[BBC List] are you sure you like finney?

Thu May 11 09:37:43 EAST 2006

Charles G. Finney: How Theology Affects Understanding of Revival

Iain Murray

"For a long time it was supposed by the Church that a revival was a miracle,
an interposition of Divine power. It is only within a few years that
ministers generally have supposed revivals were to be promoted by the use of
means . . . God has overthrown, generally, the theory that revivals are
miracles."HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#1"1  — C.
G. Finney

There is no question that it is the name of Charles Grandison Finney which
chiefly deserves to be connected with what has become the most popular
understanding of revival. William McLoughlin goes too far when he writes:
‘The difference between [Jonathan] Edwards and Finney is essentially the
difference between the medieval and the modern temper. One saw God as the
centre of the universe, the other saw man. One believed that revivals were
"prayed down" and the other that they were "worked up".’ But his words are
not an overstatement when he goes on: ‘Finney’s revivalism broke the dam
maintained by ‘The Tradition of the Elders" (the title of one of his most
pungent sermons) and transformed "the new system" from a minority to a
majority religion.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#2"2

If we are to understand how one man came to command such influence on
subsequent history we need to take a closer view of his life and teaching.

A visit to Andover College, Massachusetts, in the year 1831 will introduce
Finney to us at the height of his powers. It was the eve of keenly awaited
Anniversary meetings at this theological seminary and for the last evening
of those special days the speaker anticipated was Dr Justin Edwards.
Although Justin Edwards was one of the favourite preachers of New England,
the College authorities had reason to be apprehensive; for the local village
church had engaged another visitor to preach at the same hour on that same
Wednesday evening. Their fears proved justified: a mere thirty persons
attended the College chapel to hear the distinguished guest, while the
village church was packed with students, alumni and others to hear Charles
G. Finney, aged thirty-nine, fair-haired and an impressive six-foot-two in
height. One of the absentee theological students who chose the alternative
to the College proceedings was E. A. Park. More than fifty-eight years
later, when Park wrote of the occasion, he declared he could recall the
impression made upon him as distinctly as on the night itself. Finney’s
sermon, he reported, was on the text, ‘One Mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus’ (I Tim. 2:5). Although an hour and three-quarters in
length, it commanded the attention of all, even of those who had gone
critically. Park recalled: ‘It abounded with sterling argument and startling
transitions. It was too earnest to be called theatrical, but in the best
sense of the word it was dramatic. Some of his rhetorical utterances are
indescribable.’ As every seat was full, Park sat with five other men on a
plank which had been put across chairs in an aisle. Such was the impression
of the sermon, he says, that ‘The board actually shook beneath us. Every one
of the men was trembling with excitement.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#3"3

It was not only that night that Finney was exciting. He has remained so
almost ever since. His Memoirs was first published in 1876 and (apart from
Augustine’s Confessions) it is probably the only Christian autobiography
which has remained in print for over one hundred and twenty years. It is
possible that no man has had such a far-reaching influence on evangelical
Christianity in these years as Finney, the ‘Father of Modern Revivalism’.
His book, Lectures on Revivals, has by far outsold every other book on the
subject. Dr Billy Graham summarises the general opinion of Finney when he
writes: ‘Through his Spirit-filled ministry, uncounted thousands came to
know Christ in the nineteenth century, resulting in one of the greatest
periods of revival in the history of America.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#4"4

Life and Teaching

Finney was born in New England in 1792. While he was still a child, his
parents moved to the shores of Lake Ontario, in western New York state, and
it was here, in the little town of Adams, that Finney was converted to
Christ in 1821. He had previously been an unconcerned and frivolous attender
at the Presbyterian church in Adams and it was to the surprise of his
minister, George W. Gale, that he appeared one Monday evening at an inquiry
meeting under strong conviction of sin and wanting to become a Christian.
The same week Finney came to peace and assurance. Soon he was helping Gale
in the work of the Adams church and, when the local presbytery accepted him
as a candidate for the Presbyterian ministry, it was Gale who became his
tutor. Finney was ordained in 1824 and almost immediately, it appears, he
was used in a series of revivals in parts of Jefferson and St Lawrence
Counties. In the October of 1825 he met his former pastor, George Gale, who
had now moved to Western in Oneida County. Gale urged Finney to stay with
him and it was at this time that Finney first became well known on account
of the part he was to play in what became known as the ‘Western revivals’.
The majority of those converted under his ministry, wrote Gale:

were not women and children but strong men, educated men . . . Lawyers and
judges, men of all professions and conditions of life . . . The great secret
of his success was that he was a powerful reasoner. Though he was a bold and
fearless preacher of the Gospel he was a man of much prayer, and singleness
of purpose. It was to win souls to Christ that he labored. His own
reputation, or interest, came in for no share of his aims, any further than
the cause of Christ was to be effected. Like Barnabas, he was full of the
Holy Spirit, as well as a good man, and much people were added to the
Lord.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#5"5

