CH Spurgeon defusing controversy on the communion question
Above: the library in Spurgeon’s Pastor’s College.
In the late summer of 1892, a few months after the death of C. H. Spurgeon, The New York Times (August 5, 1892 issue), ran a small piece entitled “Spurgeon on Close Communion,” which was reprinted from The Baltimore Sun.
A Christian from Baltimore had written to Spurgeon in 1891 to enquire about his views on “close communion,” by which might be meant either the restriction of communion to baptized believers in general or more narrowly to members of a given local church.
This issue was one of the most controversial in the Baptist Atlantic world of that day. It was well known that Spurgeon had adopted the practice of admitting all professed believers to the Table at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Spurgeon was cited as replying as follows:
I judge it wise to abstain from fomenting any controversy on the matter of stirct communion. It is easier to destroy what communion there is than to create more. Excuse me, therefore, and form your own judgment. Yours truly, C. H. Spurgeon.
What wisdom! Some in our day, with regard to controversial matters of a tertiary or even secondary degree, could receive much instruction from this reply.
Respectfully, close or open communion is perhaps one of the most innocuous of the secondary or tertiary controversies in terms of long term concerns or implications. Not all secondary controversies promote more communion nor are the future implications of certain secondary/tertiary controversies without significant or serious potential threats to orthodox theology of orthopraxy.
Let us learn from this…thank you again, Dr. Haykin, for these wonderful posts.