Pastor of this church. His prospects In Providence, (R. 1.) on Thursday the 14th of November last, the Second Baptist Meeting-House, was opened for publick worship, when the Throne of Divine Grace was very impressively and solemnly addressed by the Rev. Mr. Gano, and an excellent and appropriate discourse was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Baker, the Pastor of the Church, to a crowded and attentive audience, from Acts vii. 48"Howbeit, the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands." The Rev. Mr. Jacobs, from Pawtuxet, closed the exercises with an impressive Prayer. Hymns were sung, prepared for the occasion, and joy apparently beamed on every countenance, in the recollection that this Society, who, but a few months since, by an awful providence of God, in the overwhelming tempest, had their house of worship totally demolished, had now by the aid of a generous publick, so neat and commodious a place in which again to assemble for the worship of, God. This house is 70 by 50 feet, handsomely finished. At Westboro' (Mass.) on Wednes. day, the 12th of December last, was opened by solemn worship, the new Meeting-House lately erected by the Baptist church and society in that place. The publick exercises commenced at 12 o'clock. Rev. Mr. Train, of Framingham, made the introductory prayer, and read the scriptures. Prayer was again offered up, and blessings implored on the church and congregation, who are hence forward to worship in this house; and an appropriate sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Baldwin of Boston, from Ps. xxvi. 8. The concluding prayer was made by the Rev. Mr. Rockwood, Pastor of the Congregational church in the town. Several hymns and anthems were, during, and at the close of the exercise, sung in a very handsome style. The assembly was respectable, but owing to the badness of the weather, was not so numerous as it would otherwise have been. This house is 40 by 30 feet, neatly finished, and is entirely in the hands of the church. In Bath, (Me.) in a central part of the town, the Baptist church and society have erected, the past season, a very decent and pleasant brick Meeting-House. This house was completed and opened on the 31st of December last. Mr. Stearns preached on the occasion, and we understand that a copy of the sermon is requested for the press. Literary Intelligence. AN original, ancient, and complete manuscript of the Pentateuch, (the first five books of the Old Testament) is stated to be now in the possession of Mr. Joseph Sams, England. This copy is in two volumes, about two feet wide, and 69 feet long, of leather, supposed goat-skin, which is excellently dressed, so as to have great softness to the touch. Each sheet of skin is divided into pages, five inches and a half in width. The letters are very large, excellently written, and ornamented with a number of Tagin or Corona, a thing said to be peculiar to the most ancient manuscripts. Each sheet of leather is stitched neatly to the others with a kind of substance not unlike cat-gut. It is said to be from 1400 to 1500 years old, and that there is reason to believe it has been about 800 years in one Jewish family. The account given of it is this: Dur. ing the wars of France, a Jewish fam. ily of opulence was reduced to ruin, and compelled to emigrate to Holland, and were there obliged to pledge, as their last resource, this manuscript of their law. The time limited for its redemption having expired, the property was sold, and is now likely to become a public benefit. It has been preserved in a rich cover, fringed with fine silk, and lined. The rollers on which the manuscript runs, are beautiful mahogany or iron-wood. A very valuable and important work called Clavis Sinica, (or Key to the Chinese language) has recently been completed and published by Joshua Marshman, Baptist missionary at Serampore. It forms a large quarto volume of about 560 pages, handsomely printed at the mission press, (Calcutta) and is the result of nearly ten years close and continued study. The author has sent several copies to his friends in America; one to the library of Brown University, one to the Theological Seminary at Andover, and one to James Madison, L L. D. President of the United States, as an expression of the high respect he feels for him as the firm friend and able advocate of religious liberty. Works recently published. The first volume of Dr. Gill's Exposition of the Old Testament; in which it is attempted, to give an account of the several books, and the writers of them: a summary of each chapter, and the genuine sense of every verse; and throughout the whole, the original text, and the versions of it, are inspected and compared; interpreters of the best note, both Jewish and Christian consulted; difficult places at large explained; seeming contradictions reconciled, and various pas. sages illustrated and confirmed by testimonies of writers, as well Gentile as Jewish. Philadelphia, W. W. Woodward. Memoir of the early life of William Cowper, Esq. written by himself, and never before published; with an Appendix, containing some of Cowper's Religious Letters, and other interesting documents illustrative of the memoir. First American, from the 2d London Edition. Boston, James Loring. Sermons by John B. Romeyn, D. D. Pastor of the Presbyterian