Part 1 — What is Eccentricity?
From the earliest period it has been found impossible for the messengers whom God has sent to suit their style of utterences to the tastes of all. In all generations useful preachers of the gospel have been objected to by a portion of the community. Mere chips in the porridge may escape censure and mildly win the tolerance of indifference, but decided worth will be surrounded by warm friends and redhot foes. He who hopes to preach so as to please everybody must be newly come into the ministry; and he who aims at such an object would do well speedily to leave its ranks.
But let us pay our attention to this dreadful word “eccentric”, and then see by what means it has been fixed upon certain preachers of the gospel, and those not the least in usefulness.
What is it to be eccentric? The short and easy method for determining the meaning of a word is to go to the dictionary. Dr. Samuel Johnson, what say you? The sage replies, “it signifies deviating from the centre, or not having the same centre as another circle.” I suppose, then, the popular meaning is that a man is off the circle, or in a more vulgar phrase, “Off the square.” But the point is, who is to tell us what the square is, and who is to decide which circle a man is bound to follow? Circle A is eccentric to circle B, but circle B is quite as much eccentric to circle A. A man called me a Dissenter the other day, and I admitted that I dissented from him; but I charged him with being a Dissenter because he dissented from me. Such terms, if they are to be accurately employed, require a fixed standard. And in the case of “eccentricity” we need first to settle a centre and a circumference, from which we may depart. God grant that we may not be eccentric towards God either as to holiness, or truth, for that were fatal. But when fashion and custom mark out ill-proportioned imitations of the circle of perfection, it may be grandly right to be eccentric, for an eccentric path many of the saints have trodden as they have tracked the narrow way in the teeth of the many who persue the downward road. From such consecrated eccentricity comes martyrs, reformers, and the leaders of the advance guard of freedom and progress.
But as to preachers and their mode of procedure, what is eccentricity? Who is to fix the centre? Shall this important task devolve upon those gentlemen who buy lithographed sermons and preach them as their own? These men are in no danger of violating propriety in the excess of their zeal, for their discourses are cut and dried for them at wholesale establishments. Are we all to purchase spiritual food for our flocks, at the liberal rate of half a guinea a quarter for thirteen sermons, to be exchanged at Lady-day, Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas? If these things be so, I suppose that we who think out our own sermons, and deliver them fresh from our hearts, will be regarded as odd fellows.
Who is to fix the centre of the circle? Shall we give the compasses into the hand of the high-flying brethren whose rhetoric towers are in the clouds, and is shrouded and lost in them? Their big words are by no means needful on account of the greatness of their matter, but seem to be chosen upon the principle that the less they have to say the more pompous must be their phrases. Dr. Bloomfield tells me that a certain verger said to him, “Do you know I have been a verger of this church for fifty years, and though I have heard all the great sermons preached in this place I am still a Christian!” Now, are these dealers in words and dreams to fix the centre? If so, we intend to be eccentric; and blessed be God we are not alone in that resolve. There are others who join with us in the opinion that to be studying the prettyness of elocution, and the fancies of philosophy, while men are perishing around us, is the brutal eccentricity of a Nero, who fiddled while Rome was burning, and sent his galleys to fetch sand from Alexandria while the populace died for want of bread.
Where then, is the centre to be found? Am I directed to yonder vestry? I beg pardon — sacristy. If you will open that door, you will perceive a considerable number of cupboards, presses, and recesses. Where are we? Is this a milliner's shop? Or a laundry? Or both? Those linen garments reflect great credit upon the washer-woman and ironer. But the establishment is not a laundry, for here hang black gowns, and white gowns, and raiment as fine as Joseph's coat. And what a variety! Here, young man, fetch the ecclesiastical dictionary! Here we have an alb and an amice, a cope for the parson, and a corporal for the bread and wine, and — well, there's no end of the concerns! We are not well instructed in the terminology of these drapery establishments, but we are informed that these things are not to be treated with levity, seeing that therein abideth much grace, which ministereth to the establishment of the saints.
In truth, we have small care to linger among these resplendent rags. But assuredly, if the centre of gravity lies with gentlemen who thus bedizen their corporal frames, we prefer to be eccentric, and dress as other male humanities are wont to do. The centre is not here. They that wear soft rainment are in the king's houses, but the King of kings cares nothing for the finery and foppery of the ecclesiastical parade.
As to this supposed centre of the circle, which we have tried in vain to settle, it may be as well to remark that it is not fixed, and never can be fixed. And it would be a very great pity if the centre of the circle could be fixed by a decree like that of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. If we could settle once and for all what is concentric and what is eccentric, it would be a very serious evil, for the differences of utterance and modes of address among God's ministers serve a very useful purpose. When Dr. Owen said that he would give all his learning to be able to preach like the tinker, John Bunyan, he spake not wisely, unless he meant no more than to extol honest John. For Owen's discourses, profound, solid, weighty, and probably heavy, suited a class of persons who could not have received Bunyan's delightfully illustrated preaching of the plain gospel. No, Dr. Owen, you had better remain Dr. Owen, for we could in no wise afford to lose that mine of theological wealth which you have bequeathed to us. You would have looked very awkward if you had tried to talk like the marvellous dreamer, and he would have played the fool if he had imitated you.
Rowland Hill used to liken the unconverted to a number of pigs that he had one day seen following a butcher to the slaughterhouse. He marvelled at their willingness, until he discovered that the butcher had a pocketful of peas which he dropped on the way so that the pigs followed on happily to the slaughter, like sinners being led to hell by the devil's devices. If God moves a Rowland Hill to speak of pigs, it will be better than if he descanted upon purling brooks, or blue-eyed seraphim. Taste may be shocked, but what of taste when men are to be aroused from the fatal slumbers of indifference. It disgusts me to see a man whom God's word declares to be “condemned already” giving himself airs, and affecting to be too delicate to hear a homely sentence. He is course enough to despise the altogether lovely One.
Critics may take out their penknives to gore and gash, but honest hearts delight in the earnest man whom the world sets down as
---- ---- An Eccentric Preacher. ---- ----
This Page Title – Spurgeon's Eccentric Preachers. — Part 1 “What is Eccentricity?” The Wicket Gate Magazine "A Continuing Witness". Internet Edition number 10# – placed on line November 2014 Wicket Gate contact address – Mr Cliff Westcombe cw@wicketgate.co.uk If you wish to be notified when each new edition goes on line please send an e-mail to the above address Magazine web address – www.wicketgate.co.uk |