James Renihan wrote an article in the latest Banner of Truth Magazine (August & September 2021, 695-696) concerning Spurgeon and the Treasury of David. I highly recommend both the magazine and Spurgeon’s Treasury as helpful, edifying publications. You can get Spurgeon in digital format if that more suits your reading. I have quoted Spurgeon from Renihan’s article.
“The Treasury of David is a complete commentary on the Psalms, published over the course of about twenty years, originally in seven volumes. It is massive in scale and impressive in its accomplishments. It began as a series of articles published in the magazine The Sword and the Trowel, but soon became a published work in its own right. It is estimated that in his lifetime, 130,000 copies of the book were sold or distributed.
It is clear that Spurgeon loved the Psalms. He said of them, ‘More and more is the conviction forced upon my heart that every man must traverse the territory of the Psalms himself if he would know what a goodly land they are. They flow with milk and honey, but not to strangers; they are only fertile to lovers of their hills and vales. None but the Holy Spirit can give a man the key to the Treasury of David; and even he gives it rather to experience than to study. Happy he who for himself knows the secret of the Psalms.’” (p. 23)
Concerning the reading of the Bible, not as a manual, but in the sense of a living relationship with Christ preeminently — and His people, Spurgeon writes.
“My dear friends, I should like you so to read the Bible that everybody in the Bible should seem to be a friend of yours. I should like you to feel as if you had talked with Abraham, and conversed with David. I can truly say that there is hardly anybody in the world that I know so well as I know David. In making The Treasury of David, I have labored, year after year, in that rich field of inspiration, the Book of Psalms, till I do assure you that David and I are quite familiar friends, and I think I know more about him than about any man I ever saw in my life. I seem to know the ins and outs of his constitution and experience, his grievous faults and the graces of his spirit. I want you to be on just such intimate terms with somebody or other in the Bible, —John, if you like; or Mary. Sit at Jesus’ feet with her.” (p. 31).
Spurgeon’s final words in his original seven volumes,
“In these busy days, it would be greatly to the spiritual profit of Christian men if they were more familiar with the Book of Psalms, in which they would find a complete armory for life’s battles, and a perfect supply for life’s needs. Here we have both delight and usefulness, consolation and instruction. For every condition there is a Psalm, suitable and elevating. The Book supplies the babe in grace with penitent cries, and the perfect saint with triumphant songs. Its breath of experience stretches from the jaws of hell to the gate of heaven. He who is acquainted with the marches of the Psalm-country knows that the land floweth with milk and honey, and he delights to travel therein. To such I have aspired to be a helpful companion.” (p. 32)
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