I was listening to a sermon today and the pastor was referencing Spurgeon’s books. He stated that Spurgeon had a great sense of humor and liked to use illustrations. However, he stated that all of his humor and illustrations had been deleted from his sermons. I had not heard this before. Maybe Elijah could check up on this at Southern, of course in all his spare time.
Kent
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
sorry for the delay.
This is how we have Spurgeon's sermons in written form:
Whenever he preached, Spurgeon had his sermon recorded with a stenographer. A day or so later, the two of them met up and Spurgeon corrected any mistakes and filled in any gaps in the stenographer's transcription (cause, yeah, the man was a genius.) Then, they would send it to the printers and that spurgeon would be published in weekly circulation.
If there was any editing out of humor or illustrations, it was done by the man himself.
NOW, we do know that he was edited from time to time by others from the slavery controversy.
Spurgeon was so outspoken against slavery that a few American publications of his sermons were edited for content so that people would read them, rather than get upset because he was anti-slavery, but as for the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, those were, as far as i know, unedited.
Hardly a page goes by without an illustration of some sort, whether it be an elaborate tale, a quote from Pilgrim's progress, or a simple one-liner. His sermons are FILLED with these.
He also did use humor. The following is the famous (if you've seen Haze's Calvinism DVD) "Arminian Prayer," with the context within the sermon.
You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer—for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying,
"Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not—that is the difference between me and them."
That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that. Ah! when they are preaching and talking very slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out; they cannot help it.
(NPSP vol. 1, "Free Will-A Slave")
Well, i may have a sick sense of humor, but i sure thought it was funny...
Moreover. Lectures To My Students is a collection of 4 smaller books (each chapter being a lecture...to his students...). The third section is wholly devoted to illustrations and anecdotes.
As I uderstand, he wrote a whole chapter in his 2-volume autobiography devoted to the use of humor in his preaching, but as i have not read that, i cannot comment on it.
On pretty much every account i can think of, Spurgeon was hilarious to be around.
When (and i think i quoted this already, concerning tobacco) A lady saw him smoking, she said "Sir! Don't you know that's the devil's weed?!!" and he replied "Ma'am! Don't you know that's why i'm burning it?!!"
One of my favorites is the baptism debate:
Spurgeon and a paedobaptist were debating and the terms were that each would give his best proof text for his position. The infant baptist got up. "Suffer the little children, let them come to me." Everybody applauded. Spurgeon got up. "There was a man from the land of Uz, and his name was Job." Everybody looked confused. "Mr. Spurgeon," the paedobaptist said,"I don't understand what your text has to do with believers-obly baptism." "Neither do i see what your text has to do with infant baptism. Bring little children to Jesus, not to the baptismal fount."
I have found that Spurgeon didn't use a lot of humor in the pulpit though, because he took the Gospel and the task of preaching so seriously.
here's a link to the chapter (or at least excerpts from it) in his autobiography.
http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/abio081.htm
I apologize that
1. this took so long.
2. this is so long.
and
3. this is incomplete. most of it has been off the top of my head, with the remainder being filled in by his Lectures to my Students, or www.spurgeon.org
--Elijah
I have not been able to confirm the information about the possible deletions of some of his illustrations or humor. Of course I wonder how we would know unless seeing maybe the originals. I just hope it is not true.
Can you confirm that Spurgeon quit smoking later in life because he was affraid it was giving the wrong impression to some of his congregation. I heard this a few years ago but cannot the source.
Thanks for the excellant info.
And I also thought is was funny but sad.
BigDog
well the New Park Street Pulpit (vol. 1-6--i have that) and the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (vol. 7-63--i have just number 7) are pretty much the originals.
You can still get them (pending availability) today, as they are still in print.
Pilgrim Publications (www.pilgrimpublications.com) is a tiny little printing company in texas devoted to Spurgeon. Their awesome claim to fame is that they in no way edit things, they produce ONLY facsimilie copies of the original.
