Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) is the remarkable Baptist minister who is called "The Prince of Preachers" and "The Last of the Puritans." The first title is one of appreciation, but the latter may have been coined by Spurgeon's detractors. In a sermon delivered in 1884, Spurgeon said, "If I must be the last of the Puritans, I will not be ashamed of it. My Lord will revive his buried truth as sure as he is God: the present madness will cease with its own short hour."
Spurgeon lived in the Victorian era which saw such remarkable achievements in science in the early days of the industrial revolution. As the nineteenth century progressed, there arose an increasing faith in human ability to the point that many had more faith in human understanding than in Biblical revelation. In his book, Mr. Murray observes about this age,
"It was said that the educated could no longer accept the idea of a Book which is authoritative in all that it says, and so the majority of Christian leaders retreated to what they believed was a more defensible position, namely, the view that the Bible is only partially inspired of God. All the denominations quietly made allowances for this new view of Scripture. At the same time it was claimed confidently that this change would have no effect upon the essential message of the Bible, for Christianity, it was said, means trusting in Christ, not in a book. It is the living experience of Christ that matters, not arguments or theories about Scripture. Such statements were to be heard both from men who boasted of 'modern thought' and from those who claimed to remain evangelicals. Evangelical experience, the latter asserted, remained unaffected by a man's view of Scripture."Contrary to the optimism common among the religious leaders of his time, Spurgeon was one of the few church leaders who saw that this new attitude toward Scripture would result in difficult days ahead for the church.
"We are only at the beginning of an era of mingled unbelief and fanaticism. Now we shall know who are God's elect and who are not; for there are spirits abroad at this hour that would, if it were possible, deceive even the very elect; and those who are not deceived are, nevertheless, sorely put to it. Here is the patience of the saints; let him look to himself who is not rooted and grounded in Christ, for the hurricane is coming. The signs of the times indicate a carnival of delusions; men have ceased to be guided by the word, and claim to be themselves prophets. Now we shall see what we shall see. Blessed is the sheep that knows his Shepherd, and will not listen to the voice of strangers. But here is the way to be kept steadfast- 'The word of God abideth in you.'"
"If we doubt God's Word about one thing, we shall have small confidence in it upon another thing. Sincere faith in God must treat all God's Word alike; for the faith which accepts one word of God and rejects another is evidently not faith in God, but faith in our own judgment, faith in our own taste. Only that is true faith which believes everything that is revealed by the Holy Spirit, whether it be joyous or distressing."In this age of growing rationalism, preachers increasingly rejected the basic theology of the Protestant Reformers such as John Calvin and his theological heirs, the English Puritans. This earlier theology had taught both salvation through sovereign grace and the sincere free offer of the gospel because the Bible clearly teaches both. The proponents of this view recognized that they could not fully explain the relationship between these two Biblical truths in a neat logical system with no loose ends. Spurgeon said,
"That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is foreordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring."As faith in human understanding grew, preachers began discarding the old theology for systems not burdened with Biblical mysteries. The most popular alternate view accepted the free offer of the gospel but denied sovereign grace. The reasoning was that if God sincerely desires in any sense the salvation of all who hear the gospel, and if some who hear the gospel reject it in unbelief and are not saved, then God's power to save must be limited and not sovereign. Iain Murray documents Spurgeon's battle with this error in his book The Forgotten Spurgeon. There was a second, less popular alternative theology called Hyper-Calvinism. This view accepted sovereign grace but denied the free offer of the gospel. Mr. Murray documents Spurgeon's battle on this other front in this more recent book, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism.
This book is helpful for several reasons. It gives some of the history of hyper-Calvinism. This is not the teaching of John Calvin or of the English Puritans but is a later development. This book also explains the hyper-Calvinistic system. This is helpful because many today who argue against traditional Calvinism misrepresent it. They construct a straw man and then easily demolish it. What critics of Calvinism today often represent as Calvinism is really hyper-Calvinism. This book explains how Calvinism differs from hyper-Calvinism. This book also describes the ways in which hyper-Calvinism contradicts the teachings of Scripture.
I have found historical studies such as this to be an interesting and helpful way to learn theology. This book is not light devotional reading. It is challenging reading, but I believe it is also of sufficient interest, relevance and usefulness to justify taking the challenge.