Soon Finney was preaching in the great centres of population on the east
coast. Five thousand were said to be converted in a meeting in Philadelphia
in 1828, and in 1829 and 1830 his meetings continued to be attended by large
crowds in New York City. In the latter place he undertook his first
pastorate in 1832 and it was here in 1834 and 1835 that he delivered the
twenty-two lectures on revival which became his famous book. In published
form they immediately commanded widespread sales. Twelve thousand copies
were printed in New York by 1837 and by 1840 a ‘thirteenth printing' was
published in Britain. A translation into Welsh was published in
1839.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#6"6 Several
reasons combined to attract such interest:

1. The subject of revival was then of very general interest throughout the
English-speaking world.

2. Word had spread that Finney was himself an experienced preacher in
revivals.

3. Finney was saying something which had never been effectively said in
print before and which seemed to have great importance for the advance of
the kingdom of Christ. He argued that ‘very few’ had previously rightly
understood the theology of revival and that ‘vast ignorance’ persisted among
ministers on the subject.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#7"7 People had formerly
believed that revivals were like the rain; they could not be produced or
organised by any human arrangements. But here was a teacher who believed
that it was the church’s duty to obtain revivals. If you are a Christian, he
said, God ‘has placed His Spirit at your disposal’.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#8"8 ‘You see why you do not
have a revival. It is only because you do not want one. Because you are
neither praying for it, nor feeling anxious about it, nor putting forth
efforts for it.’

HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#9"9 ‘If the Church
will do all her duty, the millennium may come in this country in three years
. . . If the Church would do all her duty, she would soon complete the
triumph of religion in the world.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#10"10

Or again, in a reference to the men who had supported him in introducing new
measures, Finney wrote: ‘If the whole church as a body had gone to work ten
years ago, and continued it, as a few individuals, whom I could name, have
done, there would not now be an impenitent sinner in the land.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#11"11

This teaching caused widespread interest not simply because it was new, and
delivered with much authority, but also because it was backed up by the
author’s repeated appeal to the evidence of success which he had seen in his
own ministry. But Finney knew that what he was saying would meet criticism
and in Revivals of Religion he forewarned his readers of the kind of people
who would oppose it:

They are ancient men, men of another age and stamp from what is needed in
these days, when the Church and world are rising to new thought and action .
. . It is dangerous and ridiculous for our theological professors, who are
withdrawn from the field of conflict, to be allowed to dictate, in regard to
the measures and movements of the Church, as it would be for a general to
sit in his bedchamber and attempt to order a battle.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#12"12

Finney was right in believing there would be controversy, but it did not
last many years and, as already observed, significant parts of his teaching
came to be accepted as standard evangelical belief. In 1834 he left the
Presbyterian Church and became a Congregationalist. The next year he became
the Professor of Theology at Oberlin. For a while he combined this post with
his New York pastorate but from 1838 his time was divided between Oberlin —
where, it is said, he trained some 20,000 students in the course of his life
— and itinerant ministry. In 1849—50, and again in 1858, he was in Britain.
‘Both these visits,’ Frank G. Beardsley asserts, ‘were the occasion of
extensive revivals.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#13"13 Another writer adds: ‘He
was the first man to introduce American revivalistic methods into England
and Scotland.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#14"14
By the time that this ‘king of American evangelists’ died at the ripe age of
eighty-three years it was said that five hundred thousand persons had been
converted through his instrumentality.

Possibly the most influential thing which Finney ever did was begun when he
had turned seventy years of age. This was the preparation of his
autobiography. Edited and abridged by J. H. Fairchild, it was published
almost immediately after his death and through its pages untold numbers
around the world were to have their thoughts shaped on evangelism and
revival.

By the time Finney’s Memoirs was published in 1876 the controversy in which
he had been engaged in earlier years was a thing of the distant past. Most
people took the view that it was no longer of any relevance. The opinion of
one New York minister was general: with reference to Finney, Theodore Cuyler
believed that, by the 187os, ‘the once bitter controversies between "old
school" and "new school" had become quite obsolete.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#15"15 Yet Finney himself did
not appear to think so, for the fact is that a large part of his Memoirs is
taken up with a defence of the new thinking which he had done so much to
introduce in the 1820s and 1830s. Over and over again he tells us of the
opposition which he encountered to evangelism and revival, and who was
responsible for it. The main culprits were ministers of the Presbyterian
Church who still believed what was taught in the Westminster Confession of
Faith and the main centre of resistance to change he identified as Princeton
Theological Seminary where some of the principal ‘ancient men’
taught.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#16"16

