Charles Spurgeon Books: A Guide to All 94 and Where to Start

SermonsDevotionalPreachingCommentaryBiography

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834–1892) preached in London for nearly forty years, most of them at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and published more words than almost any Christian writer before him. His sermons came out every week. On top of those he wrote devotionals, a huge commentary on the Psalms, lectures for young ministers and books of plain country wisdom. TheWay Library has ninety-four of his books, free to read. That's a lot to sort through, so this guide groups them and tells you where to begin. For his life story, see who was Charles Spurgeon.

Where to start

• If you want to know how to be saved, or to give a book to someone who does: All of Grace, about three hours. See our summary and what Spurgeon says faith is.
• For daily reading: Morning by Morning. Here's how to use it.
• To study the Psalms: The Treasury of David.
• If you preach or teach: Lectures to My Students.
• To hear him preach: one of the small topical collections, such as Twelve Sermons for the Troubled and Tried.

For his best lines, see Charles Spurgeon quotes, plus All of Grace quotes and Morning by Morning quotes.

Short books on salvation and the Christian life

• All of Grace: written "for the salvation of the reader." God justifies the ungodly; salvation is by grace through faith; and repentance, new birth and perseverance are all God's gifts.
• Around the Wicket Gate: for seekers who've come close to Christ but haven't believed. He takes away the fears and questions that keep them lingering at the gate.
• According to Promise: on living by God's promises: how to tell true faith from imitations, and how to plead the promises and use them every day.
• The Saint and His Saviour: an early devotional book tracing the soul's friendship with Jesus, from first neglect to settled communion.

Daily devotionals and readings

• Morning by Morning and Evening by Evening: his two classic books of daily readings, one verse and one page for every morning and evening of the year. Both scans have errors, mostly in the large first letters.
• The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith: a year of readings, each on one promise of God, to be "cashed" by faith.
• Daily Help: 365 short paragraphs drawn from his writings.
• Gleanings Among the Sheaves: 130 short passages from his sermons, one theme each.
• Teachings of Nature in the Kingdom of Grace: fifty-six readings that draw lessons from gardens, fields, trees and harvest.
• C. H. Spurgeon's Prayers: twenty-five of his public prayers at the Tabernacle.
• Gems from Spurgeon, Brilliants and The Wit and Wisdom of Spurgeon: three small books of short extracts, good for dipping into.

Spurgeon loved the Puritans, and he made two books of their best sayings: Flowers from a Puritan's Garden, figures from Thomas Manton's sermons on Psalm 119 with his own comments, and Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks, sayings of Thomas Brooks.

Commentary

The Treasury of David is his great work on the Psalms, which took him about twenty years. For each psalm he gives his own verse-by-verse exposition, then notes and sayings gathered from hundreds of other writers. You don't read it straight through. You turn to the psalm you're reading.

• Volume 1: Psalms 1–26: our copy is incomplete, with only his notes on each psalm's title and divisions for most psalms.
• Volume 2: Psalms 27–57
• Volume 3: Psalms 58–87
• Volume 4: Psalms 88–110
• Volume 5: Psalms 111–119: more than half is Psalm 119, eight verses at a time.
• Volume 6: Psalms 120–150: the Songs of Degrees, Psalm 137, Psalm 139 and the closing praise psalms.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is his last book, a popular commentary on Matthew written largely at Mentone in his final winters and published after his death.

For preachers and teachers

Spurgeon founded the Pastors' College to train ministers, and much of this group began as talks to his students.

• Lectures to My Students, First Series and Second Series: the minister's own soul, his call, prayer, sermons, voice, depression and winning souls. See our summary and Spurgeon's advice to preachers.
• The Soul-Winner: what winning a soul really means and what a soul-winner needs.
• The Art of Illustration: five lectures on using illustrations, "the windows" of a sermon.
• The Greatest Fight in the World: his last address to the College conference in 1891, a call to stand on the Word, the Spirit and prayer.
• My Sermon-Notes: his own sermon outlines, offered as seed for other preachers. Vol. 1 covers Genesis to Proverbs, Vol. 2 Ecclesiastes to Malachi, Vol. 3 Matthew to Acts and Vol. 4 Romans to Revelation.
• Books of illustrations: Feathers for Arrows, his own collection (a badly damaged scan); Barbed Arrows, compiled from his sermons by his son Charles; and Spurgeon's Illustrative Anecdotes. All are arranged by subject.
• Sermons in Candles: two light-hearted popular lectures in which he holds up candles and lanterns one by one and draws a gospel lesson from each.

