opinion. But here I must remark, that from your language in your last letter, I am not sure that you have really given up the idea of the kiss having been the ordinary mode of salutation in ancient Rome; though you shrink, through a kind of politeness, from maintaining it in opposition to my positive denial of the fact. Now, madam, there is no doubt that real courtesy is not only consistent with Christianity, but is enjoined by it. But, really, Christianity quite spoils the kind of politeness that proceeds on deception, or that is inconsistent with the most steadfast assertion of every thing that involves scriptural truth. And be assured that your plainest avowal that you think me misinformed on that point of Roman manners, though it might make me smile, would not hurt me in the least. It is a point on which it requires very little scholarship to be rightly informed. If you can consult any one capable of examining a few passages that I should refer to in the Latin classics, I think I could satisfy yourself. Perhaps, I may even at present satisfy you, by telling you an amusing little anecdote. One of the Scipios (I think) was a candidate for an office at Rome; and canvassing the citizen electors, in shaking hands with one of them, he was annoyed by the hardness of his gripe. "My good friend," said he, " may I ask, do you walk on all-fours, that your hand is so hard?" It was an unfortunate joke, for it lost him his election. The candidate, during his canvass, was accompanied by a kind of agent called a nomenclator, who whispered in the ear of his employer the names and circumstances of the citizens; and it is in perfect correspondence with the above story, that a poet of the Augustan age describes one of these agents as whispering to the candidate" that man has great influence in the parish ;-shake hands with him." Now, I would put it to your own consideration, if salutation with a kiss were the ordinary or general mode of salutation now in England-whether a candidate for Westminster would not employ it with a voter whom he wished to gain-whether he would employ any less warm mode of salutation on such an occasion? Indeed, even grasping the hand was a more warm salutation than the most ordinary mode employed by the old Romans; among whom, as well as among the Greeks, the most common salutation at meeting and parting, was by a mere expression of good-will, equivalent with our "Good morning!" or

How do you do?" or "Farewell." You will please to recollect, also, that I admitted that, in a later period of the empire, an attempt was made by some young bucks at Rome, to introduce salutation with kiss into ordinary-or at least fashionable-practice. But instead of succeeding, they were ridiculed in epigrams, some of which exist to this day.

I should apologize for being betrayed, in addressing you, into any of the regions of scholarship. I think I scarcely should have been so, but that I suspect your ear has been pre-occupied on this subject by some of the systematic opposers of apostolic Christianity; and I am aware of the combined ignorance and dishonesty which teachers, especially of that description, manifest; particularly where they conceive that the person whom they mislead, is unable to detect the falsehoods which they put forward. But it is time for me to con

clude this long letter; most of which I have written with considerable difficulty, from an attack of gout in my right hand. I have found a copy of another tract, which I shall send you, and am,

I HAVE long known Mr. Booth as a religious teacher, who held much of the form of sound words;" and indeed I was many years ago instrumental in putting out a large edition of his work in Dublin. What my faith and hope were at the time, or what his faith and hope were, I feel no interest in inquiring, and have no desire to pronounce. Antichristian doctrine has been not only so widely prevalent, but so insidiously interwoven with a language like that of the truth, that it is hard to say what mixture of the two languages may consist together; nor have I any thing to do with that inquiry. But this I may say, that if a believer of the truth has expressed himself in any way that trenches upon it, whenever this is pointed out to him, it may be expected that he will" abhor the evil and cleave to that which is good;" and that no weight of human authority, or respectability of the names of men, will outweigh in his mind the authority of the divine word. If it be otherwise, if he side with Antichristians against the truth after their opposition has been pointed out to him, a Christian has no scriptural warrant for regarding him as a believer, whatever plausibility of language he may at times employ to disguise his infidelity.