It was impossible, Finney believed, to hold what he called ‘Princeton
theology’ and be a supporter of evangelism and revival and he tells us why
at great length. In brief, the reason was this. Following the Westminster
Confession, Princeton believed that man is so fallen that he cannot do
anything to make himself a Christian. While holding that it is the duty of
preachers to call upon sinners to repent and believe, this old-school
teaching taught that for such responses to be saving there needed to be the
interposition of the Spirit of God in regeneration. Man is unable of himself
to forsake sin and to receive Christ. Finney claimed that this teaching was
entirely unscriptural. Instead he held that human depravity is a ‘voluntary’
condition, that is to say, its continuance depends upon the choice of the
human will. Let a man once decide for Christ and he will become a new man.
So the evangelist is not simply to preach Christ and to tell men of their
duty to believe; he has to help make that believing a reality by appointing
some outward action to assist a change of will. So we read repeatedly in
Finney's Memoirs of the ‘new measures’ with which he directed people ‘to
make themselves a new heart’:

I called upon any who would give their hearts to God, to come forward and
take a front seat [‘the anxious seat’].HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#17"17

We insisted on immediate submission.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#18"18

I called upon them to kneel down and then and there commit themselves
forever to the Lord.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#19"19

I called on those only to kneel down who were willing to do what God
required of them, and what I presented to them.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#20"20

I called for those whose minds were made up, to come forward, publicly
renounce their sins, and give themselves to Christ.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#21"21

There were some who regarded controversy on such matters as simply a
disagreement over methods but Finney rightly understood that something much
more was involved. The fundamental question has to do with whether or not
the sin of Adam has ruined the nature of all his posterity. The teaching
which Finney was consciously opposing asserted that it had; man has
inherited a sinful nature from Adam. All the Reformed Confessions taught
that sin is not simply a matter of actions which we repeat because we learn
them from the example of others. It is rather the result of an evil
principle which lies at the centre of a nature which is fallen. Actual sins
are only the surface proof of a deeper corruption beneath. Our choices and
actions are wrong because our very hearts are wrong. So, on this
understanding, for God to deal with our sins would not be enough. It is our
sinfulness which is the fundamental problem. Finney denied this. He did not
believe that men since the Fall are born with a sinful nature. He complained
of the Presbyterians that ‘they held the doctrine that moral depravity was
constitutional, and belonged to the very nature; that the will, though free
to do evil, was utterly impotent to all good.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#22"22 To illustrate what he
considered to be the injurious effects of such teaching on unbelievers
Finney records a conversation which he had on one occasion. A non-Christian,
apparently of Presbyterian background, told him:

‘The Bible teaches us that God created us with a sinful nature.’ I replied,
‘Mr. S——, have you a Bible? Will you not turn to a passage that teaches
this?’ ‘Why, there is no need of that,’ he says; ‘you admit that the Bible
teaches it.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I do not believe that the Bible teaches any such
thing.’ ‘Then,’ he continued, ‘the Bible teaches that God has imputed Adam’s
sin to all his posterity; that we inherit the guilt of that sin by nature .
. . This is a direct contradiction of my irresistible convictions of right
and justice.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and so it is directly in contradiction of
my own.’ He began to quote the catechism, as he had done before. ‘But,’ I
replied, ‘that is the catechism, not the Bible.’ ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you are a
Presbyterian minister, are you not? I thought the catechism was good
authority for you.’ ‘No,’ I said; ‘we are talking about the Bible now —
whether the Bible is true.’ ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘if you are going to deny that it
is taught in the Bible why, that is taking such ground as I never knew a
Presbyterian minister to take.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#23"23

Finney’s great argument was that if men have to experience a change of
nature before they can become Christians, and such a change as only God can
effect, then no sinner can be responsible for his unbelief and lack of
repentance. The Bible, he asserted, teaches plainly our duty to come to
Christ. How can God command us to do what we cannot do? So from the

fact of human responsibility as he understood it he deduced that men must
possess the ability to obey. The deduction sounds rational and logical, but
it is not scriptural. Finney’s opponents did not deny human responsibility.
They were even ready to emphasise it. They claimed, however, that the Bible
shows that sin has destroyed man’s ability to obey God from his heart: ‘The
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God’ (I Cor. 2:14).
‘The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of
God, nor indeed can be’ (Rom. 8:7). Further they pointed to the ministry of
Christ himself for evidence of the need to hold both human responsibility
and inability. Jesus said: ‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy
laden’ (Matt. 11:28). ‘You are not willing to come to Me, that you may have
life’ (John 5:40). ‘While you have the light, believe in the light, that you
may become sons of light’ (John 12:36). Such words show the unbeliever’s
duty and responsibility. But Jesus also said, ‘No one can come to Me unless
it has been granted to him by My Father’ (John 6:65). Again, he said that no
man can rise above his nature, ‘a bad tree bears bad fruit’ (Matt. 7:17). We
bear the nature of our birth: ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to
you, "You must be born again"’ (John 3:6—7).

