Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Booth, Abraham
BOOTH, ABRAHAM (1734–1806), dissenting minister and author, was born at Blackwell, near Alfreton, Derbyshire, on 20 May 1734. While an infant he was removed to Annesley Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, where his father had taken a small farm under the Duke of Portland, and as the eldest of a large family he assisted them until his sixteenth year, up to which time he was never more than six months at school; but on then leaving farm labour for the stocking-frame he was able to support himself and get some further elementary education. On reaching his twenty-fourth year he married Elizabeth Bowmar, a farmer’s daughter, and soon afterwards opened a school at Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.
Early in life the preaching of some baptists drew him over to a sense of religion, and in 1755 he was baptised by immersion, and commenced to preach in the midland counties. In 1760, when the baptists were first collected into churches, Booth became superintendent of the Kirby-Woodhouse congregation, but declined to be their pastor. Up to this time he had been a strenuous advocate of the Arminian doctrines, and, when twenty years old, had written a poem on ‘Absolute Predestination,’ but he now changed his views for the Calvinistic doctrines held by the Particular baptists, and seceded accordingly. Soon after he began to preach on Sundays as one of the latter sect at Sutton-in-Ashfield, Chesterfield, and other midland towns and villages, keeping school through the weekdays as his only source of income. At this period he composed his work ‘The Reign of Grace,’ 1768. Henry Venn, author of the ‘Complete Duty of Man,’ in consequence of reading Booth's work in manuscript, journeyed into Nottinghamshire to see him, and a lifelong friendship was the result. The preface to the first edition and also to the second edition, 1771, was by Venn. Of this work there have been nine English, one Edinburgh, and three American editions. Soon after its appearance the Particular baptist church of Little Prescot Street, Goodman's Fields, invited Booth to be their pastor. He accepted the call, and was ordained on 16 Feb. 1769. In 1770 he published ‘The Death of Legal Hope, the Life of Evangelical Obedience,’ London, 8vo, as a supplement to ‘The Reign of Grace,’ directed against the extremes of Arminianism and Antinomianism. Other editions followed in 1778 and 1794. These two works were translated and printed abroad. He published a new edition of Dr. Abbadie's work on ‘The Deity of Jesus Christ,’ 1777. In 1778 he published ‘An Apology for the Baptists,’ &c., a work written to oppose the principle of mixed communion. In 1784 he published ‘Pædobaptism Examined,’ an answer to the posthumous work of the celebrated Matthew Henry. This book grew to two thick volumes, 2nd edition, 1787; and was followed by ‘A Defence of Pædobaptism Examined,’ &c., 1792. In 1796 he published ‘Glad Tidings to Perishing Sinners,’ of which four other editions appeared successively, and in 1805 ‘Pastoral Cautions.’
Other works were: ‘Essay on the Kingdom of Christ,’ 1788 (of this two later English editions and one Boston (U.S.) have appeared; it was also translated into Welsh, and published at Aberystwith, 1810). ‘Commerce in the Human Species,’ published by the Abolition Society, 1792. ‘The Amen to Social Prayer,’ 1801, 2nd edition, 1813. ‘Divine Justice essential to the Divine Character,’ 1803. ‘Elegy on Mr. James Hervey;’ and numerous funeral sermons and addresses published separately. Booth also edited several editions of Wilson's ‘Manual on Baptism,’ and several articles of his are to be found in the ‘Baptist Magazine,’ 1809, 1810. Shortly before his death, when precluded from preaching, he wrote two essays, and two days before his death one on ‘the Origin of Moral Evil,’ which were afterwards published as ‘Posthumous Essays,’ 1808.
He died on 27 Jan. 1806, in the seventy-second year of his age, having been a minister fifty years. A neat marble tablet was erected to his memory in the Prescot Street chapel, of which he had been pastor thirty-five years. He was a man of strong muscular frame, and of sound constitution, His private life was distinguished by unsullied piety and kindliness. A lady member of his church once left him a handsome legacy, but on finding there were poor relations of hers existing, he quietly went to the Bank of England and transferred the whole amount to them. His wife died four years before him, and he left several children.
This author's works, being considered by the baptists as a complete and unanswerable vindication of their doctrines, were collected and published in three volumes, London, 1813, 8vo, as ‘The Works of Abraham Booth,’ &c., but without comprising his writings on pædobaptism. In 1829 his ‘Pædobaptism Examined,’ &c., was republished in four volumes, 8vo, by the committee of the Particular Baptist Fund. Booth's portrait, engraved by Mackenzie, appears in William Jones's ‘Essay on Booth,’ Liverpool, 1808, and one engraved by Ridley and Hall is in the ‘Baptist Ann. Reg.’ 1800.
[Booth's Works; Jones's Essay, 1800; Dr. Rippon's Short Memoir (which is full of errors); allusions in the works of R. Elliott, Wm. Miller, Dr. Williams of Oswestry, Dr. Gibbons, Rylands, and Bickersteth; Bapt. Mag. 1809–10; Brit. Mus. Catalogue.]