Robert Bell

“ Let us for ever endeavour to turn every thing, whether good or bad, into good. I do not not believe that God begot Jesus Christ—they say too that Joseph was an impostor at this very day;—every thing that is done against the church is done against Christ; also that which is done against Christ is done against the Church; and any thing done against the people of God is done against Christ. ”

“ We must have the spirit of God before we are his people. Believe in the predestination of eternal life, but not in eternal death; people that suffer were beforehand predestined so to do, by God. Bad or horrid is the religion of a proud Pharisee. That religion that is preached by the people of God is God himself. There can be no going forth until the Spirit of God has entered. ”

“ Complaints have often been made from very high quarters of the publicity given to certain proceedings in Courts of Justice; and it is but justice to say, that within the last twenty years, the press has been very cautious in its manner of relating them. But it is a matter of doubt with many wise men whether the suppression of facts in such instances does not, upon the whole, do more injury to public morals than a complete disclosure of them ”

“ Theodore Page, the printer, in Blackfriars road, was obliged to do? No, Sir; so long as I continue to live in a free country, I will suffer no Justice of peace to lay an illegal imprimatur on my press. Mr. Page, as quiet and discreet a man as ever existed, who was not seen in any crowd, and who would be the first to get away from any place where there happened to be the slightest disturbance, is now bound in the penalty of 100l. to preserve the peace! and for what, because he printed some hand-bills, giving an account of Church’s infamous practices. ”

“ I picture to my imagination the affecting scene the painful thought, I must close the affecting subject ’tis more than my feelings are able to bear—My hearths full, my mind is sunk, I shall be better when I have vented out my grief, Stand fast my dearest Ned to me I shall to you whether you do to me or no, and may we be pardoned, justified, and brought more to the knowledge of Christ. ”

“ I am informed that Church belongs to that sect called Antinomians, which is thus described by the Rev. John Evans in his “Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World”:—
“The Antinomian derives his name from Anti and Nomos; signifying, against, and a Law, his favourite tenet being, that the law is not a rule of life to believers. It is not easy to ascertain what he means by this position, but he seems to carry the doctrine of imputed righteousness of Christ and salvation by faith without works to such lengths as to injure, if not wholly destroy the obligation to moral obedience. ”

“ 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 was natural, and I will answer it. 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. ”

“ People may be laughed at for being fools, but you may depend upon it the more God will like them. All that believe not will certainly be damned. The duties of Christianity are not to be preached to an ungodly world; John Church is very much spoken of, but they had much better speak of Jesus; the people of the established church feel no spiritual joy. Spiritual discourse is enlivening to the senses, &c. The bread of life is not to be given away to Dogs. ”

“ And, on the other hand, there are certain acts, which, if passed over without notice by civil authority, or animadversion on the part of the press, may produce evils destructive to society. Another laborious task imposed on a journalist is the dilemma in which his duty to the public and his fear of offending the delicacy of individuals, frequently places him, when he is about to record events which cannot be suppressed without doing a serious injury to public morals. ”

“ 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 conducts the affairs of his chapel bears some resemblance to this practice. ”

“ Webster as his friend, a housekeeper in Lambeth, said he was ready to bail him. The prosecutor then said, he had also a very serious complaint to make against Mr. Bell, for the article which he published in his last Sunday’s newspaper, respecting Church, and he had one of the papers in his hand. Mr. Bell told the Magistrates that he was ready to meet any complaint of this kind; that he conceived it to be his duty as one of the guardians of public liberty, and public morals, to send forth the statement in question; that he could prove the truth of every thing he had written and published. ”

“ For a considerable time past, the person just named has been getting a living by preaching as a Minister of the Gospel in an obscure conventicle close to the Surrey Theatre. In the mean time, reports had gone abroad that he was addicted to certain abominable propensities, and certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood, not actuated by any jealousy towards a successful “rival in the vineyard,” as the Union-hall report falsely stated, but dreading the disgrace and pollution which Christianity might suffer from the immoral character of any of its teachers, investigated these rumours ”

“ A Correspondent, who happened to attend two or three times at Church’s Meeting-house, took down the following sentences from his Sermons. They may gratify the curiosity of the reader.
“God is frequently going forth, and we also are often going to the window to look for him; The more vile I am made to appear to the World the more God will assist me. Every citizen is a free-born. ”

“ Satan and all his spirits never sleeps; the power of life and death is only in the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. Devils are allowed to harrass the people of God day and night—no wonder they perplex those they cant destroy. People are mostly liable to fall in their first love into awful heresies and temptation. ”

