There are various other documents which are too voluminous to notice at present. The point to direct the attention of the public is, the extraordinary circumstance of a man continuing to exercise the functions of a christian pastor up to the present time, with such heavy imputations as these hanging over his head. He knew that the whole neighbourhood rung with accusations; he knew that some hundreds of publications containing charges so severe, that any statements compared to them, “were lenity and compassion,” have been sold in St. George’s-fields.
The reader may probably have some curiosity to know what sort of a preacher this person is. I have gone to hear him; and I pity his poor deluded followers. He does indeed deliver himself in a full, clear, articulate tone of voice; but to criticise his style, or analyse the substance of his discourse, would be a fruitless labour: it would be like dissecting a cobweb. Unmeaning rhapsodies, and unconnected sentences, through which the faintest gleam of morality is not to be traced, must, from their evanescent nature, set the powers of recollection at defiance; they even escape from the lash of one’s contempt. In his countenance there is none of that dignified mildness, none of that subdued expression of piety which one often observes in Christian preachers whose habits of life are conformable to their precepts. His manner is forward and imposing; and his eyes are continually employed in staring at some person among his auditors. [11]
The following Character is given of Church by Mr. George Gee and his wife, who live in the New Cut, Lambeth Marsh.
“Mr. Church the Minister lodged at our house a year and a half, and left last year at Lady-day.
“We were in hopes that we were about to have a godly praying minister in our house, and to be sure, the first night he had somewhat like prayer, and that and once afterwards, were the only times he ever went to family prayer in our house. Nor could they have any prayer, as he would be frequently out almost all hours of the night, and would lie in bed till ten o’clock in the morning. Several times he and his wife would have skirmishings and fightings between themselves, while their children would be left to run about the streets out of school hours, and allowed to keep company with children that would swear in our hearing most shockingly. His children were always left to be very dirty, and would be sent sometimes three or four times in the morning for spirituous liquors of all sorts; as for reading good books or even the Bible, he scarce ever thought of it, but would spend a deal of his time in loose and vain talk, in walking about, and in fawning on young men, that was his chief delight.
“Sundays and working days were all alike to them, for they would send out to buy liquors and whatever else they wanted, on Sundays as well as other days.
“The house would be frequently more like a play-house (I might say a bawdy house) than a minister’s house, where a set of young people would come, and behave more indecently than ought to be mentioned. Even one Sunday morning they made such an uproar, as that they broke one of the windows, and after that, they would go with him to his Chapel, and after that he would give the sacrament to such disorderly people, let their characters be ever so loose.”
“He was always ready to go fast enough out to dinner or supper, where he could get good eating and drinking; but poor people might send to him from their sick bed, times and times before he would come to them. Seeing so much of his inconsistencies and shocking filthiness in their rooms, (though they always paid the rent,) we were determined to give them warning to quit our house, and we do think that a worse man or woman never came into any man’s house before, especially as Mr. Church pretended to preach the gospel; such hypocrites are much worse than others, and besides this, we never heard any man tell lies so fast in all our lives. It is a great grief to us that ever we went to hear him preach, or suffered him to stop so long in our house.”
“GEORGE AND FRANCES GEE.”
In addition to the above testimonies, the writer has received a very long narrative of atrocities committed by John Church while he resided at Banbury, written by a Minister at that place; but the facts are too disgusting and shocking to be published.
On the 6th of June 1813, the Grand Jury for the County of Middlesex found a Bill of Indictment against John Church for his attempt some years ago on a lad named Webster. Incredible as it may appear, this very man, on the very evening of the day he was held to bail for trial on the most horrid charges, given on oath, had the impudence to go into his chapel and preach to a crowded audience.
