C.H. SPURGEON (1834–1892)
Charles Spurgeon is history’s most widely read preacher (apart from the biblical ones). Today, there is available more material written by Spurgeon than by any other Christian author, living or dead.
The New Park Street Pulpit and The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit — the collected sermons of Spurgeon during his ministry with that congregation — fill sixty-three volumes and contain an estimated 20–25 million words. The series stands as the largest set of books by a single author in the history of Christianity.
SPURGEON’S LIBRARY
Although Spurgeon did not attend college, he valued learning and loved books. He collected Puritan editions, and his personal library of twelve thousand volumes contained one thousand works published before 1700. He was a literate man with a remarkable command of language that the exacting critic John Ruskin was not alone in finding “very wonderful!”
BUY SPURGEON
The noted German pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke once said, “Sell all [the books] that you have ... and buy Spurgeon.”
“THE SHILLING SERIES”
Charles Spurgeon originally published “The Shilling Series” in London over a four year period (1877–1881). This series consisted of seven little books that each sold for the same price — a shilling (US equivalent today is about $10). “Eccentric Preachers” (1879) was the sixth volume in the series. Spurgeon published it as an accurate account of a lecture he delivered by the same title.
SPURGEON, THE ECUMENICALIST
In Spurgeon’s book “Eccentric Preachers,” he defends the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ministries of eleven Bible preachers whom history unjustly labeled as eccentric. Spurgeon’s choice of pulpiteers to exonerate in this case shows a unique mode of ecumenicalism for his day:
Hugh Latimer, Anglican
Hugh Peters, Puritan (Independent)
Daniel Burgess, Puritan (Presbyterian)
John Berridge, Anglican
Rowland Hill, Nondenominational (Evangelical)
Matthew Wilks, Nondenominational (Evangelical)
William Dawson, Methodist
Jacob Gruber, Methodist
Edward Taylor, Methodist
Edward Brooke, Methodist
Billy Bray, Methodist (Bible Christian)
TRUTH … AMONG THE POOR AND HUMBLE
Spurgeon attributed his conversion to a sermon he heard by chance — when a snowstorm blew him away from his destination and into a Primitive Methodist chapel. The event reinforced his conviction that truth was more likely to be found among the poor and humble than among the overeducated and refined. When he established his own pastors’ college, there were no academic requirements for admission.
SPEAKING TO THE MASSES
Charles Spurgeon came to London as a mere lad, and no preacher received more criticism than the nineteen-year-old “boy preacher,” as he was called. Becoming pastor of the historic New Park Street Baptist Church, he found the press virtually at war with him. The Ipswich Express said his sermons were “Redolent of bad taste, vulgar, and theatrical.”
Spurgeon replied, “I am perhaps vulgar, but it is not intentional, save that I must and will make the people listen. My firm conviction is that we have had quite enough polite preachers, and many require a change. God has owned me among the most degraded and off-casts. Let others serve their class; these are mine, and to them I must keep.”
PREACHING IN HIS SLEEP
One Saturday night Charles Spurgeon began talking in his sleep; he preached an entire sermon while he slept. His wife, Susannah, heard the noise and awoke. She realized her husband was preaching, so she listened attentively and in the morning gave her husband a detailed summary. A few hours later, he preached that sermon to his congregation.
FAST THINKING
For an average sermon, Spurgeon took no more than one page of notes into the pulpit, yet he spoke at a rate of 140 words per minute for forty minutes. He once said he counted eight sets of thoughts that passed through his mind at the same time while he was preaching.
DRAMATIC DEVICES
Spurgeon was a compelling, charismatic speaker — as his friend John Carlile remembered, “dramatic to his fingertips.” Photographs from this period show him assuming dramatic stances, and visitors’ accounts tell us he seemed to act out the parts, to assume the identity of the biblical characters he spoke of. Before age and gout slowed him down, Spurgeon paced the platform and even ran from side to side. His sermons were filled with sentimental stories that ordinary people could relate to: tales of dying children, grieving parents, repentant harlots, and servants wiser than their masters.
The dramatic devices employed by Spurgeon have become commonplace now. But they were novel in the mid-Victorian years, and many critics roundly condemned the young minister’s style, manner, and appearance. He was called “a clerical poltroon,” “the Exeter Hall demagogue,” and “the pulpit buffoon.” His ministry was dismissed as a nine days’ wonder, and he was compared to popular entertainers such as Tom Thumb, the clown at Astley's Circus, the Living Skeleton, etc., who briefly captured the attention of the fickle populace. Other ministers were openly contemptuous of his “sensationalism,” although many would eventually copy his style and even appropriate his sermons.
THE PRINCE OF LAUGHTER
Spurgeon’s friends and even casual acquaintances remarked on his hearty laughter. His humor also found expression in his sermons and writings, for which he was sometimes criticized. Spurgeon responded that if his critics only knew how much humor he suppressed, they would keep silent.
HE LACKED ONE THING
As a preacher, Spurgeon seemingly had everything — except good health. He suffered constantly from various ailments and fell into serious depression at times. He had rheumatic gout that eventually took his life at the age of 57.
Yet Spurgeon overcame physical limitations and relentless criticism to be established as the greatest Victorian preacher.
PRE-Order the (NEW!) UPDATED EDITION of Charles Spurgeon’s “Eccentric Preachers” from Aneko Press: https://anekopress.com/product/eccentric-preachers/
Comments