Wednesday, February 13, 2013

How The Church Flourishes



















All through human history you will find the explanation of this instructive fact: let God’s truth alone, and it will take care of itself without the aid of kings and princes, laws or establishments, endowments or privileges. Only state the pure truth of revelation and it will force its own way, but garnish and adorn it by your eloquent language, or protect and guard it by your carnal wisdom and prudence, and the truth goes into captivity.

Leave the church alone, O ye kings and princes, or persecute it if ye will, for it will laugh your opposition to scorn; but pretend not to propagate its doctrines by the civil power, for this is the worst curse that can befall it. Take it under your patronage, and the mere touch of your royal hands will create disease within it. Almost to the death has the so-called “church” come down when her ministers like Hophni and Phineas, have allied themselves with the temporal power; for God will do His work by His own instruments, and in His own way; He will not be indebted to the might of the flesh, but will defend His own glory by His own mysterious power.

He uses for His instruments His consecrated ones who wear the white linen, which is the righteousness of saints, and not the blood-stained men of war arrayed in coat of mail and glittering breastplate of steel.

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled "Dagon's Ups And Downs." Image by SBA73 on Flickr under Creative Commons License.

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