by Doug Kutilek
The mortal remains of Baptist pastor John Rippon (1751-1836) repose in Bunhill Fields cemetery, London, the burial site of many famous and faithful names in English Non-Conformity (non-Anglican Christians), some 120,000 souls, all told, interred between about 1650 and 1850.
For 63 years, from 1773 until 1836, John Rippon pastored the South London congregation then known as Carter Lane, and later New Park Street Chapel, but most famously known in its 360-plus-year history as the Metropolitan Tabernacle. So lengthy a tenure as pastor of one congregation is almost unprecedented, and not surprisingly exceeded that of all his many predecessors and successors in that pastorate, some of whom had ministries of not inconsiderable length themselves. Among the most notable of these: Benjamin Keach was pastor for 36 years (1668-1704); John Gill, easily the most academic and scholarly of the lot, shepherded the flock for 51 years (1720-1771); the world-famous Charles Spurgeon served the congregation for nearly 38 years (1854-1892); and the current pastor, Peter Masters, has led the church since 1970, more than 45 years.
Rippon, a Baptist pastor’s son, was privately educated in his youth and was converted to Christ as a teenager. At 17, he entered Bristol Baptist College. When just 21, in response to a request from a London congregation left pastorless by the death of the very learned 74-year-old pastor John Gill, he was sent by the college to preach with a view to a call to the pastorate. When a majority ultimately decided to extend a call to young Rippon, 40 members thought him too young, and so they withdrew, formed a separate church — and immediately called a 19-year-old to be their pastor! (John Gill had only been 22 when called in 1720, and Spurgeon would be but 19 when called to pastor this same church in 1854).
Rippon was much less of a scholar than Gill, but much more of a warm-hearted pastor and shepherd to his people. His preaching was fervent and impassioned, and unlike Gill, he openly offered the Gospel to the lost, and urged upon them the necessity of repentance and faith. The congregation immediately grew and prospered both numerically and financially (it had greatly declined in Gill’s last years). This prosperity continued throughout all but the final years of Rippon’s pastorate. Rippon immersed about 900 converts while pastor. Spurgeon characterized Rippon and his ministry as “Beloved at home, respected abroad, and useful everywhere.”
Besides being a pastor, Rippon was also an author and editor. He penned a fine biography of his predecessor John Gill (reprint, 1992), and a history of Bristol Baptist College. He also founded and edited The Baptist Annual Register, a monthly publication (1790-1802) that included accounts of Baptist history, letters from churches, associations, and missionaries, notices of books and articles by Baptists, engraved portraits of pastors, obituaries, and whatever else Rippon deemed beneficial to the Baptist and Christian cause. These volumes serve today as valuable resources for Baptist historians. Rippon also compiled a popular and influential hymnal. It went through many editions in his lifetime, and from its sale he was able to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.
One unfinished writing project was a history of Bunhill Fields cemetery. Toward that end, Rippon spent many hours carefully transcribing the headstone and monument inscriptions — really testimonies to faith — hoping to copy them all (today only a tithe of the original grave markers still exist, and most of these are now wholly illegible). The numerous volumes that he compiled are preserved, unpublished, in the British Library in London.
In his declining years, Rippon would often pray for God to raise up a young man, he knew not who, to lead the church to far greater things. Some of his surviving members saw God’s answer to those prayers in the call of Charles Spurgeon almost 20 years after Rippon’s death.
Not unlike some other long-tenured pastors, Rippon continued to serve after his ministry had ceased to be effective (such had been true of his predecessor Gill). Spurgeon wrote, “He retained the will to govern after the capacity was gone, and he held his power over the pulpit though unable to occupy it with profit.” Zeal to be of service until death is commendable; knowing when to retire for the church’s sake requires wisdom.
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Information about Rippon’s life and work can be found in: Charles H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle: Its History and Work (reprint, 1990), pp. 48-54 [essentially identical to Spurgeon’s unabridged Autobiography, vol. I, pp. 310-315]. William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia (1988, reprint), pp. 990-1. See also The Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. An extended account by Sharon James is found in The British Particular Baptists, edited by Michael A. G. Haykin, vol. II, pp. 56-75.