Transcribed from the 1817 Hay and Turner edition by DavidPrice,
HAY AND TURNER’S GENUINEEDITION,
Entered at Stationers’ Hall.
THE
INFAMOUS LIFE
OF
JOHN CHURCH,
THE
St. George’s Fields Preacher,
FROM HIS INFANCY UP TO HIS TRIAL ANDCONVICTION,
WITH
HIS CONFESSION,
Sent in a Letter to the Rev. Mr.L—, two days after his Attack on
Adam Foreman, at Vauxhall, with Clerical Remarks by the
same Gentleman; to which is added, his
Love Epistles to E****B****.
Together with various otherLetters, particularly one to Cook, of Vere-
Street Notoriety.
London:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HAY AND TURNER,
11, NEWCASTLE STREET STRAND;
AND MAY BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS IN TOWNAND COUNTRY.
1817.
PRICE FOUR PENCE.
p. 3THELIFE
OF
JOHN CHURCH,
&c. &c.
It has been justly remarked, by acelebrated writer, that “a sudden rise from a low station,as it sometimes shews to advantage the virtuous and amiablequalities, which could not exert themselves before, so it morefrequently calls forth and exposes to view those spots of thesoul which lay lurking in secret, cramped by penury, and veiledwith dissimulation.”
John Church, the subject of thefollowing pages, was found, when an infant, on the steps, or nearthe porch of a church (some say that of St. Andrew, in Holborn;)and the overseers of the parish not being able to discover whowere his parents, or by whom he was thus abandoned, had him sentto the Foundling Hospital, where he received that name, whichbears the nearest analogy to the place where he was found. Here he remained until he was nine years old, when a complaint tothe Governors having been made against him by the nurses, that hewas addicted to improper and disgusting practices, it was thoughtprudent to apprentice him out at that early age, to obviate thepossibility of the contagion spreading amongst the rest of theboys who partook of the bounties of that charity. From hisevident illiteracy, and from the badness of his writing, it iscertain that he must have quitted the Hospital at an earlier agethan usual, because, in general, none leave it who are not goodscholars. He was accordingly placed out as an apprentice toa Gilder, in Blackfriars Road. Before the expiration of hisindenture, he married and quitted the service of hismaster. Shortly afterwards, he worked for a compositionornament maker, in Tottenham Court Road. This immaculateMinister of the Gospel here commenced his religious career, and,under the assumed garb of sanctity, took upon him the office of ateacher to the Sunday School, at that time established atTottenham Court Chapel. Thinking that preaching was abetter trade than that which he