Preaching the Whole Counsel

chief of sinners should scarcely be allowed to preach to others. ¹ Preaching is a farce unless the minister hath fire within him; but when the fire is there, preaching is God's ordained and guaranteed way of bringing souls to himself. ²

Gifts and Calling Requisite

A bove all else, Spurgeon knew his gift and calling was in the proclamation of the gospel. When Spurgeon took application to the Pastors' College he

advised, "Do not be a minister if you can help it." ³ Within that last phrase was the hinge of the matter. Some would be better to stay in their trade or other secular calling. He would thereby support his family, give valuable help in a church that needs lay ministers in evangelistic work, and not be a burden to a congregation where its needs go beyond his gifts and the support falls short of

his needs. ⁴ He doubted not that there were "hundreds of men, half-starved, in the Christian ministry, who would act wisely if they could add a secular business to their sacred calling," and relieve themselves from want and be set free. They would serve the Lord better if they "ploughed the field or opened shop" and it

would not be disreputable to "do a little tailoring." ⁵ Spurgeon had sad experience confirmed year by year, that "many who think themselves called to preach are evidently under a delusion, for they have neither capacity for

learning, nor ability for teaching." ⁶ He looked at the ministry of the gospel as a "high and honourable calling when a man is really fitted for it; but without the necessary qualifications it must be little better than sheer slavery with a fine

name to it." ⁷ On the other hand, none should stay out whom God has prepared and suited for the golden burden. He looked for five-talent men and some men of "the upper and middle classes that would consecrate themselves unto the Lord."

Though their gifts might make them rich in business or famous in letters, Spurgeon coveted the "best men for Jesus," and, with sly irony, reminded Christians that the "noblest human mind is not too good raw material for the Lord to use in fashioning a minister of the gospel." The advantages of culture and education would give them a massive advantage for obtaining the necessary training in Bible and theology "and help them to take leading positions in the church." The poverty of the ministry makes parents discourage their young men from considering it. They should be willing to endure poverty, but, at the same time, "the cure for the poverty of our ministry lies in the increase of its mental and spiritual power." For those so suited, in Spurgeon's opinion and experience, "there is no more honourable, happy, and holy course open in this world than the

ministry of a Baptist church." ⁸ Those that are gifted and have zeal for the gospel should see the ministry as God's intended purpose for them. "Aspire to this office, young men, whose souls are full of love to Jesus," Spurgeon told an

enormous gathering of people in the Agricultural Hall in the north of London. "Fired with sacred enthusiasm, covet earnestly the best gifts, and out of love to Jesus try whether you cannot in your measure tell to your fellow-men the story of the cross." What could exceed in importance such a call and such a use of gifts, and what could more clearly express the supreme affection of a Christian! "Men of zeal and ability," he insisted, "if you love Jesus, make the ministry your aim; train your minds to it; exercise your soul toward it; and may God the Holy Spirit call you to it, that you also may preach the Word of reconciliation to the dying thousands." Not only gifts, love, zeal, knowledge, and excellence issued the call but urgent need added her voice—"The laborers still are few: may the

Lord of the harvest thrust you into his work." ⁹ Many had mistaken their calling Spurgeon believed, and there would not be so much poor preaching and so many bogged down in the misery of non-success had a genuine compulsion from above been waited for. The man that cannot help it, however, will give himself, heart and soul, out of heavenly compulsion, and all manner of opposition and difficulty will yield to the "Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel." Without the impulse, however, where is the warrant? "That preaching which is inspired by vainglory must necessarily be in vain." ¹⁰

Observers, Gawkers, Admirers, and Pundits

Though Spurgeon encountered much opposition in his ministry, none ever suspected that he lacked other-worldly compulsion or exquisite gifts of proclamation. An American observer noted in 1856, "The preaching of Mr. Spurgeon in London is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the present

times." ¹¹ Reducing the sermons to writing extended the effect of his proclamation, and he was exuberant about the opportunity to reach many times more through print than he did in the moment of delivery. His readers he called "the outer ring of my congregation" which he recognized as "far more numerous than those to whom I speak with my voice." He did not shy from asking those readers for "the great service of increasing my congregation by increasing the

circulation of the sermons." ¹² The American observer found everything about Spurgeon impressive in the most edifying sense. Having remarked on his clear intelligence and the striking ways he used illustrations along with the amazing capacity for finding striking analogies between all that he observed in nature and the realm of spiritual relationships, he was particularly impressed with Spurgeon's conviction concerning the doctrine he preached and the absorbing manner of delivery. He recounted an event in which Spurgeon, while preaching in Exeter Hall, had a person, "a very kind friend," advise him that, though he was a Calvinist and a Baptist, he should recollect that, among his hearers, there was "a variety of creeds." Spurgeon responded, "Now, if I were to preach nothing but what would please the whole lot of you, what on earth should I do? I preach what I believe to be true; and, if the omission of a single truth that I believe would make me king of England throughout eternity, I would not leave it out. Those who do not like what I say, have the option of leaving it. They come here, I suppose, to please

themselves; and, if the truth does not please them, they can leave it." ¹³ Preaching was not a technique to gather and please a crowd, but the manifestation of the voice as in instrument through which the entire soul and body dished out words of new creation and resurrection that reached the things that were not and made them be, and the things that were dead and made them live.

Natural elegance in body motion and clear articulation rose to the level of the content's sublimity. To illustrate the magnetism of his delivery, the writer

quoted from The Examiner from Glasgow.

Soon as he commences to speak, tones of richest melody are heard. A voice, full, sweet, and musical,

falls on every ear, and awakens agreeable emotions in every soul in which there is a sympathy for

sounds. That most excellent of voices is under perfect control, and can whisper or thunder at the wish

of its possessor. And there is poetry in every feature and every movement, as well as music in the

voice. The countenance speaks,—the entire form sympathizes. The action is in complete unison with

the sentiments, and the eye listens scarcely less than the ear to the sweetly-flowing oratory. 14

By 1857, the publishing of Spurgeon's sermons in America, combined with the reports of interested American visitors to England, led to the publishing of a book entitled Sketch of the Life and Ministry of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. His "life and ministry" already underwent scrutiny and analysis at twenty-three years of age. An Anglican minister was not even allowed to exercise his gifts publicly until he had completed his twenty-third year. Spurgeon, however, had already preached for years and was compared in this publication to William Jay, the Wesleys and Whitefield, both for his youth and his startling impact. When comparing him to Whitefield, the writer contended that Spurgeon was "not a whit" behind him in "graphic power, while he is vastly superior" in logic and illustration. "He grapples with the strongest truths, unfolds the profoundest doctrines, plies the lever with the stoutest arguments, and aims at convincing

before he attempts to persuade." ¹⁵ The writer inserted a long review of the Spurgeon phenomenon from the

Christian Review. ¹⁶ G. N. Hervey, the writer of the review, analyzed Spurgeon's preaching and isolated several advantages that boldness gave to him.

Spurgeon knew no master but God, no truth but Scripture, no power but the gospel, a combination that made him drive fearlessly to the conscience and affections of his hearers with a positiveness, and even dogmatism, about his task to see them saved. His boldness was joined to clarity. The reviewer pointed to this trait as quite remarkable in light of the overall mental and theological furniture of Spurgeon. "When we consider that Mr. Spurgeon's themes conduct him down into the deepest mysteries of Christian experience, and aloft away into the clouds and darkness of the divine purposes and providence—that he stops not on the confines of this world, but penetrates far into the unlimited light of heaven, and the smoke and glare of hell—when we consider these things, along with the fact that his mind is naturally of the poetic order, it is surprising that his ideas should be couched in language so luminous and distinct, that the most ignorant and feeble-minded of his flock could find no difficulty in

comprehending them." ¹⁷ The propensity to observe and assimilate all that came before him, his intimate and virtually infused knowledge of Puritan thought and doctrine melded so seamlessly with his own manner of expression, his ability to make pertinent, personal, and striking application, the abundance of allusions and metaphors that aided meditation, and the style that was so "simple, terse, idiomatic, and

picturesque" all coalesced in a single sermon. The reviewer observed that Spurgeon's sentences were rather "laconic than periodic, and as he does not think in long, connected trains of argumentation, the successive sentences are separate dictates of the intellect, such as the generality can readily comprehend."

In spite of hesitance to criticize a man so useful and obviously blessed of God to the conversion of hundreds, Hervey anticipated a time when Spurgeon would outgrow his tendency to "display an exuberance of fancy," to create distractions through the use of puns, to exercise a censorship over other ministers (a fault arising from an unmortified pride so surmised Hervey), and to denounce "the whole system of collegiate and theological education now in operation

throughout the world." ¹⁸ Hervey's hopes would never be entirely fulfilled. Spurgeon never felt it necessary to leave punning behind, he made it a practice to the end of his days to warn against ministers that short-changed the gospel, and he established his own college to train ministers in a way that he thought fit for intensifying all the implications of revealed truth. In his college address in 1877, Spurgeon punned his point about piety by referring to some persons distinguished by what "might

be called mag -piety" for they are happiest when they talk the most. ¹⁹ He could not resist a pun even in private correspondence and when his health was virtually an inch from death. From Mentone in 1890 he informed his brother that "My hand is not yet handy, but you see I can write handsomely;" and after a few more lines put humorously he closed, "I have to be penurious with my pen, for the

hand soon aches." ²⁰ These touches of humor, as low as some might find them to be, Spurgeon defended, sprinkling his messages with humor as the use of "gathering bait" to make the fish come. Some of Spurgeon's contemporaries were "so dull, so monotonous, so long, and so sour," that he did not wonder that their pews were sparsely populated. ²¹ For Spurgeon the art of attraction included "a pleasant

manner, an interesting style, and even a touch of wit." ²² He showed this even on an application for life insurance. When asked if he had ever had fits or convulsions, he responded, "No; unless convulsions of laughter are meant."

When asked if he had any "Medical Gentlemen" besides the one listed (Dr. Palfrey, who had been his physician for twelve years by 1868), he responded,

"Nobody, one doctor is quite enough for any man to survive." ²³ Though he had been blamed for the "use of pleasantries," he continued to do so partly because he could not help it, but "chiefly because I have perceived that the interest is

sustained and the attention excited by a dash of the familiar and the striking." ²⁴ One observer of his preaching at the Music Hall in 1857, having heard that

Spurgeon was outrageous in this tendency, commented that his command of language was considerable but did not lead to verbosity, his style unfettered, homely, and pointed; and that "there was a total absence of anything humorous

or ludicrous, if it has been his habit to indulge in such things." ²⁵ He apparently was more given to this in more comfortable and familiar surroundings where he knew his audience intimately. This penchant for humor was most amusingly displayed at his Friday lectures at the Pastors' College.

Since Spurgeon believed that humor was a vital weapon in the preacher's arsenal, he found particular happiness, as well as laughter, in a book by Charles Stanford, The Wit and Humour of Life. " Stanford protested against the superstition "which regards wit and humour as deadly sins." Finally, Spurgeon mused, an ally he embraced in his defense of humor and an "avenger of those fierce assaults which have been made on humour." Spurgeon hoped that the book would "shut the mouths of those melancholy critics who think that everything solemn should be sad, and that anything approaching to pleasantry must be wicked." Stanford's defense of wit was as "wholesome and as holy as anything we have ever read." He hoped for a revolution in the ideas of many who "now blush when they smile, and put down an honest laugh in the category

of things to be repented of." ²⁶ This commendation was not written by a resentful and careless youth, but by an experienced and assaulted soldier only six years from his death.

Spurgeon also leveled criticism at "many preachers... [who] do not treat the gospel as a practical thing, or as a matter of fact which immediately concerns the people before them." He wondered "what some sermons were preached for, what design the preacher had in concocting them," and lampooned preachers that had practiced for a very long while to "avoid troubling you in the least with the

truth." ²⁷ He had few kind words for the theological pabulum fed through the

common ministerial education of the day.

Besides, we are invited to follow the guidance of men who are not qualified to be leaders. I have

waited with a good deal of interest to see whether modern thought would be capable of producing a

man, a man of mark, of profound mind, and philosophic genius; but where is he? Where is the man

who will found a school and sway his fellows; a man for the orthodox to tremble at, a great Goliath,

head and shoulders above his fellows. Truly there are some who think they have power, and so they

have amongst those young gentlemen whose moustachios are on the point of developing, but they have

no influence over those who read their Bibles, have had experience, and are accustomed to try the

spirits. 28

Those issues for which the critic hoped better things for Spurgeon never completely left. Their presence was not as abundant, they were tempered by maturity and more profound self-knowledge, but that which was fundamental to

his perception of truth had not lost any of its luster. His wit was more selective, his perception of the transforming power of the living Christ more acute and tested, and his grasp of the transcendent and immutable character of revealed

truth a fixed and sensibly perceived reality. In 1877 he wrote:

Faith in the old orthodox creed is not a matter of choice with me now. I am frequently told that I ought

to examine at length the various new views which are so continually presented. I decline the invitation:

I can smell them, and that satisfies me. I perceive in them nothing which glorifies God or magnifies

Christ, but much that puffs up human nature, and I protest that the smell is enough for me. … I hope

the truths of the gospel have become our life: experience has incorporated them with our being. 29

John Campbell, forty years Spurgeon's senior, was one of Spurgeon's early supporters and was very favorably impressed with his preaching. He viewed Spurgeon as a force of nature, not of artifice, and therefore, genuine and truly powerful. He owed nothing to circumstance, to relation, to rank, or to the accidents of life. Externally, his voice, diction, and eloquence gave him advantage; internally, and primarily, his attraction lies in "the soul of the man—a soul large, liberal, and loving; a soul stamped by the characteristics of a little

child, while putting forth the powers of one of David's 'mighties'." ³⁰ Campbell also early endorsed Spurgeon's founding of the Pastors' College, calling it an "exceedingly interesting affair … nothing to be compared with it in these islands." Spurgeon was "the very incarnation of the spirit of ecclesiastical revolution, … a singular ecclesiastical originality." Heedless of antiquity or novelty, Spurgeon sought what was useful and found no rest until his object had

been accomplished. ³¹ Not as prone to effusive compliment and more direct in friendly warning, a fellow-Baptist writing in The Freeman found weaknesses in what others found to be strengths. Spurgeon at twenty-one years of age, if left uncorrected, exhibited traits, so warned the friendly critic, that had destructive tendencies.

