Charles Spurgeon

===Downgrade controversy===
[[File:Sword and Trowel cover.gif|right|thumb|300px|Sword and Trowel original cover page]]
A controversy among the Baptists flared in 1887 with Spurgeon's first "Down-grade" article, published in ''The Sword & the Trowel''.<ref name= "downgrade">{{Cite book | last = Spurgeon | first = Charles | title = The "Down Grade" Controversy | publisher = Pilgrim Publications | location = Pasadena, [[Texas|TX]] | page = 264 | date = 2009 | url = http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/dwngrd.htm | isbn = 978-1-56186211-5 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140623204825/http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/dwngrd.htm | archive-date = 23 June 2014 | df = dmy-all}}</ref> In the ensuing "Downgrade Controversy," the Metropolitan Tabernacle disaffiliated from the [[Baptist Union]], effectuating Spurgeon's congregation as the world's largest self-standing church. Spurgeon framed the controversy in this way:
{{Blockquote | Believers in Christ's atonement are now in declared union with those who make light of it; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy with those who deny [[plenary inspiration]]; those who hold evangelical doctrine are in open alliance with those who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, who call justification by faith immoral, and hold that there is another probation after death…  It is our solemn conviction that there should be no pretence of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.<ref name= CHS1>{{Citation | first = Charles Haddon | last = Spurgeon | url = http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/dg00.htm | newspaper = The Sword and the Trowel | title = Preface | date = August 1887 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141104134851/http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/dg00.htm | archive-date = 4 November 2014 | df = dmy-all}}</ref>}}

The Controversy took its name from Spurgeon's use of the term "Downgrade" to describe certain other Baptists' outlook toward the Bible (''i.e.'', they had "downgraded" the Bible and the principle of ''[[sola scriptura]]'').<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.reformedreader.org/spurgeon/dgcindex.htm | title =The Down Grade Controversy |work= The Reformed Reader |access-date= 21 August 2010}}</ref> Spurgeon alleged that an incremental creeping of the [[Documentary hypothesis#The Wellhausen (or Graf–Wellhausen) hypothesis|Graf-Wellhausen]] hypothesis, [[Charles Darwin's theory of evolution]], and other concepts were weakening the Baptist Union.<ref name=dall>{{Cite book | last = Dallimore | first =Arnold | title = Spurgeon: A New Biography | place = Edinburgh | publisher = The Banner of Truth Trust |date = September 1985 | isbn = 978-0-85151451-2}}</ref><ref name = sheehan>{{Cite book | last = Sheehan | first = Robert | title = Spurgeon and the Modern Church| place = Phillipsburg, NJ | publisher = Presbyterian & Reformed | date = June 1985  | isbn = 978-0-94646205-6}}</ref><ref name = "Nettles">{{Cite book | last = Nettles | first = Tom | title = Living By Revealed Truth The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon | publisher = Christian Focus | location = Ross-shire | date = 21 July 2013 | isbn = 978-1-78191122-8}}</ref> Spurgeon emphatically decried the doctrine that resulted: 
{{Blockquote | Assuredly the New Theology can do no good towards God or man; it, has no adaptation for it. If it were preached for a thousand years by all the most earnest men of the school, it would never renew a soul, nor overcome pride in a single human heart.<ref name= CHS2>{{Cite book | last = Spurgeon | first = Charles | title = The "Down Grade" Controversy | publisher = Pilgrim Publications | location = Pasadena, [[Texas|TX]] | page = 2 | year = 2009 | url = http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/dg00.htm | isbn = 978-1-56186211-5 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141104134851/http://www.spurgeon.org/s_and_t/dg00.htm | archive-date = 4 November 2014 | df = dmy-all}}</ref>}}

The standoff caused division amongst the Baptists and other non-conformists, and is regarded by many as an important paradigm.{{Efn | An accessible analysis, sympathetic to Spurgeon but no less useful, of the Downgrade Controversy appears at {{Citation | title = Tec Malta | url = http://www.tecmalta.org/tft351.htm}}.}}<ref name=dall /><ref>{{Citation | first = Dennis M | last = Swanson | title = The Down Grade Controversy and Evangelical Boundaries | publisher = Narnia 3 | url = http://www.narnia3.com/articles/ETS%202001.pdf | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080625040733/http://www.narnia3.com/articles/ETS%202001.pdf | archive-date = 25 June 2008 | df = dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | first = Jack | last = Sin | title = The Judgement Seat of Christ
| pages = 302–23, esp. 310 | url= http://www.febc.edu.sg/assets/pdfs/bbush/The%20Burning%20Bush%20Vol%206%20No%202.pdf | newspaper = The Burning Bush| volume= 6 | issue = 2 | date= July 2000|publisher= Far Eastern Bible College | place = [[Singapore|SG]]}}</ref>