Saint Joe Now says regarding Spurgeon...
"as it was under Calvinistic ministering that he got saved."
Not to make a mountain out of a molehill but just to keep the record straight...
... according to Spurgeon He got saved in a Methodist Church on a cold snowy day around Christmas time when a Methodist man was preaching that in order to get saved one merely needed to "look to Christ" for salvation. Go and read his testimony... it is really awesome.
P.S. If you want to know the extent of Spurgeon's commitment to Calvinistic doctrine read "The Forgotten Spurgeon" I believe it is by Ian Murry. there is also a book called "Baptist Theologians' that gives much information. Or you can read one of Spurgeon's sermons called "The Covenant of Grace".
P.P.S. One of the reasons there is often misunderstandings about things like this is precisely becuase Churches have "excerpts" of Spurgeon's Sermons. It is typical for fundamental Churches to only include things that go along with their view and to edit out the Calvinistic parts. Excerpts can be good but reading Spurgeon's entire sermons are better. And not just certain sermons but a large sample of all of them
Spurgeon is much admired, promoted, and read by independent fundamental Baptists like myself who completely reject Calvinism and the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith as well as we reject Seventh Day Adventism and Seventh Day Adventist Baptist doctrine which also upholds the 1689 Baptist Confession.
Spurgeon questioned Calvinism with questions he himself could not answer while he boasted of being a Calvinist. The reason he could not answer his own questions was because the Calvinistic answer is heretical and he was unable in good conscience to renounce Calvinism as he claimed that it was under Calvinistic teaching that he was converted. He left those doubtful questions on the shelf and pushed forward as one of the greatest evangelists in history who constantly reached out to lost people and repeatedly exhorted other believers to do the same. He wasted little time arguing about
Calvinistic teachings.
The following except from Spurgeon shows why he was compelled in his personal life and preaching to act like an independent fundamental Baptist who in my church Calvinists would accuse of being "hyper-evangelical".
It is because of Spurgeon's fervency in evangelism and because of his admonitions for all believers to engage in their own personal attempts to evangelize that he is upheld and admired in independent Baptist churches were Calvinism in all five of it's TULIP points is held to be heretical.
"I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe, but I differ from them in what they do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and, I think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures. Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North, South, East, or West, but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal points. The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free-will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism. 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 fore-ordained, 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.
http://spurgeon.org/calvinis.htm
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