On Religious Grumblers
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Talk; or, Plain Advice for Plain People
No piper ever suited all ears." — Page 28
WHEN a man has a particularly empty
head he generally sets up for a great
judge, especially in religion. None so wise
as the man who knows nothing. His igno-
rance is the mother of his impudence, and
(22)
ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 23
the nurse of his obstinacy ; and though he
does not know B from a bull's foot, he set-
tles matters as if all wisdom were at his fin-
gers' ends — the Pope himself is not more
infallible. Hear him talk after he has been
at meeting and heard a sermon, and you
will know how to pull a good man to pieces
if you never knew it before. He sees faults
where there are none, and if there be a few
things amiss, he makes every mouse into
an elephant. Although you might put all
his wit into an egg-shell, he weighs the
sermon in the balances of his conceit with
all the airs of a bred-and-born Solomon,
and if it be up to his standard, he lays on
his praise with a trowel ; but if it be not to
his taste, he growls and barks and snaps at
it like a dog at a hedgehog. Wise men in
this world are like trees in a hedge, there is
only here and there one ; and when these
rare men talk together upon a discourse, it
is good for the ears to hear them ; but the
bragging wiseacres I am speaking of are
vainly puffed up by their fleshly minds, and
their quibbling is as senseless as the cackle
of geese on a common. Nothing comes
out of a sack but what was in it, and as their
24 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
bag is empty they shake nothing but wind
out of it. It is very likely that neither
ministers nor their sermons are perfect —
the best garden may have a few weeds in it,
the cleanest corn may have some chaff —
but cavillers cavil at anything or nothing,
and find fault for the sake of showing off
their deep knowledge : sooner than let their
tongues have a holiday, they would com-
plain that the grass is not a nice shade of
blue, and say that the sky would have
looked neater if it had been whitewashed.
One tribe of these Ishmaelites is made
up of highflying ignoramuses who are very
mighty about the doctrine of a sermon —
here they are as decisive as sledge-hammers
and as certain as death. He who knows
nothing is confident in everything ; hence
they are bullheaded beyond measure. Every
clock, and even the sundial, must be set ac-
cording to their watches ; and the slightest
difference from their opinion proves a man
to be rotten at heart. Venture to argue
with them, and their little pot boils over in
quick style; ask them for reason, and you
might as well go to a sand-pit for sugar.
They have bottled up the sea of truth, and
ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS, 25
carry it in their waistcoat pockets; they
have measured heaven's line of grace, and
have tied a knot in a string at the exact
length of electing love ; and as for the
things which angels long to know, they have
seen them all as boys see sights in a peep-
show at our fair. Having sold their mod-
esty and become wiser than their teachers,
they ride a very high horse, and jump over
all five-barred gates of Bible-texts which
teach doctrines contrary to their notions.
When this mischief happens to good men,
it is a great pity for such sweet pots of
ointment to be spoiled by flies, yet one
learns to bear with them just as I do with
old Violet, for he is a rare horse, though he
does set his ears back and throw out his
legs at times. But there is a black brag-
ging lot about, who are all sting and no
honey ; all whip and no hay ; all grunt
and no bacon. These do nothing but rail
from morning to night at all who cannot
see through their spectacles. If they would
but mix up a handful of good living with
all their bushels of bounce, it would be
more bearable ; but no, they don't care for
such legality; men so sound as they are
26 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
can't be expected to be good at anything
else ; they^ are the heavenly watch-dogs to
guard the house of the Lord from those
thieves and robbers who don't preach
sound doctrine, and if they do worry the
sheep, or steal a rabbit or two by the sly,
who would have the heart to blame them ?
The Lord's dear people, as they call them-
selves, have enough to do to keep their
doctrine sound ; and if their manners are
cracked, who can wonder! no -man can see
to everything at once. These are the
moles that want catching in many of our
pastures, not for their own sakes, for there
is not a sweet mouthful in them, but for
the sake of the meadows which they spoil.
I would not find half a fault with their doc-
trine, if it were not for their spirit ; but
vinegar is sweet to it, and crabs are figs in
comparison. It must be very high doc-
trine that is too high for me, but I must
have high experience and high practice with
it, or it turns my stomach. However, I
have said my say, and must leave the sub-
ject, or somebody will ask me, " What have
you to do with Bradshaw's windmill ? "
Sometimes it is the way the preacher
ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 27
speaks which is hauled over the coals, and
here again is a fine field for fault hunting,
for every bean has its black, and every man
has his failing. I never knew a good horse
which had not some odd habit or other, and
I never yet saw a minister worth his salt
who had not some crotchet or oddity : now,
these are the bits of cheese which cavillers
smell out and nibble at : this man is too slow,
and another too fast ; the first is too flow-
ery, and the second is too dull. Dear me,
if all God's creatures were judged in this
way, we should wring the dove's neck for
being too tame, shoot the robins for eating
spiders, kill the cows for swinging their
tails, and the hens for not giving us milk.
