James Culross, C.H. Spurgeon and the Crisis of British Baptist Confessionalism, 1887–8: Part I, the Letters

ABSTRACT Initially drawn to this subject because Culross wrote a nineteenth-century biography on John Ryland Jr. (1753–1825) who was the subject of my PhD, I encountered letters held at Bristol Baptist College noting the friendship between James Culross and C.H. Spurgeon, along with their correspondence with others, during the Downgrade Controversy. This two part publication seeks to convey the central contents of their correspondence during this controversy, and probe the essence of their subtly divergent views of Baptist confessionalism in an attempt to gain a more complete understanding of what was a complex controversy.