THE PRINCE OF PREACHERS
ON THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE
The Five Points of Calvinism, also known as the Doctrines of Grace, feature largely in Spurgeon’s sermons and written works. Often presented in the acrostic TULIP, these doctrines are Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints.
In his very first message at the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Spurgeon stated, “I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist.” He went on to preach an overview of the Doctrines of Grace and was followed by messages from five other ministers on each of these points of Calvinism.
Spurgeon even included a chapter in his autobiography entitled A Defense of Calvinism. In it he states,
There is no soul living who holds more firmly to the doctrines of grace than I do, and if any man asks me whether I am ashamed to be called a Calvinist, I answer that I wish to be called nothing but a Christian; but if you ask me if I hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin, I reply that I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it.
Spurgeon does, however, offer an important clarification regarding this moniker. In reference to the term Calvinism, Spurgeon commented:
That doctrine which is called “Calvinism” did not spring from Calvin; we believe that it sprang from the great founder of all truth…. We use the term then, not because we impute any extraordinary importance to Calvin’s having taught these doctrines. We would be just as willing to call them by any other name, if we could find one which would be better understood, and which on the whole would be as consistent with fact.
Spurgeon did not label himself a Calvinist out of a reverence for John Calvin, but because he believed that these doctrines spring forth from the very pages of Scripture. To him, the term Calvinism was simply shorthand for the Christian gospel. He saw its doctrines plainly in the Bible and taught them boldly from his pulpit, declaring:
I shall not blush to preach before you the doctrine of God’s Divine Sovereignty; I shall not stagger to preach in the most unreserved and unguarded manner the doctrine of election. I shall not be afraid to propound the great truth of the final perseverance of the saints; I shall not withhold that undoubted truth of Scripture, the effectual calling of God’s elect; I shall endeavor, as God shall help me, to keep back nothing from you who have become my flock.
For Spurgeon, to neglect the preaching of Calvinist doctrine was to hold something back from his congregation. This was something that he would not do. Since these truths were to be found in Scripture, they were to be proclaimed from the pulpit.
Below are Spurgeon’s quotes on Calvinism, grouped under each doctrine represented by TULIP.
GENERAL CALVINISM QUOTES
When a Calvinist says that all things happen according to the predestination of God, he speaks the truth, and I am willing to be called a Calvinist. But when an Arminian says that when a man sins, the sin is his own, and that if he continues in sin, and perishes, his eternal damnation will lie entirely at his own door, I believe that he also speaks the truth, though I am not willing to be called an Arminian. The fact is, there is some truth in both these systems of theology.
I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.
I do not ask whether you believe Calvinism. It is possible you may not. But I believe you will before you enter heaven. I am persuaded that as God may have washed your hearts, he will wash your brains before you enter heaven.
I love the pure doctrine of unadulterated Calvinism. But if that be wrong—if there be anything in it which is false—I for one say, “Let that perish too, and let Christ’s name last forever. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Crown him Lord of all!”
George Whitefield said, “We are all born Arminians.” It is grace that turns us into Calvinists.
“Calvinism” did not spring from Calvin. We believe that it sprang from the great Founder of all truth.
There are certain doctrines called Calvinistic, which I think commend themselves to the minds of all thoughtful persons for this reason mainly—they ascribe to God everything.
John Calvin propounded truth more clearly than any other man who ever breathed, knew more of Scripture, and explained it more clearly.
If you ask me, “Do you hold the doctrinal views which were held by John Calvin?” I reply, “I do in the main hold them, and rejoice to avow it.” But far be it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none within her walls but Calvinistic Christians, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views.
Rest assured that the doctrines commonly called Calvinistic are the only doctrines that can shut the mouths of devils and fill the mouths of saints in the day of famine and in the time of extremity.
I am not a Calvinist by choice, but because I cannot help it.
I believe nothing merely because Calvin taught it, but because I have found his teaching in the Word of God.
We hold and assert again and again that the truth which Calvin preached was the very truth which the apostle Paul had long before written in his inspired epistles, and which is most clearly revealed in the discourses of our blessed Lord himself.
I will defy any man who has had a deep experience of his own odious depravity to believe any other doctrines but those which are commonly called Calvinism.
When my spirit gets depressed, nothing will sustain it but the good old-fashioned Calvinistic doctrine.