At the Middlesex Sessions on Monday the 12th of July 1813, he was tried and acquitted. Indeed, it was never imagined that any other verdict than one of acquittal would have been given. If the reader looks back to the proceedings at Union Hall, he will find that this prosecution was ORDERED by the Magistrates of that Office, and did not originate with the prosecutor, William Webster, on whom the abominable attempt was alleged to have been made (now fourteen years ago). The very mention of the attempt was a mere incidental circumstance arising out of another proceeding then before the Magistrates. Let the Reader also take notice of the following sentence:—“The Magistrate observed, that from the length of time which had elapsed since the offence had been committed, he thought a Jury would not feel justified in finding him guilty.” This William Webster, therefore, must be considered, in all respects, as an unwilling prosecutor. He was supported only by one counsel, then of young standing (Mr. Adolphus), who had to struggle against two of the most able advocates (Messrs. Gurney and Alley) in the criminal courts. It appears also that Webster gave his evidence with embarrassment and trepidation, and that he suffered himself to fall into some inconsistencies. With this solitary and confused evidence, and after a lapse—after a silence of ELEVEN YEARS, was it possible to suppose that a Jury would have found any man guilty? It must here be observed, that the decision on this solitary complaint of eleven years standing, does not in the slightest degree affect any of the numerous accusations of a more recent date which have been made against John Church.
Several persons have been at a loss to know by what authority this man presumed to take upon himself the functions of a Minister of the Gospel. They have asked how could a man so profligate—so notoriously criminal, come forth to instruct others in religion. The question is natural, and demands an answer. The practice among Dissenters is, that when any man feels a strong desire to become a preacher, he communicates the same to several Ministers, who make strict enquiry into his qualifications as to piety, learning, morals, &c. and if they find these established on satisfactory evidence, they then confer on the candidate a sort of ordination, without which he can have no authority to officiate as a minister of the Gospel. It seems, that Church did receive some ordination of this kind at the town of Banbury, in Oxfordshire, from which place he was driven away for his mal-practices. Since then he has not been, under the controul, and has acted in defiance of all the ordinances of the Dissenting Church. He has in fact gone about as a mere isolated adventurer; and no minister would preach in a pulpit belonging to him. Yet he continued to preach, in defiance of Christian as well as moral ordinances, because he could not be silenced by any legal authority, and because he rejected all ecclesiastical government.
One character peculiar to the person we are speaking of is, that wherever he has been admitted as a preacher, he has disturbed the religious system, and upset the order of the place. In Colchester he turned the whole congregation against their minister, by preaching doctrines tending to encourage licentiousness and to foster the worst passions. All persons acquainted with history will recollect, that this mode of healing the consciences of profligate men was practised by the Romish Church before the Reformation, and when it flourished in its rankest state of corruption—when indulgences for sins to be committed, and pardon for sins past, were openly sold for money. The manner in which the Obelisk Preacher has conducted the affairs of his chapel bears some resemblance to this practice; and for the purpose of increasing his revenue, he has even administered the sacrament to persons when intoxicated!!
However great may be the mass of folly, ignorance, and fanaticism, which prevail throughout most of the low conventicles of this metropolis, and however injuriously they may operate on the human mind, their effects are innocence and virtue, compared to the influence of that guilt which has so recently been exposed; and it is not too much to observe that the poor silly visionaries who deal in pictures, in miracles, and monstrous conceits, are not wilfully or practically vicious, and that they have lashed themselves into a belief of what they preach; therefore they cannot drag forward so close upon the heels of Mr. John Church as to hold out an appearance of their belonging to the same society. After Church having been held to bail for the purpose of being tried on charges not to be named among Christians, he ought to have abstained from entering his pulpit, and shunned the very light, until his character was cleared up to the satisfaction of his congregation, who ought to have deemed it a sacrilege to be present while he attempted to promulgate the doctrines of Christ in a place of divine worship. But one would think there was a congeniality of sentiment and of sympathy between the pastor and the flock! Indeed this latter remark is founded upon something more than conjecture; for a great number of persons who are in the habit of frequenting his chapel, have taken up the cause of their preacher with a zeal that cannot easily be accounted for in any way but one. They will investigate no charge; they reject all evidence.