Charles Finney On Revival
7
CHARLES FINNEY ON REVIVAL
P. E. G. Cook
Each week during the winter of 1834–35 a tall gaunt figure of stern countenance mounted the pulpit of Chatham Street Chapel, New York, to deliver a lecture on “Revivals of Religion.” This young Presbyterian minister, whose steely blue eyes “swept his audience like searchlights,” was Charles Grandison Finney.
The New York Evangelist, a weekly launched in 1830 to support the type of revival work associated with Finney, in an otherwise unsympathetic religious press, printed his lectures as they were delivered. Shortly after the series concluded they were published in April 1835 in book form.1 Twelve thousand copies sold within a few months, and by the time the book was reviewed in that same year by Professor A. B. Dod in the Princeton Review it was in its fifth edition. Dod welcomed its publication, believing, as he thought, that its erroneous doctrine would soon be obvious to all, and that the influence of the “New Divinity,” as it was called, would in consequence rapidly decline.2 History has proved how wrong he was.
The publication of his Lectures on Revivals of Religion swept Finney into international prominence and extended his influence and teaching far beyond the bounds of the English-speaking world. The influence of Finney upon the thinking and practice of evangelicals in this century has been far more marked than that of C. H. Spurgeon. His Lectures in whole and in part have been translated into many languages and published in countless editions, and have become the raison d’ être ever since of all new methods of evangelism. Most of what has been written on the subject of revival during the last hundred years clearly reflects Finney’s thought, and very frequently appears to be an uncritical repetition of his views. Missionary work has been influenced by his ideas and outstanding missionaries, such as Goforth of Manchuria and J. O. Fraser of Lisuland, have been captivated by his teaching. Evangelists from Moody to Graham are his offspring; and books such as R. A. Torrey’s How to Work for Christ3 are, in the main, a rehash and development of Finney’s thought.
Early Life and Conversion
Most of what we know about Finney’s early life and religious experiences is derived from his autobiography and frequent personal references in his lectures. He needs to be read with care, therefore, because it is all too easy to interpret one’s own religious experience in terms of the doctrine we would like to find there.
Finney was born in the state of Connecticut in 1792, and shortly afterwards his family moved westwards to Oneida, the central part of New York State. Here he was brought up among the settlers knowing little or nothing of true religion. He was sent away from home for some education, after which he did a little school teaching, until he settled in the year 1818 at a place called Adams not far from the St. Lawrence River. He entered a lawyer’s office where the legal work readily appealed to his precise and logical mind.
The Jefferson County, for so it was called, had been blessed at this time by gracious movements of the Spirit. A revival had swept those parts in 1815 and the Presbyterian church which Finney began to attend in Adams had been established as a result. Finney was then of a sceptical frame of mind. His interest was mainly intellectual and he argued frequently with the godly young minister, the Rev. George W. Gale, who did all he could to help Finney. In his Autobiography4 Finney tells us that he “criticized his sermons unmercifully,” but in spite of this Mr. Gale seems to have had some effect because it was at this time that Finney began to read the Bible and attend the prayer meetings. Though he found plenty of fault in the believers’ prayers both then and afterwards, he became so restless that, he tells us, “A little consideration convinced me that I was by no means in a state of mind to go to Heaven if I should die.”5 His account of his conversion three years later gives the impression that this church and other believers had no part in his coming to Christ. There are good reasons for believing, however, that his conversion was brought about by the preaching of a Jedidiah Burchard who came into the area during another revival of religion in 1821.6
The American states had been favored with numerous revivals since 1799. An appendix of twenty letters in Sprague’s Lectures on Revivals, a book first published in 1832, shows how extensive these revivals had been.7 The Jefferson County in which Finney lived had been through a period of almost continuous revival since 1815 and the Eastern States since 1807. When George Gale began his ministry at Adams in 1819 sixty-five converts were added to the little church; and in the year of Finney’s conversion, 1821, almost a thousand souls were added to the churches in the Jefferson County and of these over one hundred were in the town where Finney lived and in which the movement began. It is strange, therefore, that Finney should represent his own conversion as being detached from these influences, the result only of his own resolution and will, and to imply later that these churches of Calvinistic persuasion were in the main spiritually dead. The spiritual quickening in the year of Finney’s conversion was evidence of a supernatural work of God. There can be no question as to the true inward work of grace upon Finney’s soul; and the manner of his conversion and the powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit which he experienced immediately afterwards stand in very marked contrast to the man-centered emphasis found in his preaching and theology.
