Preaching for the Poor
A Sermon
(No. 114)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 25, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"The poor have the gospel preached to them."–Matt. 11:5.
JOHN, the forerunner of Christ, had some followers who continued with
him after Christ had come in the flesh, and openly manifested himself
among the people. These disciples were in doubt as to whether Jesus was
the Messiah or no. I believe that John himself had no doubt whatever
upon the matter, for he had received positive revelations, and had
given substantial testimonies on the subject. But in order to relieve
their doubts, John said to his disciples, in some such words, "Go and
ask him yourselves;" and, therefore, he dispatched them with this
message, "Tell us whether thou art he that should come, or do we look
for another?" Jesus Christ continuing his preaching for a while, said,
"Stay and receive your answer;" and instead of giving them an
affirmative reply, "I am that Messiah," he said, "Go and show John
again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their
sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
As much as to say, "That is my answer; these things are my
testimonies–on the one hand, that I come from God, and, on the other
hand, that I am the Messiah." You will see the truth and force of this
reply, if you will observe that it was prophesied of the Messiah, that
he should do the very things which Jesus at that moment was doing. It
is said of Messias, in the 35th chap. of Isaiah, at the 5th and 6th
verses, "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of
the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters
break out, and streams in the desert." The Jews had forgotten this too
much; they only looked for a Messiah who should be clothed with
temporal grandeur and dignity, and they overlooked the teaching of
Isaiah, that he should be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."
And besides that, you observe, they overlooked the miracles which it
was prophesied should attend the coming of the glorious one, the King
of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus gave this as his answer–a practical
demonstration of John's problem, proving to an absolute certainty. But
he not only referred to the miracles, he gave them a further
proof–"The poor have the gospel preached to them." This, also, was one
evidence that he was Messias. For Isaiah, the great Messianic prophet,
had said, "He shall preach the gospel unto the meek;" that is, the
poor. And in that Jesus did so, it was proved that he was the man
intended by Isaiah. Besides, Zechariah mentions the congregation of the
poor who attend on him, and therein evidently foretold the coming of
Jesus Christ, the preacher to the poor.
I shall not, however, dwell upon these circumstances this morning; it
must be apparent to every hearer, that here is sufficient proof that
Jesus Christ is the person who had been foretold under the name of
Shiloh, or Messiah. We all believe that, and, therefore, there is
little need that I should try to prove what you have already received.
I rather select my text this morning as one of the constant marks of
the gospel in all ages and in every land. "The poor have the gospel
preached to them." This is to be its semper idem its constant stamp.
And we believe, where the poor have not the gospel preached unto them,
there is a departure from the dispensation of the gospel, the forsaking
of this which was to be a fundamental trait and characteristic of the
gospel dispensation: "The poor have the gospel preached to them."
I find that these words will bear three translations; I shall,
therefore, have three heads, which shall be composed of three
translations of the text. The first is that of the authorised version:
"The poor have the gospel preached to them;" it is also Tyndal's
version. The second is the version of Crammer, and the version of
Geneva, which is the best, "The poor are evangelized," that is to say,
they not only hear the gospel, but they are influenced by it;–the poor
receive it. The last is a translation of some eminent writers, and
above all, of Wyckliffe, which amused me when I read it, although I
believe it to be as correct as any of the others. Wyckliffe translates
it–"pore men ben taken to prechynge of the gospel." The verb may be
equally well translated in the active as in the passive sense: "The
poor have taken to the preaching of the gospel." That is to be one of
the marks of the gospel dispensation in all times.
