The Spurgeon Series 1857 & 1858. Charles H. Spurgeon

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СКАЧАТЬ language which they cannot comprehend — the poor will not have the gospel preached to them, for they will not go to hear it. They must have something attractive to them; we must preach as Christ did; we must tell anecdotes, and stories, and parables, as he did; we must come down and make the gospel attractive. The reason why the old Puritan preachers could get congregations was this — they did not give their hearers dry theology; they illustrated it; they had an anecdote from this and a quaint passage from that classical author; here a verse of poetry; here and there even a quip or pun — a thing which nowadays is a sin above all sins, but which was constantly committed by these preachers, whom I have ever esteemed as the patterns of pulpit eloquence. Christ Jesus was an attractive preacher; he sought above all means to set the pearl in a frame of gold, that it might attract the attention of the people. He was not willing to place himself in a parish church, and preach to a large congregation of thirteen and a half, like our good brethren in the city, but would preach in such a style that people felt they must go to hear him. Some of them gnashed their teeth in rage and left his presence in wrath, but the multitudes still thronged to him to hear and to be healed. It was no dull work to hear this King of preachers, he was too much in earnest to be dull, and too humane to be incomprehensible. I believe that until this is imitated, the poor will not have the gospel preached to them. There must be an interesting style adopted, to bring the people to hear. But if we adopt such a style they will call us clownish, vulgar, and so on. Blessed be God, we have long learned that vulgarity is a very different thing from what some men suppose. We have been so taught, that we are willing to be even clowns for Christ’s sake, and as long as we are seeing souls saved we are not likely to alter our course. During this last week I have seen, I believe, a score of people who have been in the lowest ranks, the very basest of sinners, the greatest of transgressors, who have, through preaching in this place, been restored and reclaimed. Do you think then that I shall shear my locks to please the Philistine? Oh, no; by the grace of God, Samson knows where his strength lies, and is not likely to do that to please any man or any set of men. Preaching must reach the popular ear; and to get at the people it must be interesting to them, and by the grace of God we hope it shall be.

      7. But, in the next place, if the poor are to have the gospel preached to them, it must be preached simply. It is a waste of time to preach Latin to you, is it not? To the multitude of people it is of no use delivering a discourse in Greek. Possibly five or six of the assembly might be mightily edified, and go away delighted; but what of that? The mass would retire unedified and uninstructed. You talk about the education of the people, do you not, and about the vast extent of English refinement? For the most part it is a dream. Ignorance is not buried yet. The language of one class of Englishmen is a dead language to another class; and many a word which is very plain to many of us, is as hard and difficult a word to the multitude as if it had been culled out of Hindustani or Bengali. There are multitudes who cannot understand words composed of Latin, but must have the truth told to them in round homely Saxon, if it is to reach their hearts. There is my friend the Rev. So-and-So, Doctor of Divinity; he is a great student, and whenever he finds a hard word in his books he tells it next Sunday to his congregation. He has a little intellectual circle, who think his preaching must be good, because they cannot understand it, and who think it proven that he must be an intelligent man because all the pews are empty. They believe he must be a very useful member of society; in fact, they compare him to Luther, and think he is a second Paul, because no one will listen to him, seeing it is impossible to understand him. Well, we image that that good man may have a work to do, but we do not know what it is! There is another friend of ours, Mr. Cloudyton, who always preaches in such a style that if you should try to dissect the sermon for a week afterwards, you could by no possibility tell what he meant. If you could look at things from his point of view you might possibly discover something; but it does appear by his preaching that he himself had lost his way in a fog, and was scattering a whole mass of mist about him everywhere. I suppose he goes so deep down into the subject that he stirs the mud at the bottom, and he cannot find his way up again. There are some such preachers, whom you cannot possibly understand. Now, we say, and say very boldly too, that while such preaching may be esteemed by some people to be good, we have no faith in it all. If ever the world is to be reclaimed, and if sinners are to be saved, we can see no likelihood in the world of its being done by such means. We think the word must be understood before it can really penetrate the conscience and the heart; and we would always be preaching such as men can understand, otherwise the poor will not “have the gospel preached to them.” Why did John Bunyan become the apostle of Bedfordshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the surrounding area? It was because John Bunyan, while he had a surpassing genius, would not condescend to cull his language from the garden of flowers, but he went into the hay field and the meadow, and plucked up his language by the roots, and spoke in words that the people used in their cottages. Why is it that God has blessed other men to the stirring of the people, to the bringing about of spiritual revivals, to the renewal of the power of godliness? We believe it has always been owing to this — under God’s Spirit — that they have adopted the phraseology of the people, and have not been ashamed to be despised because they talked as common people did.

      8. But now we have something to say more important than this. We may preach, very simply too, and very attractively, and yet it may not be true that “the poor have the gospel preached to them,” for the poor may have something else preached to them besides the gospel. It is, then, highly important that each of us should ask what the gospel is, and that when we think we know it we should not be ashamed to say, “This is the gospel, and I will preach it boldly, though all men should deny it.” Oh! I fear that there is such a thing as preaching another gospel “which is not another, but there are some that trouble us.” There is such a thing as preaching science and philosophy attractively, but not preaching the gospel. Understand, it is not preaching, but it is preaching the gospel that is the mark of Christ’s dispensation and of his truth. Let us take care to preach fully the depravity of man, let us dwell thoroughly upon his lost and ruined estate under the law, and his restoration under the gospel; let us preach about these three things for as a good brother said, “The gospel lies in three things, the Word of God only, the blood of Christ only, and the Holy Spirit only.” These three things make up the gospel. “The Bible, the Bible alone the religion of Protestants; the blood of Christ the only salvation from sin, the only means of the pardon of our guilt, and the Holy Spirit the only regenerator, the only converting power that will alone work in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Without these three things there is no gospel. Let us take heed, then, for it is a serious matter, that when the people listen to us, it is the gospel that we preach, or else we may be as guilty as was Nero, the tyrant, who, when Rome was starving, sent his ships to Alexandria, where there was grain in plenty, not for wheat, but for sand to scatter in the arena for his gladiators. Ah! there are some who seem to do so — scattering the floor of their sanctuary, not with the good grain of the kingdom, upon which the souls of God’s people may feed and grow by it, but with sand of controversy, sand of philosophy, which no child of God can ever receive to his soul’s profit. “The poor have the gospel preached to them.” Let us take heed that it is the gospel. Hear then, oh chief of sinners, the voice of the gospel. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” “He who comes to me I will in no wise cast out.” “Whoever believes and is baptized, shall be saved.” “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save those who are lost.”

      9. And just one more hint on this point, namely, this, — it must he said of us, if we would keep true to Christ’s rule and apostolic practice, that “the poor have the gospel preached to them.” In these days there is a growing hatred of the pulpit. The pulpit has maintained its ground for many a year, but partially by its becoming inefficient, it is losing its high position. Through a timid abuse of it, instead of a strong stiff use of the pulpit, the world has come to despise it; and now most certainly we are not a priest-ridden people one half as much as we are a press ridden people. By the press we are ridden indeed. Mercuries, Despatches, Journals, Gazettes and Magazines, are now the judges of pulpit eloquence and style. They thrust themselves into the censor’s seat, and censure those whose office it should rather be to censure them. For my own part, I cheerfully accord to all men the liberty of abusing me; but I must СКАЧАТЬ