Lectures to my Students, that you can buy at the store, is abridged (even though they blatantly lie on the cover and say "unabridged"). I know this because i bought my copy from Pilgrim, and it has several extra chapters. (there's even a man's name handwritten in at the top of a page--this came from a well used original copy)
The way the NPSP/MTP was made was that Pilgrim copied the original sermons, as they were originally printed (they [the sermons i mentioned in my 1st comment which were edited by the man himself] were collected and published yearly).
SO, we have access to pretty much the originals of Spurgeon's sermons, as best as i understand the process.
Wow! Am I really giving a discourse on Charles Spurgeon Textual Criticism? I did NOT see this coming when i started typing.
I also have heard about Spurgeon giving up smoking later in life, but i cannot confirm it. (i need to just read his autobiography!)
I do know this: [BTW, this is taken from phil johnson's website, www.spurgeon.org)
"Enjoying your 'bacca again, sir!" said old George, Mr. Spurgeon's tried and trusted servant, one day when his master was lighting a cigar.
"I can do without my 'bacca' a good deal easier than you can, George," said the master.
"I don't believe you can, sir."
"Very well, George, don't smoke again until I do."
"Agreed, sir."
A week passed—a fortnight. Poor old George was dying for his pipe. One was asked to intercede with the master that George might be allowed to have it.
"No, no!" said Mr. Spurgeon. "He made a bargain; let him stick to it."
Eventually George was allowed to smoke, but Mr. Spurgeon did not have a cigar for months after that. . . .
hope that helps.
--elijah
by the way, you can get a smaller, green 5 or 10 volume set (they are the same set, just that in the former, the latter's volumes are doubled up and twice as thick)called "Spurgeon's Sermons" from Baker, but this is just a best-of collection, and may very well be edited.
I believe that Jeremy, Haze and Bro. Paul all have this set.
Elijah,
The sermon I heard and referenced in my post also recommended Pilgrims Publishing. The preacher stated that he recommends them because they do not tamper with Mr Spurgeon's sermons.
I just ordered the new book published from Spurgeon, called: "All of Grace". Well, I am not sure how new it is. Must be nice to be in Heaven and still be publishing books.
Haze, Jeremy and Bro. Paul have plenty of extra time on their hands to read all of Spurgeon's books. I have looked at his sermon series before but have not purchased it yet. I am glad I waited so I can get an unabridged copy.
The smoking incident I mentioned might have been the one you referenced. It has been so long I am not sure. I really appreciate the time you have taken to help me out. Thanks Muchly.
BigDog
I also recommend Phil Johnson's [Johnson is, to the best of my knowledge, John MacArthur's right hand man] website, www.spurgeon.org
He has a lot of unedited sermons posted there.
There's also www.spurgeongems.com or .org or something, but they update them to modern English, so tampering with content is definately possible.
I forget when All of Grace was written, but it was the first book ever published by the company that first published it, and to this day remains their all-time best seller.
It is my pleasure to do whatever i can for you. Spurgeon and Greek are the only two theological things that i'm any good at (and i'm not even that good at them, at that) so i enjoy it.
--Elijah
Sorry, every time you mention something I remember some more of the sermon. He also said that if you get the book from Pilgrim they usually do not update them to modern English, thus less likely to miss something.
I went to the web site you suggested but how do you know what sermons are unedited?
BigDog
well, i have vol's 1-7 of Pilgrim's editions. So, i can read the same sermon from both sources and know that www.spurgeon.org doesn't edit them (well, i can know that they don't edit the ones i checked.)
Pilgrim's awesome, but they don't have online ordering so you have to call in your orders, and they're also not cheap.
but sometimes accuracy and precision costs a little more. i guess the question is: what do you value more? (note that i'm not saying that there's anything wrong with conservatively edited sermons)
--Elijah
Of course you guys know me I would rather pay more and have "accuracy and precision". I would be a little leary of someone editing someone else's sermons. We all bring our bias into a particular situation.
As I have already shared with Elijah, I have finally found one of the Spurgeon quotes I was searching for.
Later in Surgeons life he saw what liquor was doing to England and he stopped drinking and waged an assault on alcohol.
“Next to the preaching of the Gospel the most necessary thing to be done in England is to induce our people to become abstainers.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
(Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers by Lewis A. Drummond)
BigDog
Post a Comment