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In March 1887, Spurgeon published in his monthly magazine, The Sword and the Trowel, an article titled “The Down Grade.” The article, published anonymously but written by Spurgeon’s friend Robert Shindler, declared that some ministers were “denying the proper deity of the Son of God, renouncing faith in his atoning death.… ” They were, Shindler said, on a slippery slope, or “Down Grade,” away from essential evangelical doctrines.

In the following month’s Sword and Trowel, Spurgeon wrote, “We are glad that the article upon ‘The Down Grade’ has excited notice.… Our warfare is with men who are giving up the atoning sacrifice, denying the inspiration of Holy Scripture, and casting slurs upon justification by faith.” That summer Spurgeon wrote further on Shindler’s theme. Controversy developed, Spurgeon became the focal point of the charges, and the Baptist Union, which was bitterly divided over the question, ultimately voted to censure him.

Explaining the tangled affair is Dr. Mark Hopkins, lecturer in church history at Theological College of Northern Nigeria.

During the height of the Down-Grade Controversy, in 1887–88, The Sword and the Trowel, Spurgeon's monthly magazine, contained something about the dispute in every issue.

The Down-Grade Controversy of 1887–88 was the most dramatic and the most disastrous episode in Spurgeon’s career. It was also the severest crisis ever faced by the Baptist Union, the body to which Spurgeon belonged.

In the flurry of charges, none of the principal players cared to expose key information that lay hidden from public view. However, some important missing pieces of the jigsaw have turned up recently. It is now possible to sketch the story more accurately.

Spurgeon launched the controversy, and so the first question must be, “What was he trying to do?”

Spurgeon was not campaigning for an evangelical basis for the Baptist Union nor attempting to expel its liberals. He saw that liberalism would grow and prevail for a while to come and he was not so naive as to suppose that it could be stopped by resolutions. Again, he was not trying to engineer a schism and start an evangelical union: the idea did not appeal to him and he did not think this could be a permanent solution.

Lacking a positive program of any kind, Spurgeon had just two things in mind: (1) to warn against the rise of liberalism (he was more concerned about Congregationalism, in which it had taken deeper root, than about his own denomination); and (2) having thus satisfied his conscience, to retreat into the private world of his church and associated enterprises, which kept him more than busy and fulfilled.

In 1887, in his magazine The Sword and the Trowel, Spurgeon delivered a wide-ranging but superficial critique. His message was that Nonconformists were on a slippery slope away from biblical doctrine and standards of behavior. Three doctrines, Spurgeon said, were being abandoned: biblical infallibility, substitutionary atonement, and the finality of judgment for those who died outside Christ. His passionate and outspoken language helped arouse attention. But perhaps the decisive factor in provoking an extensive debate was Spurgeon’s unfavorable comparison between Nonconformity [Protestant dissenters such as the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists] and the Church of England. This was a potent bait, and when the Baptist Union met in October, the “Down Grade” was the main topic of conversation. Yet fear of troubling the theological waters kept the subject off the official program—Baptist leaders hoped the delete would fizzle out. The few references that were made dismissed Spurgeon, and he felt it time for the more congenial part of his plan: he resigned from the Baptist Union.

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