A New Volume of Spurgeon’s Sermons
Day One—a Christian publishing company—recently announced the release of a volume of previously unpublished Charles Spurgeon sermons. A few facts about the corpus of Spurgeon sermons testify to the uniqueness of this publication and the magnitude of Spurgeon’s sermonic contributions.
Spurgeon began publishing an annual volume of sermons at the age of 21, and soon, these annual volumes achieved great commercial success. Before his 30th birthday, Spurgeon had sold over 6,000,000 copies of individual sermons.
Estimations of the total number of Spurgeon sermons sold in the nineteenth century are astounding and verge suspiciously toward hyperbole. Biographers, W. Y. Fullerton and Charles Ray attest to the sale of hundreds of millions of individual copies of Spurgeon’s sermons.
Sales figures are not the only evidence of the popularity of Spurgeon’s sermons. Helmut Thielicke recounts that Spurgeon’s sermons were “cabled to New York every Monday and reprinted in the leading newspapers of the country.”
Though Spurgeon’s harsh stance against slavery would diminish his popularity in America (he once said he would just as soon admit a murder as a member of his church than a “man-stealer”), his sermons continued to engender international interest. In his lifetime, Spurgeon’s sermons were translated into over twenty languages, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Braille.
The sheer quantity of Spurgeon’s homiletical output is astounding. Thirty-seven annual volumes of sermons appeared in his lifetime, and the new volumes continued twenty-six years after his death.
George Truett tallied over 3,500 printed Spurgeon sermons: “[r]eading one a day would take ten years!” These literary labors came from a man who died in his fifties.
These data make Day One’s new edition of Spurgeon’s sermons quite impressive. Rare indeed is the Spurgeon sermon that has not been printed previously. This publication also speaks to Spurgeon’s massive literary output. Sixty-three volumes of sermons later, and unprinted sermons are still emerging.
A more valuable discussion would focus on the content of Spurgeon’s preaching. But for now, let the sheer number of his sermons impress upon you, and consider Spurgeon, oh you sluggard.
