Church, Divisions in the – Charles Spurgeon

SOME of the old Roman walls are compacted with such excellent cement, that it would be almost impossible to separate one stone from another; in fact, the whole mass has become consolidated like one rock, so embedded in cement, that you cannot distinguish one stone from another. Happy the church thus built up, where each cares not only for his own prosperity, but for the prosperity of all—where if there be any joy in one member, all the members rejoice, and if there be sorrow in any one part of the body, all the rest of the body is in sorrow too, “remembering those that are in bonds as bound with them, and those that are in adversity as being yourselves also in the body.” And yet, what are some churches but semi-religious clubs, mere conventions of people gathered together? They have not in them that holy soul which is the essence of unity; there is no life to keep them in entirety. Why, the body would soon become disjointed, and a mass of rottenness, if the soul were not in it; and if the Spirit of Christ be absent, the whole fabric of the outward church begins to fall to pieces; for where there is no life there can be no true union.