I have not much patience with a certain class of Christians nowadays who will hear anybody preach so long as they can say, 'He is very clever, a fine preacher, a man of genius, a born orator.' Is cleverness to make false doctrine palatable? Why, sirs, to me the ability of a man who preaches error is my sorrow rather than my admiration.
Interpretation
This quote expresses concern that eloquence in preaching can mislead people, valuing truth over clever presentation.
Charles Spurgeon critiques a tendency among some Christians to admire preachers for their oratory skills rather than the truthfulness of their message. He argues that the ability to present false teachings in an appealing manner is not a virtue, and instead, it should invoke sorrow for misleading the faithful. This underscores the importance of discerning truth from cleverness in religious teachings.
In practice
In a church discussion about the importance of doctrine, one might quote Spurgeon to emphasize the value of truth in preaching.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.
Fill what is empty, empty what is full, and scratch where it itches.
It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.
I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.
Stressful energy arises when you think some future moment is more important than the present moment, and the doing becomes only a means to an end.
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