There was a great deal said and written on this subject in the 1830s but
Finney stuck to his position and it would be fair to say that his arguments
were not so much biblical as practical. He believed that evangelism has to
involve telling gospel hearers that they are able to become Christians at
once: they have to be presented with an immediate choice, and to show the
sincerity and reality of their choosing Christ let them do something to
prove it. Hence what became known as the ‘altar call’, that is, the practice
of calling those who would be converted to take some visible action which
would clinch the matter. The fact that such novel public actions were
calculated to create natural excitement was the opposite. in Finney’s mind,
to being a drawback: ‘God has found it necessary to take advantage of the
excitability there is in mankind to produce powerful excitements among them
before he can lead them to obey.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#24"24

To oppose this, Finney argued, is to destroy evangelistic preaching. The
ministers who disagreed with him, he constantly tells his readers, were
useless as evangelists. He carried the practical argument significantly
further. If preachers will only do the right thing they will not only secure
the conversion of individuals but they will secure revivals. As already
said, this was the great message of his Lectures on Revivals. Hitherto, he
claimed, the churches had supposed that revivals are simply in the hands of
God to give or withhold. No wonder revivals are not constant, if we believe
that, said Finney! The truth, he claimed, was that the absence of revival is
due solely to the church failing to do her duty.

Finnny’s Case Examined

Finney used two main lines of argument to prove the correctness of his
assertions:

1. The Argument from his Experience.

Finney constantly offset the newness of his ideas with assertions that he
was sure that they were not his own:

I say that God taught me; and I know it must have been so; for surely I
never had obtained these notions from man. And I have often thought that I
could say with perfect truth, as Paul said, that I was not taught the Gospel
by man, but by the Spirit of Christ himself.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#25"25

I had no doubt then, nor have I ever had, that God led me by His Spirit, to
take the course I did . . . I was divinely directed.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#26"26

More common than such words is the appeal to the success of his ministry as
proof that God owned what he was preaching.

The narrative given in his autobiography is very clearly constructed to
impress the reader with this fact. ‘God,’ he writes, ‘set his seal to the
doctrines that were preached, and to the means that were used to carry
forward that great work.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#27"27 ‘After I had preached
some time, and the Lord had everywhere added his blessing, I used to say to
ministers, whenever they contended with me . . . "Show me the fruits of your
ministry’HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#28"28 He
frequently follows such statements with reports of how ministers who held
Calvinistic beliefs gave them up when they saw how ‘the Spirit of God did
accompany my labours.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#29"29

In this connection Finney omits to say that he had a considerable advantage
if immediate visible results were to be made the test of what was
scriptural. Under the former preaching the success of the gospel was only
judged as people gave steady evidence of changed lives and were subsequently
examined for membership of the churches. With Finney’s teaching and methods
there was now a much quicker and public way of telling converts. If a
convert is one who submits and comes to the front, then just how many
converts there are on any particular occasion will be apparent for all to
see. So the numbers ‘converted’ made immediate news and figures proving
success were now quoted in a way which was new to the evangelical
churches.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#30"30 This
was not all. If large crowds attended preaching services and, for whatever
reason, many responded to the evangelist’s appeal, then the very numbers
responding could be regarded as proof of ‘revival’. So there was a visual
demonstration, it seemed, of the truth of Finney’s teaching and a
justification of his claim that revivals could indeed be promoted by the
right use of means.

2. The Barrenness of the Prevailing Orthodoxy.

This again is another argument from alleged experience. The teaching which
Finney was concerned to see overturned could not be of God because it was so
useless in obtaining the conversion of souls. So he claimed. This theme runs
right through his Memoirs. He raised it first in connection with his own
conversion at Adams. His narrative gives us the impression that George Gale,
the minister of the Presbyterian church, had nothing to do with his
conversion and indeed would have been little or no use in aiding anyone’s
conversion because, holding to the Westminster Confession and being
Princeton trained, his theological views were ‘such as to cripple his
usefulness’;HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#31"31
‘he did not understand the gospel’.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#32"32 ‘The education he had
received at Princeton had totally unfitted him for the work of winning souls
to Christ.’HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#33"33
Under the preachers of that school, Finney asserted, unbelievers are ‘almost
never converted’.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#34"34 Far from helping in
revivals, the prevailing orthodoxy, which he called ‘hyper-Calvinism’, did
the very opposite and created ‘the greatest difficulty.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#35"35 ‘I have everywhere
found, that the peculiarities of hyper-Calvinism have been a great
stumbling-block, both of the church and of the world.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#36"36 Albert Dod was not going
too far when he wrote of Finney: ‘He claims, in no guarded terms, the
exclusive approbation of God for his doctrines and measures. "They (the
church) see that the blessing of God is with those that are accused of new
measures and innovation."’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#37"37

What shall we say to these two great arguments upon which Finney rested his
case? On the first, that is the claimed success of his ministry, there is
need to say little. That many people may have come to a saving knowledge of
Christ under his ministry need not be disputed although the number may have
been considerably less than he sometimes supposed. I say ‘sometimes’ because
there were occasions when, in a less-controversial mood, Finney himself
conceded that there had been a large fall-away rate from those who had
professed to be converts.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#38"38 But whatever the number,
we can rejoice that there were true conversions without accepting his claim
that it proves the rightness of everything which he said and did. No man
ought to appeal to his work as the ground for others to accept his teaching.
The best of men may err and build with ‘wood, hay, straw’ as well as ‘gold,
silver, precious stones’ (I Cor. 3:12). It was a very serious error on the
part of Finney to point people to himself rather than to Scripture to
justify what he believed was true.