I. First, then, THE AUTHORISED VERSION, "The poor have the gospel
preached to them." It was so in Christ's day; it is to be so with
Christ's gospel to the end of time. Almost every impostor who has come
into the world has aimed principally at the rich, and the mighty, and
the respectable; very few impostors have found it to be worth their
while to make it prominent in their preaching that they preach to the
poor. They went before princes to promulgate their doctrines; they
sought the halls of nobles where they might expatiate upon their
pretended revelations. Few of them thought it worth their while to
address themselves to those who have been most wickedly called "the
swinish multitude," and to speak to them the glorious things of the
gospel of Christ. But it is one delightful mark of Christ's
dispensation, that he aims first at the poor. "The poor have the gospel
preached to them." It was wise in him to do so. If we would fire a
building, it is best to light it at the basement; so our Saviour, when
he would save a world, and convert men of all classes, and all ranks,
begins at the lowest rank, that the fire may burn upwards, knowing
right well that what was received by the poor, will ultimately by his
grace be received by the rich also. Nevertheless, he chose this to be
given to his disciples, and to be the mark of his gospel–"The poor
have the gospel preached to them." Now, I have some things to say this
morning, which I think are absolutely necessary, if the poor are to
have the gospel preached unto them.
In the first place, let me say then, that the gospel must be preached
where the poor can come and hear it. How can the poor have the gospel
preached to them, if they cannot come and listen to it? And yet how
many of our places of worship are there into which they cannot come,
and into which, if they could come, they would only come as inferior
creatures. They may sit in the back seats, but are not to be known and
recognised as anything like other people. Hence the absolute necessity
of having places of worship large enough to accommodate the multitude;
and hence, moreover, the obligation to go out into the highways and
hedges. If the poor are to have the gospel preached unto them, then we
must take it where they can get it. If I wanted to preach to English
people, it would be of no use for me to go and stand on one of the
peaks of the Himalayas, and begin preaching; they could not hear me
there. And it is of little avail to build a gorgeous structure for a
fashionable congregation, and then to think of preaching to the poor;
they cannot come any more than the Hottentots can make their journey
from Africa and listen to me here. I should not expect them to come to
such a place, nor will they willingly enter it. The gospel should be
preached, then, where the poor will come; and if they will not come
after it, then let it be taken to them. We should have places where
there is accommodation for them, and where they are regarded and
respected as much as any other rank and condition of men. It is with
this view alone that I have laboured earnestly to be the means of
building a large place of worship, because I feel that although the
bulk of my congregation in New Park-street Chapel are poor, yet there
are many poor who can by no possibility enter the doors, because we
cannot find room for the multitudes to be received. You ask me why I do
not preach in the street. I reply, I would do so, and am constantly
doing so in every place except London, but here I cannot do it, since
it would amount to an absolute breach of the peace, it being impossible
to conceive what a multitude of people must necessarily be assembled. I
trembled when I saw twelve thousand on the last occasion I preached in
the open air; therefore I have thought it best, for the present at
least, to desist, until happily there shall be fewer to follow me.
Otherwise my heart is in the open air movement; I practise it
everywhere else, and I pray God to give to our ministers zeal and
earnestness, that they may take the gospel into the streets, highways
and byeways, and compel the people to come in, that the house may be
filled. Oh that God would give us this characteristic mark of his
precious grace, that the poor might have the gospel preached unto them!
"But," you reply, "there are plenty of churches and chapels to which
they might come." I answer, yes, but that is only one half of the
matter. The gospel must be preached attractively before the poor will
have the gospel preached unto them. Why, there is no attraction in the
gospel to the great mass of our race, as it is currently preached. I
confess that when I have a violent headache, and cannot sleep, I could
almost wish for some droning minister to preach to me; I feel certain I
could go to sleep then, for I have heard some under the soporific
influence of whose eloquence I could most comfortably snore. But it is
not at all likely that the poor will ever go to hear such preachers as
these. If they are preached to in fine terms–in grandiloquent language
which they cannot lay hold of–the poor will not have the gospel
preached to them, for they will not go to hear it. They must have
something attractive to them; we must preach as Christ did; we must
tell anecdotes, and stories, and parables, as he did; we must come down
and make the gospel attractive. The reason why the old puritan
preachers could get congregations was this–they did not give their
hearers dry theology; they illustrated it; they had an anecdote from
this and a quaint passage from that classic author; here a verse of
poetry; here and there even a quip or pun–a thing which now-a-days is
a sin above all sins, but which was constantly committed by these
preachers, whom I have ever esteemed as the patterns of pulpit
eloquence. Christ Jesus was an attractive preacher; he sought above all
means to set the pearl in a frame of gold, that it might attract the
attention of the people. He was not willing to place himself in a
parish church, and preach to a large congregation of thirteen and
a-half, like our good brethren in the city, but would preach in such a
style that people felt they must go to hear him. Some of them gnashed
their teeth in rage and left his presence in wrath, but the multitudes
still thronged to him to hear and to be healed. It was no dull work to
hear this King of preachers, he was too much in earnest to be dull, and
too humane to be incomprehensible. I believe that until this is
imitated, the poor will not have the gospel preached to them. There
must be an interesting style adopted, to bring the people to hear. But
if we adopt such a style they will call us clownish, vulgar, and so on.