I was reading the other day a book containing the life of a very excellent Methodist minister, and I was greatly amused to find in his diary an allusion to myself. He says, “Went to hear Mr. Spurgeon. He is a rank Calvinist, but a good man.” I was pleased to find that I was a good man, and I was equally pleased to find that I was a rank Calvinist. I believe that he is one, too, now that he has gone to heaven. There may be Arminians on earth, but they are not after they get there.
SPURGEON QUOTES ON TOTAL DEPRAVITY
Our prayers have stains in them, our faith is mixed with unbelief, our repentance is not so tender as it should be, our communion is distant and interrupted. We cannot pray without sinning, and there is filth even in our tears.
In the best prayer that was ever offered by the holiest man that ever lived, there was enough sin to render it a polluted thing, if the Lord had looked upon it by itself. The sins of our holy things are alone enough to condemn us.
As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature. It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived.
No man living has ever exaggerated his own sin or thought too basely of himself. There does not live beneath the canopies of heaven any man whose sense of sin is as deep as the sin really is.
There is no beast in wolf or lion or serpent that is so brutish as the beast in man. According to the Levitical law, he that touched a dead animal was unclean till evening, but he who touched a dead man was unclean seven days. For man is a seven times more polluting creature than any of the beasts of the field when his animal nature rules him.
A very hell of corruption lies within the best saint.
When young folks tell me how terribly wicked they are, and therefore they are afraid that they cannot be saved, I sometimes reply, “Yes, but you are much worse than you think you are.” They look so astonished, for they hoped to be comforted, and they are plunged into a deeper ditch. I tell them that the Lord Jesus came to save the weak and worthless. We lay the ax to the tree of self that men may fly to the tree of life.
Objection is sometimes made to the doctrine of total depravity. If men turn away from God in anger, I can understand it. If men turn aside from God in justice, I can understand it. But when they so hate God that they will not even have his salvation, when they refuse pardon through the precious blood of Christ, when they will sooner be damned than reconciled to God, this shows that their heart is desperately wicked. The cross rejected is the clearest proof of the heart depraved.
The treatment of our Lord Jesus Christ by men is the clearest proof of total depravity. Those must be stony hearts indeed which can laugh at a dying Savior and mock even his faith in God!
Hell itself does not contain greater monsters of iniquity than you and I might become. Within the magazine of our hearts there is powder enough to destroy us in an instant, if omnipotent grace did not prevent.
If you do not believe in human depravity, accept a pastorate in this wicked London, and if you are true to your commission, you will doubt no more!
All manner of evils and sins multiply in the heart like fishes in the sea.
Our very prayers need to be prayed over; our tears need to be wept over; our repentance has something in it that needs to be repented of; and our spiritual life itself often has much of death about it. Sin penetrates our holy things.
I truly believe that if the devil were to be converted and become a holy angel again, it would not be more wonderful than the conversion of some who are now present.
You may walk over a grassy hill and think yourself perfectly secure. Yet underneath there may be a slumbering volcano, liable to break out at any moment. By the Word of God we are faithfully warned that there is a sink of iniquity within our soul—a black and foul spring—a foul generator of everything that is evil in the very fountain of our nature.
Nothing that I know of so clearly proves that man’s heart is absolutely estranged from all that is good as that man rejects the gospel of grace, refuses divine mercy, and tramples underfoot the very blood of the Son of God.
There is enough of the fire of hell in you who are the most like Christ to set all hell alight again if the infernal fires were ever put out.
I can well remember, when I was under deep conviction of sin, wishing that I had been a frog or a toad rather than a human being, because I felt myself to be so foul in the sight of God.
The depravity of mankind is a miracle of sin. It is as great a miracle, from one point of view, as the grace of God is from another. Jesus Christ neglected! Eternal love slighted! Infinite mercy disregarded!
A good brother said to me the other day, concerning a certain boy, that he was afraid we should never do much with him because he was of very corrupt origin. I said, “So were you.” “Ah!” he replied, “I do not quite mean it that way.” “No,” I said, “but I do.”
SPURGEON QUOTES ON UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
If left to ourselves, the road to hell would be as naturally our choice as for a piece of inanimate matter to roll downwards, instead of assisting itself upwards.
You must first deny the authenticity and full inspiration of the Holy Scripture before you can legitimately and truly deny election.
If God requires of the sinner, dead in sin, that he should take the first step, then he requires just that which renders salvation as impossible under the gospel as it was under the law, since man is as unable to believe as he is to obey.
Your damnation is your own election, not God’s.
