Who Was Charles Spurgeon? The Prince of Preachers' Life

Biography Preaching Church History

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834 to 1892) was an English Baptist preacher, often called the "Prince of Preachers." He was converted as a teenager in 1850, became pastor of a London church at nineteen, and for nearly forty years preached to some of the largest congregations of his day at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. His sermons were printed every week and read around the world. He also started a college for training pastors and an orphanage, and he wrote books that are still read today, including All of Grace, Morning by Morning and Lectures to My Students.

You can find every Spurgeon book in TheWay Library on his author page.

Early years in Essex

Spurgeon was born on June 19, 1834, in Kelvedon, Essex. His father and grandfather were both Independent ministers, and he spent much of his early childhood with his grandparents at Stambourne. There he found his grandfather's old Puritan books and read them as a boy. He grew up knowing the Bible well, but he later said that knowing about the gospel wasn't the same as believing it.

His conversion in 1850

On a snowy Sunday in January 1850, fifteen-year-old Spurgeon couldn't reach the church he meant to attend. He turned into a small Primitive Methodist chapel in Colchester instead. The regular preacher wasn't there, and a plain layman stood up to preach on Isaiah 45:22.

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
Isaiah 45:22

Spurgeon tells the story himself in chapter 4 of All of Grace:

I looked, and in a moment the Lord justified me. Jesus Christ, made sin for me, was what I saw, and that sight gave me rest.
All of Grace, chapter 4

That one word, "look," became the center of his preaching for the rest of his life. A few months later he was baptized by immersion and joined the Baptists.

A boy preacher

He began preaching almost at once in the villages around Cambridge. In 1851, still a teenager, he became pastor of the small Baptist chapel at Waterbeach, and the congregation grew quickly.

In 1854 he was called to New Park Street Chapel in London. The church had dwindled, but within months it was too small for the crowds. The congregation met for a time in large public halls. In 1856, during a service at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, someone raised a false cry of fire. In the panic seven people were killed. The disaster weighed on Spurgeon for a long time.

That same year he married Susannah Thompson, and they had twin sons. Susannah later ran a Book Fund that sent free books to poor pastors, and she wrote about it in Ten Years of My Life in the Service of the Book Fund.

The Metropolitan Tabernacle

In 1861 the church moved into the Metropolitan Tabernacle at Elephant and Castle in south London. It held several thousand people and was full Sunday after Sunday. Spurgeon preached there for the rest of his life.

His sermons were taken down in shorthand and published each week, first as The New Park Street Pulpit and then as The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. They sold in huge numbers and were translated into many languages. TheWay Library has several volumes, such as The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 31.

What made him so popular? He spoke in plain, vivid English, with humor and homely pictures. He preached Christ crucified in nearly every sermon, and he called people to trust Him right then. You can hear that voice on every page of All of Grace.

The Pastors' College

In the mid-1850s Spurgeon took in a young man to train for the ministry. That small start grew into the Pastors' College, which trained hundreds of men to preach and plant churches. Many of his talks to those students became Lectures to My Students, one of the best-known books on preaching ever written. The Soul-Winner comes from the same concern: that preachers would aim at bringing people to Christ.

The Stockwell Orphanage

In 1867, after a widow offered him a large gift, Spurgeon began an orphanage at Stockwell in south London. It started with homes for boys, and a girls' side was added later. Children were cared for in family-style houses rather than one large barracks. The church also supported almshouses, a society that sent out colporteurs to sell Bibles and Christian books, and a good deal of other work among the poor.

The Down-Grade controversy

Late in life Spurgeon grew alarmed that some Baptist ministers were moving away from belief in the full inspiration of Scripture, the atonement and other core truths. In 1887 his magazine, The Sword and the Trowel, published articles warning of a "down-grade" in the churches. Spurgeon pressed the issue, and that October he withdrew from the Baptist Union. The Union's council later voted to censure him. It was a painful break, and it cost him friends, but he believed faithfulness to the gospel mattered more. His address The Greatest Fight in the World shows where he stood in those last years.

Illness and death

Spurgeon suffered for years from gout and kidney disease, and at times from deep depression. He often spent the winter in Menton, in the south of France, to rest. He died there on January 31, 1892, aged 57. He was buried at West Norwood Cemetery in London, and great crowds lined the streets.

His books

Spurgeon wrote and published a great deal besides his sermons. Some of the best known:

Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening, daily readings still used in many homes
The Treasury of David, his commentary on the Psalms, the work of many years
John Ploughman's Talk, plain wisdom in a farmer's voice
The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith, a promise of Scripture for each day
C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, compiled after his death by his wife and his secretary

Why All of Grace is a good place to start

If you want to know Spurgeon, read All of Grace. He wrote it in 1886 for people who weren't yet sure of their salvation, and it holds the message he preached for forty years: God justifies the ungodly, and the way to receive it is to look to Christ. As he says in the opening chapter:

I had rather bless the soul of the poorest crossing-sweeper, or rag-gatherer, than please a prince of the blood, and fail to convert him to God.
All of Grace, chapter 1

Start with the All of Grace summary, browse the best All of Grace quotes, or read what he taught about faith in Saved by Grace Through Faith. Or simply open All of Grace and read it free.