Bible-Burning: the substance of a sermon preached in St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, on Sunday evening, Dec. 10, 1848 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Bible-Burning: the substance of a sermon preached in St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, on Sunday evening, Dec. 10, 1848
John Stuart Mill · en
But bear with me awhile, while I advance my _second_ lesson. _Be
thankful for the Protestant Reformed Church of England_. We are not half
thankful enough for the Church of England. And though some of our
Dissenting enemies desire to pull her down, they little know how much
they risk. They little know what a protective position the Church of
England occupies between them and the tyranny of Rome. {18} Whatever the
Church of England may have been in times gone by, and I do not say that
the bitter weed of bigotry is entirely eradicated, yet she is now
practically a tolerant Church.
But it is the fashion of the day to decry _Protestantism_, “Protestantism
is a mere negation!” We do not mean to say that Protestantism will take
a man to heaven. But we _do_ say that it is the glory of our Church
that, when the truth of God had been overlaid with error and corruption,
she came out of the corruption herself, and made a bold protest against
it. Let us not be ashamed of the name Protestant. We want not
Protestantism as a mere toast at a jovial dinner—as the mere shibboleth
of a party. Our Protestantism is a _holy_ thing. It is a protest
against the corruption of the truth of God. And, if you love
Protestantism, _dally_ not with _Popery_. Don’t go to Roman Catholic
Chapels to hear the pretty music! 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; and
if the emissaries of Rome are going up and down in our town, let us at
least be equally diligent; and ask whether we ought not to determine to
have an enlarged band of Scripture Readers to counteract their efforts.