I believe the man who is not willing to submit to the electing love and sovereign grace of God has great reason to question whether he is a Christian at all, for the spirit that kicks against that is the spirit of the unhumbled, unrenewed heart.
I have never preached this doctrine without seeing conversions, and I believe I never shall.
Who is to have authority in the matter of gracious adoption? The children of wrath? Surely not; and yet all men are such! No, it stands to reason, to common sense, that none but the parent can have the discretion to adopt.
Is your heart resting upon Jesus Christ? Does it meditate upon divine things? Is your heart a humble heart? Are you constrained to ascribe all to sovereign grace? Do you desire holiness? Do you find your pleasure in it? Does your heart ascribe praises to God? Is it a grateful heart? And is it a heart that is wholly fixed upon God, desiring never to go astray? If it be, then you have the marks of election.
It always seems inexplicable to me that those who claim free will so very boldly for man should not also allow some free will to God. Why should not Jesus Christ have the right to choose his own bride?
I can never cease to wonder that God has elected me.
From the Word of God I gather that damnation is all of man, from top to bottom, and salvation is all of grace, from first to last. He that perishes chooses to perish; but he that is saved is saved because God has chosen to save him.
A controversialist once said, “If I thought God had a chosen people, I should not preach.” That is the very reason why I do preach. What would make him inactive is the mainspring of my earnestness. If the Lord had not a people to be saved, I should have little to cheer me in my ministry.
I believe that God will save his own elect. And I also believe that if I do not preach the gospel, the blood of men will be laid at my door.
Whatever may be said about the doctrine of election, it is written in the Word of God as with an iron pen, and there is no getting rid of it. To me, it is one of the sweetest and most blessed truths in the whole of revelation, and those who are afraid of it are so because they do not understand it. If they could but know that the Lord had chosen them, it would make their hearts dance for joy.
I believe in divine election, because somebody must have the supreme will in this matter, and man’s will must not occupy the throne, but the will of God.
Our Savior has bidden us to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). He has not said, “Preach it only to the elect,” and though that might seem to be the most logical thing for us to do, yet since he has not been pleased to stamp the elect in their foreheads or put any distinctive mark upon them, it would be an impossible task for us to perform. When we preach the gospel to every creature, the gospel makes its own division, and Christ’s sheep hear his voice, and follow him.
I am quite certain that God has an elect people, for he tells me so in his word. And I am equally certain that everyone who comes to Christ shall be saved, for that also is his own declaration in the Scriptures. When people ask me how I reconcile these two truths, I usually say that there is no need to reconcile them, for they have never yet quarreled with one another.
I have sometimes felt that, had God not redeemed my soul, I must reverence him for redeeming others. Had I never tasted of his love at all myself, yet the story of his love to his enemies is such that I could fall down and worship him.
Can you, O rejector, cast election out of the Bible? Would you be like the woman at the feet of Solomon, and have the child rent in halves, that you might have your half (1 Kings 3:26)? Is it not here in Scripture?
It has been said that the doctrine of election leads to carelessness and to hard-heartedness in sin. What truth has not been perverted? You may teach rightly that God is long-suffering, and that at the eleventh hour he still invites a sinner to himself. But has not that very fact helped to lull sinners to sleep? There is no passage in Scripture which may not be the means of a man’s destruction, if he wills to make it so.
Rebellion against divine election is often founded on the idea that the sinner has a sort of right to be saved, and this is to deny the full desert of sin.
Should any here, supposing themselves to be the children of God, imagine that there is some reason in them why they should have been chosen, let them know that as yet they are in the dark concerning the first principles of grace, and have not yet learned the gospel.
How is it that some of us are converted, while our companions in sin are left to persevere in their godless career? Was there anything good in us that moved the heart of God to save us? God forbid that we should indulge the blasphemous thought!
If I were to plead that the rose bud were the author of the root, I might indeed be laughed at. That which is the effect cannot be the cause. But what original good is there in any man? If God chose us for anything good in ourselves, we must all be left unchosen. Have we not all an evil heart of unbelief? Have we not all departed from his ways?
An old woman told John Newton she was sure that God chose her before she was born, for he never would have chosen her afterwards, and I think there is some truth in that remark.
SPURGEON QUOTES ON LIMITED ATONEMENT
I would rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than a universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will of men be joined with it.
If it were Christ’s intention to save all men, how deplorably has he been disappointed!
Some insist that Christ died for everybody. Why, then, are not all men saved? Because all men will not believe? That is to say that believing is necessary in order to make the blood of Christ efficacious for redemption. We hold that to be a great lie.
