Spurgeon’s Publisher

Charles Spurgeon’s sermons have been edifying Christians for hundreds of years. Today, Dr. Stephen Nichols tells the story of two men who teamed up to publish these messages that still encourage believers to this day.

Well, welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we are talking about Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s publisher. I’m holding in my hands one of the original pamphlets of Spurgeon’s sermons that were printed by Passmore & Alabaster, along Paternoster Row in London. Paternoster Row was synonymous for publishing in Great Britain, and there were the offices of Passmore & Alabaster. Joseph Passmore was actually a member of Spurgeon’s congregation. At the time, it was the New Park Street Chapel. It, of course, would become then Metropolitan Tabernacle. And Passmore was not only a member of that congregation, he was a close friend of Spurgeon, and he was a printer.

He teamed up with James Alabaster, who was not Baptist, he was an Anglican, and he was a publisher. And together, they formed their publishing house. And they were kept very busy by the 3,600 sermons that were preached by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. And the very first one was printed when he was 20 years old in 1855. I’m holding a copy of five sermons preached by Spurgeon. It is dated August 31st, 1868, and it would’ve cost you all of six pence, six pennies, when it was first published.

It has five sermons, and the fifth one caught my eye, “The Faculty Baffled, the Great Physician Successful.” It’s a sermon, of course, on that beautiful story of the woman who was suffering from an issue of blood. And she said, “If I can only touch the hem of Jesus’s garment, I will be made whole.” The faculty, as Spurgeon calls them, are the physicians in the first century. And I must say as he begins the sermon, he doesn’t have very many nice things to say about medicine in the first century AD. In fact, he says, “The science of medicine indeed did not then exist. And in the age of our Lord, surgery and physics was just a massive quackery and daring pretension without anything of skill or knowledge to support their claims.”

Well, from the account in Mark, we see that the only result of 12 years of seeking physicians, was that this poor woman was without money and destitute. But then Spurgeon says, “But she heard that there was a prophet, and that’s when she said to herself, ‘If I can only touch the hem of his garment,’” and Spurgeon says, “Happy day it was for her.” He goes on to say, “I shall not need to say more concerning the narrative itself. It commends the savior to you, shows you His great power in the physical world, and so proves His deity and endears Him to you for His mercy and His compassion.”

He goes on to say that this woman has many parallels. In fact, he wants to bring this story right home to his congregation. And in the sermon, he says, “I hope this morning, if never before, you will hear of Jesus who is able to heal the most desperate cases, and that you’ll be resolved to apply to Him. And that by a sincere, even if a feeble faith, you may be brought into contact with His healing mercy and may day to day, be delivered from all evil by the great Restorer’s touch. God grant it for the Redeemer’s sake, by the power of the Holy Ghost, and He shall have all the praise.”

Well, those are the kinds of sermons that were preached first at the New Park Street Church, then at the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. There was such a demand for Spurgeon’s sermons that they were printed and distributed. And as they were distributed in these pamphlets, they were eventually then brought together and bound in books and form a massive set that we simply call the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. It’s also available as a digital resource, of course, in our day. But this shows us how they first came out, this pamphlet. In its modest paper cover, with its sermons of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that are not only for his congregation, but can even encourage and edify saints today.

Well, that is a story of Passmore & Alabaster, and the sermons they printed by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. And I’m Steve Nichols, and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.