Author-Arnold Dallimore
Publisher-Banner of Truth
ISBN- 0-85151-451-0
This biography is hardly new. It was first published in 1985. However, it is probably still the best reasonably concise and readable introduction to the life of Charles Haddon Spurgeon available. Spurgeon was an amazing personality and it would not be easy to encompass a full picture of his life in a book of about two hundred and fifty pages but Arnold Dallimore (who passed in to the Lord’s presence in 1998) has succeeded in presenting something of the inner man of Spurgeon, his sufferings and depressions, his weaknesses and strengths. He accomplished so much, there were triumphs, rejections, humor and joy and a reading of this book will make Spurgeon beloved to the reader and quicken in them a desire to read more of his life and to begin to read his sermons and books. That Spurgeon was a remarkable man is evident, but many regard him simply as an orator who was able to move multitudes in Victorian England. Not so much is known of the inward life of the man, the path he trod, the theological breadth of his ministry, his consistency and indefatigable labors. It is clear that he was a great lover of men and women and boys and girls and that that love sprang from his burning love for the Lord Jesus. He deserves to be known and loved by men and women in the churches today. Still, we are told, there are more of his works currently in print than of any other Christian writer, a remarkable fact. His theological framework was what is called Calvinistic but in his early years he described his ministry in these words, “My daily labor is to revive the old doctrines of Gill, Owen, Augustine and Christ’. Throughout his ministry he asserted the doctrines of human depravity and divine election but his was a ‘warm Calvinism’ for he received equal criticism from those who emphasized human responsibility as from those who were ‘cold Calvinists’ of the hyper school. He never liked to speak or write of a ‘limited atonement’ but preferred to use the term ‘particular redemption’, the belief that Christ did not merely make salvation possible and leave it to man to do the rest, but that He accomplished the redemption of each of His elect ones and thus assured their salvation. He plainly and consistently declared that ‘salvation is of the Lord’ but also, along with that, ‘Whosoever will may come’. He recognized that the two concepts seemed to be contradictory but was sure the scriptures taught both. To read Spurgeon is to have your heart stirred with a joyful expectation of meeting him one day. He is a man to be loved and the reading of his life stirs the heart to a deeper affection for the Lord Jesus he loved and served so tirelessly and well.
