Monergism Books

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Description: The author of "A Pastor's Sketches" comes to life in this new paperback edition of his life and practical sermons. Everyone who has read the life-changing and ministry-transforming volumes of "A Pastor's Sketches" will be deliighted to learn more about the man whose life was used of God in such a mighty way from 1828 (when he began his ministry in Northampton. MA) to 1854 (when he concluded his ministry in Brooklyn, NY).

In addition to the helpful "Sketch" of his life by dear friend Rev. J.M. Sherwood, we have here 20 complete sermons that are called Practical Sermons drawn from his regular pulpit ministry in Brooklyn.

"The reading of good sermons is the most underrated kind of Christian literature on the market today. In former centuries, the reading of sermons was the bulk of the mature Christian's reading diet. Most Puritan books, for example, are sermons edited for print. Sermon reading keeps believers in the Word, matures the soul, and whets the appetite for good preaching. It promotes Christ-centered thinking, healthy self-examination, and godly piety in every sphere of life. Though nothing can replace the Word preached, sermon reading has one advantage over preaching: the sermons that made it into print are usually the minister's best! Tolle Lege--"pick up and read" great sermon books, especially those of past centuries that are packed with spiritual meat, such as the sermons of Ichabod Spencer." - Dr. Joel R. Beeke

"One of the most prominent characteristics of Dr. Spencer's preaching was its Scriptural character. He emphatically preached the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. He drew every sermon from it. He grounded every sermon upon the plain import of God's revealed Word. He made that Word his sole authority in all his teaching. The Bible was the staple of all his sermons. They were full of it; and drew their inspiration from it. It was the simple power of Scripture truth that he wielded with so much effect. He had no confidence in any other kind of teaching. He believed that his sole business in the pulpit was to unfold and vindicate, enforce and apply the meaning or truths of God's revelation. Hence he aimed steadily to exalt the Divine Word. He bowed always and most reverently to its authority.

Dr. Spencer's preaching was eminently doctrinal. Few men preached the fundamental doctrines of the Bible more than he. While experimental and practical, he grounded all his teaching on inspired doctrine. He was never more at home, or evinced a higher order of ability or skill in handling the Word of God, than when he grappled with some great doctrine of the Christian system, explaining, vindicating, demonstrating, and applying it. He loved the doctrines of the Gospel. He loved to preach them. He made them his frequent themes. He laid out all his strength upon them. He thoroughly indoctrinated his people, giving them the strong meat as well as the sincere milk of the Word. And he was peculiarly happy in doing this. We have never known a preacher to throw so much Scripture doctrine into his sermons -- doing it ample justice too -- and yet secure the fixed, interested, and often tearful attention of a popular auditory during nearly an hour. It were well for his Brethren to study him and follow his example in this.

"But the crowning excellence of his preaching, after all -- that which gave it such distinguished power, and secured for it so high a degree of usefuless -- was its thoroughly evangelical character. No one since the days of the apsotles, we believe, surpassed him in this. If ever a man preached 'Christ and him crucified,' Dr. Spencer did. As a preacher he gloried in nothing save the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

-J.M. Sherwood, from Volume One