W. Y. Fullerton (Spurgeon’s assistant for fourteen years at the Metropolitan Tabernacle) writes that The baptismal regeneration controversy was inaugurated by a sermon in the Metropolitan Tabernacle on June 5, 1864. Before he preached the sermon, Mr. Spurgeon warned his publishers that he was about to destroy at a blow the circulation of his printed sermons, but the blow must be struck. He was mistaken, for there was never such a demand for any sermon as for that one. In these days, when newspapers circulate a million copies a day, it may seem a small thing to say that a sermon had at once a circulation of a quarter of a million, but in those days, and for a sermon in any day, such a sale is phenomenal.
The text was: "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." The preacher plunged at once into his protest:
If I should, through speaking what I believe to be the truth, lose the friendship of some and stir up the wrath of more, I cannot help it. The burden of the Lord is upon me, and I must deliver my soul. I have been loath enough to undertake the work, but I am forced to it by an awful and overwhelming sense of solemn duty. I know of nothing more calculated to debauch the public mind than a want of straightforwardness in ministers. If baptism does regenerate people, let the fact be preached with a trumpet tongue, and let no man be ashamed of his belief in it. God forbid that we should censure those who believe that baptism saves the soul because they adhere to a church that teaches the same doctrine. So far, they are honest men; and in England, wherever else, let them never lack full toleration. I hate their doctrine but love their honesty.2
"Never," said Dr. Campbell, "has the error been exhibited to the public eye with coloring so vivid, and never was it pressed home on the clerical conscience with a force so thrilling, resistless, and terrible."
"Oh, for a truly reformed Church of England and a godly race to maintain it!" the preacher cried. "The world's future depends on it, under God, for in proportion as truth is marred at home, truth is maimed abroad."3
The sermon is sixteen pages long, so it must have occupied more than an hour in delivery. It is well worth reading today. On the day following, the students of the college united with Mr. Spurgeon in spending the whole afternoon in prayer for a blessing on the sermon when it should be printed.
Upon its appearance, the whole religious world joined in the fray. Mr. Spurgeon's plan in the controversy was to preach other sermons: one, three weeks later on "Let us go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach"; a month after that a sermon on "Children Brought to Christ, Not to the Font"; and two months after that a sermon on "The Book of Common Prayer Weighed in the Balances of the Sanctuary."
In these discourses, he answered, directly and indirectly, the blizzard of pamphlets and sermons that his original sermon had called forth—there must have been a hundred and fifty of them. At my side, as I write are nine volumes of pamphlets, leather-bound, and five of them contain those that were issued on this subject. In the corner of my room is another pile of them. Spurgeon himself looks down on me from his portrait on the wall in front of me, framed in the palm branches that came from France on his coffin, and as I think of the furor which his words aroused, of the friendship which later grew up between him and the leaders of that very church against which he then bore his witness, of the selfsame Church today still continuing in a selfsame way, I wonder at the seeming futility of it all. But then I remember that though the waves break, the tide comes surely in and that no witness for Christ and the truth of Christ can be lost.
It must not be supposed that Mr. Spurgeon was much troubled in the midst of the conflict. "I hear you are in hot water," said a friend to him at the time. "Oh, no," he answered, "it is the other fellows who are in the hot water. I am the stoker, the man who makes the water boil" (W. Y. Fullerton. “Two Great Controversies” in Charles Haddon Spurgeon) (click to open).
