Religion & Morality Vindicated, Against Hypocrisy and Pollution: Or, an Account of the Life and Character of John Church the Obelisk Preacher, Who Was Formerly a Frequenter of Vere-street, and Who Has Been Charged With Unnatural Practices in Various Places. To Which Is Annexed, a Fac-simile of a Letter, Written by Him to James Cook, Who Kept the Infamous House in Vere-street.Bell, Robert
Religion
Religion & Morality Vindicated, Against Hypocrisy and Pollution: Or, an Account of the Life and Character of John Church the Obelisk Preacher, Who Was Formerly a Frequenter of Vere-street, and Who Has Been Charged With Unnatural Practices in Various Places. To Which Is Annexed, a Fac-simile of a Letter, Written by Him to James Cook, Who Kept the Infamous House in Vere-street.
Bell, Robert
Church, J. (John), approximately 1780-approximately 1825 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Trials (Sodomy) -- England
This report is very correct, so far as it goes; but the reporter might
have added, that I told the Magistrates I had a volume of documents in my
possession to prove Church to be a most infamous culprit, and that it was
a disgrace to the moral character of the nation, to suffer such a man to
be a minister of the Gospel. I have now a short comment to make on this
occasion. I am still at a loss to know what complaint it was that Shawe
intended to prefer against me. I had committed no riot, nor did I ever
mix in any crowd, (in fact there was no crowd or noise, except what the
associates of Church had created). Did he mean to complain to the
Magistrates of the publication in my paper? If so, he must be grossly
ignorant of law, not to know, that the magistrates for the county of
Surrey could take no cognizance of that which I published in the city of
London. And if they had, did he imagine that I would enter into any such
recognizance as Mr. 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. And now, reader, mark again the conduct of this _immaculate_
preacher. He adopts no course of proceeding, by which he may be enabled
to falsify the accusations made against him. No,—he wants to crush and
smother everything by violence; and still continue to levy contributions
on some poor fools who go to hear him; or, perhaps, occasionally to
convert his conventicle into an _accommodating shop_ for the _use_ of
others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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