Eccentric Preachers
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About this ebook
A strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times each week at different places. Spurgeon was the pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years, despite the fact he was part of several controversies with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and later had to leave the denomination. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon's which now works globally, and he also founded Spurgeon's College, which was named after him posthumously.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works, including sermons, an autobiography, commentaries, books on prayer, devotionals, magazines, poetry, hymns and more.
Charles Spurgeon
Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), nació en Inglaterra, y fue un predicador bautista que se mantuvo muy influyente entre cristianos de diferentes denominaciones, los cuales todavía lo conocen como «El príncipe de los predicadores». El predicó su primer sermón en 1851 a los dieciséis años y paso a ser pastor de la iglesia en Waterbeach en 1852. Publicó más de 1.900 sermones y predicó a 10.000,000 de personas durante su vida. Además, Spurgeon fue autor prolífico de una variedad de obras, incluyendo una autobiografía, un comentario bíblico, libros acerca de la oración, un devocional, una revista, poesía, himnos y más. Muchos de sus sermones fueron escritos mientras él los predicaba y luego fueron traducidos a varios idiomas. Sin duda, ningún otro autor, cristiano o de otra clase, tiene más material impreso que C.H. Spurgeon.
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Eccentric Preachers - Charles Spurgeon
ECCENTRIC PREACHERS
..................
Charles Spurgeon
SCRIPTURA PRESS
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Copyright © 2015 by Charles Spurgeon
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Preface
Who Have Been Called Eccentric?
Causes of Eccentricity
Hugh Latimer, 1480—1555
Hugh Peters, 1599—1660
Daniel Burgess, 1645—1713
John Berridge, 1716—1793
Rowland Hill, 1744—1833
Matthew Wilks, 1746—1829
William Dawson, 1773—11841
Jacob Gruber, 1778—1850
Edward Taylor, 1793—1871
Edward Brooke, 1779—1871
Billy Bray, The Uneducated Soul-winner
In Conclusion
Eccentric Preachers
By
Charles Spurgeon
Eccentric Preachers
Published by Scriptura Press
New York City, NY
First published circa 1892
Copyright © Scriptura Press, 2015
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
About Scriptura Press
Scriptura Press is a Christian company that makes Christian works available and affordable to all. We are a non-denominational publishing group that shares the teachings of the Scripture, whether in the form of sermons or histories of the Church.
INTRODUCTION
..................
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON (19 JUNE 1834 – 31 January 1892) was a British Particular Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the Prince of Preachers
. Spurgeon was to 19th century England what D. L Moody was to America. Although Spurgeon never attended theological school, by the age of twenty-one he was the most popular preacher in London.
A strong figure in the Reformed Baptist tradition, defending the Church in agreement with the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith understanding, and opposing the liberal and pragmatic theological tendencies in the Church of his day, Spurgeon preached to around 10,000,000 people, often up to 10 times each week at different places. Spurgeon was the pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years, despite the fact he was part of several controversies with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and later had to leave the denomination. In 1857, he started a charity organization called Spurgeon’s which now works globally, and he also founded Spurgeon’s College, which was named after him posthumously.
Spurgeon was a prolific author of many types of works, including sermons, an autobiography, commentaries, books on prayer, devotionals, magazines, poetry, hymns and more.
PREFACE
..................
I HAVE published this little volume very much in self-defense. Some years ago I delivered a lecture on Eccentric Preachers,
and a reporter’s notes of it were published in one of the newspapers. These, like all such things, were mere pickings and cuttings, and by no means the lecture itself. Gentlemen of the press have an eye to the amusement of their readers, and make selections of all the remarkable anecdotes, or odd sayings, used by a speaker, and when these are separated from their surroundings the result is anything but satisfactory. No man’s speeches or lectures should be judged of by an ordinary newspaper summary, which in any case is a mere sketch, and in many instances is a vile caricature.
I thought no more of my lecture till the other day I found the mere rags and bones of the reporter set forth in America as an address by myself, worthy to be bound up with my book upon Commenting and Commentaries.
Those notes were all very well for a newspaper, but I altogether disown them as my production. It amazes me that the American editor should not have corrected the more obvious mistakes of the reporter, such as calling Peter Cartwright Peter Garrett, and Lady Ann Askew Lady Askayne. Peter Cartwright was an American backwoods preacher, and his name should have been familiar to the American editor, but some publishers are so intent upon getting out their books that they cannot afford time for correction.
