The Prince of Preachers

Someone quoted the Prince of Preachers this morning. For those who are not familiar with him, Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) had an intellect that was equal to that of William Shakespeare. Both men had a vocabulary of 23,000 words (the average person has about 13,000 words). You may have to read what he says a couple of times. I don’t say that in a condescending way, but because of the language of the era in which they were penned:

"The atheist is, morally, as well as mentally, a fool, a fool in the heart as well as in the head; a fool in morals as well as in philosophy. With the denial of God as a starting point, we may well conclude that the fool’s progress is a rapid, riotous, raving, ruinous one. He who begins at impiety is ready for anything. 'No God,' being interpreted, means no law, no order, no restraint to lust, no limit to passion."

"Those who talk so abominably as to deny their Maker will act abominably when it serves their turn."

"Men of the world are apt to say, 'You are such a set of bigots; you think everybody wrong but yourselves.' Is it wonderful [in the truest sense of the word 'wonder'] that if we think we are right, we do not believe that those who are opposed to us can be right also?"

"He who hates truth soon hates its advocate."

"He that perverts truth shall soon be incapable of knowing the true from the false. If you persist in wearing glasses that distort, everything will be distorted to you."

"He who thinks he never was a fool is a fool now. He who never owns that he is wrong will never get right."

"Instead of being humbled in the presence of scientific infidels, we ought to pity them; they affect to look down upon us, but we have far more cause to look down upon them."