The critic may be forgiven for the embarrassing judgment that Spurgeon's sermons would "soon be forgotten forever." He commended Spurgeon for being able to reach the masses, for his lively imagination, his homely familiar figures of speech, his free colloquial manner of address, and enthusiastic ardor. His unquestionable sincerity and impassioned zeal make one pardon his follies and pray that God will be his protector from the dangers of having been placed in such a position of popularity. The commentator believed that Spurgeon's chief faults in preaching were not doctrinal, for his "doctrinal inconsistencies" can be corrected with mature study and reflection. The most sinister issue in Spurgeon's preaching is the "vice of vanity," the spring from which flows his "daring method of expounding Holy Writ, his intense egotism, and his habit of decrying

his fellow-Christians and fellow-ministers." Out of this also arises his denunciation of Arminians, "(whose creed he evidently does not understand) in almost every sermon." The critic trembled because of the unstable precipice on which Spurgeon walked fearing that the source of his current popularity might press him to the fatal side. "If, already, he can not only preach but print mere vulgar abuse of men who, in the sight of God, may be as sincere as he, and as holy, to what lengths of ribaldry may he not descend, when he finds that this

knack of 'cordially-hating' brings around him a crowd of fulsome flatterers." ³² The critic had naught but good intentions, so he claimed, and pledged his prayer for Spurgeon that his strengths would be multiplied, and his usefulness commensurately extended and intensified and his weaknesses minimized or eradicated.

Spurgeon quickly learned that a preacher bent on pleasing all his critics would speedily leave the rank of the ministry. Using the third person, but reflecting on his own experience, Spurgeon made this observation: "At this time, when God raises up a man of original mind who strikes out a course for himself and follows it with success, it is usual to charge him with being eccentric. If his honesty may not be suspected, nor his zeal questioned, nor his power denied, sneer at him and call him eccentric, and it may be the arrow will wound." A man of decided worth, Spurgeon himself had experienced, will be surrounded with warm friends and red-hot foes. Men will cavil and object; it is their nature. Churchgoers in London hallowed the Sabbath rest with "pious gossip and sanctimonious slander." "Bring the walnuts, and let us crack the reputation of a preacher or two." By 1879 he was able to say, "So far as I am personally concerned, if the habit we are speaking of were not a sin, I do not know that I should care about it, for after having had more than my fair share of criticism and abuse, I am not one jot the worse for it in any respect; no bones broken, my position is not injured,

and my mind is not soured." ³³ Nor did he want his young preachers to be soured. The accusation of eccentricity is a red herring, for everyone to some degree is eccentric, off center from a critic's perspective, that is, his own center and circumference. The modern thought of the day, nor the lover of amusements, nor the papist, nor the Puritan-hater provide any valid center of comparison. Eccentricity in such cases might be quite a good thing even as the sun's eccentricity to the earth's rotation and revolution is healthy and life-sustaining. Eccentrics have brilliant company

by such a comparison. ³⁴ Spurgeon described the purpose of his book, Eccentric Preachers, as a "plea for lenient criticism in reference to useful men,—an argument, not for license, but for liberty." He did not promote a single standard

for mannerism, or condemnation because of their "individualities and originalities." ³⁵

The Purposeful Discipline of Pulpit Personality

Yet, Spurgeon did not want preachers to offend unnecessarily or create a grotesque figure in the pulpit, or affectations of voice, that would obscure the earnestness and importance of their message. Excellent content jumbled and mangled by a bumbling delivery shrouded a message. Needs and prejudices of the hearer must also be considered. In view of that, Spurgeon gave a substantial amount of formal instruction concerning delivery. He himself was master at both. Content and application met the auditors' ear in the purest, most engaging and pleasurable sensation of hearing available in any venue in the nineteenthcentury English-speaking world. "I maintain," Spurgeon remarked, "that the best notes a man's voice is capable of should be given to the proclamation of the gospel, and these are such as nature teaches him to use in earnest conversation."

36

Idiosyncrasies of speech should be corrected whenever possible. He recognized the variety of dialects that existed in the counties of London and pointed out the peculiarly distracting aspect of each, having something of their "rustic diet in their mouths." By this he referred to the "calves of Essex, the swine of Berkshire, or the runts of Suffolk" and added his opinion that the unmistakeable dialects of Yorkshire or Somersetshire were equally amusing. For one who defended naturalness and disliked affectation, Spurgeon was as relentless as he was merciless in hunting down unpleasant sounds that would

dominate any message that came through the lips.

It would be difficult to discover the cause, but the fact is clear enough, that in some counties of

England men's throats seem to be furred up, like long-used teakettles, and in others, they ring like

brass music, with a vicious metallic sound. Beautiful these variations of nature may be in their season

and place, but my taste has never been able to appreciate them. A sharp discordant squeak, like a rusty

pair of scissors, is to be got rid of at all hazards; so also is a thick, inarticulate utterance in which no

word is complete, but nouns, adjectives, and verbs are made into a kind of hash. Equally objectionable

is that ghostly speech in which a man talks without using his lips, ventriloquising most horribly:

sepulchral tones may fit a man to be an undertaker, but Lazarus is not called out of his grave by hollow

moans. 37

He lectured, therefore, to his students at the College on methods of delivery and provided illustrations of gesture with purpose as well as illustrations of detracting gestures and voice production. Thinking too much of one's voice while being destitute of a well-informed head and an earnest heart would leave no edifying effect; conversely, thinking too little of the voice could result in the marring of "exceedingly precious truths" through monotonous tones that irritate like a bumble-bee in a pitcher. One should not speak in an affected way as if he

had a wobbling dumpling in his mouth nor should he engage in a kind of enunciation that is "very lady-like, mincing, delicate, servant-girlified, dawdling." Spurgeon was sure that he could "whisper so as to be heard throughout every corner of our great Tabernacle, and I am equally certain that I could holla and shout so that nobody could understand me." Some of his

students were "tearing themselves to pieces by needless bawling." ³⁸ Often neglected in other schools, Spurgeon gloried in the great attention given to the voice and appropriate delivery style at his College. "Care has been taken to inculcate proper pronunciation, delivery, and action." Perhaps more than any other vocation, preaching demanded the "perfection of ability in speech." He was intent, therefore, on removing "personal oratorical defects," and pursued the goal through discussion, impromptu speaking, sermonizing in class, and mutual criticism that produced a friction useful for "wearing off rough edges which else would have been in future years injurious to the preacher." None of this was done, of course without corresponding attention to the life of the spirit and complete submission to the preparatory operations of the Spirit of God. "Neither untutored confidence nor learned diffidence can take the place of the Spirit."

Nevertheless, Spurgeon continued to emphasize, "when a man has once submitted head and heart and tongue to the supremacy of the Holy Ghost, all

other things may be added unto him without fear of injury." ³⁹ Supreme in preparation for pulpit power was a legitimate consciousness of weakness and dependence upon God for all. He saw enough of the finelypolished, pervasively prepared self-confidence to make him give severe warnings against it. He envisioned a newly minted college graduate who had read the journal reviews, and quarterlies, and a "little of the latest modern thought." When such take a text, they don't dare condescend to consult godly men of the past for its meaning and application, for such ancients dwelt in the dark ages, did they not. Not to them, but to the nineteenth century, that world of wonders that age of wisdom and learned critical studies—that will inform him.

He strides from his chamber to the pulpit like a giant on new wine but no "dew of the Spirit of God is upon him," for he drinks from other fountains. "He speaks with astounding power, his diction is superb, his thought prodigious! But he is as weak as he is polished, as cold as he is pretentious: saints and sinners alike

perceive his weakness, and by degrees the empty pews confirm it." ⁴⁰ Such a man is too strong in himself to be strengthened with divine power; he is like painted fire that neither cheers nor warms anybody.

Such preachers are like ineffectual eye-glasses with gold rims, worn not for their usefulness but for the flash of the gilding. Polish, pompous manners and

fine language mesmerize many, who like Caligula would feed their horses gilded oats, while the instructive preacher that has a less refined appearance will be passed by. "Manly Christians look more to the meat than the garnishing," Spurgeon asserted, but he observed many in the church culture of Victorian England that ran "mad after flowers and finery." An appreciative congregation, filled with praise and laudations for the rhetorician, could be gathered by combining "scraps of Tennyson, obscure and suspicious, metaphysical jargon from the Germans, a spice of heresy from Maurice... and a pinch of hairsplitting criticism" wrapped up in "poetical phrases and philosophical affectations." A focus on the "old-fashioned, unadulterated gospel, with plainness of speech" would only gain the condescending chuckle, even though such a ministry was the source of the conversion of hundreds and provided meat to "build up people in their most holy faith." Veneered spiritual simpletons prefer "Toplash with his scented pocket handkerchief and faultless cambric cravat," but true ministers must decide to be faithful and useful, providing milk for babes and meat for men, rather than vain flattery for vacuous heads and

empty hearts. ⁴¹ Use of education and refinement to achieve superficial power should not prejudice a called man against the legitimate discipline of learning and pulpit discipline. "Yet for all this," Spurgeon acknowledged, "the inference that ignorance is better than knowledge is a false one." In the absence of the Spirit, untutored confidence is no better than learned diffidence. Submission to the necessity of energy, strength and effectual blessing from the Holy Spirit, however, will only be enhanced into greater usefulness when one knows more of the Scriptures; "the better will he be able to bring forth things new and old out of

his treasures." ⁴² Truth in the head without a vocal apparatus to deliver it profits the work of the kingdom nothing. Care for the delivery package must not waver. Of remedies for bad throats Spurgeon had heard enough to drive him to sarcasm, but not too many to keep him from adding his own. Growing a beard might help protect the throat from colds, preaching more often would energize rather than harm the vocal apparatus, and taking as much cayenne pepper as the stomach can bear would strengthen the voice. Spurgeon kept a little glass of chili vinegar and water in front of him which he testified gave "fresh force to the throat whenever

it grew weary and the voice appeared likely to break down." ⁴³ He also advised parents to be attentive to the teeth of their children "since faulty teeth may cause

serious damage to a speaker." ⁴⁴ Spurgeon once bought a man a new set of teeth, thus saving both his articulation and his ministry, but expressed his thorough

disgust with him, for in a time of crisis, he turned on him with them, and bit him.

45

An effort to eliminate distractions should not create others by destruction of individual personality. In a short piece in The Sword and the Trowel, Spurgeon urged preachers to be natural in their style of delivery. Enclosed well-manicured gardens will please for a while, but the expansive uncultivated variety of the wild where sublime beauty is accentuated in its true nature by the simultaneous appearance of dried clumps of "coarse ungentlemanlike grass" along with gravel-pits, bumps, and irregularities. So it is in delivery. A "too elaborate style of preaching" might amaze and delight in the short term, but eventually "palls

upon the mind, and even wearies the ear." ⁴⁶ The preaching that edifies year after year and maintains its hearers is "after the order of nature, original, unaffected, and full of spontaneous bursts which the laws of rhetoric would scarcely justify." Spurgeon advocated homely illustrations, quaintness, fullness of heart, thorough naturalness, and outspoken manliness as the qualities that would be as fresh after twenty years as at the first.

The formality of a drawing room charms for an evening, but pity the man that endures it for a week. Spurgeon admired the Primitive Methodist preacher who, when asked to return thanks at a meal provided by the squire, expressed gratitude that he did not have such a good meal every day or he should soon be ill. "When we have occasionally listened to some great achievement of rhetoric," Spurgeon confessed for himself, "we have felt the same grateful sentiment rising

to our lip." ⁴⁷ Although Spurgeon sought to keep himself clear of the "garnishing of

eloquence or the trappings of oratory," ⁴⁸ he could hardly keep from it, so naturally did images and ideas flow from him. Elegance in rhetoric might be natural to some, as length of gait and length of neck is to a giraffe and a flamingo, but geese and sheep would look ridiculous in seeking to imitate such nature. From the sublime to the ridiculous is only a small step, and some that have sought to escape their native rusticity through artifice, have become feeble and should breathe again their native air and return "to that natural style from

which they have so laboriously escaped." ⁴⁹ Surely Spurgeon must have been pleased at the description given of A. J.

Clarke, the first evangelist sponsored by Spurgeon through the College. From the sophisticated and critical venue of the Baptists of Bristol, a trustworthy and subdued observer described Clarke. "There is no attempt at the mere tricks of oratory, although he is an orator of no mean order—'a natural orator, with a number of very fine tones in his voice,' as a brother, whose critical opinion is

worthy of respect, remarked to us." Further commendation noted that in the pulpit, as well as out of it, Clarke spoke "with an unstudied naturalness which makes men feel that his business is not self-display, but the exhibition of his

Lord." ⁵⁰ That was precisely the kind of impression Spurgeon taught for and hoped for in his students.

Reviewing a book of sermons by John Gregg, the Bishop of Cork, Spurgeon again emphasized the advantages of naturalness. "It is well with a Christian preacher," Spurgeon pointed out, "when his character and position supersede the necessity of studied eloquence and a display of learning, in order to gain the sympathy and confidence of his hearers." When such is the case a preacher is free to address his auditory in a "free and conversational manner." Gregg's sermons were a pattern of good preaching, "neither too intellectual nor too colloquial, too critical nor too diffuse, too emotional nor too inanimate." The sermons were instructional for the saints and reproving for those of a contrary spirit, a difficult combination. In addition, Spurgeon agreed with the writer of the preface that, in addition to "sound doctrinal teaching, and very able exposition of Holy Scripture, they will be found to contain all that force of language, heart-melting pathos, and irresistible power of appeal, for which, as a

preacher, John Gregg was so remarkable." ⁵¹ A compelling element of naturalness was "fire." Though Spurgeon was no fan of enthusiasm of a contrived sort, he greatly preferred fire and energy to the drone that produces an impression that the discourse is entirely inconsequential. "Fanaticism is to be preferred to indifference," he advised the College gathering, for "I had sooner risk the dangers of a tornado of religious excitement than see the air grow stagnant with a dead formality." Better to be too hot than to be lukewarm. When an ice-cold man is heard one does not doubt where he is and when a white hot man is heard one knows where he is; but a measuredly detached presentation soon gives one enough, or too much, of non-committal dullness. Better to be angered that to be lulled to sleep by a preacher that seems to attach no special importance to what he says. "A lukewarm sermon sickens

every healthy mind." ⁵² Spurgeon, therefore, in spite of all the instructions about voice, structure, pronunciation, theological clarity, and natural gesture could still say, "We prefer a sermon in which there may be no vast talent, and no great depth of thought, but what there is has come fresh from the crucible, and like molten metal burns its

way." ⁵³ A flame in the souls of the preacher, kindled from on high (not the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu), will heat the sermon red hot, and will be profitable to and remembered by all that come in contact with it.

