Spurgeon as Devotional Writer

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bookslover

Puritan Board Doctor
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, but the more I read him, the more convinced I become that Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), by virtue of the fact that his more than 3,500 sermons have been preserved (as well as much other of his writings) will be remembered as one of the best devotional writers in Christian history. Most of his sermons are theological studies and are very well-done.

And I use the term "devotional writer" in the best sense. Too much devotional writing today is filled with soggy sentimentality, as if being in a devotional frame of mind is more about the emotions than the intellect. Spurgeon, on the other hand, is intellectual (without being piety-killingly academic), giving his devotional writing the kind of meat that this type of material should have.

Here's an example, taken from an 1872 Presidential Address to students at his Pastor's College:

First, we have faith in God. We believe "that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." We do not believe in the powers of nature operating of themselves apart from constant emanations of power from the Great and Mighty One, who is the Sustainer as well as the Creator of all things. Far be it from us to banish God from His own universe. Neither do we believe in a merely nominal deity, as those do who make all things to be God, for we conceive pantheism to be only another form of atheism. We know the Lord as a distinct personal existence, a real God, infinitely more real than the things which are seen and handled, more real even than ourselves, for we are but shadows, He alone is the I AM, abiding, the same for ever and ever.

We believe in a God of purposes and plans, who has not left a blind fate to tyrannize over the world, much less an aimless chance to rock it to and fro. We are not fatalists, neither are we doubters of providence and predestination. We are believers in a God "who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." We do not conceive of the Lord as having gone away from the world, and left it and the inhabitants thereof to themselves; we believe in Him as continually presiding in all the affairs of life. We, by faith, perceive the hand of the Lord giving to every blade of grass its own drop of dew, and to every young raven its meat. We see the present power of God in the flight of every sparrow, and hear His goodness in the song of every lark. We believe that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof;" and we go forth into it, not as into the domains of Satan where light comes not, nor into a chaos where rule is unknown, nor into a boiling sea where fate's resistless billows shipwreck mortals at their will; but we walk boldly on, having God within us and around us, living and moving and having our being in Him, and so, by faith, we dwell in a temple of providence and grace wherein everything doth speak of His glory. We believe in a present God wherever we may be, and a working and operating God accomplishing His own purposes steadfastly and surely in all matters, places, and times; working out His designs as much in what seemeth evil as in that which is manifestly good; in all things driving on in His eternal chariot towards the goal which infinite wisdom has chosen, never slackening His pace nor drawing the rein, but for ever, according to the eternal strength that is in Him, speeding forward without pause. We believe in this God as being faithful to everything that He has spoken, a God who can neither lie nor change. The God of Abraham is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and He is our God this day. We do not believe in the ever-shifting views of the Divine Being which differing philosophies are adopting; the God of the Hebrews is our God - Jehovah, Jah, the Mighty One, the covenant-keeping God - "this God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our Guide even unto death."

Whether we be fools or not thus to believe in God, the world shall know one day; and whether it be more reasonable to believe in nature, or in powers that operate of themselves, or to believe in nothing, than it is to believe in a self-existent Being, we shall leave eternity to decide. Meanwhile, to us, faith in God is not only a necessity of reason, but the fruit of a child-like instinct which tarries not to justify itself by arguments, being born in us with our regenerate nature itself.​

From: An All-Round Ministry: Addresses to Ministers and Students by C. H. Spurgeon (London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), pp. 4-6. Originally published by Passmore & Alabaster in 1900.

Spurgeon couldn't be dull if he tried. And I thank God that He has allowed Spurgeon's many sermons and other writings to survive.
 
Spurgeon couldn't be dull if he tried. And I thank God that He has allowed Spurgeon's many sermons and other writings to survive.

I totally agree. I think he is the Mozart of the preaching world. His illustrations are works of beauty and you get the feeling he could have come up with more if he had the time. Where his sermons cherished at the time as much as they are today?
 
Where his sermons cherished at the time as much as they are today?

Yes. His weekly printed sermons sold in the tens of thousands of copies, and that's just in England. They were translated into several European languages, and also sold well in the United States - until he came out against slavery when the Civil War started and he lost about a third of his sales here.

No. 2 on the list of popular printed sermons? Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910).
 
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