The impression created by reading Finney’s Revivals of Religion and his Autobiography is that the opposition he faced in his own work was due to hyper-Calvinism which had held the churches in a deepfreeze of formalism until he arrived on the scene with his own liberating doctrine. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The charge of hyper-Calvinism which Finney and Mahan lay against the churches in their autobiographies was a popular red herring to divert attention away from the “new measures” they and their followers introduced. There was little substance in the charge, for even Mahan admits that God was powerfully visiting the churches before Finney’s time under what he calls “high-Calvinistic preaching.” He is at a loss to understand this and even suggests that the doctrine of men like Edwards, the Tennant brothers, and Nettleton tended to quench true religion!8 The men who opposed Finney did so mainly on account of his intolerable attitude to his brethren and the new measures he introduced. They were men who believed in revivals, and many of them, among whom was the notable Dr. Asahel Nettleton, had themselves been mightily used by God in these days of visitation. The churches were being constantly quickened by God’s Spirit, and the doctrines being preached in these revivals in which Finney was converted were the biblical doctrines of grace.
It was the very doctrines under which Finney was converted that he was so soon to oppose. He had a deep and lasting affection for his minister, the young George Gale, but this high regard did not extend to Gale’s teaching, at least, not until Gale later capitulated under the impact of Finney’s powerful personality. “Not only were Mr. Gale’s theological views such as to cripple his usefulness,” remarks Finney,9 but “his practical views were equally erroneous.” We have already seen, however, that Mr. Gale’s usefulness was far from being crippled. His doctrine and that of the other ministers used in these revivals was at that time based upon the Westminster Confession of Faith. Finney’s view of this Confession is stated in his Autobiography: “I could not feel any respect for a document that would undertake to impose on mankind such dogmas as those, sustained, for the most part, by passages of Scripture that were totally irrelevant, and not in a single instance sustained by passages which, in a court of law, would have been considered at all conclusive.”10 Finney here betrays what is the overruling criterion of all his thinking in assessing the rightness or wrongness of doctrine: it is the rational principle. Finney would accept nothing in his system of thought which was not immediately intelligible and reasonable to the mind of man. Human logic and reason were for him the arbiters of truth. His first lecture in his volume Systematic Theology, entitled “How We Attain to the Knowledge of Certain Truths,” is a hotch-potch of Kantian philosophy. He ascribes infallibility to the intuitions of human reason, even on matters of religion, declaring that “. . . there can be no error in the à priori intuitions of reason.”11 The thousand page superstructure of his Systematic Theology is erected upon this perilous foundation. It is not surprising therefore, that Finney’s theology of man was thoroughly Pelagian, and that his view of salvation was semi-Pelagian. There could be little recognition of divine grace because man never accepts by the light of natural reason his need of total dependence upon God as Lord and Savior.
Early Ministry
Soon after his conversion Finney abandoned the legal profession to study for the ministry under the direction of the St. Lawrence Presbytery. He was licensed to preach as a missionary in December 1823 and proceeded to the northern part of the Jefferson County where his preaching appears to have met with success. In 1825 he transferred his attentions to the churches of the western area of New York State. For seven years he itinerated in the area, holding missions in the churches and generating a great deal of religious excitement and activity. It was these missions which became known as “the Western Revivals” or “the Finney Revivals” and which provided Finney with the material and principles upon which his Lectures on Revivals of Religion are almost exclusively based. His book is his apologia for the doctrine he preached and the methods he employed during those turbulent years. We do well to note that the book which has come to be regarded as an authoritative handbook on revivals and contained what W. H. Harding claims to be “probably the most exhaustive analytical studies on the subject that can be found in any language,”12 is based merely upon Finney’s own experiences over the years 1825–32, in one small part of the New York State.