This is how Spurgeon started his Baptismal Regeneration (click to open) sermon: Wherever the apostles went they met with obstacles to the preaching of the gospel, and the more open and effectual was the door of utterance the more numerous were the adversaries. These brave men who wielded the sword of the Spirit as to put to flight all their foes; and this they did not by craft and guile, but by making a direct cut at the error which impeded them. Never did they dream for a moment of adapting the gospel to the unhallowed tastes or prejudices of the people, but at once directly and boldly they brought down with both their hands the mighty sword of the Spirit upon the crown of the opposing error. This morning, in the name of the Lord of Hosts, my Helper and Defense, I shall attempt to do the same; and if I should provoke some hostility—if I should through speaking what I believe to be the truth lose the friendship of some and stir up the enmity of more, I cannot help it. The burden of the Lord is upon me, and I must deliver my soul. I have been loath enough to undertake the work, but I am forced to it by an awful and overwhelming sense of solemn duty. As I am soon to appear before my Master's bar, I will this day, if ever in my life, bear my testimony for truth, and run all risks. I am content to be cast out as evil if it must be so, but I cannot, I dare not, hold my peace. The Lord knoweth I have nothing in my heart but the purest love to the souls of those whom I feel imperatively called to rebuke sternly in the Lord's name. Among my hearers and readers, a considerable number will censure if not condemn me, but I cannot help it. If I forfeit your love for truth's sake I am grieved for you, but I cannot, I dare not, do otherwise. It is as much as my soul is worth to hold my peace any longer, and whether you approve or not I must speak out. Did I ever court your approbation? It is sweet to everyone to be applauded; but if for the sake of the comforts of respectability and the smiles of men any Christian minister shall keep back a part of his testimony, his Master at the last shall require it at his hands. This day, standing in the immediate presence of God, I shall speak honestly what I feel, as the Holy Spirit shall enable me; and I shall leave the matter with you to judge concerning it, as you will answer for that judgment at the last great day.
I am not aware that any Protestant Church in England teaches the doctrine of baptismal regeneration except one, and that happens to be the corporation which with none too much humility calls itself the Church of England.
Here are the words: we quote them from the Catechism which is intended for the instruction of youth, and is naturally very plain and simple since it would be foolish to trouble the young with metaphysical refinements. The child is asked its name, and then questioned, "Who gave you this name?" "My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism; wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." Is not this definite and plain enough? I prize the words for their candor; they could not speak more plainly. Three times over the thing is put, lest there should be any doubt in it.
Next, Spurgeon is clear that faith alone is necessary for salvation and that baptism is the outward sign of what God did in salvation:
THE BAPTISM IN THE TEXT IS ONE EVIDENTLY CONNECTED WITH FAITH. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." It strikes me, there is no supposition here, that anybody would be baptized who did not believe; or, if there be such a supposition, it is very clearly laid down that his baptism will be of no use to him, for he will be damned, baptized or not, unless he believes. The baptism of the text seems to me—my brethren, if you differ from me I am sorry for it, but I must hold my opinion and out with it—it seems to me that baptism is connected with, nay, directly follows belief. I would not insist too much upon the order of the words, but for other reasons, I think that baptism should follow believing. At any rate it effectually avoids the error we have been combating. A man who knows that he is saved by believing in Christ does not, when he is baptized, lift his baptism into a saving ordinance. In fact, he is the very best protester against that mistake, because he holds that he has no right to be baptized until he is saved. He bears a testimony against baptismal regeneration in his being baptized as professedly an already regenerate person. Brethren, the baptism here meant is a baptism connected with faith, and to this baptism I will admit there is very much ascribed in Scripture. Into that question I am not going; but I do find some very remarkable passages in which baptism is spoken of very strongly. I find this—"Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." I find as much as this elsewhere; I know that believer's baptism itself does not wash away sin, yet it is so the outward sign and emblem of it to the believer, that the thing visible may be described as the thing signified. Just as our Saviour said—"This is my body," when it was not his body, but bread; yet, inasmuch as it represented his body, it was fair and right according to the usage of language to say, "Take, eat, this is my body." And so, inasmuch as baptism to the believer representeth the washing of sin—it may be called the washing of sin—not that it is so, but that it is to saved souls the outward symbol and representation of what is done by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the man who believes in Christ.2
The doctrine of baptismal regeneration is still controversial today even among evangelicals as I discuss in Justification: Protestants verses Catholics (click to open).
W.Y. Fullerton, “Two Great Controversies” in Charles Hadden Spurgeon at The Spurgeon Archive.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Baptismal Regeneration (click to open) at The Spurgeon Center for Biblical Preaching at Midwestern Seminary.
W. Y. Fullerton, “Two Great Controversies” in Charles Hadden Spurgeon at The Spurgeon Archive.
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