PASTORS AT THE TABERNACLE
by Peter MastersFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2003 No
2
The Metropolitan Tabernacle in down town London has stood as a
Calvinistic Baptist Church for over 350 years, but after 260 years of faithful witness, there
arrived periods when it came very close to turning itself into an Arminian church, and at
one point almost lost its lampstand altogether in closure.
The congregation has now reached the 354th year since the earliest
gatherings (c1650) in Widow Colfe’s house in Kennington, and in ‘a house down an alley
in Jacob Street’ (Bermondsey), to name only two of the eight or nine meeting places across
which worshippers were spread to avoid oppression.
Everyone knows about Spurgeon, but many well-informed people express
surprise that great names such as Keach, Gill and Rippon were lifelong pastors of this
congregation. Over these 3˝ centuries 19 pastors have served the church, nine for
pastorates of between 10 and 63 years, and ten for short pastorates of less than ten years.
Nine pastors account for 278 years between them.
In the following list of pastors those firmly in the Calvinistic and Particular Baptist-Spurgeon tradition are marked with a solid asterisk,* while those who had Arminian traits or were liberal in methodology are marked with an outline asterisk.** Some lessons for today’s evangelical churches are drawn from the Tabernacle’s perilous times in the twentieth century in a following article. (Dates shown are dates of pastorate.)
1. William Rider* c1653-c1665 (12 years) - possibly died in the Plague of
London.
2. Benjamin Keach* 1668-1704 (36 years) - suffered harsh persecution; built first
chapel, very large, in Goat’s Yard Passage, Fair Street, Horse-lie-down (now Horselydown
Lane by Tower Bridge, southside). The Toleration Act of 1688 was passed during his
ministry leading to greater liberty for Baptists. He was a guiding participant in the
formulation of the Baptist Confession of Faith, and his two great tomes on parables and
biblical metaphors are still in print.
3. Benjamin Stinton* 1704-1718 (14 years) - a renowned ministry which helped
many other churches also.
4. Dr John Gill* 1720-1771 (51 years) - exceptional scholar; had read most Latin
classics by age of 11; his Bible Commentary is still in print; a great supporter of George
Whitefield’s Kennington Common preachings in the 1739 awakening; built Carter Lane
Chapel, in St Olave’s Street (once off Tooley Street, in the Tower Bridge area) in 1757.
5. Dr John Rippon* 1773-1836 (63 years) - when Carter Lane was demolished in
1830 to make way for the London Bridge approaches, he built New Park Street Chapel
‘between the river and breweries and vinegar factories’ (just south of Southwark Bridge), a
handsome but ill-positioned 1,200-seat chapel. This was described as the ‘most prosperous
church’ in the Baptist community. A genial but disarmingly frank man, Dr Rippon
frequently gave the dissenters’ annual Loyal Address to the king. (Dr Rippon’s pastoral
longevity surely holds a record, but he did start to say some curious things at the very end,
and the church gave him a kindly co-pastor to ‘nurse’ him.)
6. Dr Joseph Angus* 1837-1839 (2 years) - who went on to lead the main Baptist
college of the day for 40 years.
7. James Smith* (1841-1850) (8˝ years) - the author of the renowned
devotional, The Believer’s Daily Remembrancer.
8. William Walters* 1851-1853 (2 years) - little is known of him.
9. Charles Haddon Spurgeon* 1854-1892 (38 years) - ranked with Whitefield as
the two most extraordinarily equipped and instrumental preachers of post-Reformation
times. Due to thousands flooding to hear the Word, he opened the first Tabernacle in 1861.
Here all the roads from the Thames bridges joined at a newly developed area which only 30
years previously had been called ‘a country district on the Brighton road’. Congregations
regularly exceeded 5,500, with a children’s Sunday School of 2,500 children, not counting
those at branch missions.
10. Thomas Spurgeon* 1893-1908 (15 years) - stalwart for the faith, but rather
open to the shallower methods coming in. In 1898 the Tabernacle burned out following a
kitchen flue fire (400 ministers being hosted at a conference), leaving the front and the
shell. The (2nd) Tabernacle was opened with 3,800 seats.
11. Archibald G Brown* 1908-1911 (3 years) - an older man who had stood with
CHS in the Downgrade Controversy, but who had become surprisingly open to shallow
methods.
12. Dr Amzi Clarence Dixon** 1911-1919 (8 years) - from Moody Church, Chicago, who effected a pronounced shift from the past, causing great unhappiness in the congregation. 13. Harry Tydeman Chilvers* 1919-1935 (15˝ years) - a Strict Baptist pastor
from Ipswich, called to restore the theological distinctives of the church. Congregations of
around 1,500 were the norm, with nearly 2,000 children in all Sunday Schools.
14. Dr W Graham Scroggie** 1938-1943 (5 years) - following 40 years of ministry, came to care for the Tabernacle through War years during which the building was bombed. Was personally bombed out 3 times, once buried in rubble.
(Evacuation of all children closed the Sunday School and call-up removed most active
men.) A most gracious evangelical pastor, but not at all in our theological tradition.
15. W G Channon** 1944-1949 (5 years) - a Baptist Union evangelical, weak doctrinally and in method. 3-400 people ‘regrouped’ after the war, but decline was becoming rapid.
16. Gerald B Griffiths* 1951-1954 (3 years) - ideal views, but called elsewhere.
Note: At the end of 1955 the Tabernacle disastrously rejoined the Baptist Union
(acting under the influence of a Moderator, Dr T G Dunning).
17. Eric W Hayden** 1956-1962 (6 years) - Baptist Union evangelical, but way off track (at the time) in theology and method. During his ministry new (3rd) Tabernacle built, largely resourced from War Damage compensation. 18. Dennis Pascoe** 1963-1969 (6 years) - older Baptist Union evangelical; a conspicuously kindly spiritual shepherd, but felt he was called to be the sympathetic helmsman of an ageing and shrinking congregation bound for inevitable closure. 19. Present pastor* since 1970 - the congregation unanimously resolved to leave
the Baptist Union again in 1971. Now entirely aligned with the position of Spurgeon, except
that we keep an organ! (the first being introduced in 1930).
See also complementary article ‘A Lesson - The Devil is in the Detail!’
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