The writings and claims of a man like Finney, whom A. T. Pierson warmly describes as “a born reformer, impassioned to the borders of impetuosity, positive to the borders of bigotry, and original to the borders of heresy,”13 need to be read with care. Finney’s glowing estimate of the importance of his own work, and his strictures upon the spiritual state of the churches and other ministries of his day have been accepted far too uncritically. His extravagant claims and his serious charges against other believers are not to be accepted just because he made them. They must be weighed against other evidence. It must be remembered that his lectures were delivered before the test of time had sufficiently proved the value of his work, but it is interesting to learn that even so shortly after the conclusion of the “Western Revivals” Finney himself was beginning to question their effectiveness. In his preface to his book published in 1835 he writes, “On my return from the Mediterranean, I learned with pain that the spirit of revival had greatly declined in the United States, and that a spirit of jangling and controversy alarmingly prevailed.”14 This was a correct description of the state into which the churches had fallen since his departure from them less than three years before he wrote.
Finney, undoubtedly possessing a strong streak of megalomania, was a man quite unwilling to learn from others and in his writings there is virtually no recognition of other men who labored with him, of whom there were many, nor does he concede that he owed anything to others. He often refers to Jonathan Edwards with approval, giving the impression that he respected the views of that great man, but he does in fact entirely depart from them. W. G. McLoughlin, Jr., in his cynical and otherwise generally unreliable book, Modern Revivalism, aptly sums up the difference between Edwards and Finney: “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,’”15 There is no real attempt in Finney’s book on revivals to understand the biblical teaching on the subject. He rarely quotes the Scriptures either in this book or in his Systematic Theology. Finney’s work and teaching must therefore be carefully examined in the light of historical facts and the Word of God.
Doctrinal Teaching
Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion contain the doctrine and describe the methods he used in the “Western Revivals.” The “new measures” as Finney’s methods came to be called were the logical application of his doctrine. Methods in evangelism can never be discussed apart from doctrine. No one would have agreed with this more than Finney, and his imitators have need to consider it. Finney listed the “new measures” as follows: “They are Anxious Meetings, Protracted Meetings and the Anxious Seat.” Protracted Meetings and Anxious or Inquiry Meetings had been common, however, in Presbyterian and Congregational churches before his time. Nettleton made frequent use of “Inquiry Meetings,”16 and Protracted Meetings were employed by James Davenport as early as the 1740s. The main innovation of Finney’s, though the Methodists had previously made some use of it, was the “Anxious Seat” and associated with it, the appeal for people to respond to the message publicly by coming forward before the gathered congregation to occupy the “Anxious Seat”—usually a pew at the front of the church.
What was the doctrine behind this and other methods of persuasion employed by Finney? His view of God appears to be that of Dr. Taylor and the New Haven divines whose unorthodox doctrine was being propagated at this time. God is represented as the helpless slave of His creatures’ whims who could neither have permitted nor prevented the Fall of man. “It is vain to talk of His omnipotence preventing sin,” declares Finney. He distinguishes between what he calls God’s moral and physical government. God is sovereign in the physical realm but in the moral realm He is limited by man’s free will so that His power over man is reduced to that of persuasion only. The only way in which God can influence man is by presenting to his mind what Finney calls “infinite motives,” by which he means such things as the blessings and advantages of accepting the gospel, and in this way God tries to persuade men to adopt a godly life.