Blessed be God, we have long learnt that vulgarity is a very different
thing from what some men suppose. We have been so taught, that we are
willing to be even clowns for Christ's sake, and so long as we are
seeing souls saved we are not likely to alter our course. During this
last week I have seen, I believe, a score of persons who have been in
the lowest ranks, the very meanest of sinners, the greatest of
transgressors, who have, through preaching in this place, been restored
and reclaimed. Do you think then I shall shear my locks to please the
Philistine? Oh, no; by the grace of God, Samson knoweth where his
strength lieth, and is not likely to do that to please any man or any
set of men. Preaching must reach the popular ear; and to get at the
people it must be interesting to them, and by the grace of God we hope
it shall be.
But, in the next place, if the poor are to have the gospel preached
unto them, it must be preached simply. It is a waste of time to preach
Latin to you, is it not? To the multitude of people it is of no use
delivering a discourse in Greek. Possibly five or six of the assembly
might be mightily edified, and go away delighted; but what of that? The
mass would retire unedified and uninstructed. You talk about the
education of the people, don't you, and about the vast extent of
English refinement? For the most part it is a dream. Ignorance is not
buried yet. The language of one class of Englishmen is a dead language
to another class; and many a word which is very plain to many of us, is
as hard and difficult a word to the multitude as if it had been culled
out of Hindostani or Bengali. There are multitudes who cannot
understand words composed of Latin, but must have the truth told them
in round homely Saxon, if it is to reach their hearts. There is my
friend the Rev. So-and-so, Doctor of Divinity; he is a great student,
and whenever he finds a hard word in his books he tells it next Sunday
to his congregation. He has a little intellectual circle, who think his
preaching must be good, because they cannot understand it, and who
think it proven that he must be an intelligent man because all the pews
are empty. They believe he must be a very useful member of society; in
fact, they compare him to Luther, and think he is a second Paul,
because nobody will listen to him, seeing it is impossible to
understand him. Well, we conceive of that good man that he may have a
work to do, but we do not know what it is. There is another friend of
ours, Mr. Cloudyton, who always preaches in such a style that if you
should try to dissect the sermon for a week afterwards, you could by no
possibility tell what he meant. If you could look at things from his
point of view you might possibly discover something; but it does appear
by his preaching as if he himself had lost his way in a fog, and were
scattering a whole mass of mist about him everywhere. I suppose he goes
so deep down into the subject that he stirs the mud at the bottom, and
he cannot find his way up again. There are some such preachers, whom
you cannot possibly understand. Now, we say, and say very boldly too,
that while such preaching may be esteemed by some people to be good, we
have no faith in it all. If ever the world is to be reclaimed, and if
sinners are to be saved, we can see no likelihood in the world of its
being done by such means. We think the word must be understood before
it can really penetrate the conscience and the heart; and we would
always be preaching such as men can understand, otherwise the poor will
not "have the gospel preached to them." Why did John Bunyan become the
apostle of Bedfordshire, and Huntingdonshire, and round about? It was
because John Bunyan, while he had a surpassing genius, would not
condescend to cull his language from the garden of flowers, but he went
into the hayfield and the meadow, and plucked up his language by the
roots, and spoke out in words that the people used in their cottages.
Why is it that God has blessed other men to the stirring of the people,
to the bringing about of spiritual revivals, to the renewal of the
power of godliness? We believe it has always been owing to this–under
God's Spirit–that they have adopted the phraseology of the people, and
have not been ashamed to be despised because they talked as common
people did.
