When Pastor Cantlow baptized that teenage boy on this day in 1850, he probably had no idea of the spiritual and historical significance of what he was doing. Perhaps no Baptist, since John, could begin to understand what lay a head for any baptismal candidate. On this occasion, young Charles had walked seven miles from New Market to Isleham, because he had become convinced that believer’s baptism meant immersion, contrary to what his Protestant parents and grandparents had taught. On May 3, 1850 Charles Haddon Spurgeon was scripturally baptized.
Slightly less than four years later, and while still a teenager, Charles Spurgeon accepted the call to pastor the New Park Street Chapel where several famous Baptist had pastored before him. Not long after that his fame was reaching London, and soon he would be preaching to thousands every Lord’s Day. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a spiritual phenomenon – despite being called, by some, “a Calvinist.”
Lewis A. Drummond, in a recent biography, wrote, “Spurgeon did not think the preaching of Calvinism stood synonymous with the preaching of the Gospel. He said, I believe most firmly in the doctrines commonly called “Calvinist,” and I hold them to be very fraught with comfort for God’s people; but if any man shall say that the preaching of these is the whole preaching of Gospel, I am at issue with him. Brethren, you may preach these doctrines as long as you like, and yet fail to preach the Gospel; and I will go further, and affirm that some who have even denied those truths, to our own grief, have nevertheless been Gospel preachers for all that, and God has saved souls by their ministry … preach Christ, young men, if you want to win souls.”
By some, Spurgeon was called a “Calvinist,” and by others he was labeled “Arminian.” The man loved the doctrines of God’s sovereign grace, while at the same time he urged all men everywhere to repent and trust Christ.