As an example of a preacher that had natural eloquence but used it a way fully unconscious of his own verbal power, Spurgeon pointed to Robert Hall. In Reminiscences of College Life in Bristol Fred Trestrail focused on the ministry of Hall. Spurgeon gained more knowledge of Hall from these remarks than from any biography of him and saw Trestrail performing for Hall what Boswell did for Johnson, but without the mere trivialities so prevalent in Boswell. Though Hall was a seed-bed for much that Spurgeon scorned in the development of nineteenth-century Baptist theology, when Hall's preaching skills were the subject of the discussion, Spurgeon commended Hall to his readers. "In these days of sensationalism and wild speculation, it is well to note how the great men of the past behaved themselves in the house of God." Trestrail pointed to "oblivion of self" as a prominent trait of Hall's pulpit style. Hall was absorbed in his subject and spoke eloquently as if unconscious of any superlative mental achievement. Completely absent was any sign of "betraying vanity, as to leave no doubt that reflection on himself, the tacit thought, 'It is I that am displaying

this excellence of speech,' was the faintest action of his mind." ⁵⁴ Henry Ward Beecher cut quite a different figure. About the celebrated American preacher, Spurgeon said: "He is for versatility of genius and wealth of illustration altogether peerless; our regret is, that he is far from being as spiritual

as he is spirited, and is more a model for an orator than for a divine." ⁵⁵ But in the example of Hall, we find a servant of truth, wary of seeking to transcend the glory of this call, and refusing to seek to penetrate unrevealed mysteries. Any merely speculative idea, not susceptible of proof, held no attraction for him. He afforded himself no indulgence to move beyond the field of evidence into the unknown, to lead an invasion into the "majesty of darkness." Unlike other men of brilliance, therefore, Robert Hall "did not indulge visionary modes of thought,

nor mere dreams of fancy." ⁵⁶ Whether this was true of Hall throughout his ministry is a more complex question, but that Spurgeon commended this kind of chastened attitude toward speculation in a preacher is certain.

The Sermon in Execution

In reviewing a book on rhetoric by G. W. Hervey, Spurgeon viewed him as a man not very likely to influence his fellow men. Though his book was sufficiently comprehensive to be called a full system of rhetoric, he omitted those personal touches which impart warmth and interest to the matter and vivacity to the style. The index had such a conglomeration of special terms that Spurgeon found it ripe for suggestive jest. "The index of figures at the end of the volume contains a number of uncivilized words, such as Aganactesis, Amphidorthosis, Aloeosis, Epitrochasmus, Paradiegesis, and the like. It is really dangerous to have a book lying about which contains such a menagerie of untamable brute words; those given above are only a few little tame ones—think of a Proepixeusis or an Exouthenismus getting into one's library." Spurgeon advised against trying to pronounce such jargon until one had cut his wisdom

teeth, and then he "had better have them soldered in before he begins." ⁵⁷ G. W. Hervey, however, should not be confused with G. N. Hervey. The latter Hervey was the cautious commender of the young Spurgeon. The former, however, wore well on Spurgeon during the subsequent years. In 1877, Spurgeon's ridicule of pulpits in The Sword and the Trowel that was included in volume ² of Lectures to My Students, cited an insight from G. W. Hervey about Raphael's Paul Preaching at Athens. "By the way, it is interesting to note," Spurgeon added, "that Raphael in his representation of Paul at Athens evidently had in his mind the apostle's utterance, 'God dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with man's hands': hence he delineates him as lifting his hands." Spurgeon expressed his indebtedness to G. W. Hervey's "very

able and comprehensive System of Rhetoric " for that insight. ⁵⁸ Equally, or more, important to comeliness of style and language is Christlikeness in spirit. Preach Christ in a Christly Manner was the title of an address delivered at the Pastors' College. On numerous occasions Spurgeon had shown Christ to be the true content of all sermons. "Whatever else you leave out, let Christ Jesus never be forgotten." "Preach all you know about Christ," Spurgeon continued. All that one has learned from the Scriptures, all that one has experienced at his hands, and all that the Spirit has enabled one to perceive and enjoy of Christ must be preached. All of Christ's doctrines, all that Christ set forth in life, all of his commandments, all of his sufferings, and all that he was.

The job can never be completed if one preaches "his person, offices,

relationships, works, and triumphs." ⁵⁹ This is the main glory of ministry, to preach Christ—his substitution, that he became a curse for us, dying the just for the unjust in the stead of his people.

Christ must be preached in a lively, earnest, spiritual manner in order for him to be set forth plainly as crucified, even as Paul did before the Galatians. Spurgeon once heard a sermon that did not convey to him a single thought, for the speaker

had been taking an "overdose of metaphysics." ⁶⁰ To conceal the plain truth of salvation beneath a cloud of words, when God's honor and eternal human destiny are at stake, is treason to men's souls and diabolical cruelty. In these

matters everything "should be as clear as the sun at noonday." ⁶¹ Like lifesustaining manna, so is the gift of the Father in his beloved Son to his people. "The gospel is manna, human speculations are but flying fowl, and often does it happen to those who feed thereon, that, while the meat is yet in their mouths, the

wrath of God comes upon them." ⁶² We have no authority to give anything but the bread from heaven; nothing else will satisfy and prosper the soul in grace; nothing else will save souls. "Nothing else will bring you a soft pillow when you

are nearing your last account." ⁶³ The manner of preaching Christ, however, is that manner that Christ himself would use. Spurgeon pointed out that Christ preached "most solemnly" but never "drearily." Rather he preached glad tidings, "joyfully." We should never enter the pulpit with the attitude, "What a weariness is this." Jesus also preached "meekly." He did not speak like a great man but like one of the poor to whom he spoke. He was meek and lowly of heart. "Scolding in the pulpit, bitterness in conversation, asperity of manner, and domineering over others are not for us, for

they are not Christly things." ⁶⁴ At the same time we must preach Christ "courageously." Nothing cowardly or shirking characterized our Lord. Never go into the pulpit timidly, afraid of men's faces, but without "uttering or feeling defiance" confront the multitudes like an ambassador of God. Christ also used "simplicity of language." He had no preference for hard words. "Obscurity more befits the Delphic shrine than the oracles of God." Though it was simple, and clear, and filled with common everyday things, easily identified by the common people, it nevertheless was filled with "instruction." Do not preach a "simple gospel" for simpletons. Let there be real teaching in what you say, crystal clear but deep as the sea.

Foundation truths are essential but building up the walls must necessarily follow. "The notion that we are only to cry, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,' and repeat for ever the same simplicities, will be fatal to a continuous ministry over one people if we attempt to carry it out." The pious platitudes repeated parrot-like by ministers of the evangelical wing of the established church had opened the door to the ostensibly more thoughtful productions of the high church ritualists. Jesus preached the gospel to the poor,

but did not preach a poor gospel. His was "no shadow of empty oratory," but preached his pre-existence, his full deity and the mystery of his incarnation, his substitutionary death as a ransom, and his uniqueness as Saviour. "A fullness dwelt in him, and fullness therefore flowed from him." Jesus, in his proclamation, gave to men "the substance of eternal blessing. In simple language he proclaimed infinite mysteries, and none who heard him could say that he ever wasted time with barren words, or poured forth vain repetitions of worn-out

phrases." ⁶⁵ Involved in Jesus' preaching was a wonderful mixture of devotion. He would intersperse his sermons with prayer. "You never find him for a single moment in a condition in which he was not fit to deal with men's souls, for you never find him out of communion with God." Pray the message in before you preach it out.

66

Finally, Jesus had an intense affection for his hearers. He was filled with love and earnestly desired that they find in him alone their hope for eternal life. Some do not take Jesus, but Jonah, for their model, and they care more for their ministerial honor than they do for the destiny of men. "They have a sharp, short, spiritual bark about them, as if they suspected everybody, and most of all, those

who came to confess their faith in Christ." ⁶⁷ Love for the hearer may be demonstrated by earnest efforts at achieving clarity and establishing a congeniality in the content that adheres to the mind. To accomplish this, Spurgeon believed in the power of chaste and clear illustration.

He drew them from his own keen observations about nature and human nature, from his personal life and conversations, and from books. The Puritans provided a rich source of illustrative material and he published articles and books pointing to their illustrative powers. In reviewing an edition of Plutarch's Lives, Spurgeon noted that the "Puritans were wont to adorn and enrich their sermons with the incidents of antiquity stored up in Plutarch's Lives, and to this day there is no better storehouse of classic anecdote and illustration." The younger generation was too little acquainted with it. Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks, compiled with the help of Susannah prior to their marriage, was designed to illustrate the richness of Thomas Brooks in particular, but Puritanism in general, concerning the quotability and the aptness of illustrative material available in their sermons. Spurgeon's son, Charles, did the same for his father when he combed the books of sermons and published a volume entitled Barbed Arrows, a collection of illustrations, similes, and anecdotes used by Spurgeon in his preaching. The third series in Spurgeon's Lectures to My Students is devoted solely to "The art of Illustration." It consisted of seven lectures, four of which instructed as to sources from which illustrations and anecdotes arise.

Spurgeon saw illustrations as instruments, like windows, to let light in upon the subject of a sermon. They make a sermon pleasurable and interesting, they introduce ornament into the design, they enliven an audience and quicken attention. In one sense, Spurgeon saw anecdotes as condescension to weakness.

Because the preacher often has the weak as his audience and often the most needy part of it, most sermons need illustrations and anecdotes.

Although a few have a natural demeanor and rhetorical style that makes an anecdote a disfigurement, in general sad is the man that will not make clear his meaning by a homely illustration. Spurgeon wanted to assail the stilted greatness of those that affected to be somewhat more than they are and sneered at anecdotes. "Affectation of intellectual superiority and love of rhetorical splendour have prevented many from setting forth gospel truth in the easiest

imaginable manner." ⁶⁸ He also warned that illustrations can easily be abused. The sermon should not be all illustration, they must really cast light on the subject, they should not be too prominent, they should grow naturally out of the subject, and the illustration should have no need of elaboration. "He who condescends to use clap-trap of

any kind deserves to be debarred the pulpit for the term of his natural life." ⁶⁹ These figures must be in service of sound doctrine. The useful men of the past "were not story-tellers, but preachers of the gospel; they did not aim at the entertainment of the people, but at their conversion." They did not go out of their way to drag in anything for display. Spurgeon did not want to be the source of poor preaching by giving undue encouragement of illustrations and cause them to present "to the people strings of anecdotes instead of sound doctrines." That would be as evil as offering hungry men flowers in lieu of bread.

Older men, he observed used fewer illustrations, anecdotes and metaphors.

This might be due to the decay of the imagination but is accompanied by the ripening of the understanding. Jesus used an abundance of illustration and did not speak to the masses without a parable. This was because they were not able to process didactic truth. From the apostles, subsequent to the coming of the Holy Spirit, we find theological discourses. "As Christian minds made progress," Spurgeon explained, "the style of their teachers became less

figurative." ⁷⁰ If illustrations are to be effective, they must be in service of truth.

Spurgeon pointed to the same reality at the close of his lecture on the "Uses of Anecdotes and Illustrations." He gave seven strong reasons for the use of anecdotes and reinforced his reasons with compelling anecdotes. His reasons were, they interest the mind and secure the attention of our hearers, they render the teaching vivid and life-like, they explain some difficult passages to dull

understandings, they help the reasoning faculties of certain minds, they aid the memory, they arouse the feelings, and they catch the ear of the careless. At the end he issued the caveat that "we must take care that we do not let our anecdotes and illustrations be like empty casks that carry nothing." Every discourse must have some body, some suitable instruction, some really sound doctrine. The sermon is not a time to amuse with stories but to clinch solid truth in the heart.

The truth is the master in a sermon and the anecdote its servant.

Spurgeon's illustrations were terse and simple stories, hardly ever expanding beyond one paragraph, and usually limited to one or two sentences. His most characteristic elucidating element was the vivid image couched within metaphors and similes. "Men hate election just as thieves hate Chubb's patent locks." The treasures of election are reserved for the elect and no others can enter into the riches of that grace. "When ye shall see dead men raising themselves from their graves, when ye shall see them unwinding their own sheets, opening their own coffin lids... then perhaps ye may believe that souls that are dead in sin may turn to God." Spurgeon extended this metaphor even more in order to give visual and emotional strength to the biblical picture of the necessity of regeneration as a vivifying agent prior to any possibility of spiritual

activity for sinners. "The covenant is, as it were, a lofty tree laden with fruit." ⁷¹ God has put all spiritual blessings into his covenantal arrangement and those blessings merely await the wind of the Spirit to make them fall into the experience of his chosen. "The ocean love of God, so broad that even the wing of imagination could not traverse it, sends forth its treasures of the rain of grace, which drop upon our hearts, which are as the pastures of the wilderness; they make our hearts to overflow, and in streams of gratitude the life imparted flows back again to God." The entire water cycle constituted an extended metaphor for

the text, "We love him because he first loved us." ⁷² On the refusal of sinners to be persuaded by the loving call of the gospel he preached, "You are eating husks and missing the kernels. Your mirth is as the crackling of thorns under a pot: it flares, and blazes up, but there is no heart in it; it dies down in a moment, and

leaves nothing but a few ashes." ⁷³ "He that is shivering in his nakedness will rejoice to be clothed. A wretched sinner jumps at mercy like a hungry fish leaping at the bait," so he expressed how a man under deep conviction fled for

refuge to the reality of substitute for righteousness and wrath. ⁷⁴ He illustrated a refusal to learn anything new by a simple image: "Others adhere to old teachings, like limpets stick to the rock; and yet these may only be ancient

errors." ⁷⁵ History, geology, literature, and common experience would provide material for these multitudinous pictures that often enlivened an abstract point.

Learning from his early childhood days, Spurgeon mastered the art of the quick and intense condensation of theological truth through the quotation of a couplet from a well-known hymn. Often, perhaps too many times, he used, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling." For the glory of the moment of conversion he would quote, "E'er since by faith I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die." For the absolute sufficiency of Christ's death to bring the elect to a full salvation he quoted Toplady, "Payment God cannot twice demand, first at my bleeding Surety's hand, and then again at mine." Both negatively and positively he quoted from Newton's famous hymn, "'Tis a point I long to know, Oft it causes anxious thought, Do I love the Lord or no; am I his or am I not."