It logically follows that the object of preaching is to present truth for the consideration of man in such a way as is most likely to persuade him to accept it. Finney asserts that, “Grace has made the salvation of every human being secure, who can be persuaded, by all the influences that God can wisely bring to bear upon him, to accept the offer of salvation.” Grace has done this, and only this: made salvation possible for all and actual for none. So the purpose of preaching is persuasion, and the function of the Holy Spirit in all this is that He “gets and keeps the attention of the mind,” there being no direct or immediate work of the Spirit upon the mind. Evil motives and good motives battle for man’s patronage as God and Satan compete for the prize, and the Spirit’s work is to keep the impact of the truth “in warm contact with the mind” so that the evil motives are excluded while sinners are being persuaded to accept the truth. This teaching reminds one of the Communist brainwashing technique by which the mind is subjected to a continuous bombardment of Communist ideas to the exclusion of all else until finally the mind breaks down in an abreaction of self-defense and the poor victim is “converted” to Communism.
The Spirit’s work upon a man, according to Finney, is just external. He held that man’s mind has no moral character. It is a neutral agent and its desires can never of themselves be sinful; only when desire is directed toward action can we speak of sin. Any idea of a sinful disposition being the cause of sinful acts he called “utter nonsense.” Finney did not teach, therefore, that man’s nature is in need of regeneration, only his choices. It is little wonder that his view of holiness was so legalistic. He denies in effect that men are “by nature the children of wrath.” Man becomes a sinner on account of the environment into which he is born; this world so full of evil motives quickly corrupts his natal innocence.
It follows from this doctrine that the new birth is not an inner regeneration of the heart, but merely a change of choice. The Holy Spirit does not impart a new desire for spiritual things within man’s nature, but simply persuades the will to direct the mind to holy choices rather than sinful choices. “Regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice, intention, preference; or, in changing from selfishness to love or benevolence; or, in other words, in turning from the supreme choice of self-gratification, to the supreme love of God and the equal love of his neighbor. Of course the subject of regeneration must be an agent in the work.”17 The sinner regenerates himself; but the word of God shows him how. The sinner converts himself; but the Holy Spirit persuades him to do it.
Finney likens the Spirit’s work to that of an orator with power to sway an audience, and conversions are brought about by persuading men that truth and righteousness are reasonable. Faith is the acceptance of the reasonableness of God’s word rather than a trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The ability to accept or reject with equal ease belongs to the sinner and God’s power is limited to persuasion. Finney held that the sinner and saint must have the ability to do whatever the Scripture exhorts them to do. This is not a biblical view but one which is based upon philosophical and rational premises. But this was the foundation of all his thought, as the following quotation shows: “That man cannot be under a moral obligation to perform an utter impossibility is a first truth of reason,” he says.18 It may be; but it is not a first truth of Scripture. It was this opinion, that man is able to do what God commands, that led Finney to criticize all prayers which asked God to help sinners to repent and believe the gospel. He thought it an insult to God to ask Him to help men to do what He has commanded them to do, because it suggests that without His help they cannot do these things, and if that were so, thinks Finney, God would be a tyrant. The sinner is quite able to make himself a new heart without God’s help, and likewise the believer does not require any direct help from heaven to be perfect on earth.