church in Cedar-Street, N. Y. in two volumes. New-York, Eastburn, Kirk & Co. Discourses on the principal points of the Socinian controversy, by Ralph Wardlaw. Andover, Flagg & Gould. A Vindication of Unitarianism, in reply to Mr. Wardlaw's discourses on the Socinian controversy. By James Yates. Boston, Wells & Lilly. Unitarianism incapable of vindica. tion. A reply to the Rev. James Yates' Vindication of Unitarianism, By Ralph Wardlaw, author of the "Discourses on the Socinian controversy," which occasioned the "Vindication." Andover, Mark Newman. Christian Baptism: A sermon preached at Lal Bazar Chapel, Calcutta, on Lord's-day, September 27, 1812, previous to the administration of the ordinance of Baptism. With many Quotations from Pedobaptist Authors. By Adoniram Judson, A. M. Boston, Lincoln & Edmands. A POEM, For the Amer. Bap. Mag. Written at the close of the reformation in B-e, in allusion to 1. 'Tis winter! the spring and the summer are past! And we mourn, and we sigh, and we sigh for those days! 2. "Twas lately we saw all the blossoms appear, The flowers expanding their beauties to view; But alas! all is gone! like a dream, oh! how strange ! 3. Oh, when shall the winter be over and gone! GAIUS. 1 From the London Evangelical Magazine. WE have seldom, if ever, been called upon to record, in this Miscellany, a departed saint and minister of more sterling worth than the late Rev. Abraham Booth. Averse as he was, from the prevalence of deep humility, to any eulogium on his character, solemnly forbidding any thing to be said of him in his funeral-discourse, yet it would be injustice to the God of all grace, who so highly favoured and blessed him, not to acknowledge, to his glory, that plenitude of gifts and graces which was bestowed upon him,— that "Reign of Grace" which was exemplied in him. For our abil ity to gratify the wishes of our readers in doing this, we confess ourselves indebted chiefly to a short Memoir, by the Rev. Dr. Rippon, attached to the funeralsermon by the Rev. Mr. Dore; and to which we gladly refer for more copious particulars than the limits of our biographical pages can admit. Mr. Abraham Booth was born at Annesley Woodhouse, in Nottinghamshire, May 17, 1734. His parents were destitute of all vital religion, till hearing a preacher who visited the country, they became seriously concerned about their eterual interests. Abraham was their first child, and discovered early marks of piety. He chose the most retired places Vol. I. 6 for prayer; and was frequently overheard, alone, wrestling with God. He made an early profession of religion; but he recollected not any particular day when he was suddenly alarmed, any striking sermon under which he was roused, nor any remarkable seasons of overwhelming sorrow; and he has often said, that if he had judged of the state of his soul by such religious convictions only, he must have concluded that he had never been savingly converted to God. His first religious connexions were formed among the General Baptists; and in the nineteenth year of his age he was ordained pastor of a church at Kirkby Woodhouse, near the place of his birth. He was then a zealous enemy of the orthodox system; and greatly opposed the doctrine of election, in a poem “On Absolute Predestination." Gradually, however, as the light of truth arose on his mind, he reflected its beams, in his conversatious and sermons among his hearers; and though, from a conviction of his worth, they were unwilling to part with him, notwithstanding the change of his sentiments, yet he found it nec essary to remove. His next place of settlement was at Sutton Ashfield, in the same county; where he began to preach in a room, called Bore's Hall. Here he formed a small church of the Calvinistic, or Particular Baptist denomination; and to this situation the religious public are indebted for the first edition of The Reign of Grace, which contains the substance of a great number of his sermons, preached first at Sutton Ashfield, and other places. This work has proved the most popular of all his publications; and with it all the circumstances of the latter half of his life are connected. The manuscript had been recommended to the Rev. Mr. Venn, who hearing a pleasing account of Mr. Booth's life and ministry, desired to peruse it, though he entertained no raised expectations concerning it; but "to my great surprise," says Mr. Venn, "there appeared to me in it the marks of a genius, joined with the feelings of a Christian heart; a vigor of style much above what is common in our best religious writers; in his reasoning, clearness and force; and in his doctrine an apostolic purity. .. I flatter myself also, that this work will prove both so pleasing and useful to men of an evangelical taste, that some better situation may be found for Mr. Booth: a situation proper for a man whom God hath endowed with abilities, and a taste for good learning; so that he shall be no more subject to the necessity of manual labour." This recommendation, with the merits of the work itself, brought our worthy friend into public notice; and became the occasion of his settlement with the church in Prescot Street, Goodman's Fields, on the decease of the Rev Mr. Burford, who died April 15, 1768. Some of the brethren having read the book, and being much pleased with it, agreed to take