We believe the very contrary, that faith does not give efficacy to the blood, but is only the proof that the blood has redeemed that man. We hold that Christ only redeemed those men who will ultimately attain unto eternal life. We do not believe that he redeemed the damned. We do not believe that he poured out his life blood for souls already in hell. We never can imagine that Christ suffered in the stead of all men, and that afterwards these same men have to suffer for themselves, that in fact Christ pays their debts, and then God makes them pay their debts over again. We think that the doctrine that men by their wills give efficacy to the blood of Christ is derogatory to the Lord Jesus. We rather hold that he laid down his life for his sheep, and that this secured the salvation of every one of them. We believe this because “of him, and through him, and to him, are all things” (Rom. 11:36).
Some say that all men are Christ’s by purchase. But, beloved, you and I do not believe in a sham redemption which does not redeem. We do not believe in a universal redemption which extends even to those who were in hell before the Savior died, and which includes the fallen angels as well as unrepentant men. We believe in an effectual redemption, and can never agree with those who would teach us that Christ’s blood was shed in vain.
A redemption which pays a price, but does not ensure that which is purchased—a redemption which calls Christ a substitute for the sinner, but yet which allows the person to suffer—is altogether unworthy of our apprehensions of Almighty God. It offers no homage to his wisdom, and does despite to his covenant faithfulness. We could not and would not receive such a travesty of divine truth as that would be. There is no ground for any comfort whatever in it.
SPURGEON QUOTES ON IRRESISTIBLE GRACE
What is there to be said to you sinners about this power of the Spirit? Why, to me, there is some hope for you. I cannot save you; I cannot get at you. I make you cry sometimes—you wipe your eyes, and it is all over. But this power can save you. It is able to break your heart, though it is an iron one. It is able to make your eyes run with tears, though they have been like rocks before.
I believe that Christ came into the world not to put men into a solvable state, but into a saved state. Not to put them where they could save themselves, but to do the work in them and for them, from first to last. If I did not believe that there was might going forth with the Word of Jesus which makes men willing, and which turns them from the error of their ways by the mighty, overwhelming, constraining force of a divine influence, I should cease to glory in the cross of Christ.
I take it that the highest proof of Christ’s power is not that he offers salvation, not that he bids you take it if you will, but that when you reject it, when you hate it, when you despise it, he has a power whereby he can change your mind, make you think differently from your former thoughts, and turn you from the error of your ways.
If God should please, the Holy Spirit could at this moment make every one of you fall on your knees, confess your sins, and turn to God. He is an Almighty Spirit, able to do wonders.
I must confess I never would have been saved if I could have helped it. As long as I could, I rebelled and revolted and struggled against God. When he would have me pray, I would not pray. When he would have me listen to the sound of the ministry, I would not. And when I heard, and the tear rolled down my cheek, I wiped it away and defied him to melt my heart. Then he gave me the effectual blow of grace, and there was no resisting that irresistible effort. It conquered my depraved will and made me bow myself before the sceptre of his grace.
And so it is in every case. Man revolts against his Savior, but where God determines to save, save he will. God never was thwarted yet in any one of his purposes. Man does resist with all his might, but all the might of man, tremendous though it be for sin, is not equal to the majestic might of the Most High.
Man by nature is as a wild horse dashing to the precipice. If he be restrained in his course and turned away from danger, it is because he has a mighty Rider, and one that knows how to pull the bit and guide him as he pleases. And though he kick and plunge and long to turn away, his Rider can pull him up on his very haunches, turn him around, and make him go as he wills. In this matter is it true that all the bringing home of the gospel to the soul of man is of God.
Oh, what a joy it is to think that it does not rest with man whether he should belong to Christ or not. If the Father has ordained him to be Christ’s, then Christ’s that man shall be. Rampart yourselves about with prejudices, but Christ shall scale your ramparts. Pile up your walls, bring up the big stones of your iniquity, but Christ shall yet take your citadel and make you a captive. Plunge into the mire if you will, but that strong arm can bring you out and wash you clean. There is not strength enough in sin to overcome his grace.
Erskine, in speaking of his own conversion, says he ran to Christ “with full consent against his will,” by which he meant it was against his old will, against his will as it was till Christ came. But when Christ came, then he came to Christ with full consent, and was willing to be saved—as pleased to receive Christ as if grace had not constrained him.
A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disarms him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.