Having denied that man has a sinful nature Finney very logically goes on to deny that holiness has anything to do with inward purification. Sin consists mainly of actions, and so therefore does sanctification. “Holiness is obedience to the law of God, and nothing else is,” comments Finney.19
View of Revival
Finney’s view, that the power of God over the sinner is limited to moral persuasion and that preaching is intended mainly as a means of persuasion, led him to the conclusion that any technique and method likely to persuade the sinner to accept Christ is justifiable. He advocated the introduction of dramatic story-telling in order to secure the undivided attention of the listener. The “Anxious Seat” was adopted as a means to bring the human will under moral pressure to take what Finney regarded as a step of faith. “Without new methods,” he declares, “it is impossible that the church should succeed in gaining the attention of the world to the subject of religion.” Novelty and excitement are essential if the cause of true religion is to be revived. All this is in strange contrast to Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 10:3–4, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds). . . .” The one essential ingredient of success in spiritual work is not the Person and operation of the Holy Spirit, according to Finney, but human ingenuity and technique. Those today who adopt Finney’s methods in the fond belief that they are following his teaching are, in fact, doing the very opposite. Finney’s stress on the need of novelty led him to conclude that each generation must abandon old methods and invent new ones.20 Even Dr. Mahan fails to see the implication of Finney’s teaching when, bemoaning the failure of the “Western Revivals,” he comments, “revival measures, protracted meetings, for example, in a few years, lost all their power.”21
Finney begins his first lecture on revival by quoting Habakkuk 3:2, “O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.” This verse which stresses the impossibility of a revival of true religion apart from divine intervention is interpreted by Finney as meaning that man will not obey God without the “influence of His Spirit.” He does not understand it to mean that true religion is the work of God, for he declares, “Religion is the work of man. It is something for man to do. It consists in obeying God. It is man’s duty. It is true God induces him to do it. He influences him by His Spirit, because of his great wickedness and reluctance to obey.”22 This is fully consistent with his doctrinal view that the natural man is quite capable of living a godly life if he so chooses. Revival for Finney, consists of a resurgence of religious activity on the part of man; it is non-miraculous. He admits that, “Revivals were formerly regarded as miracles. And it has been so by some even in our day.”23 This is a gross understatement; it had been the prevailing view ever since Edwards, and right up to Finney’s own day.
Finney taught that man can produce revival and that he can produce it whenever he really wants to, because “a revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.”24 In using the words “nothing else” Finney has surely forgotten the overwhelming baptism of the Spirit which he had experienced immediately after his conversion and the divine love which God poured out upon his soul in the early months of his own spiritual experience. This was revival; but Finney’s view of revival was cold and legal by comparison. He taught that revival is a natural phenomenon: “It is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means.”25 By “philosophical result” he means one which can be naturally explained in terms of cause and effect; it is not “in any sense” supernatural. It takes place when the “hearts” of Christians are “broken down.” By “hearts” he means “wills,” and by “broken down” he understands a condition in which the will is prepared to choose what is honoring to God.
This view of revival brought Finney to teach that revival could be promoted by man, by which he meant that churches can have a revival whenever they really want one. When the necessary conditions are fulfilled by members being willing to walk in God’s ways and to obey Him perfectly, then revival will be the result, since revival is “nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.” The means, therefore, by which revivals are promoted are those which will make believers repent of their sins. But as sin is thought to consist mainly of actions, Finney viewed repentance as a reformation of behavior only. His legalistic preaching was the result of this view of righteousness. Religion primarily consists in doing one’s duty. Our duty is set forth in long lists of “dos” and “don’ts.” He condemns parties and ribbons; and among other things, the drinking of tea and coffee, and actually goes so far as saying that the man who continues drinking tea cannot be a Christian! His censorious spirit is evident in his condemnation of those Christians who leave off reading a portion of Scripture by placing a bookmark between the pages. “It demonstrates,” he says, “that you read rather as a task than for love or reverence for the word of God.” Though Finney was clearly motivated by a burning passion to honor God, which one detects with spiritual profit in all his sermons and writings, his misunderstanding of the gospel meant that the notes of grace and mercy were absent from his preaching and that his treatment of the feelings of the human heart was cruelly severe.