It was so many years since I looked at Mr. B's work that I have now opened it as new, and with some kind of curiosity to see what it is that I formerly assisted to circulate. But I have found no occasion to read beyond the Introduction. As I expected, I immediately found much that is good and important, particularly where he says, in p. xvi. "the ancient gospel is an unceremonious thing. It pays no respect, &c.; no, the virtuous lady and the infamous prostitute stand on the same level in its comprehensive view. Its business is only with the worthless and miserable, whoever they be." Had I not been aware what lengths men go in good words and fair speeches, while they are yet disaffected towards the ancient gospel, I should have been apt to say-surely, the man who penned that sentence must have had a view of it. Yet before I come to the end of the very next page, I find the same man putting forward one of the

grossest contradictions of the truth-but one that is certainly embodied in almost all the modern gospels, that are not the gospel of Christ. Speaking of the sad effects" of the false

gospels which have been maintained by those who wished to remove the offence of the cross, he says-" the consciences of awakened sinners have been left to grope in the dark for that consolation, which nothing but the unadulterated truth could give." Those who are groping in the dark for consolation, or for something to give peace to their consciences, are indeed in darkness and in death: yet Mr. B. more than intimates that such sinners may be at the same time what he calls awakened. In this he is countenanced by all the popular divines; and indeed their so-called ministry could not proceed at all, without that classification of unbelievers into awakened and unawakened. But the idea is fundamentally opposed to the trtuh of God. According to this, there is but a two-fold classification of all to whom the gospel is sent,-namely, into those who believe it, and those who believe it not. The former are children of the light and of the day: they are not in darkness, as others; and they have given to them everlasting consolation and good hope through grace. 2 Thess. ii. 16. 1 Thess. v. 4, 5. The latter remain under the power of darkness, dead in trespasses and sins: their sleep of death continues alike, whatever dreams may occupy them, whether frightful or pleasurable. But to admit, and honestly to act upon this plain scriptural principle, would be utterly inconsistent with the ministry (so called) of a popular preacher. His meeting-house may be considered as a manufactory of what are termed Christians, but are not. His profane and careless, or unawakened hearers, are the raw material, on which he first labours to get them into a sober and demure mood; then into a state of alarm and perturbation of conscience, which he calls awakened; then he is busied in training those who are to seek consolation, and encouraging them to take the insidious consolation, which he offers them in his gospel and the various styles of address, which he employs to those different classes of hearers, he profanely calls, "rightly dividing the word of truth." I am aware that all this language which I employ upon the subject will appear intolerably harsh, and abominably uncharitable, to those who savour not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. But whoever regards it so, is really siding with the corrupters of the Gospel of Christ, whatever plausible profession of believing it he may make.

:

But it may be asked-may not Mr. B have fallen into this language without really perceiving its evil tendency against the truth of the gospel, and without meaning to support it in that opposition to the truth? I can easily admit the general possibility of such a thing: but it does not dispose me at all to lower the tone in which I reprobate the unscriptural sentiment expressed. If Mr. B., or any other who expresses it, be, at bottom, of another mind from what the language appears to convey, that better mind would delight to have the falsehood exposed most plainly; and any mind that would wish to screen the falsehood from exposure (in all its antichristian malignity) on account of the respectability of the names of

men, who have held the same language, any such mind is not the mind of Christ.

