Spurgeon's Sermons: Volume 2

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Genres: Nonfiction

441 pages, Hardcover

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

[Liza Lehman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this volume better than the first. Spurgeon had such a beautiful way of wording the truth of Scripture that I highlighted several lines to easily find later on.

Still, the all topical style of preaching leaves much room for taking verses out of context and large space for fitting Scripture to one's own opinion. At one point, Spurgeon said he would rather be accused of drawing too much from a verse than not enough, but, having been taught a multitude of errors through topical preaching in my life, I hold that it is just as dangerous.

[Adam Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second doubled volume in this edition of Spurgeon's collection of sermons. There are about 900 pages of sermonizing here. Overall, it's enjoyable and gets into quite a few aspects of the Christian life. For critiques, I would say that this gets slightly repetitive over time. He speaks on different parts of scripture but hits the same points on many occasions, which is understandable for a preacher like him who never really intended to have his sermons collected.

Another issue I take with it would be the sermons (about one per collection of sermons, placing the count at two in this book) where Spurgeon goes off in saying that biblical Christianity is identical with Calvinism so if you do not like Calvinism, then you are being unbiblical. I hear this from Calvinists today as well, often when they try to defend the doctrines of Limited Atonement and Double Predestination (which Spurgeon does here) to declare that Christ only died for some people because God predestined the others to go to hell. Considering no other Christian denomination believed/believes this in the history of Christianity, all of whom have the Bible, it makes more sense to conclude Calvinism is wrong then to have this doctrine springing up suddenly in the 16th century being correct.

[Cameron Borders · Rating 5 out of 5]

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