You have to be a tremendous communicator for folks to be quoting you a hundred years after you die. Spurgeon was a wordsmith, to be sure. I saw the prayer portion of the following quote on a web board today, so I looked it up. And I really thought merely quoting the prayer portion (esp. in the context of basically writing off all “Arminians” as lost, or so it seemed) was not representative of what Spurgeon was saying at all. So here is the broader context, with enough of the surrounding material included to allow the preacher of Old London to speak for himself:
Your fallen nature was put out of order, your will, amongst other things, has clean gone astray from God; but I tell you what will be the best proof of that; it is the great fact that you never did meet a Christian in your life who ever said he came to Christ without Christ coming to him. You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say, but you never heard an Arminian prayer-for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying, “Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not-that is the difference between me and them.” That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that. Ah, when they are preaching and talking very slowly, there may be wrong doctrine; but when they come to pray, the true thing slips out, they cannot help it. (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 1:706, “Free-Will — A Slave,” 12/2/1855)