Finding that I had by me the whole of the mutilated lecture, I thought of printing it, to show what I had really spoken; but upon looking it over, I judged it to be better to expand it and make it into a small book. I hope the reader will not be a loser by my resolution.
I desire by this little volume to plead against the carping spirit which makes a man an offender for a word, and the lying spirit which scatters falsehood right and left, to the injury and grief of the most zealous of my Master’s servants. Many hearers lose much blessing through criticizing too much, and meditating too little; and many more incur great sin by calumniating those who live for the good of others. True pastors have enough of care and travail without being burdened by undeserved and useless fault-finding. We have something better to do than to be for ever answering every malignant or frivolous slander which is set afloat to injure us. We expected to prove our ministry by evil report and by good report,
and we are not therefore overwhelmed by abuse as though some new thing had happened unto us; and yet there are tender, loving spirits who feel the trial very keenly, and are sadly hindered in brave service by cruel assaults. The rougher and stronger among us laugh at those who ridicule us, but upon others the effect is very sorrowful. For their sakes are these pages written; may they be a warning to wanton witlings who defame the servants of the Most High God.
As ministers we are very far from being perfect, but many of us are doing our best, and we are grieved that the minds of our people should be more directed to our personal imperfections than to our divine message. God has purposely put his treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power should be ascribed to himself alone: we beseech our hearers not to be so occupied with the faults of the casket as to forget the jewel. Wisdom is justified of her children, and grace works by such instruments as it pleases. Reader, be it yours to profit by all my Master’s servants, and even by
Yours truly,
C. H. SPURGEON.
WHO HAVE BEEN CALLED ECCENTRIC?
..................
N THE PREVIOUS LECTURE WE gained some little light upon the true meaning of eccentricity, and we discovered it in certain quarters where it is little suspected, while we saw many to be free from it who have been popularly charged with it. Let it not, however, be supposed that we shall attempt the justification of all eccentrics. We are sorrowfully compelled to concede to critics of the ministry that persons have entered it who have sadly disgraced our high calling. Men in all denominations have earned notoriety by being out of center morally and spiritually: these have deserved to be called eccentric in the worst sense. Now, while we stand up for the apostles, we expressly exclude Judas Iscariot. Find us a man who tries to attract attention by the affectation of oddity, who is a mere mountebank or mimic, and we have not a word to say in his defense, but we give him over as a dead horse to the dogs of criticism. They may rend him in pieces, and devour him if so they desire, for impostors and pretenders deserve the critic’s sharpest teeth. Find us a preacher who obtains notoriety for himself by descending to buffoonery, and who goes out of his way to say smart things, and make jokes on sacred subjects, and we decline to be his advocate.
Natural humor may possibly be consecrated and made to wear the yoke of Christ, but he who apes it is no true man. If you find us a man who has any object in this world in what he says but the glory of God, and the winning of souls, he is the man who is out of center, and into his secret may we never come. And furthermore, if you discover a preacher who is indelicate, and causes the cheek of modesty to tingle, let him be cast out of the pulpit, and the door locked against him. We have known men of the Slop-dash order who would have been nothing if they had not been outrageous, and of these it may be said that they were worse than nothing when they followed their own style. There was nothing in their absurdities to excuse them, for they were not carried away by zeal, nor did the excellence of their matter make up for the ridiculousness of their manner. Of such men we will neither be defender nor judge.
We do not care whether he performs in the parish church or hangs out at a little Bethel, the man who shocks decency and plays the fool with solemn truths is unworthy of his office. I have heard that a certain preacher finding himself in Northamptonshire, among the shoemakers, in order to draw a congregation, gave notice in the morning that he would in the evening tell them the quickest way to make a pair of shoes. When they crowded the place, he bade them take a pair of boots and cut the tops off. If this was really done, then I say, let this wit among cobblers live and die at his trade, but let him not again go beyond his last. I had my doubts about this story, for I found it told both of Henley and of Hill, and I was morally certain that at least the second edition of it was an old tale new vamped; but I am sorry that I have met with an advertisement by Orator Henley which proves that he actually did this, not in Northampton, but in London, and headed his announcement with a Latin sentence signifying that the greater includes the less. We shall have more of this Orator Henley directly.
In my youth I remember the eccentric fame of a clergyman who lived near my father’s house. He found himself at church one Sunday morning with a political pamphlet in his pocket instead of his sermon, and throwing it down into the churchwarden’s pew, he bade him read a bit of it while he went home for his discourse. Many very questionable deeds were done by this parson of the old fox-hunting school, and his general manners fully entitled him to be called eccentric. It would be a pity to revive the stories told in many an Essex