Sometimes the middle lines of a verse would run seamlessly into a sentence: "Jesus Christ with 'the water and the blood from his riven side which flowed' has sprinkled not only many men but many nations, and the day will come when all nations shall feel the blessed drops which are scattered from his hands and know them to be 'of sin the double cure,' cleansing transgressors both from its

guilt and power." ⁷⁶ He could call lines from a wide variety of hymns and authors virtually at will and showed a massive and compendious knowledge of Christian hymnody from the Patristic period through the middle of the nineteenth century and they peppered his sermons in appropriate places to capture the poignancy of a biblical thought.

Drawing a lesson from his own experience, Spurgeon encouraged preachers to discover their gifts and their style that would be most useful by doing the hard labor of preaching in inconvenient places. Some who overestimate their gifts, or have not had them tried under fire, sleep in white neck-ties while "touching up certain superior manuscripts" that they hope ere long to "read from the pastor's pulpit." First, they must teach infants, give away tracts, and learn to preach on plain gospel themes in a farmer's kitchen. He must hold the interest of the carter's boy and the dairymaid, thus proving his ministry unctuous beyond any measure than that given by the "prim little man who talks for ever about being cultured, and means by that—being taught to use words which nobody can understand." To make the very poorest listen with pleasure and profit "is in itself an achievement, and beyond this it is the best possible promise and preparation

for an influential ministry." ⁷⁷ To all of this the effective speaker must add brevity. "When a brother has all the virtues but brevity, might he not, by a little more study, add that also to his attainments?" Though a person cannot add one cubit to his stature, he might subtract one from his disquisitions. The everlasting gospel should not be

preached everlastingly and though truth is eternal the sermon should not be. As the coster-monger said to the open-air preacher, "I say, old fellow, cut it short," he gave the same advice to preachers and promised to try "to practice our own

precept." ⁷⁸ Preparation for sermons in Spurgeon's experience involved much more than the achievement of biblical force and appropriate brevity; it involved a wrenching of the whole soul. After describing Spurgeon's manner of preparation for the pulpit, Wayland Hoyt summarized his observations about the emotional aspect of Spurgeon's preparation for the pulpit. In Spurgeon's earlier years, after the formal preparation was complete, and "just as he was about to confront the throngs he knew were gathering to listen to him," he succumbed to a fearful, almost convulsive, nervous anxiety. For years, so he related to Hoyt, "in his earlier ministry he never preached but that he had beforehand a most straining time of vomiting. His stomach was able to retain absolutely nothing. In later

years he vanquished this nervous tendency." ⁷⁹ Corroboration for that report appeared in Spurgeon's description of his state of mind just prior to the Surrey Music Hall disaster. On his approach to the building, Spurgeon noticed that the private road that led to an entrance to the Music Hall "appeared to be filled up with a solid block of people, who were unable to get into the building. I felt overawed, and was taken with that faintness which was, in my youth, the usual

forerunner of every sermon." ⁸⁰ Perhaps he overcame the wrenching physical difficulty connected with the anticipation of preaching, but it is doubtful that the emotional trauma ever ceased. In preaching at the College Conference in 1882, Spurgeon told his "boys": "For many, many years my own preaching was exceedingly painful because of the fears which beset me before entering the pulpit." As he continued, he changed his tense, confessing, "Often my dread of facing the people has been overwhelming. Even the physical feeling which came of the mental emotion has been painful; but this weakness has been an education for me." He recounted having written about the terrible fears and sickness to his grandfather, who responded, "I have been preaching for sixty years, and I feel still many tremblings. Be content to have it so; for when your emotion goes away your strength will be gone." If a man could preach and think nothing of it, Spurgeon

taught, then the people also think nothing and God does nothing. ⁸¹ Much is made of Spurgeon's ability to compose his sermons mentally. Hoyt recorded his Saturday night ritual of hearing commentaries read to him on the passage of Scripture selected, and as he heard he composed. By ¹⁰:00 the sermon was done. The next morning he went back over it, uncovering and

opening the mental baskets and drawers in which he put his discreet points and

illustrations. ⁸² He assured G. N. Hervey, a writer for the Christian Review, that "not one word of his sermons is written before delivery" and his only use of the pen was in correction of the errors of stenographers. In the preface to his 1861

volume Spurgeon said, "These discourses are purely extempore." ⁸³ The texts of the sermons were "reported with singular accuracy" but since no manuscripts existed to which to compare the versions of the amanuenses, "errors will creep in." The report was printed for his corrections and editions the day after delivery and published the next.

According to his later descriptions, Spurgeon did not entirely lay down the pen when getting his sermon ready, but produced brief cryptic notes. Often his only written help was on the front of an ordinary envelope; later in life, needing to write in a bolder hand, whether because of his eyes or his hand he did not say, he used the half of a sheet of note paper. "I sometimes wish that I had never used even this," he wrote, "for the memory loves to be trusted, and the more fully it is relied upon the more does it respond to our confidence." Very few ministers can entirely dispense with notes, and some "go on crutches, and read almost all the sermon." He considered that practice "lame business." Most of us carry a staff even if "we do not often lean upon it." While a "perfectly able man" required not even that much, Spurgeon was not one of "these first-class brethren," and needed

his staff to cross Jordan. ⁸⁴ He also delighted in speaking about preaching in special situations. Preaching out of doors, for instance, demanded that the preacher say what he had to say quickly and simply and be done with it. If the message is diffuse, the street critics will spot it and name it. Long-winded orations will either be punished with numerous witticisms or by quietly walking away, leaving the true impression that the speaker's ideas were as much dispersed as his audience became.

The street preacher must use many illustrations and anecdotes and "sprinkle a quaint remark here and there." Nothing labored or involved will be tolerated or effective but the chain of thought must be broken apart, "each link melted down and turned into bullets." While thoughtful country crowds might enjoy purposeful silence as a means of creating emphasis, the street crowd will not stand for it, or stay for it. The delivery must be snappy, short, and sharp.

Intensity from beginning to end most likely gains the hearing needed, and the idea must be condensed and concentrated.

Sham, show, and chaff will be returned pressed down, shaken together, and running over, but if one has "something to say, look them in the face, say what

you mean, put it plainly, boldly, earnestly, courteously, and they will hear you."

Giving striking personification to his warnings about the crowd gathered to hear a street preacher, Spurgeon acted out the insulting powers of the crowd: "Crimey, wouldn't he do for an undertaker? He'd make 'em weep." So was the compliment paid to one solemn preacher. To another who took too long to say too little, the wits encouraged him to wet his whistle for he must be awful dry to

have "jawed away at that rate about nothing at all." ⁸⁵ Spurgeon believed that even the best preacher must be prepared to take his share of street wit and, if need be, return in kind. "Primness, demureness, formality, sanctimonious long-windedness, and the affectation of superiority actually invite offensive pleasantries, and to a considerable extent deserve

them." ⁸⁶ If they ask for beer and bread instead of a tract, a sincere, manly, eye to eye assurance that the tract is given to do them good will usually silence the objection. Spurgeon advised against copying any local preacher, using wild gesticulations of arms and legs, or trusting any crowd to be honest. A ring of compatriots surrounding the preacher, especially ones that can sing, will be of great aid both for protection and for drawing a crowd. Speak so as to be heard, but do not bawl at the top of your voice for no one in earnest ever speaks that

way.

On, on with one monstrous shout,

and you will weary everybody and wear

yourself out. 87

Spurgeon agreed with Edward Leach when he contended that street preachers must be men of "intellectual competency." If they are to deal judiciously and fearlessly with the evils confronted by young men in London life, many of whom have had to resort to the streets, they cannot be the type of "ignorant street preachers" that are mere bawlers of "fervent emptiness." These do immense mischief. Spurgeon added, "Harsh facts prove that illiterate street preachers have done irreparable mischief to open air missionary operations. It is only honesty and kindness to say as much." Leach contended that "we must employ those whose minds have been deeply imbued with the doctrines of divine truth, whose ordinary acquirements have been such as to warrant their teaching others—men of sterling, sound sense, shrewd in practical matters, and ready to meet the

ungodly with heavenly wisdom." ⁸⁸ Spurgeon agreed, and wanted the College to produce men that would qualify—good for the street as well as good for the church.

Not only on the street, but in the pulpit a man must be able to give his

message in a great economy of words. "Certain brethren would preach better if they would not preach so long," he contended. Say what one has to say, and when done, quit. Do not ruin the good by following it with mind-benumbing banalities. Stop the wheel when the wheat is ground. Give people the truth, not all the means by which you arrived at the truth. "Our people do not want threshing-machines, and mills, and kneading-troughs, and ovens; they want

bread." ⁸⁹ Driving his point home clearly, Spurgeon illustrated with anecdotes of

personal frustration.

Once more let me hint to you that it is cruel to make your hearers hope that you are about to close, and

then go on again, I have suffered this wrong from brethren at the prayer-meeting. I have felt sure that

the friend meant to pull up, and he has gone on again, without apology or reason. I am sure it must be

dreadful when a preacher says, "To conclude," and then "finally," and then "lastly," and then, "finally

and lastly." A certain divine, who is still in the body, is never very lively, but he has great gifts of

holding on. When you think he has done, he issues a supplement, which is almost always headed,

"Another blessed thought"! His hearers are apt to have thoughts which are not "blessed"; and would

often agree with the American who said, "Oh, that the man would quit! " 90

Preaching through a translator provided another context that tried the preacher's ability to condense thought to its mere pith. In summarizing his experience of this form of preaching Spurgeon stated, "It is always dull work to speak through an interpreter." He chafed under the reins of uttering a few sentences followed by a pause, only to begin again. "It is as murderous to all oratory as the old method of lining out the hymn was deadly to all music," Spurgeon judged, for one's "train of thought hardly starts, before it has to pull up." He could engender no "opportunity for warmth or vehemence." But, like street preaching, "by keeping to the marrow of the gospel, giving short sentences, and plentiful illustrations, attention can be gained and held." When he gave his best shot at this in Rome, he felt that "the best of feeling pervaded the meeting, and the truth

was received with joy, though many there were strangers to it." ⁹¹ The art of extemporaneity served not only on the street and in a stop-and-go translation mode, but gave opportunity to benefit greatly in emergencies. At a prayer meeting, one of his church members had a mental breakdown, or seizure, and had to be "carried out in a fit." Spurgeon showed his pastoral sympathy, his pulpit grace, and his tenderness toward the human condition in his remarks on the occasion. "Possess your soul in quietness, beloved friends," he began, "When we are engaged in prayer, or in any other form of worship, interruptions may occur, especially in large assemblies. We cannot expect all nature to be hushed because we are bowing the knee." The "pitiful cry of our friend" reminded him that while they were in health, many even then were in distressing conditions and grievously tormented. This led to a consideration of both

sympathy and gratitude. "Sympathy and gratitude are two choice emotions, and if both of these are aroused in the interruption we shall have gained more by it than we can possibly have lost." It is a great danger in a Christian to shield himself so from sickness and pain in an effort to maintain physical health that he becomes hardened to the misery around him. Christ did no such thing. Gratitude must also thrive, "Let the cry of pain remind us that we owe our Lord a song of thanksgiving for screening us from the greater ills of life,—consumption sapping the constitution, asthma, making it misery to breathe, epilepsy tearing us to

pieces, or palsy causing every limb to lose its power." ⁹² A third application is more solemn. Though the friend was not dead, the suddenness of any affliction says "Prepare to meet thy God." He meant not only in confidence of having been washed in Christ's pardoning blood, but that the witness, and relationships, and details of life are such as at any moment are well-pleasing to God. "There should be no hurrying for a clergyman to administer the sacraments, or for a lawyer to write a hasty will, or for an estranged relative to make peace; but all should be arranged and ordered as if we kept our accounts closely balanced, expecting an immediate audit." After further application, Spurgeon closed, "Now that disturbing incident is over, and we shall settle down again all the more ready to unite in prayer and praise." ⁹³

Spurgeon the Expositor

Week by week disquisition to a congregation savored of different fare. In his regular pulpit ministry, was Spurgeon an expositor? If one were to judge the direction of his preaching only by a cursory understanding of what he announced in his first printed sermon, one might be suspicious of the expository nature of Spurgeon's ministry. Preaching with 1 Samuel 12:17, "Is it not wheat harvest today?" as a theme, he began with this declaration: "I shall not notice the connection; but I shall simply take these words as a motto; and my sermon will be founded upon a harvest field. I shall rather use the harvest for my text than

any passage that I find here." ⁹⁴ A conclusion drawn from that one incident would be a significant misjudgment. Spurgeon would be surprised for anyone to accuse him of anything less than exposition. Often he did more, but, in his own perception, he never did less. On that day, the exposition, which always came earlier in the worship service than the sermon, was a running commentary on 1 Samuel 12.

The verse, therefore, had already been set in context and the theme of a harvest time related to divine purpose was established in the minds of his auditory. "What are sermons but commentaries?" Spurgeon asked. "At least they ought to be." He advocated that the minister employ the best commentaries (Puritan!) along with his original study. The goal is a thorough understanding of the Bible through mastering it one book at a time. "The close, critical, exhaustive

investigation of one part best qualifies for a similar examination of another." ⁹⁵ For Spurgeon, true exposition meant, in Puritan fashion, using the whole Bible and all its doctrines in the unfolding of any one portion of Scripture. A typical way of sermon introduction for Spurgeon included his intent to explain the text. "Let us, then weigh the words of the text, for they are solemn words, they are well put together by that master of eloquence, Paul, and they were, moreover, dictated by the Holy Spirit, who telleth man how to speak aright. May he help us

to expound, as he has given us the passage to explain." ⁹⁶ He did not avoid verse-by-verse exposition, but included it in every worship service as he did a running homily on a larger portion of Scripture from which was taken the verse that provided his text for the day. He disliked the plan of using short texts to the neglect of commenting publicly on larger passages.

Preaching plus commenting required twice as much work for the minister but yet Spurgeon insisted, "Earnestly do I advocate commenting." The extra study will provide expanding and long-term benefits. "As a rule," he claimed, "I spend much more time over the exposition than over the discourse."

