Church nothing without the Spirit – Charles Spurgeon

IT awakens melancholy reflections when we hear of the bodies of old Egyptian kings, proud lords of millions of men, dragged by our discoverers out of their secret chambers in the pyramids and exposed to every vulgar eye. The great sarcophagus has had its lid uplifted, and the monarch who once ruled the world has been taken out, and his corpse unrolled for the sake of a little old linen, and an ounce or two of the embalming gum. Poor mummy! once a Pharaoh whose voice could shake a nation and devastate continents, now used to heat an Arab’s kettle or to furnish an object for a museum. So with a church: alive by the divine indwelling, God gives it royalty, and makes it a king and priest unto himself among the sons of men; its influence is felt further than it dreams; the world trembles at it, for it is fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners; but when the Spirit of God is departed, what remains but its old records, ancient creeds, title-deeds, traditions, histories and memories? it is in fact a mummy of a church rather than a church of God, and it is better fitted to be looked at by antiquarians than to be treated as an existent agency.