C H Spurgeon: A Baptist Mystic

Last week I wrote about Bernard McGinn's series of encyclopedic works on Christian m ysticism, under the general title The Presence of God. So far five volumes are published with two more scheduled over the next few years. I was aware as I wrote it that the descriptors Mystic and Baptist don't seem to fit easily into each other's company. But that's to misunderstand both terms.

Baptists are certainly resistant to esoteric spirituality, and dismissive of gnostic claims to special extra-biblical revelation. We are deeply committed to a biblically shaped faith and experience. We draw our understanding of Christian life from a faithful following after Jesus the risen Lord as revealed in Scripture, acknowledging the One who is the "sole and absolute authority in our faith and practice". But it is precisely that intetentionally Christocentric faith, rooted in the realities of the Triune God, that provides a source of deep and tranformative encounter with the God who draws us into the love and life of that eternal Triune relationship of creative, outflowing Love that is the source and fountain of Divine Grace.

Christian Mysticism and Baptist identity don't trip of the tongue as two descriptors you would expect to use naturally. In fact chalk and cheese, apples and pears seem more logical pairings than Baptist mystic – you would think. And you'd be wrong. C H Spurgeon, whose bust sits on my bookshelf ( a Victorian one, not a 20th century repro!) was a Baptist Mystic, and his mysticism, was profoundly, exuberantly, Christological. He might have scowled at the comparison, but his best writing of the experience of rapture and vivid encounter with Jesus Christ compares with Bernard of Clairvaux's Christocentric rhapsodising, Teresa of Avila's joy in the Crucified and Charles Wesley's praise band approach to celebrating the Saviour and the Gospel of captivating overwhelming love, with words used as creatively and startlingly as Van Gogh's most life transcending juxtapositions of colour, image and human experience.

The last hymn Spurgeon wrote (which can be sung to the tune Nottignham) is a remarkable text of Baptist Mysticism. It deserves a place in any anthology of mystical writings.

     1. All my soul was dry and dead

         Till I learned that Jesus bled;

         Bled and suffered in my place,

         Bearing sin in matchless grace.

     2. Then a drop of Heavenly love

         Fell upon me from above,

         And by secret, mystic art

         Reached the center of my heart.

     3. Glad the story I recount,

         How that drop became a fount,

         Bubbled up a living well,

         Made my heart begin to swell.

     4. All within my soul was praise,

         Praise increasing all my days;

         Praise which could not silent be:

         Floods were struggling to be free.

     5. More and more the waters grew,

         Open wide the flood-gates flew,

         Leaping forth in streams of song

         Flowed my happy life along.

     6. Lo! A river clear and sweet

         Laved my glad, obedient feet!

         Soon it rose up to my knees,

         And I praised and prayed with ease.

     7. Now my soul in praises swims,

         Bathes in songs, and psalms and hymns;

         Plunges down into the deeps,

         All her powers in worship steeps.

     8. Hallelujah! O my Lord!

         Torrents from my soul are poured!

         I am carried clean away,

         Praising, praising all the day.

     9. In an ocean of delight,

         Praising God with all my might,

         Self is drowned; so let it be:

         Only Christ remains to me.

            —C.H. Spurgeon, 1890

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