Many of the methods and attitudes common among evangelicals today owe their origin to Finney’s influence. The emphasis in evangelism upon methods and techniques and the stress upon the necessity of creating the right atmosphere are his. The use of the “Anxious Seat,” called in the Salvation Army the “Mercy Seat,” is now popular in the form of open appeals to test meetings. Strong pressure is brought to bear upon people to make “a decision” to follow Christ and this decisionism has detracted from the need of inner regeneration by the Spirit, and of the saving faith which calls upon God for mercy through the merits of Christ. The Christian life is often represented in legalistic terms, with the emphasis upon outward acts rather than a godly spirit, and upon what one does rather than what one is. Adoration in prayer is not popular, and it is often suggested that unless believers get down to the task of making requests of God the prayer meeting is a waste of time. Preaching is very frequently a succession of scolding exhortations instead of a patient exposition of the Word, and Finney’s view that the best preaching is without preparation or notes has been widely expressed. Since religion is a work of man, according to Finney, any failure to produce results reflects upon the spirituality of the believer. Finney argues that the best and wisest preacher is the one who wins most souls, whereas the unsuccessful minister is a man obviously not called of God who has frittered away his time in indolence, being too wicked to do his duty.26 Results in terms of numerics rather than faithfulness has become the rule by which any spiritual work is measured; and if numerical results are forthcoming the absence of faithfulness in doctrine or conduct does not appear to trouble the conscience.
Teaching and Work Evaluated
Finney’s teaching on revival must be rejected because it seriously departs from the biblical emphasis. It is based upon a view of God which insults His sovereignty, a view of man which underestimates the effect of sin, and a view of the Holy Spirit which reduces Him to a powerless and pathetic suppliant. In fact, although Finney himself knew the supernatural work of the Spirit in his own life, his teaching denies the necessity of grace and represents the sinner as his own savior and sanctifier.
His doctrine of revival is unbiblical and, what is more, it does not work in practice. His book is a do-it-yourself revival kit in which he outlines the measures by which revival can be obtained. All a church has to do is to follow the instructions. Many have done this, but have seen no revival. Since the publication of his book and the wide acceptance of his views there have been relatively few revivals. We ask why? There is one answer; the teaching does not work because it is wrong. Finney himself said that, “A revival will cease whenever Christians become mechanical in their attempts to promote it.”27 But nothing has been more responsible for the mechanical view of revival than Finney’s own teaching.
Did Finney’s teaching and methods work in his own day? Were the “Western Revivals” genuine revivals of religion or were they a flurry of religious excitement with little permanent fruit?
The “Western Revivals” extended from 1825–32, but so soon afterwards as 1835 Dr. A. B. Dod, reviewing Finney’s sermons and Lectures on Revival, was able to write without fear of contradiction: “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 fifth, or even a tenth part of them remain.”28 Those that did remain were for the most part a constant source of trouble in the churches. Fanaticism and discontent with regular church life fostered by a critical and censorious spirit caused strife and division which left the churches spiritually impoverished. So much for the “Anxious Seat” and the “new measures.”
These comments upon the short-lived spiritual effect of Finney’s revivals are not just the opinion of his critics. One of his fellow-workers, James Boyle, in a letter to Finney dated Christmas Day, 1834, writes: “Let us look over the fields where you and others and myself have laboured as revival ministers, and what is now (i.e. two years later) their moral state? What was their state within three months after we left them? I have visited and revisited many of these fields, and groaned in spirit to see the sad, frigid, carnal, contentious state into which the churches had fallen—and fallen very soon after our first departure from among them.”29
Asa Mahan, President of Oberlin College, where Finney later served as a professor for many years, corroborates this evidence by stating in his autobiography that almost everyone involved in these revivals lapsed back into a state of great spiritual deadness.30
Even Finney, as we have seen, suggests in his preface to the Lectures published in 1835 that the churches were in a sad condition; and in his volume on Systematic Theology published in 1851 he admits that his early converts would “soon relapse again into their former state” and seeks to excuse it on the grounds that during the revivals he taught an imperfect doctrine of sanctification. Speaking of his converts during the “Western Revivals” he confesses that “the great body of them are a disgrace to religion.” The revision of his Lectures on Revivals published in 1868 carried two new lectures, twenty-one and twenty-two, in place of the original lectures on the same subjects.31 The new lectures propounded his revised views on sanctification.
In recent years we have seen Finney’s methods used in evangelism with equally disastrous effects. The appalling declension of large numbers of people who have made a public profession of faith has brought dishonor upon God and made the gospel look like a confidence trick of the worst kind. But whereas Finney was prepared to recognize in this something to be deplored, today it is defended on the grounds that some at least do continue in their profession.
