Thanks for the energetic discussion in the comments. William was interviewed by the Bible Matters podcast after this talk, where he expands on some of the topics raised here. If you're interested, you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZYA7qHSDu0

We need charles spurgeon,  john bunyan , ravenhill , Whitefield,  and the rest back into our pulpits its time the church finally stands up ! Thank you william for your word 🙏

My Father - a conservative evangelical C of E curate, used to be driven mad by the ethos then in the C of E, that as a clergyman, it was OK to be a heretic, almost not even really believe in God, as long as you were a "nice chap" I remember once, someone said, in defence of a maverick local clergyman "well, he's a nice chap" and my father almost shouted WE'RE NOT HERE TO BE NICE CHAPS!

3:47 "It is quite simply impossible to fathom how a person can allow themselves to be consecrated by such a group or remain in any sense in spiritual fellowship" - then surely the logical conclusion of this is that you must leave the C of E. You are a Church under the same C of E governance

“In times past, the Church went into the world and converted the lost to the Lord. Today, the world has entered the Church and perverted the law of the Lord.”

The C of E have given up on Christianity and are nothing more than a group of political activists.

Thankyou Sir. Your words are correct because they are governed by Scripture. The C of E  members should have heeded Paul's teaching decades ago. Great reformation is needed with great repentance.

About time good and faithful Christians distanced themselves from the apostate body of the CofE.  Bravo, sir.

I think Samuel Rutherford’s distinction between negative and positive separation is apt here. It was his approach to dealing with false teaching and yet avoiding the sin of schism. He would suggest that we separate from what is false but yet not separate from the visible church of Christ.

Once I see CoE churches filled with these kinds of preachers, I'll be the first to run to my nearest one and attend it. Until them, I have no option but to stick in my local independent evangelical church, despite its lack of doctrinal oversight.

God bless you richly William and the brethren at St Helen’s

It’s very simple, leave, like I had to do. Go, get you out! Make haste! In the name of God, go!

2 Corinthians 6 verses 14-17” 14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? 15And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,” KJV

I'm a Romanian Baptist

To me it's felt all these years that the CofE (institutionally, not individual parishes) is nothing more than the religious institutional hand/avatar of cultural leftism. I'm convinced almost that had Musk not bought twitter and turned the tide of culture, institutional CofE might have invented some sort of blessing for childrens' gender transitions. Am I on the mark?

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

That's my worry for the CofE.

As a Catholic seeing this from the outside, this sounds very much like another chapter in the dispute between the Puritans like Thomas Cartwright and Walter Travers against defenders of the Established Church, like Richard Hooker. As in the time of Robert Browne, there were those who wanted "reformation without tarrying for any" (though Browne himself oddly ended up as a semi-conforming clergyman within the C of E). Another edition of the same issue arose with regard to Wesleyan Methodism and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. Then there was the secession of the Free Church of England (which itself now seems oddly averse to its own evangelical roots). All these arguments for and against secession, whether to remain within or to separate from the ungodly, were rehearsed centuries ago.

It has always seemed to me that Richard Hooker got the better of the argument in his "Laws of the Ecclesiastical Polity," that the Puritan path of sectarian separation was not a viable or responsible option and ends up replicating in the new denomination all the problems in the original communion. The Wesleys themselves never left the C of E--John  Wesley only commissioned Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury because the Methodists in North America were like sheep without a shepherd. However, the logic of Hooker's argument against separation leads to a questioning of the original break at the Protestant Reformation, and points in a direction like that of the Tractarians. There is an evangelical party in the Church of England because some who thought like the Puritans and Methodists remained within the Establishment. Were they wrong to have remained in the C of E and formed their own networks of parishes and institutions?

Perhaps there is a need for a third province in the C of E for those who wish neither to conform to novel heresies nor to engage in sectarian fragmentation and squandering of existing resources and networks.

“Do things and the structures follow” is a useful observation.  However, the New Testament also records the possibility of a church containing a mixture of faithful and not-so-faithful people - e.g. Thyatira and Sardis in Revelation 2 - 3.  Whether in a particular situation one should flee from people who are dodgy, or fight to try to make things better, needs much wisdom.

I wonder if some would take this teaching and become  convinced that St Helens and other like minded churches should leave the Church of England, since they recognise that many of their most senior leaders aren't actually believers and should be avoided.

Well said WIlliam

Wow!