One has to say that Finney’s second argument is no less seriously wrong, and
here it is an easier matter to prove it to be so. His claim was that the
teaching he opposed was a hindrance both to evangelism and to revivals. The
facts are against him. Take the case of his allegedly useless pastor at
Adams, George Gale. When, in the late 1860s, Finney wrote the manuscript
which became his Memoirs, Gale was dead.

What Finney did not know was that back in 1853 Gale had written his own
autobiography. Finney necessarily remained ignorant of its existence for it
was over a century later that it was published, in 1964. Gale’s narrative,
which runs to 309 pages in its printed form, is at many points in marked
disagreement with what is alleged by Finney. Far from being useless and
perhaps unconverted, Gale was clearly in the midst of a revival in his
church at Adams at the time Finney was converted. The idea that Gale did not
understand the gospel in 1821 is absurd. Nor is this simply a case of Gale’s
memory versus Finney’s for the success of the gospel under the ministry of
Gale, and others in the same area, is fully corroborated by other sources.

The truth is that when Finney was working on his own autobiography (more
than forty-five years after the early 1820s), to have accepted at the outset
Gale’s usefulness as a preacher would have been to jeopardise the whole case
which he was going to present, namely, that Calvinistic belief only promotes
barrenness.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#39"39 But
there is a more cogent refutation of Finney’s appeal to history. It is that
the period of the Second Great Awakening, which was a time of many powerful
revivals, did not begin when Finney began his ministry in 1824. It began
twenty-five years before, in the late 1790s. The readers of Finney’s Memoirs
are told that his ministry constituted the start of a ‘new era’, and they
are led to suppose, as Dr Graham has supposed, that Finney’s was the new
voice which led to revival times. The truth is that the remarkable age of
the Second Great Awakening was drawing near to its close when Finney began
and that, despite all his teaching about continuous revival, such an age was
not seen again in his lifetime.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#40"40 The reason why Finney
did not disclose this to his readers of a much later generation was that
most of the preaching which had been so used of God, in the years prior to
his ministry, was of the very sort that he wished to represent as barren!

The very Seminary at Princeton which he constantly characterised as
disabling preachers had been prominently identified with revival since its
outset in 1812. Its magazine, the Biblical Repertory, gave the common
opinion of its professors and students, when looking back on some thirty
years, it noted in 1832: ‘It has pleased God to make America the theatre of
the most glorious revivals that the world has ever witnessed.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#41"41 Princeton men were
leaders in many revivals; a third of the Seminary’s students of the first
fifty years were to go to mission fields; and there can hardly be a more
serious misrepresentation of history than the idea which Finney sought to
promote about the institution which thought it necessary to oppose him. Far
too much biographical material is currently available on the fragrant and
useful ministries of the men on the other side to Finney to make his case
even remotely credible.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#42"42

Why the Old School Opposed Finney

1. Finney’s so-called ‘new measures’ were opposed because they confused two
different things: an outward act and the new birth. An individual can fall
on his knees, raise his hand or walk to the front, but there is nothing in
the Bible to say that such actions make, or even contribute to making, a
person a Christian. The older evangelical preaching taught the instant
responsibility of sinners to obey the gospel in repentance and faith; it did
not pass over such texts as, ‘God now commands all men everywhere to repent’
(Acts 17:30), but, at the same time, it knew that the time when hearers of
the gospel get grace to obey is not in the hands of men.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#43"43 The new measures, by
bypassing that fact, and appointing a physical duty which the unregenerate
can perform, represented conversion as something less than it is made in the
New Testament. Under old-school preaching it was expected that conviction of
sin would show hearers their the need of change at the centre of their being
— a work of new creation securing a new life and a new moral existence. If
no such regeneration is supposed to be necessary then conversion becomes a
very much easier matter.