C. H. Spurgeon, preaching in Halifax in the year 1858, on Habakkuk 3:2, “O Lord, revive thy work,” set forth in the course of his address three fundamental principles:
1. Salvation is God’s work.
2. God’s work of grace sometimes needs reviving.
3. No one can revive God’s work, but God himself.
He said, “I have not the slightest atom of faith in any professional revivalism; I have never seen any real good come of it. This I have seen—while the revivalist has been holding special services, the people have been stirred and warmed, and many have professed to be converted; but, alas! in far too many cases, a blast and a blight have been left on the churches for years afterwards, an injury has been done them from which they seemed never to recover. A got-up revival is a sort of spiritual intoxication, producing a kind of arousing of men and women, and yet really leaving them flatter and duller than they were before.”
Conclusion
Having examined Finney’s teaching and work some final conclusion is necessary. Is B. B. Warfield’s devastating attack upon Finney’s theology and labors in his book Perfectionism32 too severe? His biblical demolition of Finney’s theology is unanswerable. Some reservation, however, about Warfield’s strictures on the “Western Revivals” may be called for on the grounds that a genuine revival of religion was already in progress when Finney arrived on the scene. There can be little doubt that the “Western Revivals” were initially a movement of the Spirit; but Finney superimposed upon the revival a theology and practice which tended to elevate man and devalue the work of the Spirit. In his great eagerness to serve God, Finney went ahead of the Spirit, and the spiritual failure of many who professed faith and the subsequent condition of the churches was an inevitable result.
Finney’s theology and practice gained increasing acceptance in the churches as liberal thought became more influential. Genuine visitations of the Spirit ceased, and were replaced by the visitations of the professional evangelist. Teaching which dishonored His Person quenched the Spirit, so that by 1835 the churches had stopped looking for the miraculous and instead turned away from the biblical doctrine of revival to a man-made doctrine of evangelism. Fowler, writing his official history of Presbyterianism in Central New York33 in the liberal spirit of the 1870s, does not distinguish between the revivals of the early years and those evangelistic campaigns which followed in the wake of Finney. By describing all these movements as “revivals,” he fails to discern what even Finney’s own supporters detected after 1832 that, whereas the main agent of the movements before 1832 was the Holy Spirit, after 1832 the work became harder because everything had now come to depend upon man. This was what Finney had taught.
Finney began his ministry in revival and ended it in evangelism. And since Finney’s day, evangelism rather than revival has been the confidence of the churches, and will continue to be, until we get back to the biblical doctrine of grace which Finney so flagrantly denied. The Acts of the Apostles are really the acts of the Holy Spirit because biblical evangelism is revival. The products of man-centered evangelism are so unsatisfactory that like Finney and as a result of Finney’s influence through W. E. Boardman34 and Robert Pearsall Smith35 evangelicals have developed an unbiblical doctrine of sanctification. The converts of man-centered evangelism have to be taken from the campaign to the convention in order to receive the “Higher Christian Life.” But the Christian life is a higher life from its inception, and the soul that is regenerated by the Spirit is also sanctified by the Spirit. True sanctification is a developing process of ever-increasing growth in grace until it ends with the soul in the presence of Christ bathed in the glory of God.
“What we long for, then,” declares Dr. Bennet Tyler, “is no new way of preaching, no new doctrines that seek to make the strait gate wider, nor yet the mighty power of intellect of burning eloquence; but rather the anointing of the Holy Ghost which is found by close fellowship and holy walking with God; and that real undeniable Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Ghost which is not of man, but of God. For these let us cry to the Lord; for these let us urge Him Whose “heart turned within Him—whose repentings are kindled together,” at the sight of the perishing. Ere the Son of Man appears, let us, day and night, ask, seek, knock, cry—petitioning for those most needful, all-important blessings, from Him who stretched out His hand so gloriously in the days whose history we have before us.”36