From Pyromaniacs:

The following excerpt is from “The Church of God and the Truth of God,” a sermon delivered on Sunday morning 14 September 1856—within the first 2 years of Spurgeon’s London ministry. So this is Spurgeon speaking as a young man, several decades before he became embroiled in the Down-Grade controversy:

E live in very singular times just now. The professing Church has been flattering itself that, notwithstanding all our divisions with regard to doctrine, we are all right in the main. A false and spurious liberality has been growing up which has covered us all, so that we have dreamed that all who bore the name of ministers were indeed God’s servants—that all who occupied pulpits, of whatever denomination they might be, were entitled to our respect, as being stewards of the mystery of Christ.

But, lately, the weeds upon the surface of the stagnant pool have been a little stirred and we have been enabled to look down into the depths. This is a day of strife—a day of division—a time of war and fighting between professing Christians! God be thanked for it! Far better that it should be so than that the false calm shall any longer exert its fatal spell over us!

Charles Spurgeon