Exerts from Abraham Booth's Glad Tidings

by Mark McCulley

p182, "If by 'an awakened sinner' it is taught that no one is authorised to depend on Christ for pardon and peace until possessed of a more holy disposition, he must necessarily be more solicitous to find evidence of that prerequisite existing in his own heart, than to understand and believe what the gospel says concerning Christ."

p223, "The Scriptures will not permit our concluding that any pious affections are possessed by sinners before they receive the truth and believe in Christ. If we really love and revere God, it is because He first loved us, because there is forgiveness with him, because that love for the elect has been revealed in the glad tidings of reconciliation."

p228--"For sensible sinners to think that they dare not and ought not to believe and embrace Christ, till they be more deeply humbled, and do more thoroughly repent of their sins, and be 'more fit' to receive him; this is but a gilded deceit and a trick of a false heart."

p232--"The apostles describe ungodly persons by their not knowing, not loving, or not possessing the truth. They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. That they all might be damned who believed not the truth. If God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth...

p235--"The energy of the Holy Spirit applying the word of reconciliation to their hearts, the truth is believed and their enmity subdued, in the same instant. The gospel is the instrument whereby God brings the person forth in a new birth. We are said to be born of the Spirit, nowhere said to be born of the word, but "I have begotten you THROUGH the word."

p238 "According to fatalism, the word of truth having no influence, is of no use in the work or regeneration, the salutary and important change being produced entirely without it...To imagine that a preparation of the mind, merely to receive the truth, is a change so great as to describe the expressions 'born again' or 'born of the Spirit' or 'born of God' is very unwarrantable. On that supposition, the change described by being 'born of God' takes place merely in the intellect not at all in the will...It is too hastily assumed that the mind is prepared to receive the light of spiritual knowledge before the truth have any influence on it."

p247 "Now the question is: Do the Scriptures lead us to conclude that the mind and the conscience are brought into the new state by an immediate divine energy, without the medium of either the law or the gospel? I think not. It is written: by the law is the knoweldge of sin. When the commandment came, sin revived and I died...

p249 "For an 'awakened sinner' to be persuaded to be persuaded that regeneration is effected without the instrumentality of divine truth, is to give an injurious direction to his prayers and expectations. He will pray for something under the notion of 'regeneration' in which the knowledge of Christ and a regard to His atonement have no concern...Neglecting the testimony of God concerning Jesus, he will be ready to look inside himself for some impulse to produce the important change...