Puritan Richard Rogers

J. I. Packer tells the story of the Puritan Richard Rogers as he calls his audience to value the Word of God more highly. Rogers personates God to the people, telling them, "Well, I have trusted you so long with my Bible; you have slighted it, it lies in such and such houses all covered with dust and cob-webs; you care not to listen to it. Do you use my Bible so? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer." And he takes up the Bible from his cushion, and seemed as if he were going away with it and carrying it from them; but immediately turns again and personates the people of God, falls down on his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, "Lord, whatever thou dost to us, take not thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods; only spare us thy Bible, only take not away thy Bible." And then Rogers personates God again to the people: "Say you so? Well, I will try you a while longer; and here is my Bible for you. I will see how you will use it, whether you will love it more . . . observe it more . . . practise it more, and live more according to it." By these actions . . . Rogers put all the congregation into so strange a posture that . . . the place was a mere Bochim, the people generally . . . deluged with their own tears; and . . . he himself, when he got out was fain to hang a quarter of an hour upon the neck of his horse weeping before he had the power to mount; so strange an impression was there upon him, and generally upon the people, upon having been expostulated with for the neglect of the Bible.