Difficulty is not a word to be found in the dictionary of heaven. Nothing can be impossible with God. The swearing reprobate, whose mouth is blackened with profanity, whose heart is a very hell, and his life like the reeking flames of the bottomless pit—such a man, if the Lord but looks on him and makes bare his arm of irresistible grace, shall yet praise God and bless his name and live to his honor. Do not limit the Holy One of Israel. Persecuting Saul became loving Paul, and why should not that person be saved for whom you have been praying until now, but of whose case you almost despair?
“You deny, then,” says one, “the free will of man?” Who says that? I never denied it. On the contrary, I insist on it more than most men. There is no opposition between the doctrine of irresistible grace and the free agency of man.
“How,” say you, “if man be thus irresistibly carried as by storm, can he be free?”
Think, man, and answer for yourself. Were you never overcome in argument? Did you never resist an argument for a time, till at last another reason was given, and then another, and you could not but yield to the overwhelming arguments? Did you then prove that you had no reason of your own? No, it proved you had a reason.
I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. A poor haul of fish will any gospel fisherman make if he takes none but those who are eager to leap into the net. Oh, for five minutes of the great Shepherd’s handiwork!
Man is perfectly free, and God violates not the human will. Yet he is as much able to rule perfectly free agents as he is to control the atoms of inert matter. It is omnipotence which compels yonder starry orbs to obey the laws which God has made and to travel in their appointed courses. But to my mind it is even more marvelous omnipotence which leaves men free agents and controls not their will, but yet sweetly triumphs over them.
Sometimes the more unlikely ones are the first to be converted. You probably remember the story of the man who went to hear George Whitefield preach, who had filled his pocket with stones to throw at God’s servant. But as he preached the gospel, the man dropped one stone after another, until all the stones were gone. And better still, God had taken the stony heart out of his flesh and given him a heart of flesh.
In one sense, no man comes to God with compulsion; and in another sense, no man comes without compulsion. You see two boxes opened. There are two ways of opening them. You see one box wrenched. Who opened it? A thief. God never opens men’s hearts in that way.
You see another box open—no sign of damage, no sign of any particular labor. Who opened it? The person who had the key—the owner. Hearts belong to God, and he has the keys and opens them—sweetly opens them.
SPURGEON QUOTES ON PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
I think few doctrines more vital than that of the perseverance of the saints, for if ever one child of God did perish, or if I knew it were possible that one could, I should conclude at once that I must, and I suppose each of you would do the same. And then where is the joy and happiness of the gospel?
If anybody could possibly convince me that final perseverance is not a truth of the Bible, I should never preach again, for I feel I should have nothing worth preaching.
That doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints is, I believe, as thoroughly bound up with the standing or falling of the gospel as is the article of justification by faith. Give that up, and I see no gospel left.
If I did not believe the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I think I should be of all men the most miserable, because I should lack any ground for comfort.
I have often said that if any man could convince me that Scripture did not teach the perseverance of believers, I would at once reject Scripture altogether as teaching nothing at all, as being an incomprehensible book, of which a plain man could make neither head nor tail, for this seems to be of all doctrines the one that lies most evidently upon the surface.
If there is one doctrine I have preached more than another, it is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints even to the end.
I protest that if you take final perseverance from me, you have robbed the Bible of one of its crowning attractions.
We never preach the saving power of temporary, unpractical, unsanctifying faith. If a man says, “I believe in Christ, and therefore I shall be saved,” his faith will have to be tested by his life. If, sometime after, he has no faith in Christ, that faith which he claimed to have is proved to be good for nothing. The faith of God’s elect is an abiding faith. “Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three” (1 Cor. 13:13). Thus true faith is classed among the abiding things; it is undying, unquenchable. If you truly believe in Jesus, it is for life.
If you take away from me the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints, I have not anything left that is worth keeping. I should not care about the gospel if that essential feature of it were gone. That truth seems to me to be the very soul of it.
I think that the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints is one of those that are most plainly taught in the Scriptures. Those who oppose it have an irresistible array of passages of Scripture to contend with. They have, indeed, when they attack this truth, to leap into a lion’s den.
The doctrine of final perseverance of believers seems to me to be written as with a beam of sunlight throughout the whole of Scripture. If that is not true, there is nothing at all in the Bible that is true. It is impossible to understand the Bible at all if it is not so.
If there is anything taught in Scripture for certain, it is the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints. I am as sure that doctrine is as plainly taught as the doctrine of the deity of Christ.
