How Spurgeon’s Soul Struggles Led to His Church’s Soul Care
Of the numerous nicknames aptly attributed to Charles Hadden Spurgeon, perhaps the most incisive and comprehensive description would be the title of his well-known work The Soul Winner.
“I would rather be the means of saving a soul from death than be the greatest orator on earth,” Spurgeon said.[1] “Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister” . . . “the main pursuit of every true believer.”[2]
Not only did he consistently preach from this conviction, but Spurgeon also modeled soul-winning in his personal life and leadership of Metropolitan Tabernacle. One historian reports that during Spurgeon’s 38-year pastorate, 14,692 people were baptized and joined the Metropolitan Tabernacle.[3] For Spurgeon, that staggering number was not merely a statistic, but souls to disciple.[4]
“We do not consider soul-winning to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing more names upon our church-roll, in order to show a good increase at the end of the year,” Spurgeon said. “It is a part of our work to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them.”[5]
Soul-Winning Is Soul Care
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Spurgeon viewed soul-winning holistically, not merely as conversion, but about making converts into disciples in the local church. Spurgeon once said,
Christian labors, disconnected from the church, are like sowing and reaping without having any barn in which to store fruits of the harvest; they are useful, but incomplete. . . . We can rejoice in converts, but without membership in the local church, those converts remain hidden, undiscipled, and in disobedience to Christ’s commands.[6]
Geoff Chang’s recent research shows, amidst all the Spurgeon scholarship, his ecclesiology remains largely unaddressed. Without a doubt, Spurgeon’s biblical convictions about the church made his ministry of soul-winning a robust and well-rounded ministry of soul care, but so also did his own personal suffering.
Spurgeon’s Soul Struggles
Long before the modern biblical counseling movement existed, Spurgeon was keen on the ministry of soul care. He was deeply familiar with suffering and well-acquainted with God’s grace for sufferers.
Experts have detailed Spurgeon’s numerous trials: physical ailments including smallpox, gout, rheumatism, obesity, and a burning kidney inflammation called Bright’s disease; mental illness including severe depression and anxiety; and ongoing spiritual warfare that included slander, the weight of preaching, and suicidal thoughts. One psychiatrist noted that if he lived today, Spurgeon would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with medicine.[7]
Spurgeon’s difficult circumstances shaped him into an exemplary model of suffering, which led to his commitment to soul care.
Spurgeon’s Trauma
One significant misfortune early in his pastorate transpired on the evening of October 19, 1856. During a sermon at Surrey Hall, malicious pranksters falsely shouted about a fire. Among the thousands gathered, panic ensued. Seven people died and 28 were seriously injured.
Spurgeon was twenty-two years old and newly married. He was carried from the pulpit in a state of shock and depression, which was probably exacerbated by the recent birth of his twin boys and the pressures of moving into a new home. “The senseless tragedy and the public accusation of the press nearly broke Charles’s mind,” one author observed, “not only in those early moments but also with lasting effects.”[8]
In sermons, Spurgeon frequently verbalized his condition, “I am quite out of order for addressing you tonight. I feel extremely unwell, excessively heavy, and exceedingly depressed.”[9]
Spurgeon’s Suicidal Ideation
Spurgeon’s struggle with depression and anxiety was so immense and persistent that he spoke of his desire to die in his writings to his congregation. In modern language, Spurgeon contemplated suicide. Spurgeon’s pain would be so great, he often found biblical language to express his suicidal desires. Spurgeon once preached, “I too could say with Job, ‘My soul chooseth strangling rather than life. . . . I could readily enough have laid violent hands upon myself, to escape from my misery.”[10]
In another sermon, referring to Elijah’s prayer to die in 1 Kings 19:4, Spurgeon said of himself, “I know one who, in the bitterness of his soul, has often prayed it.”[11] In a sermon on Psalm 88, he commented, “Worse than physical death has cast its dreadful shadow over us . . . death would be welcomed as a relief, by those whose depressed spirits make their existence a living death.”[12]
As dark as Spurgeon’s suffering was, the Lord used it. Spurgeon was able to empathize with fellow sufferers in his preaching, teaching, and writing and point them to God. Spurgeon said, “I would go into the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.”
Zack Eswine writes,
The fact that such a prominent Christian pastor struggled with depression and talked so openly about it invites us to friendship with a fellow sufferer. As this pastor and preacher grappled with faith and doubt, suffering, and hope, we gained a companion on the journey. In his story we can begin to find our own. What he found of Jesus in the darkness can serve as a light for our own darkness.[13]
Soul Care Based on the Authority, Sufficiency, and Relevancy of the Word
Spurgeon discipled his congregation in adversity primarily through teaching Scripture’s authority, sufficiency, and relevancy. For Spurgeon, “The Bible was the main authority . . . in helping souls in distress,” and “he considered the Scripture more than comprehensive enough to deal with every basic human condition or problem.”[14] Spurgeon challenged his hearers:
Are you a student, my dear brother? Are you studying the Scriptures? Are you endeavoring to learn the deep things of God? Do you know that you have learned very little as yet? Do the great mysteries stagger you? Are you driven to feel what a fool you are? Have you come to those great deeps where such as you can never see the bottom? Ah, well, though you are faint in your study of the Scripture, still pursue it! Get close to the Word of God—search it through and through, study it, meditate on it, give yourself wholly to it, seek to know all that God has revealed—for the things which are revealed, however mysterious they are, belong to you.
Through the authoritative, sufficient, and relevant Word, Spurgeon taught his church,
God [did not] promise to give us our desires for wealth, health, immunity from trial, pains or from dying in this life. What God has promised is to be with us, to weep with us, to celebrate with us, to help us, to strengthen us, to never let us go and to outlast every evil and terrible thing with us. His love, his purposes, and his goodness will never quit and no foul thing will ever overcome them.[15]
Such was Spurgeon’s confidence in the Holy Scriptures for suffering saints.