2. This new teaching was thus popularising a dangerously superficial view of
conversion, arising out of a superficial view of sin. Man’s plight is a
great deal more serious than the representation implied by the new measures.
Men, said Finney, are not converted ‘by a change wrought in their nature by
creative power’ but by ‘yielding to the truth’.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#44"44 In his view, the Holy
Spirit does no more than present the truth, along with the preacher, and
thus regeneration is effected ‘by argument’ in which the sinner’s will is
‘broken down’.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#45"45
The public appeal for decision was seen as playing an important part in
gaining this end.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#46"46 It was on the basis of
this new view of conversion that Finney told his New York hearers in 1834:
‘For many centuries but little of the real gospel has been
preached.’HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#47"47
Princeton’s reply was to say with Charles Hodge: ‘No more soul-destroying
doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate
themselves, and repent and believe just when they please.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#48"48

3. Because the new measures told people that obedience to the preacher’s
directions was necessary to becoming a Christian, compliance with such
directions inevitably came to be treated as a means of assurance that one
was now in a state of grace. If accepting Christ is the same as walking to
the front, then all who have done the latter must be Christians. This was
putting assurance of salvation on an entirely new basis, for the older
evangelism, in both its Calvinistic and Arminian forms, had insisted that it
is the Holy Spirit himself who gives assurance and that no one should assume
they have passed from death to life without his witness and a corresponding
change of life.

To this it was replied that, supposing a degree of harm was done, was not
the fact that some were truly converted sufficient justification for the new
measures? The old-school answer was simply to point out that those who were
converted in such circumstances did not owe it to the wrong measures but to
the grace of God and the truth they heard preached. These converts would
have suffered no loss had no new measures been used, but the many who
responded to the measures without being converted were in a far worse
position for in coming forward they did what they were told to do without
any result. With some justification they could come to regard conversion as
an illusion.

4. The new teaching, by putting its emphasis on the instant action taken by
an individual following the evangelist’s appeal and not upon a changed life,
inevitably lowered standards of membership in evangelical churches and so
encouraged an acceptance of worldliness among professing
Christians.HYPERLINK "http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#49"49
Speaking of the wrong measures which had been popularised, R. L. Dabney
wrote: ‘We believe that they are the chief cause, under the prime source,
original sin, which has deteriorated the average standard of holy living,
principles, and morality, and the church discipline of our religion, until
it has nearly lost its practical power over the public conscience.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#50"50

The New Testament teaches that the change resulting from the new birth is so
great that wherever it occurs a continued living of the old life is
impossible: ‘whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him’ (I John 3:6).
‘Whatever is born of God overcomes the world’ (I John 5:4). Where there is
no alienation from sin there is no re-birth. Under the new evangelism this
ceased to be recognised and so there grew up many forms of holiness teaching
meant to help the numbers of ‘unsanctified Christians’ now in the churches.
Meanwhile the fundamental reason for the existence of so many ‘carnal
Christians’ was largely unrecognised.

5. Finney’s teaching that revival should be normal and continuous, not
extraordinary and occasional, depended for its success on a change in the
content of revival, The same word now came to stand for any evangelistic
campaign which gathered people together in numbers, and both Finney and his
followers encouraged the switch.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#51"51 Finney had charged his
opponents with being ‘enemies to revivals’. In reply they asserted that the
opposite was the case and that it was for the very cause of revivals that
they were speaking.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#52"52 They feared that the new
teaching was taking the work of the Spirit out of his own hands. ‘The
influence of the Holy Spirit comes in only by the way,’ wrote Dod in his
review of Finney’s lectures on Revivals of Religion.HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#53"53 In Wales, John Elias,
the Calvinistic Methodist leader, who had preached in many revivals, put his
finger on the same point. When the new teaching first crossed the Atlantic,
his question was: ‘Is there not a want of perceiving the corruption,
obstinacy, and spiritual deadness of man, and the consequent necessity of
the Almighty Spirit to enlighten and overcome him?’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#54"54 As with brethren in the
States, Elias dreaded lest ‘the legitimate results of erroneous principles
shall be visited upon the ruined churches of our land.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.the-highway.com/articleMar00.html#55"55

