Quotes from The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray Published by Banner of Truth Trust

This book is a great read. If you like history and you are interested in the doctrines of grace and the life of Charles H. Spurgeon, you will be hooked from the first chapter. There is also much here concerning what made Spurgeon the mighty preacher that he was.
Spurgeon wrote, “Our Puritan forefathers were strong men, because they lived on the Scriptures. None stood against them in their day, for they fed on good meat, whereas their degenerate children are far too fond of unwholesome food. The chaff of fiction, and the bran of the Quarterlies, are poor substitutes for the old corn of Scripture.” (p. 2)
”‘Faith,” says Spurgeon, “is reason at rest in God.” (p. 8)
“No one can say that the Bible is his creed, unless he can express it in words of his own.” (p. 9)
“Controversy for the truth against the errors of the age is, we feel more than ever convinced, the peculiar duty of the preacher.” (p. 13)
In reference to John Wycliffe, Spurgeon said, “God fits the man for the place and the place for the man; there is an hour for the voice and a voice for the hour.” (p. 16)
“Long ago I ceased to count heads. Truth is usually in the minority in this evil world.” (p. 17)
Murray says, “He [Spurgeon] scorned a dignified, impersonal presentation of the gospel and spoke to his hearers as though he was seizing them personally by the hand and talking to them in the street.” (p. 30, 31)
On prayer Spurgeon said, “Oh, for a living groan! One sigh of the soul has more power in it than half an hour’s recitation of pretty pious words. Oh, for a sob from the soul, or a tear from the heart!” (footnote, p. 33)
Murray writes of Spurgeon, “He had a mental power which enabled him to assimilate and digest and later popularize practically everything he read.” (p. 33)
“His power of reading was perhaps never equaled….He took in the contents almost at a glance and his memory never failed him as to what he read. He made a point of reading half-a-dozen of the hardest books every week. At the time of his death Spurgeon had a library of 12,000 books and it is said he could have fetched almost any one of them in the dark. Similarly, we read that ‘Mr. Spurgeon at one time as he sat on his platform, could name every one of his five thousand members.’” (footnote, p.33)
“He was steeped in what he called the golden era of English theology – the Puritan period, and above all he had been a fluent reader of the Bible since the age of six.” (pp. 33,34)
“What Spurgeon wrote of Bunyan is equally applicable to himself: ‘Read anything of his and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself.’” (p. 34)
“Spurgeon’s opinion of the Puritans…. ‘We assert this day that, when we take down a volume of Puritanical theology we find in a solitary page more thinking and more learning, more Scripture, more real teaching, than in whole folios of the effusion of modern thought.’” “Spurgeon had no patience with those who said, “We will not read anything except the book itself….” (footnote, p. 34)
An American minister once asked Spurgeon what the secret of his great influence was. “After a moment’s pause, Spurgeon said, ‘My people pray for me.’” (footnote, p. 36)
Murray writes, “The true explanation of Spurgeon’s ministry, then, is to be found in the person and power of the Holy Spirit.” (p. 36)
“A preacher, he [Spurgeon] says, ‘ought to know that he really possesses the Spirit of God, and that when he speaks there is an influence upon him that enables him to speak as God would have him [to], otherwise out of the pulpit he should go directly; he has no right to be there. He has not been called to preach God’s truth.’” (p. 36)
“To preach the whole truth is an awful charge. You and I, who are ambassadors for God, must not trifle, but we must tremble at God’s Word.” (p. 37)
“‘Jesus never preached a careless sermon,’ said Spurgeon, and he sought to be conformed to his Lord.” (p. 37)
“The pulpit to Spurgeon was the most solemn spot in the world and nothing could be further from the truth than the suggestion that he made it a place of entertainment.” (p. 38)
“Evangelism of the humorous type may attract multitudes but it lays the soul in ashes and destroys the very germs of religion.” (p. 38)
Murray writes, “The content of his preaching was more important to him than the manner of his preaching….” (p. 40)
“The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is the religion of Christ’s Church. And until we come back to that the Church will have to suffer….” (p. 56)
“The doctrinaires of today will allow a God, but he must not be a King: that is to say, they choose a god who is no god, and rather the servant than the ruler of men.” (p. 60)
“…it is the duty of ministers to oppose error even when they are held by sincere and saintly believers.” (p. 65)
“The longer I live the clearer does it appear that John Calvin’s system is the nearest to perfection.” (footnote, p. 79)
It was the practice in the Tabernacle that “At the close of services the congregation of 5,000 would be bowed in solemn stillness with no organ or other music to break the silence, and then members of the church would be ready to speak to any strangers who might be sitting near them and desiring help.” Spurgeon did not believe in the enquiry-room and he would probably have repudiated any coming forward in connection to ’coming to Christ.’ Spurgeon said, “It is a motion of the heart towards Him, not a motion of the feet, for many came to Him in body, and yet never came to Him in truth,...the coming here meant is performed by desire, prayer, assent, consent, trust, obedience.” (p. 103)
Spurgeon lists seven marks of a true conversion (p. 112, 113). You will have to get the book for these!
“Whether it be the Baptist Church, or the Episcopalian, or the Presbyterian Church which errs from Christ’s way, it is nothing to any one of us which it may be; it is Christ we are to care for, and Christ’s truth, and this we are to follow over all the hedges and ditches of men’s making.” (p. 153)
“Nothing has ever more largely promoted the union of the true than the break with the false.” (p. 159)
Murray writes, “The New Testament does not minimize the importance of sound church order and government, but whatever the difficulties connected with the subject, it can never be conceded that the Scripture warrants the permanent division of true churches, existing in the same geographical locality, into distinct groups.” (p. 159)
“If an act of sin would increase my usefulness tenfold, I have no right to do it; and if an act of righteousness would appear likely to destroy all my apparent usefulness, I am yet to do it.” (p. 162)
Murray writes, “Besides gout he now had a deadly disease in his kidneys. Returning to London, there were three months of desperate illness before he could take a few steps in the warmth of September sunshine. Of reading, writing and thinking he could now do little, though the burdens of the controversy [the down-grade controversy] of the past five years were still upon his heart, Standing on the platform at Herne Hill station on October 26, 1891, before he went to Mentone for the last time, his parting words to his friends were, ‘The fight is killing me.’” (p. 163)
Of Spurgeon’s death Murray writes, “The greater part of the last week in January was spent in unconsciousness until, in the last hour of the last day of the month, he went across the shining bridge to glory. His personal testimony to the Gospel of his Saviour was complete. Years before he had testified:
‘Ah! The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. I can hear their trampings now as they traverse the great arches of the bridge of salvation. They come by their thousands, by their myriads; e’er since the day when Christ first entered into His glory, they come, and yet never a stone has sprung in that mighty bridge. Some have been the chief of sinners, and some have come at the very last of their days, but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support; it will bear me over as it has borne them.’” (p. 164)
Chapters 8, 9, and 10 deal with controversies Spurgeon was involved in and the sad aftermath of the Metropolitan Tabernacle upon his death.