But now we have something to say more important than this. We may
preach, very simply too, and very attractively, and yet it may not be
true that "the poor have the gospel preached to them," for the poor may
have something else preached to them beside the gospel. It is, then,
highly important that we should each of us ask what the gospel is, and
that when we think we know it we should not be ashamed to say, "This is
the gospel, and I will preach it boldly, though all men should deny
it." Oh! I fear that there is such a thing as preaching another gospel,
"which is not another, but there be some that trouble us." There is
such a thing as preaching science and philosophy attractively, but not
preaching the gospel. Mark, it is not preaching, but it is preaching
the gospel that is the mark of Christ's dispensation and of his truth.
Let us take care to preach fully the depravity of man, let us dwell
thoroughly upon his lost and ruined estate under the law, and his
restoration under the gospel; let us preach of these three things, for,
as a good brother said, "The gospel lies in three things, the Word of
God only, the blood of Christ only, and the Holy Spirit only." These
three things make up the gospel. "The Bible; the Bible alone the
religion of Protestants; the blood of Christ the only salvation from
sin, the only means of the pardon of our guilt; and the Holy Spirit the
only regenerator, the only converting power that will alone work in us
to will and to do of his good pleasure." Without these three things
there is no gospel. Let us take heed, then, for it is a serious matter,
that when the people listen to us, it is the gospel that we preach, or
else we may be as guilty as was Nero, the tyrant, who, when Rome was
starving, sent his ships to Alexandria, where there was corn in plenty,
not for wheat, for sand to scatter in the arena for his gladiators. Ah!
there be some who seem to do so–scattering the floor of their
sanctuary, not with the good corn of the kingdom, upon which the souls
of God's people may feed and grow thereby, but with sand of
controversy, and of logic, which no child of God can ever receive to
his soul's profit. "The poor have the gospel preached to them." Let us
take heed that it is the gospel. Hear then, ye chief of sinners, the
voice of Jesus. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of
whom I am chief." "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."
"Whosoever believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." "For the Son of
man is come to seek and save that which is lost."
And just one more hint on this point, namely, this,–it must be said of
us, if we would keep true to Christ's rule and apostolic practice, that
"the poor have the gospel preached to them." In these days there is a
growing hatred of the pulpit. The pulpit has maintained its ground full
many a year, but partially by its becoming inefficient, it is losing
its high position. Through a timid abuse of it, instead of a strong
stiff use of the pulpit, the world has come to despise it; and now most
certainly we are not a priest-ridden people one-half so much as we are
press-ridden people. By the press we are ridden indeed. Mercuries,
Despatches, Journals, Gazettes and Magazines, are now the judges of
pulpit eloquence and style. They thrust themselves into the censor's
seat, and censure those whose office it should rather be to censure
them. For my own part, I cheerfully accord to all men the liberty of
abusing me; but I must protest against the lying conduct of at least
one editor, who has misquoted in order to pervert my meaning, and has
done more; he has, to his eternal disgrace, manufactured a quotation
from his own head, which never did occur in my works or words. The
pulpit has become dishonoured; it is esteemed as being of very little
worth and of no esteem. Ah! we must always maintain the dignity of the
pulpit. I hold that it is the Thermopylae of Christendom; it is here
the battle must be fought between right and wrong–not so much with the
pen, valuable as that is as an assistant, as with the living voice of
earnest men, "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto
the saints." In some churches the pulpit is put away; there is a
prominent altar, but the pulpit is omitted. Now, the most prominent
thing under the gospel dispensation is not the altar which belonged to
the Jewish dispensation, but the pulpit. "We have an altar, whereof
they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle;" that altar is
Christ; but Christ has been pleased to exalt "the foolishness of
preaching" to the most prominent position in his house of prayer. We
must take heed that we always maintain preaching. It is this that God
will bless; it is this that he has promised to crown with success.
"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." We must not
expect to see great changes nor any great progress of the gospel until
there is greater esteem for the pulpit–more said of it and thought of
it. "Well," some may reply, "you speak of the dignity of the pulpit; I
take it, you lower it yourself, sir, by speaking in such a style to
your hearers." Ah! no doubt you think so. Some pulpits die of dignity.