Autobiography and letters

• C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, compiled by his wife and private secretary from his diary, letters and records. Vol. 1 covers his childhood, his conversion and his early pastorates; Vol. 2 his first London years, about 1854 to 1860, including his marriage; Vol. 3 about 1861 to 1878, from the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle on. Volumes 1 and 2 have heavy scan errors in places.
• The Letters of Charles Haddon Spurgeon: personal letters to his parents, wife, sons, deacons and friends. They show the man behind the pulpit.
• "George Fox": a short address he gave to the Quakers in 1866, praising Fox's faith.

John Ploughman

John Ploughman's Talk and John Ploughman's Pictures are homely talks in the voice of a plain-spoken farm labourer, built on old English proverbs. They take on laziness, debt, gossip, drink and grumbling with a lot of humor. They were among his best-selling books.

Sermons

Spurgeon's sermons are the bulk of his work, and the bulk of this library's collection. They come in four kinds of volume.

Twelve sermons on one subject

These small collections are the easiest way in. Pick the subject you need.

• For the Troubled and Tried: for the despairing, the sick and the weary.
• On the Plan of Salvation and Soul-Winning Sermons: the way of salvation, preached to lead hearers to Christ.
• On Conversion: how God turns sinners to Himself.
• On the Holy Spirit: the Spirit as Comforter, teacher and power.
• On Hope: the anchor of the soul and the hope laid up in heaven.
• On the Resurrection: Christ's rising and ours.
• Missionary Sermons: Christ's charge to preach the gospel to every creature.
• New Year Sermons: sermons for the turn of the year.

Large collections on Christ

• Christ in the Old Testament: fifty-one sermons finding Christ in types, sacrifices and prophecies.
• Our Lord's Passion and Death: sermons that follow the story from the Upper Room and Gethsemane to the cross.
• Sermons on Our Lord's Parables: about fifty sermons on the parables, from the pearl of great price to the prodigal son. The sermon breaks are mostly lost in our copy.

Other books of sermons

Each of these was gathered around a theme or named after its first sermon.

• Storm Signals: warnings and appeals to the careless.
• Talks to Farmers: nineteen sermons on farming texts, from ploughing to harvest.
• Types and Emblems and its sequel Trumpet Calls to Christian Energy: Old Testament pictures of Christ, then sermons to stir Christian workers.
• A Good Start: sermons and addresses to young people.
• Only a Prayer Meeting: forty short addresses, most given at prayer meetings.
• Messages to the Multitude: ten representative sermons, including his 1,500th and 2,000th.
• Messages of Hope and Faith: twenty-six late sermons, with a short life of Spurgeon.
• The People's Christ and Six Sermons: the young Spurgeon at New Park Street in the 1850s.
• The Present Truth, Hands Full of Honey, First Healing and Then Service and Grace Triumphant: collections from the 1880s and after, on God's mercy, faith and service.

The weekly sermons

Every week for decades, a new Spurgeon sermon was printed and sold for a penny. They were gathered into yearly volumes, first as The New Park Street Pulpit and then as The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. The library has eleven volumes, each with fifty to sixty sermons ranging over the whole Bible:

• 1884–1890: Vol. 30, Vol. 31, Vol. 32, Vol. 34 (the Down-Grade year, with "The Infallibility of Scripture"), Vol. 36.
• Published after his death: Vol. 39, Vol. 41, Vol. 46, Vol. 47, Vol. 48, Vol. 50. He left so many unpublished sermons that they kept coming out weekly for years.

The American edition, Sermons of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, gathered his sermons in numbered series. Series 1 to 6 hold his early London sermons of the 1850s; Series 7 has sermons from Exeter Hall in 1860; Series 8 opens with his famous sermon on baptismal regeneration; the later series come from his years at the Tabernacle. The library has Series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 17, 18 and 19.

These big volumes are best used like a library shelf: browse the contents and read the sermon whose title or text catches you.

A note on these editions

Many of these books were restored from scans of old printings and are still being proofread. The most damaged are Feathers for Arrows, Christ in the Old Testament, Our Lord's Passion and Death, and Series 3, 4 and 9 of the sermons. The Treasury of David volumes 2 to 6, All of Grace, Lectures to My Students and the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit volumes 30 to 32 are clean texts.

Why read Spurgeon today

Spurgeon is warm, funny, plain and full of Christ. He wrote for working people, not scholars, and he never forgot that his hearers needed to be saved and comforted. Start with All of Grace or Morning by Morning, and find all ninety-four books on the Spurgeon author page.