Both were certainly gifted by God to herald His Word. Both, boldly, proclaimed the Gospel of Christ and defended it from the pulpit. The Lord used both to call many unto Himself and restore others. Both were men of a dying breed. Still I tend to favor the "Doctor." His book "Preaching and Preachers" is one of my favorites and his sermons on the Beatitudes truly impacted me. Now, before some soul accuses me of praising men rather than God, let me quote 1 Corinthians 3:5-7, "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth."
Here are some random quotes from Spurgeon:
"Upon no sermon I have ever preached, though God knows I have preached my very soul out, am I able to look back without a measure of shame and confusion of face."
"I wish that I knew how to preach. I have tried to do so for thirty years or so, but I am only now beginning to learn the art."
"I rejoice that Jesus forgives the sins of my sermons"
"If preaching is not a supernatural exercise, it is a useless procedure."
"Ministers who do not aim to cut deep are not worth their salt. God never sent the man who never troubles men’s consciences. Such a man may be an ass treading down the corn, but a reaper he is certainly not."
"My motto is cedo nulli—I yield to none. I have not courted any man’s love; I asked no man to attend my ministry; I preach what I like, and when I like, and as I like."
"Take care, O preacher, that you do not blunt the word, or try to cover over its edge; for that would be treason to the Lord who made it to be sharp and cutting. There is much about the true gospel which offends, and it should be our desire never to tamper with it, or tone it down, lest we become enemies to the Lord’s truth. Truth which is meant to offend human pride must be stated in its own way, even though seen to produce anger, and annoy self-right-eousness. Doctrine which is cutting and killing must not be concealed or softened down."
"How many are proclaiming a mutilated gospel, and are not telling “every whit!”
"The Christian minister may keep on, and on, and on with the same theme,—Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus; the same cross, the same crown of thorns, the same bleeding wounds,—from the first time that he enters his pulpit to the last when he lays down his charge; and the people may always say, and he can always feel, that the gospel has the dew of its youth upon it, and is always fresh and ever new."
"There are many points and particulars in which the gospel is offensive to human nature, and revolting to the pride of the creature. It was not intended to please man. How can we attribute such a purpose to God? Why should he devise a gospel to suit the whims of our poor fallen human nature? He intended to save men, but he never intended to gratify their depraved tastes."
"This is how grace works; it enters the soul, penetrates the heart, saturates the conscience, abides in the memory, affects the affections, gives understanding to the understanding, and imparts real life to the heart, which is the seat of life."
* All Spurgeon's quotes taken from: Exploring the Mind and Heart of the Prince of Preachers: Five-Thousand Illustrations Selected from the Works of Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Some quotes from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
"We live in an age in which we do not hear very much about doctrines, and there are some people who are even foolish enough to say that they do not like them, which seems to me to be a very pathetic and regrettable attitude" (Great Doctrines of the Bible. Kindle Locations 51-53. Kindle Edition.).
"Lectures or sermons on biblical doctrines were once very common but they have become comparatively uncommon, especially during this century" (Great Doctrines of the Bible. Kindle Locations 53-54. Kindle Edition).
"What do we mean when we talk about a biblical doctrine? The answer is that the Bible is particularly concerned about teaching certain truths, and nothing is more important than that we should grasp that and that we should start with it. The Bible is a book which has a very definite objective. All its teaching is designed to a certain end; it is concerned with putting before us its doctrines, the particular truths which it wants to emphasise and to impress upon the minds of all of us" (Great Doctrines of the Bible. Kindle Locations 56-59. Kindle Edition).
"What, then, is the Bible about?' asks someone. Surely there can be no hesitation about answering that question; the Bible, in its essence, is the grand story of redemption. It is the history of what God has done about men and women as the result of their sin, and everything else that we find in the Bible is, in reality, incidental to that. The Bible is concerned with presenting to us the message of redemption by God and from God, in a way that we can understand and see and believe. So when we talk about biblical doctrines we mean these aspects of redemption which are unfolded to us in the Bible. They are the various truths that we find in the Bible about this great question" (Great Doctrines of the Bible. Kindle Locations 70-74. Kindle Edition).
"Our Lord comments on this: `So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.' That is exactly the same teaching. But does it teach that I am forgiven only because I have forgiven? No, the teaching is, and we have to take this teaching seriously, that if I do not forgive, I am not forgiven. I explain it like this: the man who has seen himself as a guilty, vile sinner before God knows his only hope of heaven is that God has forgiven
him freely. The man who truly sees and knows and believes that, is one who cannot refuse to forgive another. So the man who does not forgive another does not know forgiveness himself. If my heart has been broken in the presence of God I cannot refuse to forgive; and, therefore, I say to any man who is imagining fondly that his sins are to be forgiven by Christ, though he does not forgive anybody else, Beware, my friend, lest you wake up in eternity and find Him saying to you, `Depart from me; I never knew you.' You are misinterpreting the doctrine, the glorious doctrine of the grace of God. The man who is truly forgiven and knows it, is a man who forgives. That is the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount at this point" (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Kindle Locations 181-185. Kindle Edition).
"I am profoundly convinced that the greatest need of the Church today is a return to expository preaching" ( Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Kindle Locations 27-28. Kindle Edition).
"I do not think it is a harsh judgment to say that the most obvious feature of the life of the Christian Church today is, alas, its superficiality. That judgment is based not only on contemporary observation, but still more on contemporary observation in the light of previous epochs and eras in the life of the Church" (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Kindle Locations 53-55. Kindle Edition).
"Now this particular danger tends chiefly to manifest itself in the matter of the relationship between law and grace. That has always been true in the Church from the very beginning and it is still true today. Some so emphasize the law as to turn the gospel of Jesus Christ with its glorious liberty into nothing but a collection of moral maxims. It is all law to them and there is no grace left. They so talk of the Christian life as something that we have to do in order to make ourselves Christian, that it becomes pure legalism and there is really no grace in it. But let us remember also that it is equally possible so to overemphasize grace at the expense of law as, again, to have something which is not the gospel of the New Testament" (Studies in the Sermon on the Mount. Kindle Locations 93-94. Kindle Edition
Note the similarities in their preaching. How they both deal with negatives and state the positives. Let me put it this way- how they both point out error to highlight truth. Give me this kind of expositional preaching... any day! I want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (2 Ti 4:1–2). Soli Deo Gloria!
For His Glory,
Fernando
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