I take it, the greatest dignity in the world is the dignity of
converts–that the glory of the pulpit is, if I may use such a
metaphor, to have captives at its chariot-wheels, to see converts
following it, and where there are such, and those from the very worst
of men; there is a dignity in the pulpit beyond any dignity which a
fine mouthing of words and a grand selection of fantastic language
could ever give to it. "The poor have the gospel preached to them."
II. now, the next translation is, THE TRANSLATION OF GENEVA,
principally used by Calvin in his commentary; and it is also the
translation of Thomas Crammer, whose translation, I believe, was at
least in some degree moulded by the Genevan translation. He translates
it thus:–"The poor receive the gospel." The Genevan translation has
it, "The poor receive the glad tidings of the gospel," which is a
tautology, since glad tidings mean the same thing as gospel. The Greek
has it, "The poor are evangelised." Now, what is the meaning of this
word "evangelised?" They talk with a sneer in these days of evangelical
drawing-rooms and evangelicals, and so on. It is one of the most
singular sneers in the world; for to call a man an evangelical by way
of joke, is the same as calling a man a gentleman by way of scoffing at
him. To say a man is one of the gospellers by way of scorn, is like
calling a man a king by way of contempt. It is an honourable, a great,
a glorious title, and nothing is more honourable than to be ranked
among the evangelicals. What is meant, then, by the people being
evangelised? Old Master Burkitt, thinking that we should not easily
understand the word, says, that as a man is said to be Italianised by
living among the Italians, getting their manners and customs, and
becoming a citizen of the state, so a man is evangelised when he lives
where the gospel is preached and gets the manners and customs of those
who profess it. Now, that is one meaning of the text. One of the proofs
of our Saviour's mission is not only that the poor hear the Word, but
are influenced by it and are gospelized. Oh! how great a work it is to
gospelize any man, and to gospelize a poor man. What does it mean? It
means, to make him like the gospel. Now, the gospel is holy, just, and
true, and loving, and honest, and benevolent, and kind, and gracious.
So, then, to gospelize a man is to make a rogue honest, to make a
harlot modest, to make a profane man serious, to make a grasping man
liberal, to make a covetous man benevolent, to make the drunken man
sober, to make the untruthful man truthful, to make the unkind man
loving, to make the hater the lover of his species, and, in a word, to
gospelize a man is, in his outward character, to bring him into such a
condition that he labours to carry out the command of Christ, "Love thy
God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." Gospelizing,
furthermore, has something to do with an inner principle; gospelizing a
man means saving him from hell and making him a heavenly character; it
means blotting out his sins, writing a new name upon his heart–the new
name of God. It means bringing him to know his election, to put his
trust in Christ, to renounce his sins, and his good works too, and to
trust solely and wholly upon Jesus Christ as his Redeemer. Oh! what a
blessed thing it is to be gospelized! How many of you have been so
gospelized? The Lord grant that the whole of us may feel the influence
of the gospel. I contend for this, that to gospelize a man is the
greatest miracle in the world. All the other miracles are wrapped up in
this one. To gospelize a man, or, in other words, to convert him, is a
greater work than to open the eyes of the blind; for is it not opening
the eyes of the blind soul that he may see spiritual matters, and
understand the things of heavenly wisdom, and is not a surgical
operation easier than operation on the soul? Souls we cannot touch,
although science and skill have been able to remove films and cataracts
from the eyes. "The lame walk." Gospelizing a man is more than this. It
is not only making a lame man walk, but it is making a dead man who
could not walk in the right way walk in the right way ever afterwards.
"The lepers are cleansed." Ah! but to cleanse a sinner is greater work
than cleansing a leper. "The deaf hear." Yes, and to make a man who
never listened to the voice of God hear the voice of his Maker, is a
miracle greater than to make the deaf hear, or even to raise the dead.