   _____  

Notes 

1.	Finney, Revivals of Religion, pp. 12 13. 
2.	Modem Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham, pp. 11,
66. 
3.	Quoted in C. F. Wright, Charles Grandison Finney (Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin, 1891), pp. 72—4. 
4.	Quoted in my Revival and Revivalism, p. 298. 
5.	Autobiography of George Washington Gale (Published Privately, New
York, 1964), p. 273. 
6.	G. M. Rosell & R. A. G. Dupuis, The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney:
The Complete Restored Text (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989), p. 375n. This is
the only unabridged edition of the Memoirs; all other printings reproduced
the original manuscript in which J. H. Fairchild had omitted or changed
about twenty per cent of the text. Because the abridged (Revell) edition is
more widely available I generally quote from it in these pages unless
otherwise indicated. 
7.	Revivals of Religion, p. 371. 
8.	Ibid., p. 134. 
9.	Ibid., p. 34. 
10.	Ibid., p. 346. 
11.	Quoted by Albert Dod, reviewing Finney’s Revivals of Religion, in
Princeton Theological Essays, Second Series (New York: Wiley and Putnam,
1847), p. 146. The fact that this quotation does not seem to appear in
current editions of Finney’s lectures confirms that some revision of the
original publication was undertaken after 1835. 
12.	Revivals of Religion, pp. 214—5. 
13.	F. C. Beardsley, History of American Revivals (New York: American
Tract Society, 1904), p. 146. 
14.	T. Cuyler, Recollections of a Long Life, An Autobiography, (New
York: Baker and Taylor, 1902), p. 218. 
15.	Ibid., p. 219. 
16.	Revivals of Religion, pp. 214—5, 309. Finney does not actually name
Princeton in these references but the identification is unmistakable. 
17.	Memoirs of Charles C. Finney (New York: Revell, n.d.), p. ii6. 
18.	Ibid., p. 190. 
19.	Ibid., p. 255. 
20.	Ibid., p. 261. 
21.	Ibid., p.304. 
22.	Ibid., p. 154. He claimed that ‘the foundation of the error’
propagated by Princeton was ‘the dogma that human nature is sinful of itself
(p. 256). 
23.	Ibid., p. 125. The catechism to which he referred was of course that
of the Westminster Assembly; but here, as elsewhere, Finney presents a
misstatement of the teaching of the catechism. It does not teach that ‘God
created’ anyone with a sinful nature but rather that original sin is the
result of man’s rebellion against God. Mr S—— had reason to be surprised
that Finney would not own a statement of doctrine which he had accepted at
his ordination in the Presbyterian ministry. Finney does not offer a
biblical argument for human ability: his whole case rests on his assertion
that God would be ‘an infinite tyrant’ if he commanded men to do what they
cannot do. For a fuller statement of Presbyterian teaching see Appendix 3
below. 
24.	Quoted by Dod. Princeton Essays, p. 83. 
25.	Memoirs, pp. 87-8. 
26.	Ibid., p. 222. 
27.	Ibid., p. 221. 
28.	Ibid., p. 83. 
29.	Ibid., pp. 157, 237—8, 259—62. 
30.	Speaking of the new type of evangelist, William Mitchell complained:
‘He has his own measures, proclaims the number of converts, accomplishes
their speedy admission to the church.’ ‘An Inquiry into the Utility of
Modern Evangelists’, Literary and Theological Review, II (Andover,
September, 1835); quoted by McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism, p. 126. R. L.
Dabney, reflecting on the sensational appeal of the new evangelism, wrote of
its promoters: ‘They are anxious to exchange strict integrity of conviction
and purity of doctrine, and the secret but mighty power of the Holy Spirit
through his words, for human eclat, numbers, wealth, combination and power.
They expect and prepare to convert the world as they built the Pacific
railroad, by money and numbers.’ Discussions, vol. 2 (repr. London: Banner
of Truth, 1967). p. 442. 
31.	Memoirs: Complete Text. p. 57. 
32.	Memoirs, p. 157. 
33.	Memoirs: Complete Text, p. 510. 
34.	Ibid., p. 322. In Finney’s abridged Memoirs the editor thought it
wiser to omit both this statement and the one on Princeton in the previous
reference. 
35.	Memoirs, p. 256. 
36.	Ibid., p.368. 
37.	Princeton Essays, p. 146. 
38.	See my Revival and Revivalism. pp. 288—9. Writing in 1835, Dod said:
‘Appearances were somewhat in favour of the new measures. At least wherever
they were carried, converts were multiplied. But it is now generally
understood that the numerous converts of the new measures have been, in most
cases, like the morning cloud and the early dew. In some places, not a half,
a fifth, or even a tenth part of them remain.’ Princeton Essays, p. 140. 
39.	The fact that Gale writes of Finney with esteem and as a one-time
friend makes his record the more convincing. Gale says that Finney was far
from being an opponent of Calvinism at the outset of his ministry: ‘When he
was licensed and first labored as a missionary, he was very firm and
faithful in bringing out this doctrine’ (i.e., of the grace of God] . . .
‘His peculiar views, adopted since he went to Oberlin, were no part of his
theology at that time, and for a number of years afterward.’ Autobiography
of G. W. Gale, pp. 274. 486. 
40.	Finney himself accepted this fact. I am not overlooking the
awakening of 1857—8 which was powerful but of much shorter duration, and one
of the most striking things about its origins is that while revivalism had
already become popular in North America it had no part in the beginning of
the movement in New York City. See Samuel I. Prime, The Power of Prayer: the
New York Revival of 1858 (repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), pp.
27—30, 36: ‘There were no revivalists; no revival machinery . . . the
"anxious seat" and the labor of peregrinating revival-makers were unknown.’