Spurgeon revealed his own manner of sermon preparation in describing the

difference between the exposition and the discourse. "Once start a sermon with a great idea, and from that moment the discourse forms itself without much labour to the preacher, for truth naturally consolidates and crystallizes itself around the main subject like sweet crystals around a string hung up in syrup." Exposition, however, makes one stay with the narrative at hand, dealing with difficult ideas or knotty verses that require some hard work to crack. "You will soon reveal

your ignorance as an expositor if you do not study." ⁹⁷ Some congregations ("What fools they must be") seemed to want a preacher that already knew everything so he would spend no time in the study. Spurgeon warned that one who "has ceased to learn has ceased to teach." For that reason,

"He who no longer sows in the study will no more reap in the pulpit." ⁹⁸ The preachers that "never hear the still small voice of their books will not be heard, bawl they never so lustily. Reading makes the full man, and it is the full man

who alone can overflow for the profit of others." ⁹⁹ Spurgeon's conviction about the necessity of study for the exposition received unbiased accolades from a writer for the Christian Review in 1857. Having attended several services of different sorts governed by Spurgeon, he described the typical worship service. After indicating his thorough satisfaction with the hymn-reading and singing, the writer asserted that "his talent for exposition, which he regularly exercises, is truly extraordinary, and is no doubt enriched by considerable study." Spurgeon was not fastidious in his critical comments but was "discriminating, and at the same time pithy and practical." The observer believed that Spurgeon excelled in "spiritualization, and in happy turns of devout thought, and sidewise views of familiar passages." When joined with a voice that was "full, clear, and musical," usually managed around conversation level, but never given to "vociferous bursts and fulminations," these expositions formed gave a groundedness to the entire worship experience that embedded a persevering loyalty to Scripture in the soul of the believer and made the unbeliever know that there surely was a canon of truth by which he would be

judged in the ultimate assize. ¹⁰⁰ One can be sure that the expository element of Spurgeon's preparation constantly fueled his discourses. For Spurgeon the bucket of syrup was oceanic indeed and the strings hung within it were as numerous as fishing lines in the Pacific. Large ideas implicit in Spurgeon's mind soon gathered an aggregate of supportive biblical truths that ordered themselves in the most attractive fashion for presentation. Logical or rhetorical ordering seemed naturally to flow as Spurgeon unfolded the great idea into its constituent parts—from a greater to a lesser, from a lesser to a greater, the investigation of equally important petals of

a single flower, the argument from a major premise in syllogistic fashion, or several syllogisms, to a conclusion, the piling up of a variety of evidences to prove the point, the teasing out of a variety of implications that sealed the intrinsic importance of a foundational truth—the "sweet crystals" that clung to Spurgeon's submerged strings provided a virtually inexhaustible variety of shapes and forms that kept up interest both at home and abroad, both heart and head, for a full forty years of public ministry and in printed form for decades, now more than century-and-a-half, beyond. His regular expository ministry provided the fuel for the massive capacity he had for originality in sermonic presentation and for the concentrated biblical content even of his topical sermons.

Helmut Thielicke, a surprising admirer of Spurgeon, found Spurgeon's sermons to constitute a visit to the very ground of the historical setting of the Bible and a roaming through the spirits of those that lived in the biblical world —"actually bring that life into being by making the ubiquity of the Scriptures a

real and living fact."

When Spurgeon speaks, it is as if the figures of the patriarchs and prophets and apostles were in the

auditorium—sitting upon a raised tribune!—looking down upon the listeners. You hear the rush of the

Jordan and the murmuring of the brooks of Siloam; you see the cedars of Lebanon swaying in the

wind, hear the clash and tumult of battle between the children of Israel and the Philistines, sense the

safety and security of Noah's ark, suffer the agonies of soul endured by Job and Jeremiah, hear the

creak of oars as the disciples strain against the contrary winds, and feel the dread of the terrors of the

apocalypse. The Bible is so close that you not only hear its messages but breathe its very atmosphere.

The heart is so full of Scripture that it leavens the consciousness, peoples the imagination with its

images, and determines the landscape of the soul by its climate. And because it has what might be

called a total presence, the Bible as the Word of God is really concentrated life that enters every pore

and teaches us not only to see and hear but also to taste and smell the wealth of reality that is spread

out before us here. 101

At times, however, Spurgeon did feel the pinch of such constant production. "I suppose you do not think that I ever get dried up and find it difficult to say anything fresh in my sermons, and yet it is so." Whether the college men were glad to hear it or not, Spurgeon felt he must say that with more than twentyseven volumes of sermons in print, "It grows harder to say anything new as those volumes increase." He often feared that he could not keep up the supply and felt consciously feeble, less than fit for holy work, feeling his last sermon to

be his worst. ¹⁰² It was such feeling that kept him consciously tied to Scripture. The everpresent hovering of biblical power in every part of his sermon was the natural outcome of his manner of perceiving the importance of the whole Bible. "I always find that I can preach best when I can manage to lie a-soak in my text. I

like to get a text and know its meaning and bearings, and so on; and then, after I have bathed in it, I delight to lie down in it and let it soak into me." He not only knew the text but came under the intended influences of the text. His view of how a preacher should engage Scripture says much about the perennial

transcendent ethos of even his printed sermons.

Become saturated with spices and you will smell of them. You need not be very particular about the

words and phrases if the spirit of the text has filled you. Thoughts will leap out and find raiment for

themselves, a sweet perfume will distil from you and spread itself in every direction—we call it

unction. Do you not love to hear a brother speak who abides in fellowship with Jesus? Even a few

minutes with such a man is refreshing, for like his Master, his paths drop fatness. Dwell in the truth

and let the truth dwell in you. Be baptized into its spirit and influence that you may impart thereof to

others. If you do not believe the gospel do not preach it, for you lack an essential qualification; but

even if you do believe it, do not preach it until you have taken it up into your self as the wick takes up

the oil. … Personally to me the gospel is something more than a matter of faith: it has so mingled with

my being as to be a part of my consciousness, an integral part of my mind, never to be removed from

me. 103

The images in this quote point, however, to another source from which Spurgeon loved to draw, not only illustrations, but whole sermons at times. His insatiable love of the created order, his near-delirious fascination with it and joy in it, in all its variety of shape, color, odor, delicacy, hardy durability, simplicity, complexity and pervasiveness constantly suggested to his mind lessons purified by biblical insight. The nature of God, the horror of sin, the character of assurance, the growth of genuine faith, the certainty of the revelation of lifeless shell, and the variety of human temperament in relation to spiritual experience all were suggested to him by nature. The washing of sheep, the dropping of moisture from a wall, the deadness of trees, a mouse in a field, the singing of birds at different times of the day, the organization of birds in flight, the activity of bees all provided theological reflection and fodder for sermons. When one wag observed that Spurgeon must encounter great difficulty in setting aside enough time for sermon preparation, Spurgeon said that there was never a moment in which he was not preparing a sermon. Invite me home to dinner, he suggested, and I'll even squeeze a sermon out of you. Sweet Variety in the Garden yielded to Spurgeon much information about the varying temperaments of God's people and the different circumstances under which they might flourish. The crocus, the Cactus grandiflora, the primrose, the tulip, roses, dahlias, the Star of Jerusalem, chicory, the buttercup, the water lily, the pink, daisies, and marguerites all show traits that encourage devotional and theological reflection. There is not a quarter of an hour in the day that does not produce the opening of a different flower. Linnaeus made a clock of flowers, so claimed

Spurgeon, and a keen observer could tell time without a watch. In all this great variety the common denominator is response to the light all of which has its origin in the Sun. "Here then is a clear point of union for all believers of every shape and character," Spurgeon distilled; "we are one in our need of Jesus, one in our joy in him, one in our growth beneath his heavenly influences." We turn to him like the heliotrope to the sun, and "towards him we are moving as truly, though as slowly, as the purple orchid moves towards the south, the land of the

sun." ¹⁰⁴ Nothing in all of God's creation could fail to speak a word about its maker, sustainer, and redeemer or fail to show the creature's dependence on its immutable and self-existent source.

Sermon Helps

Not all preachers, however, had the capacity for production that consistently flowed from Spurgeon. Some gifted preachers in England recognized that their brethren needed help and were eager to provide sermon outlines to ease the weekly tension. Jabez Burns was a prolific producer of sermon outlines for sale and from the constant flow of outline books evidently amassed quite a following, while royalties made the effort worthwhile. In 1875 when Burns produced Two hundred Sketches and Outlines of Sermons, Spurgeon took advantage of the occasion to comment on using other men's outlines. "We do not altogether deprecate the use of other men's outlines," Spurgeon began, "for every now and then a preacher may be hardly driven for time, or he may feel mentally incapable of new thought, or he may be a mere beginner and unable to arrange his matter."

Yet constant recourse to such helps, that is, fully developed sermon outlines, Spurgeon bristled against, calling the habit "most pernicious" as well as "disreputable and dishonest." Donning the prophet's garb Spurgeon uttered a "Woe to those who speak in the name of the Lord, but only utter words which

they have stolen, every man from his neighbor." ¹⁰⁵ During that same year, 1875, Mrs. Spurgeon took the first step toward establishing her book fund giving Spurgeon the opportunity to gain intimate acquaintance with the literary apparatus, or lack of it, of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Baptist ministers. When she received responses to her first offer of books, Spurgeon, disturbed by what he learned, commented, "It is a sad fact that there should be so many needing such a present. Cannot something be done to provide ministers with books?... Some of the applicants have not been able to buy a book for the last ten years! Does anybody wonder if preachers are

sometimes dull?" ¹⁰⁶ By November, having had even deeper acquaintance with the bibliographical poverty of ministers, Spurgeon had changed his approach entirely. In recommending a book of Sunday School addresses by J. S. Fleet, Spurgeon gave a quite different type of counsel. "Though not believing in the plagiarism of a whole speech, we yet think that some who give addresses would be very wise if they were to borrow one of these, cut it into their own shape, and deliver it in their own style." He explained that there can be no monopoly on ideas, and when a man's own mind receives an idea, moulds it in his own style and utters it in his own language, "it is not dishonest for a man to deliver the substance of what he has read." Recalling that he had been quite intimidatingly judgmental toward the use of sermon outlines just two months earlier, Spurgeon closed, "We hope this sentence will be balm to those wounds which we inflicted in a former number

when we denounced purloiners of other men's outlines." ¹⁰⁷ When he reviewed a bound volume of six months' publications in 1877 of The Preachers Analyst, including "copious sermonic references" as an added tool to mine sermonic wealth from the sermons of others, Spurgeon was well-satisfied with its usefulness. "The work ought to be encouraged," he wrote, "and we hope it will be, by those whose time is limited, and who need trains of thought to be started for them." He added, "The references to works and sermons are a new feature in sermonic literature, and are exceedingly valuable." A more intimate and sympathetic understanding of the real world of poor, struggling Baptist preachers created an about-face in Spurgeon's view of sermon helps for a preacher.

Upon the publication of Lectures to My Students in 1881, Spurgeon continued what had become a constant refrain, that churches, "without diminishing the supplies of the minister's dinner-table, they give an eye to his study table, and

keep it supplied with new works and standard books in fair abundance." ¹⁰⁸ If they could get books, they should get only the best and most thoroughly proven, and make themselves master of those books. Otherwise they might borrow other's books judiciously (and always return them), master their Bibles, learn to think, observe all that is around them, study themselves, study others, study the saints, study inquirers, and be much at deathbeds. "I will part with all my books," Spurgeon claimed, "if I may see the Lord's Elijahs mount their chariots

of fire." ¹⁰⁹ Clearly, however, even though theoretically willing to part with his books, Spurgeon knew that books holding the mature thoughts of gifted men of God would serve as the means of producing equal energy and creativity of mind in those that would take advantage of the means.

Some had neither books nor time to grind fine flour from the field to the table, and Spurgeon made more progress in his compassion toward such and in pointing them to helpful volumes. In 1883, his reviews of The Homiletical Library stated, "We shall hope that many a hard-pressed preacher will get an idea out of this volume which will set his machinery going, and enable him to

grind out his full measure of fine flour for his people." ¹¹⁰ By 1884 Spurgeon had completely repented of his pronouncement of "woe" on connoisseurs of sermon outlines and felt more compassion than contempt for the struggling preacher. He began publishing sermon notes going through the entire Bible. The first volume presented sixty-four sermons from Genesis through Job entitled My Sermon Notes: A selection of Outlines from Discourses Delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle by C. H. Spurgeon. These notes consisted of a text, title or subject, introduction, a full outline with detailed

subpoints in sentence outline form, and, for the last part, some suggestions for enlivening the presentation. In the preface to the first of the series, Spurgeon proposed "half-crown volumes, two upon the Old Testament and two upon the New" with the promise, "I shall see how far the first two are accepted by my brethren, and shall then, as health and time may permit me, proceed to the

others." ¹¹¹ A notice of them in The Sword and the Trowel specified them for "lay-preachers," but went on to consent "that ministers may get a lift from these

sketches, when they are hard pressed; if so, they are heartily welcome." ¹¹² When the first edition of the first volume neared a sell-out, he promised the second volume soon, notes of sermons from Ecclesiastes to Malachi. He reiterated his purpose in helping the preacher whose business cares made his time for study at a premium. His work was not done " in extenso to suit the idler" but just detailed enough "to aid the embarrassed worker." By May 1886, when the third volume of Sermon Notes arrived, Spurgeon promised "to get on with the fourth portion, so as to complete this series of preachers' helps. We have

abundant evidence of their value to overworked brethren." ¹¹³ He now gave a common-sense justification for the use of sermon notes prepared by others, particularly good ones like his.

His resort to this form of help developed not to "encourage indolence, but to help bewildered industry." He desired to help no man to "preach without thought" but he was not so hard as "to leave a weary mind without help." He wanted to "pour a little water down a pump to help it to draw up a stream from below" so as to set a jaded mind at work "to develop its own resources." Since he had already produced Lectures to My Students and Commenting and Commentaries, he felt that this step would be a logical and helpful extension of what he had already done in helping preachers build a small library of sermon water for priming the pump. None of the sermons, to his knowledge, had ever been in printer's hands, unless they had been reported by newspapers. As to method, Spurgeon expanded his "scanty" notes, which could be understood by none but himself, and added "certain pieces of my own, or extracts from the works of others, which are intended to brighten up the sermon." He realized that the "weary ones" for whom the book was intended would be as little able to take time and energy for anecdotes and illustrations as they were to divide the subject

into a sermon. ¹¹⁴ As hard pressed as some men were, Spurgeon still urged earnest preparation. "That which comes from a man's mind without thought and research is comparable to that which comes of ground without ploughing or sowing. Words without thought are in no respect better than weeds." ¹¹⁵ Study and thought are

essential to success in the pulpit and the Spirit does not minister to indolence and idleness. A man that is presumptuously lazy will find that he is left to "vent his nimble nonsense" with the embarrassing lesson that he will not reap where he has not sown. If a man has nothing to say, let him say it to himself and not force others to sit under a "barbarity which the Spanish Inquisition has scarcely ever

excelled." ¹¹⁶ One may spend a short time in preparation for a sermon when he has several years or even decades of hard labor to reinforce and inform the brief minutes of specific study.

