|
Greatest Preacher Since PAUL !
As Thomas Armitage stated, for over a hundred years, the name of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon has been a household word among Christians. W. Y. Fullerton, his close friend and one
of his many biographers, said: "To me he is master and friend. I have neither known nor heard of
any other, in my time, so many-sided, so commanding, so simple, so humble, so selfless, so
entirely Christ's man. Proudly I stand at the salute!"
B. H. Carroll, founder of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at Fort Worth,
Texas, stated: "Charles Haddon Spurgeon, by common consent, is acknowledged to be the
greatest preacher since apostolic times. I have seen 2,500 of his published sermons. They are as
plump as a partridge, and as full of meat as an egg!" By topical arrangement, Carroll said the
sermons would constitute "a complete body of systematic theology." "With whom among men can
you compare him? He combined the preaching power of Jonathan Edwards and Whitefield with the
organizing power of Wesley, and the energy, fire, and courage of Luther. In many respects he was
most like Luther; in many most like Paul."
Thomas Armitage, who during Spurgeon's time pastored the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of
New York City and authored the classic work A History of the Baptists, said in 1887, "Charles
Haddon Spurgeon, whose name is a household word the world over, is the most remarkable
minister of Christ now living!"
William Cathcart, another notable Baptist historian of Spurgeon's time and the editor of the
deservedly famous Baptist Encyclopedia, referred to him as "the most widely known preacher of
the age." Russell Conwell, another of his many biographers and author of the immortal Acres of
Diamonds, called Mr. Spurgeon "the world's greatest divine." "The life of Spurgeon contains so
much that is strange, unusual, wonderful, and even truly miraculous, that it will require most careful
statement and most conservative reasoning to convince the reader that the record is literally
TRUE."
C. H. Spurgeon began preaching near London as a lad of fifteen and in time gained the
distinction of being called "The Prince of Preachers," "The Puritan of the Broad Brim," "The Heir of
the Puritans," "Last of the Puritans," and like names. He himself only wanted to be a "John
Ploughman," keeping his hand to the plough and ploughing a straight furrow. Like those above,
many outstanding ministers of his own day — such as D. L. Moody, J. Hudson Taylor, J. C. Ryle,
F. B. Meyer, the Bonar brothers, George Muller, William Robertson Nicoll — regarded C. H.
Spurgeon as the most influential preacher of their time.
Nicoll (1851-1923), editor of the Expositor's Bible, is recognized as an outstanding scholar
and theologian. He said: "Spurgeon was, in fact, one of the great doctors of divinity; he had an
intuitive knowledge of the ways of God and of the needs of the human heart, and in all his
preaching his one object was to commend God to men." Nicoll said that Spurgeon's great sermons
comprised a "Body of Divinity" within themselves. Time has justified his prophetic opinion: "The
continued life and power of his printed sermons show that his oratory, noble as it was, was not the
first thing. Our firm belief is that these sermons will continue to be studied with growing interest and
wonder; that they will ultimately be accepted as incomparably the greatest contribution to the
literature of experimental Christianity that has been made in this century (19th), and that their
message will go on transforming and quickening lives after all other sermons of the period are
forgotten."
As if Spurgeon knew that his own influence would continue long after departing this earthly
life, a month before he died he said —
"Those preachers whose voices were clear and mighty for truth during life continue to
preach in their graves. Being dead, they yet speak — and whether men put their ears to
their tombs or not, they cannot but hear them... Often the death of a man is a kind of new
birth to him — when he himself is gone physically, he spiritually survives, and from his grave
there shoots up a tree of life whose leaves heal nations. O' worker for God, death cannot
touch thy sacred mission! Be thou content to die if the truth shall live the better because
thou diest. Be thou content to die, because death may be to thee the enlargement of thine
influence. Good men die as dies the seed-corn which thereby abideth not alone. When
saints are apparently laid in the earth, they quit the earth, and rise and mount to
Heaven-gate, and enter into immortality. No, when the sepulchre receives this mortal
frame, we shall not die, but live."
Written
by Bob L. Ross, Director of Pilgrim Publications. His article was edited for this page.
|
