are only assertions. If our mutual assertions are said to prove nothing, we must go back to the discussion of the standards of Church of England teaching—viz., her Liturgy and Articles; and there I am firmly convinced, as I have said before, that giving the Prayer Book that which cannot in justice be denied it—viz., the benefit of interpretation in the sense in which it was written, and not forcing upon it a sense invented after it was written—we shall find nothing about baptism saving the soul without spiritual life, any more than we shall find literally stated the benefit of 'the praying windmills of Thibet,' to which Mr. Spurgeon alludes." As an authority of that day remarked, Mr. Spurgeon's censors or critics were indeed legion. Clergymen of the Establishment of various grades, as well as Baptist ministers, and even City missionaries, assailed the preacher as one who was speaking beside the mark, or who did not very clearly understand the matter in hand. Occasionally even members of the Evangelical Alliance appeared to add to the confusion by publishing what were supposed to be their utterances in the interests of charity. While a large proportion of the combatants were opposed to Spurgeon, there was not a little disagreement among themselves. One who stood before the world as a clergyman of the Establishment sent forth "The Spurgeon Antidote." Another showed to his own satisfaction, if not to that of his readers, that what he called "the Popish error of baptismal regeneration" was not a doctrine of the Church of England. In opposition to this, another clergyman showed to a demonstration that it was in reality the teaching of the Church. One curate thought he was able to prove that Spurgeon himself taught such a doctrine; while another curate attempted in his way to impose the closure on the controversy by his brochure, "The Rev. C. H. Spurgeon Settled." There was much besides, hard hitting by angry opponents being diversified by unexpected rebukes from friends. If any industrious reader should succeed in wading through a complete set of the publications of this controversy, he will never be tempted to repeat the experiment should he survive the first entertainment. "Seriously, one is quite bewildered," remarked one editor, as he surveyed his table, amply furnished as it was. "To read with patient attention so much crude theology is really beyond our power." The majority of the pieces printed were not by any means contributions to our standard literature. "We have looked through each pamphlet or tract sent to us with the honest desire to find something: worth noticing," said The Freeman; but in the main there was little or nothing of interest. What really appeared was that recognised Churchmen were "chiefly angry with the matter of the attack," while others objected to the manner. The Freeman agreed with Mr. Spurgeon without so many qualifications as some others, such as Dr. Campbell, for example; but this, of course, arose from the subject being viewed from a Baptist standpoint.

Here we may take leave of a controversy which stirred up much angry feeling on both sides, and which probably did not do so much for the furtherance of truth as the combatants hoped. But even those who regarded the evangelical clergy with most affection felt that the revision of the Prayer Book was more than ever necessary. Hence, Spurgeon did not speak in vain.