Critical Hearers, Warning of – Charles Spurgeon

AH, dear hearer, beware of head knowledge without heart knowledge; beware of being so orthodox as to set yourself up as a judge of the preacher, and to refuse to be obedient to the truth. Beware of saying, “Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, that is very applicable to So-and-so, and very well put.” Do not criticize but feel. It were better for you that you had been a common plough-boy, whistling at the plough, who never heard these things until today, and have now listened to them, and have received them in all their novelty, and power, and beauty for the first time; this were better for you than to have heard them until they ring in your ears like the bell which you have heard every Sabbath-day, of whose monotony you are weary. Beware of going down to Hell with a millstone of sound doctrine about your necks, for if you will be damned you may as well perish knowing the truth as not knowing it. Nay, if you catch the formula and lay hold upon the creed, and imagine yourself to be teachers of others, it is even easier to perish in that state than it is if you came in to hear the Word, untaught heretofore in its glad message.