The Church...What A Wonder

Reflect first that a church exists...what a wonder this is. It is perhaps the greatest miracle of all the ages, that God has a church in the world. When the full force of the pagan emperors came as an avalanche upon her, she shook them off as a man shakes the flakes of snow of his garment, and lived on uninjured. When papal Rome vented her malice more furiously and ingeniously, when cruel murderers hunted the saints in the Alps, or worried them in the low country, she lived still and was never in a healthier state than when she was immersed in her own gore.

When, after a partial reformation in this country, the pretenders of religion determined that the truly spiritual should be harried out of the land, God's Church did not sleep, or suspend her career or life of service. Let the covenant be signed in blood witnesses to the vigour of the persecuted saints. Hearken to her psalm amid the brown heath clad hills of Scotland and her prayer in the secret coventicles of England... here ye the testimony of Bunyan and his compeers who would rather rot in a dungeon than bow the knee to Baal.

Ask me 'where is the church?' and i can find Her in any and every period from the day when first in the upper room the Holy Spirit came down, even until now. In one unbroken line our apostolic succession runs, not through the church of Rome, not from the superstitious hands of hand made priests or King made bishops, but through the blood of good men an true who never forsook the testimony of Jesus. Through the loins of true pastors, laborious evangelists, faithful martyrs and faithful men of God, we trace our pedigree up to the fishermen of Galilee and glory that we perpetuate by God's grace the true and faithful church of the living God, in whom Christ did abide, and in whom He will abide until the world crashes.

The chief wonder is that she abides perfect. Not one of God's elect has gone back, not one of God's blood bought has denied the faith. Not one single soul was ever called effectually was made to deny Christ, even though his flesh should be pulled from his bones by hot pincers, or his tormented body thrown to the jaws of wild beasts. All that the enemy has done is of no avail against the Church. The old rock has been washed and washed and washed a thousand times in the floods of tempest, but even her corners and angles abide unaltered and unalterable. We may say of the Lord's tabernacle that not one of the stakes has been removed, nor has one of her cords been broken. The house of the Lord from foundation to pinnacle is perfect still: 'the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon the house, and it fell not.' Nay, nor a single stone of it, for it was founded upon a rock.

Charles Spurgeon, quoted in 'The Forgotten Spurgeon' IH Murray, P32-33.