His own understanding of the relationship between the various sermonic styles and their relation to exposition he summarized in the preface to Commenting and Commentaries. Spurgeon placed himself as third person in the position of a "judicious critic" of contemporary preaching. Such a critic probably would "complain that many sermons are deficient in solid instruction, Biblical exposition, and Scriptural argument." Rather than fleshy, they are flashy; rather than solid, they are clever; and rather than impressive, they are entertaining.

Doctrine is barely discernible and the brilliant harangues embody no soul-food.

This critic, if forthright and honest, would "propose that homilies should flow out of texts, and should consist of a clear explanation, and an earnest enforcement of the truths which the texts distinctly teach." He would advocate expository preaching as the great need of the day and as most apt to protect against rising error while providing spiritual edification. The critic would not "unite in any indiscriminate censuring of hortatory addresses, or topical sermons, nor should we agree with the demand that every discourse should be limited to the range of its text, nor even that it should have a text at all." Nevertheless, he would continue to subscribe to the proposition "that more expository preaching is greatly needed, and that all preachers would be the better if they were more

able expounders of the inspired Word." ¹¹⁷ After careful attention is given to every aspect of theory and of practical preparation, both long term and short term, for the moment of preaching, still all is vain unless the competency experienced in the sermon is the competency of the Spirit and not of the human proclaimer. In a season when he felt acutely his

own weakness, he delivered his soul to the College Fraternal.

Look at the preacher who has no burdens. His sermon is in his pocket; there cannot happen any

mischief to it unless a thief should steal it; he has rehearsed all his action, he is as safe as an

automaton. He does need to pray for the Spirit of God to help him in his preaching, and though he uses

the form one wonders what the prayer can mean. He surveys the congregation with the complacency of

a gardener looking at a bed of flowers. He has something to say, and he knows what it is going to be,

every word of it, and therefore he says it with ease, and comes down the stairs as pleased with himself

as heart could desire: the notion of trembling is far from him, he is not so weak. Yonder is a poor

brother who has been tugging away with his brains, wrestling on his knees, and bleeding at heart; he is

half-afraid that he may break down in the sermon, and he is fearful that he will not reach the hearts of

the people; but he means to try what can be done by the help of God. Be you sure that he will get at the

people, and God will give him converts. He is looking up to God, for he feels feeble in himself. You

know which of the two preachers you would sooner hear, and you know who is the really strong man

of the two; the weak man is strong and the strong man is weak. 118

Expository Preaching is Doctrinal Preaching

As one finds so abundantly clear in Lectures to My Students as well as his thousands of published sermons, Spurgeon looked to doctrinal content as primary and the raison d'être of preaching. Full submission to the authority of Scripture demanded that one be ready to embrace every doctrine of the Word of God. Preaching on election, early in his ministry in London, Spurgeon appealed to a wide audience to open their minds, remove their prejudices, dismiss preconceived objections and listen to the clear annunciation of the divine revelation on the subject. "Do not be ashamed to learn, and to cast aside your old doctrines and views, but to take up that which you may more plainly see to be in the Word of God," he urged. If it is not in the Bible, whatever he might say, or whatever any pretended earthly authority might say, reject it, for "the Bible must be the first, and God's minister must lie underneath it." The preacher does not stand on the Bible but preaches with the Bible above his head. "After all we have preached, we are well aware that the mountain of truth is higher than our eyes can discern;" The summit may be obscure and none is able to penetrate its

topmost pinnacle, "yet we will try to preach it as well as we can." ¹¹⁹ Systematization and coherence giving organization to mere human authority and eloquence in service of mere temporal matters might have their place in human society and might serve just causes, but the preacher had a higher call for the use of these gifts. Their utility found place before the immutably true word of God, the Bible. His preaching, virtually without fail, found a verse within its context that provided a window into the rich doctrinal content of the whole Bible. His message developed as an extended exposition of some aspect of theology hammered out for the benefit of saints and sinners in his congregation.

He was not a theological taster nor did he pursue the discussion of mere theological abstractions to gain some intellectual and speculative satisfaction.

Everything, however, that pertained to the gospel and had connections to the great truths of how God saves, sanctifies, and secures sinners Spurgeon claimed as sacred inviolable territory. "The sermons that are most likely to convert people," Spurgeon lectured, "are full of truth, truth about the fall, truth about the law, truth about human nature, and its alienation from God, truth about Jesus Christ, truth abut the Holy Spirit, truth about the Everlasting Father, truth about the new birth, truth about obedience to God, and how we learn it, and all such

great verities." ¹²⁰ He insisted throughout his ministry, and in his teaching of other ministers, that "every preacher should labour to save his hearers. The truest reward of our life-work is to bring dead souls to life." ¹²¹ He did not see it as his duty to teach

politics (though he was effective, because theological, in his political

convictions), ¹²² or mere morals (though he had a greater impact for improvement of morals and the elevation of character than any man of his age); he did not relish in telling men what they ought to do but wanted to "preach the

good news of what God has done for them." ¹²³ Doctrine as doctrine, "apart from Christ," did not interest him. "We are only theologians as far as theology enshrines the gospel." In that, however, he found enough "to fill any one life, to absorb all our thought, emotion, desire, and energy, yea, infinitely more than the most experienced Christian and the most intelligent teacher will ever be able to bring forth." Should anyone accuse Spurgeon of narrowness in this view and "shut up to one set of truths," he would simply "rejoice to be shut up with Christ, and count it the truest enlargement of

our minds." ¹²⁴ When he contemplated how he preached to thousands and thousands as year after year passed, he dismissed any suggestion that there was anything remarkable in his speech. The true answer, Spurgeon insisted, "is that I preach Jesus Christ to you." He desired no other theme and could dwell upon it for another ⁶,000 years and never grow weary of it. "You may preach what you will of your learning and your philosophy," he conceded, "and you may talk pretty things concerning God out of Christ." But even God-talk apart from Christ "will never stir the souls of men as the preaching of the Son of God has done and will

do." ¹²⁵ This points to a Christocentric view of doctrine and gospel ministry. The Christocentric nature of both revelation and redemption convinced Spurgeon that a truly systematic theology must find its point of focus and its true coherence in Christ. His interaction with systematic theology he made obvious to his people so that they were not afraid of it; nor did they consider it irrelevant. But its service of genuine devotion to Christ and conscious dependence on him appeared just as boldly.

An article for The Sword and Trowel entitled "Bands of Love: or, Union to Christ" began with the statement, "Systematic theologians have usually regarded union to Christ under three aspects, natural, mystical, and federal, and it may be that these three terms are comprehensive enough to embrace the whole subject, but as our aim in this article is simplicity, let us be pardoned if we appear diffuse when we follow a less concise method." He then proceeded to include those three divisions in his outline but added two at the beginning: everlasting love

and union of purpose. ¹²⁶ Those themes central to the covenant of grace dominated Spurgeon's plan for preaching and formed the center of gravity for

his understanding of theology.

The very first entry in the first number of The Sword and the Trowel was entitled "What Shall be Done for Jesus." He speaks of the manifold ways in which the Eternal Father has honored Jesus. The decree of election as well as every other "after-manifestation of grace" has been brought to us through "the man Christ Jesus." He holds all the offices by which we know and are made right with God, that is, prophet, priest, and king. Spurgeon affirmed the orthodox view of Christ as God and man in one person, as he does literally thousands of times in his sermons and writings. "What can ye conceive of splendour blazing around the throne of the Most High, which will not also be seen gleaming with equal refulgence from the seat of him who is 'God over all blessed for ever?' It is with no trembling lip that we sing his praise." In summary Spurgeon stated it as a settled principle that "You cannot taste the sweetness of any doctrine till

you have remembered Christ's connection with it." ¹²⁷ Numberless times, early

and late, he demonstrated this conviction in his preaching.

Election is a good thing; to be chosen of God, and precious; but we are elect in Christ Jesus. Adoption

is a good thing;... ay, but we are adopted in Christ Jesus and made joint-heirs with him. Pardon is a

good thing—who will not say so?—ay, but we are pardoned through the precious blood of Jesus.

Justification—is not that a noble thing, to be robed about with a perfect righteousness?—ay, but we are

justified in Jesus. To be preserved—is not that a precious thing?—ay; but we are preserved in Christ

Jesus, and kept by his power even to the end. Perfection—who shall say that this is not precious? But

he hath raised us up and made us sit together with him in heavenly places in Jesus Christ—so that

Christ must be good positively, for he is all the best things in one. 128

His focus on Christ, however, did not arise from immaturity of understanding or imbalance in his perception, but from a reasoned synthesis of biblical knowledge. For all of his emphasis on Christ he was nonetheless, and consequently, fully Trinitarian in all that he spoke and wrote. His preface to the first volume of the New Park Street Pulpit gave a forceful declaration of his Christ-centered intentions, while the first sermon of the series was entitled "The Immutability of God."

His preface stated, "He himself is Doctor and Doctrine, Revealer and Revelation, the Illuminator and the Light of Men. He is exalted in every word of truth, because he is its sum and substance." Spurgeon valued doctrine as "most precious when we see it distilling from his lips and embodied in his person."

Sermons were not simply an art form to be admired for their symmetry or rhetoric but "are valuable in proportion as they speak of him and point to him. A Christless gospel is no gospel and a Christless discourse is the cause of merriment to devils." And if the reader has not yet understood Spurgeon's intentions, he says, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, only have we laboured to extol: may the

Lord himself succeed our endeavours." ¹²⁹ The sermon, "The Immutability of God," based on Malachi 3:6, argued that God was immutable in his essence, in his attributes, in his promises, in his threatenings, and in his objects of love. He then gave four brief arguments supporting God's immutability from ontology, the necessity of perfection in God, God's infinity, and the fulfillment of prophecy. When some argued that Hezekiah's prayer changed an ostensibly immutable prophecy of his death, Spurgeon pointed out that the line of the Messiah would have been cut off had Hezekiah not recovered from the sickness. Prophecy of the Messiah had already determined the matter of recovery and shown the conditional and utilitarian nature of the prophet's message. "Sons of Jacob" who benefit from God's immutability are sons of election, persons of peculiar rights, peculiar manifestations, peculiar trials, and peculiar characters. Their chief benefit is that they are not consumed. They have been preserved from being consumed in hell and they have been preserved from being consumed in this world. "He loved them out of pure sovereign grace, and he will love them still. But we should have been consumed by the devil, and by our enemies—consumed by the world, consumed by our sins, by our trials, and in a hundred other ways, if God had

ever changed." ¹³⁰ The sermon's introduction included a most expressive and powerful affirmation of the blessings of a knowledge of God as a triune God and the

natural inherence of Christ-crucified in that doctrine.

The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and him crucified, and the

knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so

magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the

Deity. And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in

contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound, in musing on the Father there is a quietus for every

grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your

sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea; be lost

in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know

nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak

peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject I

invite you this morning. 131

For this reason Spurgeon saw Christian growth as dependent on the attainment of doctrine distilled from Scripture into a system but embraced in the context of Christian experience. In a sermon on "Particular Election," Spurgeon exhorted his hearers that their faith be not merely a creed but genuine credence—"that it is not a mere belief of doctrine, but a reception of doctrine in your soul." But true credence will not grow apart from doctrine.

A knowledge of doctrine will tend very much to confirm your faith. Try to understand God's Word,

get a sensible, spiritual idea of it. Get, if you can, a system of divinity out of God's Bible. Put the

doctrines together. Get real, theological knowledge, founded upon the infallible Word. Get a

knowledge of that science which is most despised, but which is the most necessary of all, the science

of Christ and of him crucified, and of the great doctrines of grace. 132

Faith must embrace doctrinal truth. To the suggestion that the time would come when preaching the doctrines of grace would be passé, Spurgeon responded, "Out on ye, traitors, who tell us that we care to shape our gospel to suit this enlightened nineteenth century! Out on ye, falsehearts, who would have us tone down the everlasting truth that shall outlive the sun, and moon, and stars, to suit your boasted culture, which is but varnished ignorance!" No, still he would preach those truths that were mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, and he would maintain it to the death. "The church needs the doctrines of grace to-day as much as when Paul, or Augustine, or Calvin preached them; the Church needs justification by faith, the substitutionary atonement, and regeneration, and divine sovereignty to be preached from her pulpits as much as in days of yore, and by God's grace she shall have them, too."

133

Without such knowledge and consent to specific truth, no faith is possible. A strong evidence of grace is the " mind's perception of revealed truth and its

obedience to it," Spurgeon argued. ¹³⁴ Since God has lifted the veil through divine revelation, the true believer does not make or invent his own precepts, but

he learns them from God.

By this shalt thou know whether thou be a child of light, or a child of darkness. Are the doctrines of

grace essential verities with thee? Whatever God has said about sin, righteousness, judgment to come,

art thou ready to accept it at once? Whatever he has revealed concerning himself, his Son, his holy

Spirit, the cross, life, death, hell, and the eternal future, dost thou believe it unfeignedly? This is to

walk in the light. All other teaching is darkness. 135

This constant effort to place Christ and the salvation that he brings at the center of his theology may be seen vividly in a development he gives to one of his favorite themes in two separate sermons. The theme of Christ's preciousness cheered and encouraged Spurgeon throughout his ministry and seemed to him the sum and substance of all true divinity. In 1869, he preached on this theme and warned his congregation not to reduce the knowledge of Christ to a mere creed, such as a state church might enforce, or insist on an orthodoxy that had no room for the true lover of Jesus that diverged on some point. Though he knew that pretensions to love covered many a heresy and he would be the "last person in the world to speak lightly of the value of sound doctrine" heartily wishing, as

well as working, "that the doctrines of grace were more clear to our understanding, and more imprinted upon our hearts," he much more esteemed a true love of Jesus than all the heartless orthodoxy in the world. To integrate doctrine with true affection is the preacher's constant challenge; true affection

has the ascendancy.