Great though that be, it is not a more stupendous effort of divine
power than to save a soul, since men are naturally dead in sins, and
must be quickened by divine grace if they are saved. To gospelize a man
is the highest instance of divine might, and remains an unparalleled
miracle, a miracle of miracles. "The poor are evangelized."
Beloved, there have been some very precious specimens of poor people
who have come under the influence of the gospel. I think I appeal to
the hearts of all of you who are now present, when I say there is
nothing we more reverence and respect than the piety of the poor and
needy. I had an engraving sent to me the other day which pleased me
beyond measure. It was an engraving simply but exquisitely executed. It
represented a poor girl in an upper room, with a lean-to roof. There
was a post driven in the ground, on which was a piece of wood, standing
on which were a candle and a Bible. She was on her knees at a chair,
praying, wrestling with God. Everything in the room had on it the stamp
of poverty. There was the mean coverlet to the old stump bedstead;
there were the walls that had never been papered, and perhaps scarcely
whitewashed. It was an upper story to which she had climbed with aching
knees, and where perhaps she had worked away till her fingers were worn
to the bone to earn her bread at needlework. There it was that she was
wrestling with God. Some would turn away and laugh at it; but it
appeals to the best feelings of man, and moves the heart far more than
does the fine engraving of the monarch on his knees in the grand
assembly. We have had lately a most excellent volume, the Life of
Captain Hedley Vicars; it is calculated to do great good, and I pray
God to bless it; but I question whether the history of Captain Hedley
Vicars will last as long in the public mind as the history of the
Dairyman's Daughter, or the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. The histories
of those who have come from the ranks of the poor always lay hold of
the Christian mind. Oh! we love piety anywhere; we bless God where
coronets and grace go together; but if piety in any place do shine more
brightly than anywhere else, it is in rags and poverty. When the poor
woman in the almshouse takes her bread and her water, and blessed God
for both–when the poor creature who has not where to lay his head, yet
lifts his eye and says, "My Father will provide," it is then like the
glow-worm in the damp leaves, a spark the more conspicuous for the
blackness around it. Then religion gleams in its true brightness, and
is seen in all its lustre. It is a mark of Christ's gospel that the
poor are gospelized–that they can receive the gospel. True it is, the
gospel affects all ranks, and is equally adapted to them all; but yet
we say, "If one class be more prominent than another, we believe that
in Holy Scripture the poor are most of all appealed to." "Oh!" say some
very often, "the converts whom God has given to such a man are all from
the lower ranks; they are all people with no sense; they are all
uneducated people that hear such-and-such a person." Very well, if you
say so; we might deny it if we pleased, but we do not know that we
shall take the trouble, because we think it no disgrace whatever; we
think it rather to be an honour that the poor are evangelized, and that
they listen to the gospel from our lips. I have never thought it a
disgrace at any time. When any have said, "Look, what a mass of
uneducated people they are." Yes, I have thought, and blessed be God
they are, for those are the very people that want the gospel most. If
you saw a physician's door surrounded by a number of ladies of the
sentimental school, who are sick about three times a week, and never
were ill at all–if it were said he cured them, you would say, "No
great wonder too, for there never was anything the matter with them."
But if you heard of another man, that people with the worst diseases
have come to him, and that God has made use of him, and his medicine
has been the means of healing their diseases, you would then say,
"There is something in it, for the people that want it most have
received it." If, then, it be true that the poor will come to hear the
gospel more than others, it is no disgrace to the gospel, it is an
honour to it, that those who most want it do freely receive it.
III. And now I must close up by briefly dwelling on the last point. It
was the third translation, WYCKLIFFE'S TRANSLATION. To give it you in
old English–"Poor men are taking to the preaching of the gospel."
"Ah!" say some, "they had better remain at home, minding their ploughs
or their blacksmith's hammer; they had better have kept on which their
tinkering and tailoring, and not have turned preachers." But it is one
of the honours of the gospel that poor men have taken to the preaching
of it. There was a tinker once, and let the worldly-wise blush when
they hear of it–there was a tinker once, a tinker of whom a great
divine said he would give all his learning if he could preach like him.
