My Sermon Notes

Charles H. Spurgeon

VOLUMES 1 & 2

Genesis to Malachi

Baker Book House

Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506

First published in 1884

Volume 1

ISBN: 0-8010-8202-1

Volume 2

ISBN: 0-8010-8204-8

Four-Volume Set

ISBN: 0-8010-8201-3

Preface*

It is not always easy to select themes for sermons. Even those who are able to give all their time to reading and study are sometimes glad of a suggestion by which they are directed to a topic; how much more is this the case when a man is all the week engaged in commercial pursuits, and then has to preach twice on the Lord’s-day. These are called lay-brethren by those who believe in a special priesthood; I can only say that whatever they are called they are among the right honourables of the pulpit. Frequently have brethren assured me of the difficulty they have found in choosing a text when they could only get a brief interval to themselves, and that at a time when they were well-nigh worn out. On several occasions the question has been put to me, “Could you not help us with some outlines of discourses?” To which I have replied that there were many works of that kind in the market. The reply has been that they would like something plainer and less rhetorical. I felt encouraged by their request to try what could be done in the direction indicated.

I have prepared these frame-works, not to encourage indolence, but to help bewildered industry; and I hope that I have not written so much as to enable any man to preach without thought, nor so little as to leave a weary mind without help.

So far as I remember, none of these outlines have been in the printer’s hands before. They are notes of sermons which have not been included in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. Certain of them may have been printed in provincial newspapers, or in magazines, or even in some of my own volumes; but I do not think so.

My actual notes were a little too scanty to be understood by any one but myself, and therefore I have filled them up. The front of an ordinary envelope has frequently sufficed to hold my memoranda; but now that I find it needful to write in a bolder hand, I use the half of a sheet of note paper. I sometimes wish that I had never used even this; for the memory loves to be trusted, and the more fully it is relied upon the more does it respond to our confidence. The preachers who can entirely dispense with notes must be few; but, if their preaching is up to the mark, they are happy men. Some go on crutches, and read almost all the sermon; this, as a rule, must be a lame business. The most of us need to carry a staff, even if we do not often lean upon it. The perfectly able man requires nothing of the kind. I am not one of these first-class brethren; “with my staff have I crossed this Jordan,” and I hereby lend it to any who feel that they can pursue their journey by its aid.

It is on my mind to prepare four of these half-crown volumes: two upon the Old Testament and two upon the New. I shall see how far the first two are ...