I love Protestantism, but if there is anything in this world that I have a horror of, it is that political

Protestantism which does nothing but sneer and snarl at its fellow citizens, but which is as ignorant as

a cow about what Protestantism truly is. The great truths of Protestantism—not mere Protestant

ascendancy—and the great secret power of those truths, far more than the mere letter of them, is the

thing to be prized. You may get it into you head that you are a member of the one only true church;

you may wrap yourself about with any quantity of self-conceit, but that does not at all prove you to be

a possessor of grace. It is love to Christ that is the root of the matter. I am very sorry, my dear brother,

if you should hold unsound views on some points; but I love you with all my heart if Jesus is precious

to you. I cannot give up believers' baptism; it is none of mine, and, therefore, I cannot give up my

Master's word. I am sure that it is Scriptural. I cannot give up the doctrine of election, it seems to me

so plainly in the word; but over the head of all doctrine and ordinances, and over everything, my

brother, I embrace thee in my heart if thou believest in Jesus, and if he be precious to thee, for that is

the vital point. 136

When he revisited his first preaching text, 1 Peter 2:7, on March ³⁰, 1890, the Downgrade Controversy had pressed him down and made him appear reactionary and incompetent in the eyes of many contemporaries. The Baptist Union had treated Spurgeon as a false accuser of the brethren. Through all of this, however, he knew that his loyalties were generated by a view of the preciousness of Christ and his truth. For Christ to be precious means that he is our honor. This particular emphasis in the translation prompted new insights in Spurgeon. "Did you suffer reproach for Christ's truth?" he asks; "It is well: thus are you bound up in the bundle of life with him whom you love," he answers. "The day shall come when it shall be thought to be the highest honour that ever was to have been denounced as a bigot and cast out as a troubler, for the sake of Christ and his gospel." Strong on his mind is the recent flurry of ill-tempered publicity, but even stronger is the encouragement of this verse. "Some of us bless the Lord," Spurgeon insisted, "that we are associated with his oldfashioned cross, his time-worn truth, his despised atonement, his antiquated Bible." As for Spurgeon, embracing the marrow of this text, he bound the truths of Jesus as "a chaplet about my brow. Jesus, the Substitute, is my honor, and the

doctrines of grace are my glory." ¹³⁷ The historical context made Spurgeon dwell more on the doctrinal issues as evidence of love to Christ. Christ is precious because as "God and man, he alone combines the two natures in one person." Remarkable and unparalleled is the simple fact "that while he is God over all, and has thus the fulness of the

Godhead, he is also man, true man of the substance of his mother, and so has all the adaptation of perfect manhood." Spurgeon continued with his inimitable verbal display of the benefits that such a person brings to the people he redeems.

His life gives life; his death rescues from hell; his resurrection justifies; his second coming gives us delight. He is prophet, priest, king, husband, brother, friend. In every type and office He "has a blessed use for the supply of some terrible need which afflicts his redeemed." Because of the power and perfection of his person and work Jesus is "set for the removal of your condemnation, the pardon of your sin, the justification of your person, the changing of your nature, the presentation of your offerings, the preservation of your graces, the perfecting of your holiness, and for all other good and necessary purposes."

In this sermon, Spurgeon not only proclaimed the doctrine in all its symmetry and fullness, he accented the reality that such straight adherence to lines of truth

is a mark of loyalty to Christ.

A minister once said to me, "It must be very easy for you to preach." I said, "Do you think so? I do not

look at it as a light affair." "Yes," he said; "it is easy because you hold a fixed and definite set of

truths, upon which you dwell from year to year." I did not see how this made it easy to preach, but I

did see how it made my heart easy, and I said, "Yes, that is true. I keep to one fixed line of truth."

"That is not my case," said he; "I revise my creed from week to week. It is with me constant change

and progress." I did not say much, but I thought the more. If the foundation is constantly being altered,

the building will be rather shaky. … It is an honour to be on the same lines of truth as the Holy Ghost.

It is an honour to believe what the lips of Jesus taught. I had sooner be a fool with Christ than a wise

man with the philosophers. The day shall come when he that cleaves most to the gospel of God shall

be the most honoured man. 138

Spurgeon was aware that his gift of spontaneous delivery and powerful oratory and imagination could not be duplicated, but he was utterly insistent that the same commitment to systematic presentation of doctrine from a Christ-centered standpoint be the method taught at his Pastors' College. Though a diversified course of study, including literature, science, and religion, formed the curriculum it was all pursued with a view to fitting the mind for its highest development in the truths of Scripture. "Let theology, in a word, be the principal study of the professed teacher of theology," Spurgeon argued, "and all other sources of information and mental improvement as may become subservient to this, placed within their reach." Now what kind of theology did he envision as central to the

curriculum?

Calvinistic theology is dogmatically taught. We mean not dogmatic in the offensive sense of that term;

but as the undoubted teaching of the Word of God. … We hold to the Calvinism of the Bible. Extreme

views on either side are repudiated by us. The cross is the centre of our system. … This is our

standpoint from which we judge all things. We have no sympathy with any modern concealment or

perversion of great gospel truths. We prefer the Puritan to modern divinity. From our inmost souls we

loathe all mystic and rationalistic obscurations of the plain and full-orbed doctrines of grace, and

foremost of all of justification by the righteousness of Christ and atonement by his blood. …We

believe one of the secrets of the success that has hitherto attended the students from this College to be

the doctrines they teach, and the manner in which they enunciate them, as though they believed what

they say and wished others to believe them too. 139

A steady feeding at Spurgeon's trough would make a sturdy theologian of any hearer. From the first sermon in the New Park Street Series to the last that he preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle (June ⁷, 1891), a systematic theology of biblical teaching with the revelation and redemption of Christ at the center informed his every point. In this last sermon he spoke of saints who are true but nevertheless faint because "they have not yet come to fulness of growth in grace." Among that number are those who had no heart for controversy. Also

among the faint are those who do not plunge into the deep of doctrinal truth.

And some cannot advance any further with regard to knowledge; they know the fundamentals, and feel

as if they could master nothing more. It is a great blessing that they know the gospel, and feel that it

will save them; but the glorious mysteries of the everlasting covenant, of the sovereignty of God, of his

eternal love and distinguishing grace, they cannot compass—these are a brook Besor which as yet they

cannot swim. It would do them a world of good if they could venture in; but still, they are not to be

tempted into these blessed deeps. To hear of these things rather wearies them than instructs them: They

have not strength enough of mind for the deep things of God. I would have every Christian wish to

know all that he can know of revealed truth. Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to

us. You may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is revealed you ought to

know, for these things belong to you and to your children. Take care you know what the Holy Ghost

teaches. Do not give way to a faint-hearted ignorance, lest you be great losers thereby. That which is fit

food for babes should not be enough for young men and fathers: we should eat strong meat, and leave

milk to the little ones. 140

Fit the Arrow to the String

In selecting a doctrinal theme, the minister must bear in mind the particular demands of the occasion. In a message on Paul's sermon before Felix, Spurgeon made the point that we must have an appropriate sermon. What the apostle did before Felix and Drusilla, "every minister ought to do." Given such an auspicious opportunity, however, many ministers "if they addressed kings and princes, would pour out before them the vilest adulation and flattery that ever came from mortal lips." The preacher must not trim his doctrine to flatter the audience. His goal must not be to attract a crowd by pleasing them in their sin.

He must preach what is most needful for their eternal well-being. When addressing an antinomian audience some ministers might confine themselves strictly to predestination; others, addressing an audience of philosophers might "never mention such words as the covenant of grace and salvation by blood."

The minister should shun ever preaching before a congregation and always endeavor to preach to them.

Neither powers of eloquence nor depth of learning are his goal but a message to prepare them for eternity. "It is not for me," he would say, "to be amusing you with some deep things that may instruct your intellect but do not enter your hearts; it is for me to fit the arrow to the string and send it home." In a change of metaphor, but still in the mode of drawing blood, he saw the task as "to unsheathe the sword—be the scabbard never so glittering, to cast it aside, and let the majesty of naked truth smite at your hearts." He proposed that personal preaching was precisely the business of the gospel minister. Knox did it before Mary, "flat to her face," and must we be personal and avoid generalities.

Spurgeon was thankful that "from that fear I have been delivered long ago." No man that walked on earth was he afraid to reprove. "There are none of you," he stated plainly, "however connected with me by ties of profession or in any other respect, that I would blush to speak personally to, as to the things of the kingdom of God." Only by being bold and courageous and "sending home the truth" can

the minister be free of the blood of his hearers. ¹⁴¹ Spurgeon wanted to preach in such a way that if sinners "do not come to Jesus, their blood shall be upon their own heads, for the invitation is as free as the blessing is full." When some of his ardently Calvinistic hearers, whose ardency he shared, heard him issue urgent pleas for all sinners to come to Christ with full assurance that if they came he would receive them, and that the invitation to come flows from the lips of Christ himself, they felt, in the words of one such friend, "very uncomfortable when you are giving free invitations to sinners." ¹⁴² Spurgeon could not do otherwise, however, for he found such

expressions of the openness of Christ's invitation to sinners in Scripture. "We know of no other limit to our invitation than this, 'Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.'" When he was preaching to sinners, he felt inclined to "beg everyone of them" to flee to Christ for "there is not a sinner in the world who is to be told that he may not come to Jesus and receive the whole of the blessings of the gospel." He would declare the "doctrine of God's sovereignty without toning it down, and electing love without any stuttering over it," but he would never give up "loving the souls of men, or cease from trying to bring in the lost from the highways and hedges." He had no delusions that he could make men come, for that was the work of the Holy Spirit; but he did seek to persuade them by the love of Jesus and the terrors of the Lord. "We can preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ." The Word of the Lord would not return void, but it must be preached as warranted—just as abundant in its

freeness as it is powerful in its fullness. ¹⁴³ A sermon published in the November 1874 Sword embodies the combination of textuality, illustration, and theological exposition so pervasive in Spurgeon's proclamation. Ephesians 6:15 provided the text, "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace." The title denoted that the sermon was built around an ongoing illustration about shoes: "Shoes for Pilgrims and Warriors."

Each element of the sermon opened a different word or idea in the text and continued the development of the illustration. The sinews that gave bulk and strength ran along the doctrinal strands that penetrated the whole and constituted the true purpose of the discourse.

In our wrestling against the powers of darkness that will seek to bruise our heels, or trip us, or lame us altogether we find that infinite mercy has prepared gospel shoes for the feet. In structure, Spurgeon had only two major divisions.

One, examine the shoes; two, try on these shoes. Under the first head he spoke of the "blessed maker" of the shoes and the material from which the shoes were made. Under the second head, we find that the shoes "fit perfectly," they give the wearer a "firm foothold," they have an apt "suitability for marching," they provide an effectual preservative from the "ordinary roughness of the road of life," they are good for climbing, they are good for running, and they are good for fighting. The sermon in its structure, thus, while not a metaphor, is nevertheless an extended illustration with memorable images exploring and taking advantage of the Pauline metaphor. Under each of the separate points, Spurgeon blends theological explanation with experiential application fixing in the mind the real biblical thrust of Ephesians 6:15.

The "blessed maker" is God himself and he has made a preparation "in which infinite skill has been displayed." The gospel of peace is his production and thus

without a flaw. The material is the "peace which grows out of the gospel." This includes first "perfect peace with God." All other peace extends from this peace. "Let a man know that his sins are forgiven him for Christ's name's sake, that he is reconciled to God by the death of his Son, and that between him and God there is no ground of difference,—what a joyful pilgrim he becomes!" Given all that God has accomplished through the complete atonement of Christ we may march through life "booted and buskined for all the exigencies of the way, yea ready to plunge through fire and water, thorn and thistle, brake and briar, without fear." Spurgeon contrasted the judicial anger of God with the Father's care and asserted that one "sandled with reconciliation by atoning blood" will never faint but always be upheld.

A second part of peace with God, however, in addition to the "legal peace of justification," is a peaceful acquiescence to his ways with us. The well-shod pilgrim must have the "exceeding peace which springs from intimate, undisturbed communion with God." Beyond these aspects of peace with God, Spurgeon explored "peace towards ourselves," peace with our fellow men, peace with all mankind, showed how Jesus was shod with these same shoes, and affirmed that they would never wear out. Each part unfolded a biblical verse and included an experimental application of doctrine. Notice the freshness Spurgeon

brings to the apparently rather hackneyed point of peace with all mankind.

Be not easily provoked, bear and forbear, forgive and love on, return good for evil, seek to benefit

even the most unthankful, and you will travel to heaven in the pleasantest possible manner. Hatred, and

envy, and persecution may come, but a loving spirit materially blunts their edge, and oftentimes

inherits the promise, "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace

with him." 144

In trying the shoes on, one finds that they are perfectly adapted to every demand of life, they never slip in the rough and dangerous places but always uphold him against every onslaught. For Spurgeon the image of the well-fitted, tenaciously sturdy shoe meant the thorough certainty with which Christian experience

coincided with biblical truth.

Tell him that the atonement is not true, preach up to him the bloodless neology of modern thought, and

he ridicules the ineffectual attempt, because he knows whom he has believed, and feels a heavenly

peace within flowing from the substitutionary sacrifice. Tell him that the doctrines of grace are a

mistake, that salvation is all of free will and man's merit; and he says, "Nay but I know better. I know

the doctrines of sovereign grace to be true by experience; I know I am God's chosen; I know that I am

called, I know that I am justified, for I know that I have peace with God, as the result of all these." You

cannot move him an inch, his creed is interwoven with his personal consciousness, and there is no

arguing him out of it. In these days of skepticism, when no man seems to have any resting place, it is

well to be so shod that you can and do stand on the truth, and cannot be blown about like thistledown

in the breeze. 145

Every element of trying on the shoes introduced a pertinent aspect of Christian experience culminating with one's finding that the shoes are good for fighting.

In the hand to hand combat of Paul's day the feet served offensively, and men fought with their feet in conjunction with their hands. So it is with the Christian who will soon crush Satan under his feet. "What a tread we will give him when we once have the opportunity!" Spurgeon shouted. "We shall need to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace to break that old dragon's head, and grind his snares to powder, and God helping us, we shall do it." In this we merely follow the lead already given: "Our covenant head has trampled on

the old serpent, and so shall all his members." ¹⁴⁶ Because God intended sermons to bolster the tottering soul by means of confident and clear announcement of revealed truth, one cannot fathom the blasphemous incongruity of employing the pulpit for propagating error. The faithless do this purposefully, but the faithful may do it through poor strategy.

Promoting unbelief, apart from willful infidelity, may arise two ways from sermons. Ironically, these two ways stand in tension with each other. They are spoken of in the same article by Spurgeon and he gives no indication that his argument creates a dilemma. First, the minister should avoid the perpetual rehearsal of the theories of unbelief, even when he intends to give a correction.

