Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

Last week we were talking about Spurgeon's publisher, who published the sermons that he preached this week.

Let's talk about Spurgeon's church, where those sermons were preached.

But to tell this story, we have to go all the way back to the 1600s and to the minister Benjamin Keach.

He was a Baptist minister. He wrote a catechism that is known as Keach's catechism.

And for that, under Charles II and the time of the restoration, he was arrested.

Keach's catechism has a fascinating first question.

The second question is the exact same question from the Westminster catechism.

What is the chief end of man? But the first question of Keach's catechism is this.

What is the first and best of beings? Answer, God is the first and best of beings.

Well, in 1668 Keach went to London and he passed her to church in Horsley Down, Southwark.

It was right along the Thames River directly across from the Tower of London.

A milestone in his ministry was the key role that he played in the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

Keach's first wife, Jane, died after 10 years together.

His second wife, Susanna, died in the same year that he did, 1704.

Then, in 1719, John Gill came to this church and he passed her there for 50 years.

It was during his time that the great awakening came to London and Great Britain and then spread across the Atlantic.

Gill was an ally and a supporter and a friend of George Whitfield.

After John Gill came John Rippen.

He would be minister for 63 years and he was a himwriter.

The Lutherans have Luther at the headwaters of Lutheran himnity.

The Congregationalists or the Independents have Isaac Watts.

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