a journey to hear him. They were much delighted with his labours; and invited him to preach a Lord's Day or two with their friends. Mr. Booth accordingly came; preached three successive Sabbaths; and was then requested to repeat his visit, which he did : in consequence of which an unanimous call was given him; which, after due deliberation, he accepted; and was ordained February 16, 1769. Some persons, yet living, perfectly remember how well Mr. Booth's confession of faith was received; they considered it as a kind of wave sheaf, the blissful harbinger of a rich and plenteous harvest; nor have their expectations been disappointed. "Thus united with a godly respectable people, the objects of his laudable ambition were before him, and within his reach. As, therefore, his love of books had been ardent from early life, it now increased, and became almost insatiable; so that he seems to have formed the determination, which Dr. Owen formerly made, that, if learning were attainable, he would, by the blessing of God, surely possess it. The circumstances of his former situation rendered it necessary for him to observe the first part of Pliny's Rule for reading: Non multa,-sed multum ; while his inclination impelled him to follow the second part of it: for though he had not many books to read, yet he read much, digested what he read, and often reduced it to common places. His being already so good a divine, and furnished with a vast variety of matter methodized for the pulpit, gave him leisure, and ministered to the execution of his plan, of which he never lost sight. After his residence in London, he was considerably indebted to the erudition of an eminent classic, who had been a Roman Catholic priest." Except the assistance which he received from this preceptor, he might fairly be denom. inated a self-taught scholar, whose literary acquisitions equalled, and often surpassed his means. Few were better acquainted with the writers of Ecclesiastical History, or of Jewish Antiquities; but he had another object, which seems to have been the height of his ambition ;-he obtained an easy access to the exhaustless stores of Theology, published abroad. Some of those, which he signalized with a peculiar regard, were Witsius, Turretine, Stapferus, Vitringa, and Venema. Nor must we omit among his favourites at home, Dr. John Owen, to whose learned and evangelical writings he has often acknowledged himself deeply indebted. These exertions from early youth till he was more than sixty, unquestionably demonstrate of what importance sound learning appeared to him, especially for a gospel minister; and his opinion on this head must be of consequence, as few were more capable of appreciating its value than himself: he knew its utility by his former want of it. Nevertheless, he constantly maintained, that a knowledge of the languages in which the sacred Scriptures were originally written, however highly desirable, is by no means essential to a minister of Christ. * His doctrinal sentiments were Calvinistic, according to the Confession of Faith, published in London, by the Calvinistic Baptists, in the year 1689. These he thought it his duty to maintain and defend. "Nor did he state either of them in the usual terms, that he might intentionally keep any of the rest of them out of sight. Who ever found him exalting even the glorious person and work of Christ, with a view to render the electing love of the Father, or the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, a mere cypher ? While he sublimely asserted that the "obedience" of our Lord even unto death, "is that in worth which his person is in dignity,-this infinite in glory, that boundless in merit," and, hence, that it is a finished redemption: he never conceived of the active and passive obedience of Christ alone as a complete salvation; but earnestly contended, "that sanctification is a part, a capital, an important part of that salvation and blessedness which are promised to the people of God, and provided for them in Christ." It seems also of consequence to mention how faithfully he contended for those doctrines, at a time when the idea of the iunocency of mental error was fast gaining ground,-when Candour and Liberality were terms employed in favour of none but those who discovered a total indifference to the grand truths of the gospel,when all catechisms, and creeds, and systems were execrated, except such as were in the interests of the Sabellian, the Arian, or the Socinian Heresy. At a Monthly Meeting of ministers, on that text, "Buy the truth and sell it not," he stated, with an energy of mind, and a force of argument never to be forgotten, that "if error be harmless, truth must be worthless ;" and, with a voice, for him unusually elevated, declared, that "every partisan of the innocency of mental error is a criminal of no common atrocity, but guilty of high treason against the Majesty of Eternal Truth." "But, intent as he was in defence of the whole sacred palladium of revealed truth, there is evidence to conclude, that, of late years, two points lay peculiarly near his heart. One is, the Freeness of the Gospel, as containing "Glad Tidings to perishing Sinners; or," in other words, that "the genuine Gospel is a complete Warrant for the most ungodly Person to believe in Jesus." This point he has laboured; and |