Such an approach, according to Spurgeon, has the tendency to stultify growth and risk some taking the poison but refusing the antidote. Some young men have had their first taste of infidelity from their well-intentioned ministers in such

sermons. ¹⁴⁷ Some, therefore, do the devil's work unwittingly; others do it wittingly.

Refusal to warn against the witting ones leaves the field open to them. One learns quickly in hearing some men preach that "nothing is certain with them but their own uncertainty." They make doctrines disappear like a conjuror makes animals disappear up a chain suspended on nothing. So-called, deep thinkers have the trick perfected. One end of their thought is suspended in the clouds and up this mental chain they send one doctrine after another to disappear in cloudland. "The doctrine of the substitution of Christ, the immortality of the soul, the plenary inspiration of Scripture, and other eternal verities" magically disappear. To refuse, therefore, to warn against such would be like admiring the rats for their ceaseless energy that undermine a Dutch dike or refusing to arrest a thief because he has such dexterity in his chosen profession. "Bah!" Spurgeon exclaimed.

We execrate the thief, and with equal justice ought we to expose and to condemn the traitor who robs

us of heavenly treasure, of truth vital to eternal life, truth which is absolutely needful to our soul's

salvation. Pleas of charity to error are arguments for the murder of souls. Life and death hang upon the

question of truth or falsehood; if lies be propagated, or truth be clouded, the watchmen of the Lord will

have to give in their account for permitting it. For our part we shall not cease to warn till the occasion

is removed, and at this present time that occasion is by no means gone. 148

The advice, therefore, to avoid the introduction of heretical ideas in a sermon even to refute them was hard to follow even for Spurgeon himself. If no warnings are issued, infidelity will come full force unhindered; watch dogs must not be muzzled when thieves threaten the family. If warnings are issued, but the preacher offers no description of the error nor any analysis of its content and its consequent danger, he takes the part of a demagogue or a tantalizer. Preaching with both edification and warning is no easy task, but under Spurgeon's expertise, the Tabernacle had learned to appreciate the effort. During the 1879 evangelistic meetings at the Tabernacle, one of the evangelists, Mr. Clarke, was commended by the congregation in that he "smashed into those modern thought fellows." ¹⁴⁹

Preaching: An Extension of the Cross

Preaching garnered the best of Spurgeon's energy and served to deplete him of it more quickly than any other activity, for he embraced it wholeheartedly as the chief means ordained by God to hold forth his glory generation after generation in a fallen world. The greatest historical manifestation of divine glory, so Spurgeon intensely believed, occurred in the cross and resurrection. This redemptive event, however, by its very nature could not be repeated in every generation. "It is finished"—the phrase uttered by Christ that embodies the unique transaction of a satisfied justice—enunciated etymologically, soteriologically, and teleologically a finality, a consummation, to Christ's personal engagement to lose none of those the Father had given him.

The extension of the cross's saving power into succeeding generations and throughout the world sails on the wind and wings of the spoken word, a proclamation setting forth Christ crucified and risen as the object of faith. The preacher, in Pauline fashion, to the spiritual eyes of his auditory clearly portrays Christ as crucified. This proclamation, blessed by the Spirit of God, seals the message in saving power to all types of sinners in all types of places, making them justified citizens of heaven in possession of eternal life and useful agents of holiness and moral change on earth in this life.

Spurgeon, therefore, loved stories of transformation that came from the preaching of the Word. Some of these he heard immediately and some he heard years after the event. They fascinated him. They served as verification of God's call to him and equipping of him in spite of his having missed the academic training seen by many as essential for effective ministry. In addition, however, he believed these stories kept alive in his people a justified wonder at the wisdom of God in using proclamation to transform lives. A church member, on hearing Spurgeon preach on Psalm 57:4, "My soul is among the lions," wrote to Spurgeon and said that his own soul had been among the lions when he owned and operated a beerhouse. Hearing Spurgeon preach made him close the beerhouse on Sundays "in spite of great opposition, persecution, and personal loss." On one occasion the devil had tempted him to open again on Sunday, but "Christ gained the victory, and enabled me to close ever afterwards on the Sunday." His policy of closing began on the same Sunday that the Tabernacle

opened. ¹⁵⁰ Sometimes, the effectiveness of Spurgeon's preaching was doubled by publicizing its effects in tract form. A tract entitled "The Fox Hunter" told of a young man that rode sixteen miles on horseback to hear Spurgeon preach. He had become burdened after reading a sign that quoted "Prepare to Meet Thy

God." An advertisement of Spurgeon's appearance at a certain place prompted the journey; it was not disappointing. Spurgeon preached on the text, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." At the close he said, "Doubtless, there are some young men before me who are weighed down with sin and misery, and wanting rest." While saying this Spurgeon pointed at one and then another in his audience, and began asking "Have you tried the blood, brother? Have your tried the blood? The blood of Jesus Christ which cleanseth us from all sin." The tract writer, Cheyne Brady, told that the "conscience-stricken sinner was melted under this appeal." Convinced of his status as a sinner, feeling that he deserved eternal death, he was enabled to see the remedy for his sin and uncleanness, the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He believed and left the chapel a new man in Christ. This report gave special pleasure to Spurgeon, for not only did it show that preaching was blessed with conversion, but the example of the conversion would now become a force in itself for the conviction of others. Preaching continued to preach through the literature it produced.

Stories of success showed the overall view that Spurgeon had of God's intent to use preaching as the primary means of calling his elect. He believed that ministers of the gospel should preach with expectation. He often would indicate in the body of a sermon that he expected salvation to come to some of his hearers in that very hour. This confidence lies behind the event frequently related in which T. W. Medhurst came to Spurgeon with distress over the fact that, at one point in his early ministry, little fruit seemed to come from his preaching. For three months he had labored without a conversion. As W. Y.

Fullerton tells it, Spurgeon responded, "Why, you don't expect conversions every time you open your mouth, do you?" Medhurst responded, "Of course not." "Then that is just the reason you haven't had them," Spurgeon responded.

151

G. Holden Pike, writing for The Sword and the Trowel gave a slightly different turn to the conversation. When Medhurst visited Spurgeon's home at ⁷⁵ Dover Road, Spurgeon asked him how he was getting on, to which he answered, "Well, I don't know, sir, I'm afraid I have made a mistake." When Spurgeon asked his meaning, he responded, "Well, I've been preaching for six or seven months and have not heard of any conversions." "You don't expect conversions every time you preach, do you?" "No, I don't expect them every time." "Then be it to you according to your faith," answered Mr. Spurgeon. "If you expect great things from God you'll get them; if you don't, you won't." Pike then summarized the impact of the interview: "These words left an indelible impression on the mind of the student. He is able to say at the present time that

he has never since that day preached without expecting a blessing; and the

blessing has come according to his faith." ¹⁵² Spurgeon did not always give such intimidating instruction, however, and perhaps as his years passed he understood better the uniqueness of his personal experience of ministry. Revival fervor consistently surrounded his pulpit operation even when he was sick and distressed and undone, even when he personally could give no personal attention to those awakened under his public proclamation. "I have often been surprised at the mercy of God to myself. Poor sermons of mine, that I could cry over when I get home, have led scores to the cross," Spurgeon testified. Beyond that, "words that I have spoken in ordinary conversation, mere chance sentences, as men call them, have nevertheless been as winged arrows from God, and have pierced men's hearts, and laid them wounded at Jesus' feet." So remarkable had been the consistent success of Spurgeon that he stated, "I have often lifted up my hands in astonishment, and

said, 'How can God bless such a feeble instrumentality?'" ¹⁵³ Spurgeon himself admitted, however, that he had gone from flying to running, and receded yet to a steadier pace. He did not strike fire with every sermon but saw the pace slacken. "We do not every day draw the net to land full of great fishes, but we experience dreary intervals of fruitless toil, and then it is no wonder that a man's spirit faints within him." So it will be with his college men, particularly those in much slimmer ponds than London. "In a small town or village, a man may soon have done all his direct converting work if the Lord greatly blesses him, and if, after a time, more souls are not saved, it may be because few unconverted persons attend his ministry." All this is under the direction of divine sovereignty for "God may have given the brother all those

whom He intended to bless by him in that place." ¹⁵⁴ For others, such consistent blessing might not attend their ministry, but some encouragements would certainly come. To his prayer meeting in 1881 Spurgeon shared a story that he had just learned about Medhurst. He preached in the open air on one occasion in Glasgow. He saw no fruit from the preaching. One lady, however, just passing by heard a part of his message, came under conviction, was converted later, went to her dying sister and won her to Christ, and then herself became a Bible woman with a regular route of distribution where she led many to Christ. Spurgeon drew the conclusion, "Do not think when you preach at the street corners that you will at once see the harvest of your seed-sowing, although the Lord may so favour you." Quite a contrast to his earlier words to Medhurst, he continued, "If you see no immediate results your labour may, nevertheless, have been owned of God." He was quite sure that Medhurst had

not heard of that remotely-wrought success, but perhaps now he would. His personal knowledge of it, however, is a small matter "for the deed is done,

heaven is enriched, and God is glorified." ¹⁵⁵ Another more nuanced and patient understanding of success, without surrendering expectation, Spurgeon developed in a lecture on "The Soul

Winner's Reward." ¹⁵⁶ "I believe that most of you, who have really tried, in the power of the Holy Spirit, by Scriptural teaching and by prayer, to bring others to Jesus, have been successful." Conceding, however, that some present "have not

succeeded" he had some patient and loving words for them.

I would recommend them to look steadily over their motive, their spirit, their work, and their prayer,

and then begin again. Perhaps they may get to work more wisely, more believingly, more humbly, and

more in the power of the Holy Spirit. They just act as farmers do who, after a poor harvest, plough

again in hope. They ought not to be dispirited, but they ought to be aroused. We should be anxious to

find out the reason of failure, if there be any, and we should be ready to learn from all our fellow-

labourers; but we must steadfastly set our faces, if by any means we may save some, resolving that

whatever happens we will leave no stone unturned to effect the salvation of those around us. How can

we bear to go out of the world without sheaves to bear with us rejoicingly? 157

Spurgeon saw the situation with even greater gravity, and with a halt in his former confidence, as he surveyed the rapid and pervasive decline in doctrine and piety in the churches. "Compared with what it used to be," Spurgeon noted, "it is hard to win attention to the word of God." He explained further, "I used to think that we had only to preach the gospel, and the people would throng to hear it. I fear I must correct my belief under this head." He had no reason to doubt the attractiveness of the gospel, but he found that "a hardening process is going on among the masses." He did not doubt that "some of my brethren, who faithfully preach the gospel of Christ, do not find the people flocking about them." With this situation prevailing, Spurgeon refocused on the point that something more compelling than conversion drove the preaching task. "We do not regard it as our first business to convert sinners, nor to edify saints; but to glorify God." God Himself makes the preaching event an exercise in infinite satisfaction to Himself irrespective of the response of the hearer. "If we have preached God's truth, and on any one occasion no souls have been saved thereby, we are still 'unto God a sweet savour of Christ' as well in those that perish as in those that are saved."

Preach on, even in the absence of immediate visible response, Spurgeon would now advise, and find reason to rejoice in it for "the preaching of Jesus Christ is the burning of sweet odours before the throne of God, and to the Lord it is

evermore an acceptable oblation." ¹⁵⁸ Even with the amended understanding that success sometimes will be secret, delayed, and not in the same proportion to one's work as that of another,

Spurgeon remained convinced that a call to the ministry of preaching meant a call to see fruit. A call to be fishers of men is a promise that fish will be caught.

Lack of success may point to a worldly life more intent on amusement and pleasure than on the riches of fellowship with Christ and the joy of being his disciples. It might point to faultiness in doctrine or lack of prayer. Repentance and amendments would be in order, yea essential, mandated by the disparity between the call and the fruit. So certain was he of eventual success that he was willing to state categorically, "He that never saved a sinner after years of work is not a minister of Christ." In Pauline fashion, again he said, "If the result of his

life-work is nil, he made a mistake when he undertook it." ¹⁵⁹ But to resort to sensationalism to draw a crowd, or "attract a congregation," Spurgeon could not abide. Though early in his ministry in a hyperbolic moment he told a crowd in Scotland that he would stand on his head if it would help draw a sinner to Christ, he receded from that position. Though some might feel at ease in conscience about using brass bands and tambourines and all sort of noise to draw a crowd, such users should be prepared for the eventual failure of these methods and the necessity to become more sensational. "What else is to be done?" he asked. "Will you stand on your head: Hornpipes have been tried; will you try the tight-rope? I cannot suggest to you a novelty—since we have already heard of Brummagem Bruisers, devil-dodgers, converted clog-dancers etc."

Eventually such a method must decline to "those blasphemous insults in the eternal and incommunicable name which arise out of the desecration of the word 'hallelujah.'" Spurgeon suggested a true novelty—a meeting with no vulgarity and no slang. He also wearied of sensational advertising that led people on with the promise of greatness and rare opportunity. "Cheapjack advertising is altogether out of harmony with the grand truths and the glorious spirit of the gospel." ¹⁶⁰

The Sum of it All

Spurgeon by no means desired empty pews, but still held to the conviction that nothing was of greater interest than pure earnest gospel preaching. "I believe that the best, surest, and most permanent way to fill a place of worship is to preach the gospel, and to preach it in a natural, simple interesting, earnest way." The gospel possessed a singularly fascinating power and "unless impeded by an unworthy delivery or by some other great

evil, it will win its own way." ¹⁶¹ Spurgeon then gave encouragement by a description of frequently-visited themes—the character of naturalness, simplicity, creation of interest, and, finally, downright earnestness. Resorting to his own experience as evidence, Spurgeon recommended the glorious themes of covenant theology as the true content that will never lose its appeal to fill the

house.

Thirty years of crowded houses leave me confident of the attractions of divine truth; I see nothing as

yet to make me doubt its sufficiency for its own propagation. Shorn of its graciousness, robbed of its

certainty, spoiled of its peculiarities, the sacred word may become unattractive; but decked in the

glories of free and sovereign grace, wearing the crown-royal of the covenant, and the purple of

atonement, the gospel, like a queen, is still glorious for beauty, supreme over hearts and minds.

Published in all its fullness, with a clear statement of its efficacy and immutability, it is still the most

acceptable news that ever reached the ears of mortals. You shall not in my most despondent moments

convince me that our Lord was mistaken when he said, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me."

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To Spurgeon, naught else was preaching.