Put your finger on any prosperous age  in the Church’s history, and I will find a little marginal note reading thus: “In this age men could readily see where the Church began and where the world ended.” Never were there good times where the church and the world were joined in marriage with one another. The more the Church is distinct from the world in her acts and in her maxims, the more true is her testimony for Christ, and the more potent is her witness against sin.

“Separating the Precious from the Vile,” sermon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London (March 25, 1860)