State Church, Doom of the – Charles Spurgeon

WE must expect often to hear that the ship of Christ’s church is in a storm; there must not be smooth sailing for the vessel of the church; it must be tossed with tempest and driven to and fro. At the present juncture, all established churches are in the sieve. I believe there is much good corn in the established church, though intermixed with a sad amount of chaff; and now the whole is being sifted, and will be sifted yet more and more. I do not care who holds the sieve, whether it be a politician or an ecclesiastic, but I am persuaded that by God’s grace good will come of all this strife, and debate, and agitation. The public mind when it stirs itself about religion is often mysteriously guided to the right path, and even if it choose a wrong thing for a season, yet the wrong only plays itself out, and the right by-and-by comes to the fore, and wins the victory. God will not have his church in alliance with the State; and therefore though they settle down upon their lees, and are at quiet in an adulterous connection with the powers that be, the trying time must come, and the sieve must be used. The true friends of the church need not wish for the sifting to be withheld, for not one grain of precious truth will fall to the ground: all that will perish will be the chaff, which it is a signal blessing to lose. Purification will be the result of agitation.