John C. Miller

“ I know that if you deviate from the simple ground of principle, and begin to talk of expediency, a strong case may readily be made. On grounds of expediency, I myself should be disposed to yield, but as a sworn minister of the Church of England, I have proclaimed Rome to be IDOLATROUS; and if you are ashamed of your Church, I AM NOT; and I will not consent, either directly or indirectly, to support idolatry—I will not consent to pay money for a Priest who goes into London ’Prentice-street or into Ireland to burn the Word of God. ”

“ But are we to receive this doctrine? is there any man in this country except the owner of the house or tenement—be it among the humble tenements of London ’Prentice-street, or the villas of Edgbaston—who has the power to say to me that I shall not enter that house? Is it come to this, that, in these days of freedom, in the 19th century, I am not to be at liberty to enter the house of one of my parishioners, whether he be a Roman Catholic or Protestant, (so long as the householder permits my visit) without receiving scurrility and insult at the instance of a Priest! ”

“ All you that have the Scriptures in your houses, first given perhaps by some affectionate parent, now no more—Servants, to whom some kind and pious Mistress has given a copy of the Word of God, which you have left unread—you little Children who have received a copy of this Holy Book in the Sunday or the National School—beware lest the Word of God neglected and despised should rise up against you at the last great day. Beware, lest, being Protestants in name, ye be wanting in Bible faith, Bible hope, Bible lives. ”

“ We do believe your system to be idolatrous. We do believe it to be opposed in many essential points to the Word of God. And though there be some traitors in our camp who eat our bread and want to fraternize with you, we tell you that the great body of the Protestant Churchmen of England have no sympathy with these traitors. But I earnestly invite your candid attention while I solemnly ask you one question. Does your Church circulate the Word of God? I do not say does your Church, in some particular cases, withhold her objection? but as a Church is it a Bible-circulating Church? ”

“ No Romanist will assert that his Priest is superior to St. Paul. But what did the Bereans do when Paul preached to them? They “SEARCHED THE SCRIPTURES DAILY” to see whether he was preaching truth. And I tell you that if St. Paul himself, yea, if an angel were to preach to me, I would do the same. But what would be said to a poor Irishman who should go to his Priest and say “I have been looking to my Bible to see what is said there about what you told us yesterday, and I find that what you taught us is not according to the Word of God?” ”

“ Men and Brethren beloved! let this be distinctly impressed upon your minds—that the universal right of the laity—yes, of the uneducated part of the laity—to the Word of God, in their own tongue, is a distinctive principle of the blessed Reformation. As it was the Bible which contributed mainly to enlighten and emancipate the mind of the great Luther, so have the translation and circulation of the Bible in the vulgar tongue been co-extensive with the progress of true religion in this country, since the Reformation. ”

“ If it were true that there were nothing in the doctrines or laws of the Church of Rome to identify her with this act, then I should acknowledge the force of the objection; I should fully acknowledge that it would be grossly unfair to charge on any body the act of an isolated individual, unless there were something in the principles, in the laws, or in the practices, of that body which accorded with it.
But a still stronger objection may occur to your minds, after the acknowledgment of the Romish Priests. You may say, “Is not this document signed by the priest who burnt the Testament? ”

“ I desire to put a bridle on my spirit and on my tongue to-night, but when I hear a man telling me that the Word of the living God—that that revelation which our Heavenly Father has graciously given to us his fallen sinful creatures, to tell us of his love, to make known his will, and to declare the way of salvation—that this is to be denied to the masses of the people, I feel within me (I trust a holy) indignation. ”

“ You will find in the courts and alleys of this vast town, many a man who could not discourse to you of this world’s lore, but his eye would kindle, his mind would be all intelligence, and his tongue all fluency, as he began to talk of the wondrous themes of the Word of God. ”

“ Don’t let your children have tales and novels which contain poison, simply because they are nicely got up and illustrated. A man may drink poison out of a golden cup; but it is poison still. Your only safety is to have nothing to do with it. Touch not the unclean thing.
Thirdly.—Circulate the Scriptures. If you cannot do it by your own individual exertions, join those Institutions which are established for this purpose. Join the Christian Knowledge Society; join the British and Foreign Bible Society. Support our Parish Scripture Readers’ fund ”

“ When you turn to your Bibles you will find that in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper we do, in a spiritual sense, by faith, eat the body and drink the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ—but you will not find that by the prayer of the Priest, common sense is contradicted, and the bread, and the juice of the vine, turned into the body and blood of the Son of Man. ”

“ First, I can quite imagine that some persons who are here, and many more perhaps who are absent to-night, may be disposed to say, “Is it not unfair”— (I am now speaking of an objection which might have been urged previous to the published statement of the Priests,) “Is it not unfair to charge a whole body with the act of a solitary individual? Would it be fair to the Church of England to identify her, as a body, with the indiscretion or sin of any one of her ministers?” ”

“ If among the vast multitude which is now thronging this sacred building, there be one who has come up hither with the expectation that it would be my object to excite or fan a flame of bitter hostility against the members of the Church of Rome, I trust that he will be disappointed. ”

“ For when the Lord Jesus shall come a second time, to judge the world, he will demand an account, not merely from the Priest who burns the Bible, but the Protestant who neglects it. A neglected Bible is as bad as a burnt Bible. At the last day, it would be better for us to have been members of a Church which withheld the Word of God from its people, than, having p. ”

“ On his own showing, he was bound to have given the child a New Testament according to the Romish version.
But it will be said, “There are many towns where you can buy the Romish version of the Scriptures at their booksellers.” I can attribute this to nothing else than that Rome skilfully accommodates herself to circumstances of time and place. This remark will be deemed uncharitable by many. Brethren, it is not very easy to avoid the appearance of uncharitableness when speaking of the practises of the Church of Rome. ”

“ That the object of the British and Foreign Bible Society being the circulation of the Word of God without note or comment, this Committee cannot pass unnoticed the dishonour done to the Word of God by the act of a Roman Catholic Priest in this town, who, during the last month, burned a copy of the New Testament ”

“ They are a gift to us and to our children, collectively and individually, that we may lay them to our hearts, that they may be to us our rule of life, and that by following their precepts we may daily approach nearer and nearer to God. ”

“ Not one word is said in reference to this point—that a man calling himself a minister, not of a branch of Christ’s Church, but of the Catholic Church, tells a Protestant Clergyman, in the precincts of his own parish, in the house of one of his parishioners, that though he shall not advise any to resort to violence against his person, he shall encourage them to p. ”

“ Peter’s Church, who was for some months the senior Curate of this parish. That gentleman, I need not say to you, is of such unimpeachable integrity and Christian character as not to admit of any doubt of the truth of his public statement. A little girl attending the Free Industrial School which has been set on foot by my beloved and zealous brother the Rector of St. Philip’s, became possessed, it does not appear by what means, of a copy of the Protestant authorised version of the New Testament. To this Testament Mr. ”

“ Why is it not the very glory of the Word of God—is it not one of the best evidences of its adaptation to the wants of man—that while there are mysteries which neither a Bacon, nor a Newton, nor a Locke could fathom, and into which even an archangel can but desire to p. ”

“ The first is, as the words just quoted bear me out in asserting that they consider that danger and mischief would arise from the general circulation of the Word of God among the masses of the People. Men and Brethren! ”

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