When a man wants to beat a dog, he can
soon find a stick ; and at this rate any
fool may have something to say against the
best minister in England. As to a preach-
er's manner, if there be but plain speaking,
none shall cavil at it because it wants pol-
ish, for if a thing is good and earnestly
spoken, it cannot sound much amiss. No
man should use bad language in the pul-
pit— and all language is bad which com-
mon people cannot make head or tail of —
28 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
but godly, sober, decent, plain words none
should carp at. A countryman is as warm
in fustian as a king in velvet, and a truth
is as comfortable in homely words as in
fine speech. As to the way of dishing up
the meat, hungry men leave that to the
cook, only let the meat be sweet and sub-
stantial. If hearers were better, sermons
would be better. When men say they can't
hear, I recommend them to buy a horn,
and remember the old saying, u There's none
so deaf as those who will not hear." When
young speakers get down-hearted because
of hard, unkind remarks, I generally tell
them of the old man and his boy and his
ass, and what came of trying to please every-
body. No piper ever suited all ears. Where
whims and fancies sit in the seat of judg-
ment, a man's opinion is only so much wind,
therefore take no more notice of it than of
the wind whistling through a keyhole.
I have heard men find fault with a dis-
course for what was not in it; no matter
how well the subject in hand was brought
out, there was another subject about which
nothing was said, and so all was wrong;
which is as reasonable as finding fault with
ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 29
my ploughing because it does not dibble
the holes for the beans, or abusing a good
corn-field because there are no turnips in it.
Does any man look for every truth in one
sermon ? As well look for every dish at
one meal, and rail at a joint of beef because
there are neither bacon, nor veal, nor green
peas, nor parsnips on the table. Suppose a
sermon is not full of comfort to the saint,
yet if it warn the sinner, shall we despise it ?
A handsaw would be a poor tool to shave
with, shall we therefore throw it away ?
Where is the use of always trying to hunt
out faults ? I hate to see a man with a fine
nose smelling about for things to rail at like
a rat-catcher's dog sniffing at rat holes. By
all means let us down with error, root and
branch, but do let us save our billhooks
till there are brambles to chop, and not fall
foul of our own mercies.
Judging preachers is a poor trade, for it
pays neither party concerned in it. At a
ploughing match they do give a prize to
the best of us; but these judges of preach-
ing are precious slow to give anything even
to those whom they profess to think so
much of. They pay in praise, but give no
30 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
pudding. They get the gospel for nothing,
and if they do not grumble, think that they
have made an abundant return.
Everybody thinks himself a judge of a
sermon, but nine out of ten might as well
pretend to weigh the moon. I believe that,
at bottom, most people think it an uncom-
monly easy thing to preach, and that they
could do it amazingly well themselves.
Every donkey thinks itself worthy to stand
with the king's horses ; every girl thinks
she could keep house better than her mother;
but thoughts are not facts ; for the sprat
thought itself a herring, but the fisherman
knew better. I dare say those who can
whistle fancy that they can plough ; but
there's more than whistling in a good
ploughman, and so let me tell you there's
more in good preaching than taking a text,
and saying, firstly, secondly, and thirdly.
I try my hand at preaching myself, and in
my poor way I find it no very easy thing to
give the folks something worth hearing ; and
if the fine critics, who reckon us up on their
thumbs, would but try their own hands at
it, they might be a little more quiet. Dogs,
however, always will bark, and what is
ON RELIGIOUS GRUMBLERS. 31
worse, some of them will bite too ; but let
decent people do all they can, if not to
muzzle them, yet to prevent them doing
any great mischief. It is a dreadful thing
to see a happy family of Christians broken
up by talkative fault-finders, and all about
nothing, or less than nothing. Small is the
edge of the wedge, but when the devil han-
dles the beetle, churches are soon split to
pieces, and men wonder why. The fact is,
the worst wheel of the cart creaks most, and
one fool makes many, and thus many a
congregation is set at ears with a good and
faithful minister, who would have been a
lasting blessing to them if they had not
chased away their best friend. Those who
are at the bottom of the mischief have gen-
erally no part or lot in the matter of true
godliness, but, like sparrows, fight over corn
which is not their own, and, like jackdaws,
pull to pieces what they never helped to
build. From mad dogs, and grumbling
professors, may we all be delivered, and may
we never take the complaint from either of
them. Fault-finding is dreadfully catching :
one dog will set a whole kennel howling,
and the wisest course is to keep out of the
32 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S TALK.
way of a man who has the complaint
called the grumbles. The worst of it is,
that the foot and mouth disease go to-
gether, and he who bespatters others gen-
erally rolls in the mud himself before long.
" The fruit of the Spirit is love/' and this
is a very different apple from the sour Si-
berian crab which some people bring forth.
Good bye, all ye sons of Grizzle, John Plough-
man would sooner pick a bone in peace
than fight over an ox roasted whole.