...our nature runs so cross to the whole system of divine grace that we need much assuring before we can believe it. We are always for working, deserving, and earning. Phariseeism is the religion of nature. We boast of our merit and yet we are as meritless as Satan himself. The idea of working and deserving appears to be ingrained in our nature; and as certain as the blood is red, so sure is the heart self-righteous. We cannot divest ourselves of the idea of salvation as payment for work done: that it is a gift, a free gift of grace, it is hard to make us believe. Even after conversion the old tendency betrays itself; we steal away from Jesus to Moses as often as we get opportunity, and then begin to doubt free grace. Therefore the Lord has fettered and bound us down to believing with golden chains of promise and oath. “It must be so,” saith he, “the grace that I have revealed is indeed true, for I have sworn by myself.”
From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Strong Consolation For The Lord's Refugees," delivered April 29, 1877.
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He was converted to Christ at the age of 16 and immediately began preaching. He preached in the streets and in the fields before he was 21. In his first church, he began with 100 members. It grew until he was preaching to 10,000 people in the Surrey Music Hall. His church, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, seated 6,000 people. He withdrew from every movement among English Baptists which tended to criticize the Authorized Version 1611 in any way.
Before his death, he published more than 2,000 sermons and 49 volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations, and devotions.