The Saint And His Saviour

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

Genres: Theology, Christian

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1857

About the author

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) was England's best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1854, just four years after his conversion, Spurgeon, then only 20, became pastor of London's famed New Park Street Church (formerly pastored by the famous Baptist theologian, John Gill). The congregation quickly outgrew their building, moved to Exeter Hall, then to Surrey Music Hall. In these venues, Spurgeon frequently preached to audiences numbering more than 10,000—all in the days before electronic amplification. In 1861, the congregation moved permanently to the newly constructed Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book, charting the "progress of the soul in the knowledge of Jesus" (subtitle), that is, his or her experience from awakening on through conversion and into deeper experiences of communion with Christ. I read the edition published by Pilgrim Publications in 1970. This was Spurgeon's first book, published in 1857.

There are many valuable insights in this book, with some beautiful passages of almost rapturous prose expressing Spurgeon's adoring love for the Savior. My favorite sections were chapters 7 ("Love to Jesus") and 8 ("Love's Logic"). Spurgeon says, "The highest conceivable state of spirituality is produced by a concentration of all the powers and passions of the soul upon the person of Christ" (p. 203). These two chapters aim at such a concentration, as Spurgeon presses the glories of Christ upon the soul and expounds the way of love.

Spurgeon viewed spiritual emotions as an essential component in one's spirituality. "There must be in our religion fair proportion of believing, thinking, understanding, and discerning, but there must be also the preponderating influences of feeling, loving, delighting, and desiring," he wrote. "That religion is worth nothing which has no dwelling in man but his brain. To love much is to be wise; to grow in affection is to grow in knowledge, and to increase in tender attachment is to be making high proficiency in divine things" (p. 240-241).

Spurgeon's insights on the experience of "Jesus Hiding Himself" (chapter 10), "The Causes of Apparent Desertion" (chapter 11), and how to preserve communion with Christ (chapter 12) are also very good.

That said, I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as Spurgeon's sermons. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, Spurgeon's sermons were essentially edited transcripts which carried the character, urgency, and force of the spoken word. This book has a more literary flavor, with the prolixity characteristic of the Victorian era. Second, Spurgeon's sermons were self-contained each usually limited to about eight pages. That makes them easy to read, with each sermon a complete entity in and of itself. The book on the other hand is long and often verbose. To put it kindly, Spurgeon takes his time getting to the point in this book and uses 334 pages to say what could have been said in 150. Perhaps later editions trim this down somewhat. If so, that's probably a gain.

Is this book worth reading? Yes. Spurgeon always is. Is it Spurgeon at his best? No. If your time for reading is short, go to his sermons instead.

[Philip Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad for his first book. Definitely not Spurgeon at his best, but this book has some gold nuggets. This is like the Spurgeon equivalent of Peter Parker swinging around in that crappy suit before he gets his awesome suit: very cool, but will get cooler.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read a book like this, but it is an extremely valuable book to read. Spurgeon walks the reader through each experience of the Christian, from the time they despised Christ, through their conversion and into suffering and persevering as a Christian. Each topic he considers is broken down into points to help the reader understand the various factors, reason, effects etc of the situation. While such a description sounds coldly analytical the book is anything but. It glows with the warmth of Spurgeon's love for his saviour and he clearly had only one thing in view when writing: his wonderful Lord Jesus. Spurgeon's whole aim in this book, I believe, is to reveal to us the wonderful works of Christ in the sinner and grow in his readers a deep and lasting love for Him. As such, it's a book any Christian must read, as we can never have too much encouragement to see where our love is wanting and to grow our love where it already exists.
And as a side night, Spurgeon is the master of using Biblical imagery to make a point stunningly clear. The way he melds Biblical references together is actually amazing - it's clear he had read the Bible deeply for many years.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spurgeon hasn't disappointed me yet. His writing inspires and fascinates. He had, without a doubt, a very special anointing. He has become my favorite, second only to the writers of Holy Scripture.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. I love Spurgeon but this book I honestly found hard to read. I was struggling with fatigue through the first half of the book and had to set it aside as I couldn’t take anything in. However even after picking it back up months later I still found it hard to get into. Don’t get me wrong there is plenty of gold within but you have to dig through a bit of wordiness to get there it seemed. Definitely worth the effort in the end though.

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 I enjoyed the reminder of what our loving God does to draw us to him and sustain our relationship with him. But Spurgeon loves the metaphors and similes and sometimes overused them, in my opinion, so I found myself skimming some. I would still like to read some of his later writings/sermons.

[Timothy Coplin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging.
Instructional.
Encouraging.
Relationship changing.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spurgeon is one of my favorite authors. That said, this book is written in an older style of language, but is worth the work to read! The book is very encouraging (as always), and a constant reminder of what Jesus has done and why that matters.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book which stirs the reader's affections for Christ. Mr. Spurgeon uses language reminiscent of his Puritan forefathers, but it is well worth the reader's time and effort.

[Valerie Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

off to a hard and rocky start... put it down... read another book.... then tried again... and it was great once i saw the pattern and purpose of this book!