Soul Care Grounded in Sound Theology
Spurgeon also cared for his members by grounding them in sound theology. He warned, “Those who do away with Christian doctrine are, whether they are aware of it or not, the worst enemies of Christian living . . . [because] the coals of orthodoxy are necessary to the fire of piety.”[16]
Spurgeon emphasized the doctrine of God’s sovereignty—that God had a purpose for our sufferings and that sufferings are for our ultimate good. He reminded troubled believers of such radiant hope:
This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry; the cloud is black before it breaks, and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy. Depression has now become to me as a prophet in rough clothing, a John the Baptist, heralding the nearer coming of my Lord’s richer benison. So have far better men found it. The scouring of the vessel has fitted it for the Master’s use. Immersion in suffering has preceded the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Fasting gives an appetite for the banquet. . . . The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory. The raven is sent before the dove. The darkest hour of the night precedes the day-dawn. The mariners go down to the depths, but the next wave makes them mount to the heaven; their soul is melted because of trouble before he bringeth them to their desired haven.[17]
In these ways, Spurgeon reoriented his hearers to understand suffering as God’s sovereign means to sanctify us.
Soul Care Centered on Christ and His Gospel
Of all the ways Spurgeon cared for the army of souls at Metropolitan Tabernacle, Christ-centered preaching and teaching was his most prominent method. Spurgeon exhorted learners and inspired generations to, “Preach you Christ, and Christ, and Christ, and Christ, and nothing else but Christ.” No one modeled this commitment better than Spurgeon himself, even amid suffering. Spurgeon reminded his people that in seasons of great pain, “the sympathy of Jesus is the next most precious thing to his sacrifice,”[18] that in Christ, believers have the blessings of both!
Spurgeon frequently consoled his congregation that because Jesus was the Man of Sorrows, “Jesus is touched, not with a feeling of your strength, but of your infirmity! As the mother feels the weakness of her babe, so does Jesus feel with the poorest, saddest, and weakest of his chosen!”[19] Hence, Spurgeon exhorted, “Have faith in God’s Word, faith in the presence of the Holy Ghost, faith in the reigning Savior, faith in the fulfillment of the everlasting purposes, and you will be full of confidence, and like an army with banners.”[20]
Soul Care Rooted in the Life of the Church
Finally, Spurgeon cared for the souls of his members by rooting them in meaningful church membership. He taught:
The church is not a number of unregenerate people coming together entirely of their own to defend such-and-such dogmas. Such persons may form a club, but they cannot make a church! There must be a coming together of renewed men, in the name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit—and these must meet for the purpose which God himself ordains—and be joined together after his own fashion.[21]
Spurgeon believed regenerate church membership was the ordinary means of grace that made for the best evangelism and discipleship—from soul-winning to soul care, beginning to end. “What is a church?” Spurgeon said. “It is an assembly—and a Christian Church is an assembly of faithful men—or men who know the Truth of God, believe it, acknowledge it boldly and adhere to it.”[22]
Geoff Chang discovered two ways Spurgeon was able to lead his church to practice meaningful membership with over 5000 members:
- Guarding the front door. In other words, he employed a thorough membership process, which included an elder interview, pastoral interview, proposal to the congregation and the assignment of a messenger, messenger inquiry, congregational interview, and vote.[23]
- Paying careful attention to the membership rolls.
Much more can be said of how Spurgeon led his church toward a holistic soul-winning to soul-care ministry, but the point is clear: Spurgeon was committed to soul care through the local church.
* * * * *
[1] Charles H. Spurgeon, C.H. Spurgeon Autobiography: The Early Years, Vol. 1., (Carlisle, 1962). 197.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon, The Soul-Winner: Advice on Effective Evangelism, (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications, 1992), 5.
[3] Eric Hayden, Highlights in the Life of C.H. Spurgeon (Pasadena, TX: Pilgrim Publications, 1990), 69.
[4] Spurgeon, The Soul-Winner, 6-7.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Thomas Kidd, “Charles Spurgeon the Pastor,” The Gospel Coalition, January 10, 2023, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/evangelical-history/charles-spurgeon-the-pastor/.
[7] Ray Rhodes Jr., Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon, Wife of Charles H. Spurgeon (Moody Publishers, 2021), 124.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Charles Spurgeon, Sword and Trowel 1869 (Ages Digital Library, 1998), 9.
[10] Charles Spurgeon, “The Shank-Bone Sermon; Or True Believers and their Helpers,” MTP 36:252.
[11] Charles Spurgeon, “Elijah Fainting,” MTP 47:273.
[12] Charles Spurgeon, Psalm 88, Treasury of David, The Spurgeon Archive http://www.spurgeon.org/treasure/ps088.htm
[13] Ibid.
[14] David Powlison, ed. “Must Reads on Counseling in the Church,” in The Journal of Biblical Counseling. (Glenside: Christian Counseling and Education Foundation, 2016), Kindle Edition.
[15] Eswine, Spurgeon’s Sorrows, 103.
[16] Charles H. Spurgeon, A Marvelous Ministry, 128.
[17] Spurgeon, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” 8.
[18] Spurgeon, “Man of Sorrows,” MTP 19:124.
[19] Spurgeon, “Tenderness of Jesus,” MTP 36:315, 320
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Charles H. Spurgeon, “What the Church Should Be,” MTP 24:541-532
[23] Geoff Chang, ‘A Hedging and Fencing’: How Charles Spurgeon Promoted Meaningful Membership,” 9Marks, n.d., https://www.9marks.org/article/a-hedging-and-fencing-how-charles-spurgeon-promoted-meaningful-membership/.
