It is a common fault of speakers and writers to quote sources and evidence that support their position, while ignoring those that would tend to undermine it.

I don’t regard myself as exempt from this danger.  But I do realise the danger.

In an appendix to Speaking in the Spirit (2019), Stephen Wexler cites Wayne Grudem (a continuationist) and John MacArthur (a cessationist) as each quoting C.H. Spurgeon in favour of their own position on spiritual gifts.

MacArthur’s quote comes from a sermon preached by Spurgeon in 1872:

‘Take care never to impute the vain imaginings of your fancy to him [the Holy Spirit]. I have seen the Spirit of God shamefully dishonoured by persons—I hope they were insane—who have said that they have had this and that revealed to them. There has not for some years passed over my head a single week in which I have not been pestered with the revelations of hypocrites or maniacs. Semi-lunatics are very fond of coming with messages from the Lord to me, and it may spare them some trouble if I tell them once for all that I will have none of their stupid messages. . . . Never dream that events are revealed to you by heaven, or you may come to be like those idiots who dare impute their blatant follies to the Holy Ghost. If you feel your tongue itch to talk nonsense, trace it to the devil, not to the Spirit of God. Whatever is to be revealed by the Spirit to any of us is in the word of God already—he adds nothing to the Bible, and never will. Let persons who have revelations of this, that, and the other, go to bed and wake up in their senses. I only wish they would follow the advice and no longer insult the Holy Ghost by laying their nonsense at his door.’

Forthright words indeed.

But there are a couple of problems here.

First: did you notice those four little dots (‘I will have none of their stupid messages. . . .’?)

No? – You’re not nearly curious enough!

I couldn’t help wondering what MacArthur had left out of the quotation.

Here’s the relevant section, with the missing words restored:

‘Semi-lunatics are very fond of coming with messages from the Lord to me, and it may spare them some trouble if I tell them once for all that I will have none of their stupid messages. When my Lord and Master has any message to me he knows where I am, and he will send it to me direct, and not by madcaps. Never dream that events are revealed to you by heaven, or you may come to be like those idiots who dare impute their blatant follies to the Holy Ghost.’ (Emphasis added) (Source)

That puts a slightly different complexion on it, don’t you agree?

Second: MacArthur fails to tell us that Spurgeon made a number of other statements that create a rather different impression.

Grudem (you guessed it!) chooses a couple of quotations that are favourable to his own case:

‘God sometimes guides his servants to say what they themselves would never have thought of uttering.’

Wexler cites the following example from Grudem:

‘On one occasion while Spurgeon was preaching, he felt led to point to a man in the crowd and say, “There is a man sitting there who is a shoemaker; he keeps his shop open on Sundays, it was open last Sunday morning, he took ninepence, and there was fourpence profit out of it; his soul is sold to Satan for fourpence!” (ibid., 357).

‘This insight apparently turned out to be correct and had a powerful effect on the man to whom it was addressed. Spurgeon continues, “I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases in which I pointed to someone in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person, or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believe that I was moved by the Spirit to say it.”’

Wexler rightly says that there may be several possible reasons why Spurgeon gave rather contrasting accounts:

• Perhaps he was not completely consistent.
• Perhaps he changed his views over time.
• Perhaps the example given by MacArthur was only ever intended as a warning, couched in rhetorical language, against excess and abuse, and is not to be regarded as a contradiction of the kind of ‘supernatural’ knowledge he eslewhere speaks of.

Wexler’s main point is that we should all beware of biassed or selective appeals to history.

Still, my interest remains piqued, and so I add a couple more examples of experiences of, or reported by, Spurgeon.

C.H. Spurgeon recounts the following story:-

In July, 1719, [Col. James Gardiner] had spent the evening, which was the Sabbath, in some gay company, and had an unhappy assignation with a married lady, whom he was to attend exactly at twelve.  The company broke up about eleven, and he went into his chamber to kill the tedious hour.  It happened that he took up a religious book…called, ‘The Christian Soldier’, written by [Thomas] Watson…While this book was in his hand, an impression was made upon his mind, which drew after it a train of the most important consequences.  Suddenly he thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall on the book while he was reading, and lifting up his eyes, he apprehended, to his extreme amazement, that there was before him, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, surrounded with a glory, and was impressed as if a voice had come to him, to this effect: ‘O sinner, did I suffer this for thee, and are these thy returns?’  He sunk down into his chair, and continued for some time insensible.  He then arose in a tumult of passions, and walked to and fro in his chamber, till he was ready to drop, in unutterable astonishment and agony of heart, which continued until the October following, when his terrors were turned into unutterable joy.

in Spurgeon, Memoir of Thomas Watson, prefaced to Watson’s Body of divinity, xi.

Writing in The Sword and Trowel, the great Baptist preacher offered a different angle on:

‘Our personal pathway has been so frequently directed contrary to our own design and beyond our own conception by singularly powerful impulses, and irresistibly suggestive providences, that it were wanton wickedness for us to deride the doctrine that God occasionally grants to his servants a special and perceptible manifestation of his will for their guidance, over and above the strengthening energies of the Holy Spirit, and the sacred teaching of the inspired Word. We are not likely to adopt the peculiarities of the Quakers, but in this respect we are heartily agreed with them.

‘It needs a deliberate and judicious reflection to distinguish between the actual and apparent in professedly preternatural intimations, and if opposed to Scripture and common sense, we must neither believe in them nor obey them. The precious gift of reason is not to be ignored; we are not to be drifted hither and thither by every wayward impulse of a fickle mind, nor are we to be led into evil by suppositious impressions; these are misuses of a great truth, a murderous use of most useful edged tools. But notwithstanding all the folly of hair-brained rant, we believe that the unseen hand may be at times assuredly felt by gracious souls, and the mysterious power which guided the minds of the seers of old may, even to this day, sensibly overshadow reverent spirits. We would speak discreetly, but we dare say no less.’ (Source)

To be clear: Spurgeon espoused cessationism, and he would not have called these experiences ‘prophecy’.  But they do indicate that he was open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit in ways that many of today’s cessationists would regard with suspicion.

See also this, and this.