Careless assertions about Finney’s work in some ‘revival’ literature convey
misleading impressions. Goforth, for instance, links the 1857 revival in New
York with Finney and says: ‘By 1857, Finney was seeing fifty thousand a week
turning to God’ (By My Spirit, p. 183). This statement is very inaccurate.
For Finney in 1857, see Memoirs of Finney: Complete Text, p. 562. 
41.	‘Sprague on Revivals’, The Biblical Repertory and Theological Review
(Philadelphia: Russell & Martien, 1832), p. 456. 
42.	See, for instance, J. W. Alexander, Life of Archibald Alexander
(1854, repr. Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle, 1991); B. Tyler and Andrew Bonar,
The Life and Labours of Asahel Nettleton, 1854, (repr. Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1975); W. B. Sprague, ‘Memoir of Doctor Griffin’ in Life and Sermons
of Edward D. Griffin, 1837 (repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987). 
43.	‘Regeneration differs from conversion. Regeneration is a spiritual
change, conversion is a spiritual motion. In regeneration there is a power
conferred, conversion is the exercise of that power. In regeneration there
is given us a principle to turn, conversion is an actual turning. Conversion
is related to regeneration as the effect to the cause . . . In regeneration
man is wholly passive; in conversion he is active. Regeneration is the
motion of God in the creature; conversion is the motion of the creature to
God, by virtue of that first principle.’ Works of Stephen Charnock, vol. 3
(repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1986), pp. 88—9. But because regeneration
is a secret work of God in the soul no one is called upon to ascertain its
existence before exercising faith and repentance. It is only by the
believing acceptance of Christ that the prior work of God can come to be
recognised (see, for instance, I Thessalonians 1:3—5). Election is first in
point of time but not in the believer’s conscious experience (Acts 13:48).
One of the most helpful books ever published in this area is Archibald
Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience, 1844 (repr. London: Banner of
Truth, 1967). 
44.	Revivals of Religion, p. 377. 
45.	Ibid., p. 195. He makes this further extraordinary statement: ‘If a
person does not believe that sinners are able to obey their Maker, and
really believes that the Spirit’s influences are necessary to make them
able, it is impossible, with these views, to offer acceptable prayer.’ For,
he alleged, such prayer would ‘insult God’ because God would be bound to
give his Spirit as ‘a mere matter of common justice’ if such was man’s
condition (pp. 356—70). 
46.	The old school, of course, had no objection to enquirers being
counselled after evangelistic preaching as they sometimes did themselves,
but the primary purpose of the ‘altar call’, as Dod said, was different:
‘Its object is not simply to collect in one place those who are in a
particular state of mind, that they may be suitably instructed and advised.
No, there is supposed to be some wonder-working power in the person’s rising
before the congregation and taking the assigned place.’ Princeton Essays, p.
122. 
47.	Quoted by Dod. Princeton Essays, p. 78. 
48.	C. Hodge. Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (London: Nelson. 1874). p.
277. 
49.	A. W. Tozer was one of the few twentieth-century evangelical leaders
who spoke out against the danger. Earl Swanson has recorded how as a young
minister he heard Tozer preach in Long Beach, California: ‘As he came to the
conclusion of his message the air was totally electrified. I was accustomed
to altar calls and was fully expecting to see a mass movement forward. That
surely would have been the case had he chosen to do so. Rather, in his
inimitable style and brusque manner he announced "Don’t come down here to
the altar and cry about it — go home and live it". With that comment he
dismissed the meeting.’ James L. Snyder. In Pursuit of God, The Life of A.
W. Tozer (Camp Hill, Pa.: Christian Publications, 1991), p. 154. Martyn
Lloyd-Jones, when asked to be chairman for the Berlin Congress of the Billy
Graham Organization in 1966, declined to do so unless the practice of the
public appeal was given up by Dr Graham. 
50.	R. L. Dabney, Discussions, vol. 3 (repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth,
1982), p. 19. See also. vol. 2, An Exposition of I Corinthians 3:10—15, pp.
551—74. 
51.	The Beardsley quotation given above on Finney’s ‘extensive revivals’
in Britain are a case in point. Finney’s visits to Britain saw evangelistic
campaigns, not revivals. 
52.	See, for instance. The Life and Labours of Asahel.Nettleton. pp.
348—51 
53.	Princeton Essays. p. 82. 
54.	Letter to Rev. Henry Rees, 2 March 1838: John Elias, Life, Letters
and Essays (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973), p. 259. 
55.	The words are those of the author of the Preface to Letters of the
Rev. Dr. Beecher and Rev. Mr. Nettleton on the New Measures’ in Conducting
Revivals of Religion (New York, 1828), p. 103. 

   _____  

 This article appears as Chapter 2 in the book Pentecost Today? The Biblical
Basis for Understanding Revival published by HYPERLINK
"http://www.banneroftruth.co.uk/"The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh
(1998).

   __________________________________________

Charis, 

Mike Abendroth 

"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.  Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."

 - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer 

HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org 

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