But I must, in honesty, say, that the lie which I have marked seems to constitute an essential part of Mr. B's system. In the very next page I find this language: "To the sensible sinner, therefore, it (the doctrine of reigning grace) must always be a joyful sound." Here we have concentered the quintessence of the popular false gospels. The gospel of Christ is glad tidings of great joy to sinners, even the chief, to sinners indiscriminately, and is sent as such to all nations, and all ranks and characters, without distinction, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. When Paul in the synagogue at Antioch addressed his hearers, "We declare unto you glad tidings," &c., Acts xiii. 32; did he previously inquire whether his hearers were, what Mr. B., and fellow divines call, sensible sinners-made somewhat acquainted with the deadly nature of sin-humbled under the conviction of it-panting for deliverance from it-and thus (as is supposed) prepared for the reception of the gospel? No: both there, and wherever he went, he declared the same gospel (or glad tidings) to all whom he met, without distinction; because, preaching God the saviour of sinners, he was certain, not only that they were all sinners, but that they were all sensible sinners, so far as to know that they were sinners-to be charged in their consciences with sin. No doubt, none but those who believed the glad tidings, which he declared, rejoiced in them, or knew the joyful sound: but this was a mind, not which the gospel of God found in those to whom it was sent, but which it produced (as the rod of His power) in those who believed it, having been ordained unto eternal life. When Mr. B. and the divines talk of sensible sinners, to whom the gospel "must be a joyful sound,” i.e. must be a gospel, they plainly intend certain characters, so prepared for the reception of the gospel, that when it is sent to them, they will acknowledge and receive it, as what it is, glad tidings of great joy to sinners. Now, any such preparation in a sinner for the reception of the gospel, while it is a corner-stone doctrine in all the popular systems of theology, is essentially anti-christian, or opposed to the gospel of Christ. Yet, the great object and business of the so-called ministry of the popular teachers is, first, to produce some such preparation in their hearers; and secondly, to apply to their prepared hearers a corrupted gospel accommodated to this idea. "To the sensible sinner the gospel must always be a joyful sound." I suppose in this it must be at least included, that this sensible sinner must believe the gospel, when it shall be laid before him. Now, to say that a sinner, not yet acquainted with the gospel, must believe it when he shall hear it, is to say, that darkness must be light, that death must be life, that enmity must be love; it is to attribute to the mind of an ungodly sinner all the characters which belong to the mind of Christ. Mr. B. had learned to say, as in p. xvi.; "the ancient gospel has not the least regard to the devotee for the sake of his zeal or righteousness." But he seems to have been as disaffected as that devotee to the ancient gospel, which has not the least regard to the sensible sinner for the sake of his sensibility of sin, the depth of his convictions, and the ardour of his desires for deliverance.

I say, the more confidently, that he seems to have been thus disaffected to the truth, on casting my eye forward to the following page xix. where he says, in plain language; "to have a bare conviction of the truth in the mind, and to experience its power on the heart, are very different things." Here we have Mr. B. directly and broadly opposed to the word of God; and this, not on a subordinate and non-essential point of divine truth, but on the very essence of the gospel of Christ. There is no more essential point of the gospel than this; that whosoever believeth it hath everlasting life and shall be saved eternally. But, according to Mr. B., a man may have a conviction of the truth in his mind, or may believe it, and yet may be damned. Nothing more can be necessary to prove to a Christian that Mr. B. was an infidel when he wrote this: and as to all the good words and fair speeches which he employs throughout his work, those who remember what the apostle says about the transformation of ministers of Satan into ministers of Christ, will see nothing inconsistent in them with his infidelity. The man who holds a gospel which may be believed by a sinner, and yet that sinner not be saved, may talk ever so highly about grace, about faith, about the righteousness of God, &c. &c., but all the expressions which he employs, stand in his mind for things essentially different from what they really import in the language of scripture: and to maintain this juggle of deceitful words is, indeed, the grand trade of the so-called ministers or clergy. Mr. B. classes himself with "the faithful dispensers of sacred truth." The disciple of Christ taught from the scriptures would expect to find any man a clerical impostor, who makes such a claim; and peeds not, therefore, be surprised to find the Baptist minister, Abraham Booth, a wolf in sheep's clothing. I do not think it at all necessary to read or note beyond the introduction of his work.

ΤΟ

CLVI.

**

1831.

And now let me pass to more important matters.

I confess I was considerably startled by the opinions you tell me are broached by some among us on both the first day of the week and on amusements; and I strongly suspect there is a white devil at work on these subjects. As you have not told me who the persons are, I know not whom I may hit by any of my remarks: and, perhaps, so much the better, as foolish tenderness might else lead me not to hit hard, like a Turk.' I had not been aware that you were acquainted with that phrase.

Though the Jewish sabbath is no more, it is becoming in Christians, for many reasons, to keep holy the first day of the week.'