“ If every one that is saved should be as bright as the sun, what a place heaven must be, where there will be so many millions! Angels beckon me away, and Christ bids me come. The sight of Christ, you may depend on’t, will be worth suffering for. ”

“ There must be spiritual life in the soul. The Lord Jesus Christ and the people of God are all one. Christ has no sorrow but the people of God must sympathise with him; and the people of God have no affliction but that Christ sympathises with them.”
[20] Alluding to his being turned out of Banbury.
[21] Before Church got to bed to young Clark, he scoffed at secret prayer. What abominable hypocrisy, to hear the same man pretending to pray before a public congregation, where he can get himself paid for his devotions! how he must hate and despise himself on account of his own most odious cant!!! ”

“ The printer is a respectable and responsible house-holder residing in the neighbourhood. He has sent forth from his press many hundred sheets of paper filled with direct allegations of criminality against Church: and I again ask, why does not Church take that step which an honest innocent man would take in vindication of his character, namely—that of bringing an action for damages, wherein evidence to their truth or falsehood may be legally admitted? ”

“ This has been the principle on which I have uniformly acted in the conduct of this paper. But to suppress in a newspaper the publication of a fact which meets the eyes and ears of all people would be at once absurd and mischievous. ”

“ June 30, 1813.
p. 5JOHN CHURCH,
THE OBELISK PREACHER. Extract from the Weekly Dispatch of April 18.
Among the various duties of a newspaper editor, one of the most arduous is, that of determining what sort of domestic events it may be useful to cover over with a veil of silence, and what sort are they, of which the concealment would operate as an injury to the public. Occurrences will often take place in private life, which, on every principle of moral expediency and justice, ought never to be born beyond the threshold of the place where the parties reside. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In such a case then, the press is the only power that can act: and is that power to be suspended by cold calculating timidity? The chief duty of a Journalist is to check the progress of any public evil, by giving activity and force to the LAW OF OPINION, when the municipal law cannot reach the same. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed this latter remark is founded upon something more than conjecture: for a great number of persons who are in the habit of frequenting the obelisk 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. ”

“ 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 ever 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 [22] 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.” ”

“ And I again ask if it is to be tolerated in a Christian, in a moral country, that a man ordered by the magistrates to be tried for the basest of all crimes, alleged against him on oath, should be suffered to collect an assembly of English subjects around him under pretence of giving them religious instruction? ”

“ It is proper to observe here, that some of these wretches assume the names of women, and that they are absolutely married together, as will be shewn presently from Church’s having been the parson who performed the blasphemous mock ceremony of joining them in the ties of “Holy Matrimony.” He now settled himself at Chapel Court in the Borough, when his old Garrett publicly charged him with a wicked and diabolical offence as the law says, “not to be named amongst Christians,” and he was obliged to run away from this accusation. ”

“ It is a most blessed thing that we can throw our burthens upon Christ;—I do not care who hears me, whether God, or Man, Friends, or Foes, Devils or Angels, or any thing else, and let them call me an Antinomian again if they please. ”

“ 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 I have exposed, and which I am prepared to expose still more effectually in any Court of Justice. ”

“ The Editor, therefore, wishing to extend his efforts in defence of religion and morality as widely as possible, by holding up to all mankind a true picture of a blasphemous hypocrite who is a contemner of the one and a violator of the other, has thought it advisable to publish the whole of his narratives and remarks in a separate pamphlet; to which are subjoined many additional facts that could not appear in a Sunday Paper. The reason this publication has been so long delayed was, in expectation that John Church would have been brought to trial in the beginning of June, p. ”

“ In other places of worship, the practice is, for persons, who have been appointed as trustees, to take charge of all the money collected once a mouth, and after allowing a reasonable remuneration to the minister, apply the remainder to the relief of the poor, and to the repairs of the place. ”

“ His manner is forward and imposing; and his eyes are continually employed in staring at some person among his auditors. But these being people of the very lowest description, and, to all appearance, wrapt in a cloud of superstitious stupor, scarcely ever examine the physiognomy of their idol.
I have a word or two, to add on the subject of riotous proceedings. On Sunday evening last there was a large crowd of people assembled near the entrance of the Obelisk Chapel. There were several groupes of persons holding arguments on the merits of the preacher, but not the slightest indication of riot. ”

“ In consequence of this, the father entered J. Church’s meeting house, with two loaded pistols, one in each pocket, but under the excess of agitation, he fainted away, and was carried out of the place.
There are various other documents which are too voluminous to notice at present. The point to which I now wish to direct the attention of the public is, the extraordinary circumstance of a man continuing to exercise the functions of a christian pastor with such heavy imputations as these hanging over his head. He knows that the whole neighbourhood rings with accusations ”