There was a tinker once, who never so much as brushed his back against
the walls of a college, who wrote a "Pilgrim's Progress. Did ever a
doctor in divinity write such a book. There was a pot-boy once–a boy
who carried on his back the pewter pots for his mother, who kept the
Old Bell. That man drove men mad, as the world had it, but led them to
Christ, as we have it, all his life long, until, loaded with honours,
he sank into his grave, with the good will of a multitude round about
him, with an imperishable name written in the world's records, as well
as in the records of the church. Did you ever hear of any mighty man,
whose name stood in more esteem among God's people than the name of
George Whitfield? And yet these were poor men, who, as Wyckliffe said,
were taking to the preaching of the gospel. If you will read the life
of Wyckliffe, you will find him saying there, that he believed that the
Reformation in England was more promoted by the labours of the poor men
whom he sent out from Lutterworth than by his own. He gathered round
him a number of the poor people whom he instructed in the faith, and
then he sent them two and two into every village, as Jesus did. They
went into the market-place, and they gathered the people around; they
opened the book and read a chapter, and then they left them a
manuscript of it which for months and years after the people would
assemble to read, and would remember the gospellers that had come to
tell them the gospel of Christ. These men went from market-place to
market-place, from town to town, and from village to village, and
though their names are unknown to fame, they were the real reformers.
You may talk of Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley; they did much, but
the real reformers of the English nation were people whose names have
perished from the annals of time, but are written in the records of
eternity. God has blessed the poor man in preaching the truth. Far be
it from me to depreciate learning and wisdom. We should not have had
the Bible translated without learning and the more learning a man can
have, if he be a sanctified man, the better; he has so many more
talents to lay out in his Master's service; but it is not absolutely
necessary for preaching of the Word. Rough, untamed, untaught energy,
has done much in the church. A Boanerges has stood up in a village; he
could not put three words together in grammatical English; but where
the drowsy parson had for many a year lulled all his people into an
unhallowed rest, this man started up, like the herdsman Amos, and
brought about a great awakening. He began to preach in some cottage;
people thronged around him, then a house was built, and his name is
handed down to use as the Rev. So-and-so, but then he was known as Tom
the ploughman, or John the tinker. God has made use of men whose origin
was the most obscure, who seemed to have little, except the gifts of
nature, which could be made use of in God's service; and we hold that
this is no disgrace, but on the contrary an honour, that poor men are
taking to preaching the gospel.
I have to ask you this morning to help some poor men in preaching the
gospel. We are constantly receiving letters from our poor brethren, and
it is very seldom that we say "No," to their appeals for assistance,
but we must do so, unless our friends, more especially those who love
the gospel, really will do something towards the maintenance of God's
faithful servants. I have, during the past year, preached many times
for ministers on this ground, that they could not live unless some
preached a sermon and made a collection for them. In some places the
population was so small that they could not maintain their minister,
and in others it was a new movement, and therefore they were unable to
support him. Some of you subscribe to the Church Pastoral Aid Society.
That is a very excellent society, but I never could see any good in it.
There are many poor clergy in the Church of England who want assistance
bad enough; but if you want to know the right way of keeping poor
curates, I will tell you. Split a bishop up into fifty, and that will
do it. If that could be done at once and speedily, there would be no
need of Pastoral Aid Societies. You will say, perhaps, "Let such a
thing be done in our denomination." I answer that we have no bishops
with whom such a thing could be done. I believe there is not to be
found one minister in the whole Baptist denomination whose salary has
ever exceeded £600, and there are only three, I believe, who receive as
much as that, of which I am not one, and these three men are in such a
position that their demands are great, and they have not one penny too
much, while the great mass of our denomination receive £20, £30, £40,
£50, £60, and so on, but below £100. The sum collected to-day will be
given to those whose incomes are below £80, and whose needs are great.
And now, beloved, I have opened my mouth for the dumb, and pleaded the
cause of the poor, let me end by entreating the poor of the flock to
consider the poor man's Christ; let me urge them to give Him their
thoughts, and may the Lord enable them to yield him their hearts. "He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth
not shall be damned."
May God bless the high and low, the rich and poor; yea, all of you, for
his name's sake.