“He then gave me many other promises, both from the Old and the New Testament, especially some most precious promises respecting our Lord Jesus Christ. I never can, in words, make any human being understand how precious and true those promises appeared to me. I took them one after the other as infallible truth, the assertions of God who could not lie. They did not seem so much to fall into my intellect as into the powers of my mind; and I seized hold of them, appropriated them, and fastened upon them with the grasp of a drowning man.”
A few minutes later he had lost all sense of sin: all consciousness of guilt had departed from him. He struggled to bring it back, but a great tranquility came over him and he was never afterwards to escape the accusation of dallying with the idea of the sinlessness of the converted man. That evening, “it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face” and received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. “Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.
“No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love: and I do not know but I should say, I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart. These waves came over me, and over me, and over me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, ‘I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.’ I said, ‘Lord, I cannot bear any more’; yet I had no fear of death.”
Notwithstanding this baptism he went to bed without feeling sure that he was at peace with God, but wakened presently on account of the “great flow of the love of God” that was in his heart. This happened several times and, in the morning, the sun poured a clear light into his room and in this light the baptism of the spirit returned. He felt justified by faith. “This was just the revelation that I needed. I felt myself justified by faith; and, so far as I could see, I was in a state in which I did not sin. Instead of feeling that I was sinning all the time, my heart was so full of love that it overflowed. My cup ran over with blessing and with love; and I could not feel that I was sinning against God. Nor could I recover the least sense of guilt for my past sins. Of this experience I said nothing that I recollect, at the time, to anybody; that is, of this experience of justification.”
This was the process of his conversion. In its earliest stages he had promised the Lord that if conversion were granted him he would preach the Gospel. The next morning a deacon of the church came to his office and said, “Mr. Finney, do you recollect that my cause is to be tried at ten o’clock this morning? I suppose you are ready?” [He had been retained to attend this suit as the deacon’s attorney.] I replied to him, “Deacon B—, I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead his cause, and I cannot plead yours.”
He was immediately successful. The story of his conversion spread and the grove in which he had communed with the Holy Spirit was frequented by other anxious souls who imitated him in prayer with equally successful results. When the tides of Spring began to flow and Christian will abated, he would get up before sunrise and make the rounds of the village, calling the brethren to a “precious season of prayer” which they had undertaken to enjoy. His own fervor was again and again sustained by the radiance which poured over him. “One morning I had been around and called the brethren up, and when I returned to the meeting-house but few of them had got there. Mr. Gale, my minister, was standing at the door of the church, and as I came up, all at once the glory of God shone upon and round about me, in a manner most marvelous. The day was just beginning to dawn. But all at once a light perfectly ineffable shone in my soul, that almost prostrated me to the ground. In this light it seemed as if I could see that all nature praised and worshiped God except man. This light seemed to be like the brightness of the sun in every direction. It was too intense for the eyes. I recollect casting my eyes down and breaking into a flood of tears, in view of the fact that mankind did not praise God. I think I knew something then, by actual experience, of that light that prostrated Paul on his way to Damascus. It was surely a light such as I could not have endured long.” Mr. Gale, however, in his blind faith had seen no light.
Finney presently discovered that as often as he tried to examine his own feelings, his motives, and the state of his mind, the day would pass without bringing him happiness. He decided this was because he was withdrawn from Christ and thereafter “let his spirit take its own course” which he found “in the highest degree useful.” From the very beginning he felt that he must work with professing Christians who assumed themselves to be of Christ without having gone through the process of conversion and repentance, which alone could lead to sanctification. A charming girl “very much enlightened on the subject of religion” remained in her sins and Finney among others tried to convert her, but one day as he was coming to her the girl’s sister came out of the room, in her hands a book on Universalism which she had torn in half. The thought that a possible convert had become a Universalist so upset him that he refused to go to her and “could not frame to present the case before God in words but only in groans and tears.” Later, however, God spoke to him saying, “Yes, yes.” Although he did not think this was an audible voice it gave him great peace and joy. He continued amateur work as a revivalist until he was thirty when he became a candidate for the ministry. Although he intended to be licensed by the Presbytery at Adams, he rejected the strict doctrines of the sect; yet he qualified for the ministry by demolishing the doctrines of the Universalists.
Except for his ideas about sanctification, destined to have a profound effect in many ways which irritated Finney exceedingly, his doctrinal teaching developed very little after his student days and can be summed up in the negative statements of what he did not believe. He rejected first of all, the orthodox doctrine of original sin, of the utter moral depravity of the human constitution. Following that, he took the next step and asserted that men are able to repent and to believe; i.e., he denied the Edwardian principle of inability; he denied that men were free to commit evil and incapable of performing any good. He refused to believe that God had condemned men for their sinful nature and that death was the just reward for their transgressions. With an eye already fixed on conversions, he rejected the doctrine that the Holy Ghost acts in a physical way upon the substance of the soul in cases of regeneration. He gave the function of the will a great place and insisted that man should be active, not passive, in seeking regeneration.
In comparison with rigid Calvinism, this was liberal doctrine; in comparison with Universalism, it was strict and reactionary. Actually, Finney’s doctrine betrays the able mind of the lawyer, for he cut away from Calvinism precisely those elements which made it vulnerable to the attack of the Universalist.
As a student, he had been warned not to think as thinking might lead him to infidelism. But he persisted and arrived at a composite theology which was remarkably proof against assault from either side. At least it was remarkably successful. For an evangelist it was an almost ideal position since it retained all the elements of terror and threat of the old theology and, at the same time, allowed the preacher to offer every hope. For Christ’s atonement had made possible the salvation of all mankind. The popular heresy at the time was that the atonement had not only made possible, but had actually accomplished, universal salvation. In various forms, from the religion of the Sandamanian to that of the Oneida community, this became an essential doctrine, leading its professors to declare themselves incapable of sin, superior to the law, and possessed, in short, of perfection. By avoiding this pitfall, Finney remained orthodox and continued in the church al
though he rejected some of its cardinal principles. Those who are interested in doctrine can follow his logical attack on the teaching that the guilt of Adam is “imputed” to Adam’s children and that Adam’s original guilt, and that of his children and then of mankind after him, are both “imputed” to Christ. From this it follows that Christ was deservedly punished and discharged once and for all the debt owed by humanity. The doctrine continues with “imputing” both the obedience and the death of Christ to the elect, who have thereby suffered and paid the penalty in full. This is an argument which Finney used again and again in revivals and, when stated in the usual language of the evangelist, it may have had warmth and persuasion. In cold print it becomes only a syllogism and seems to bear little relation to the actuality of either Finney’s mind or his methods.
His first commission was from a “female missionary society” in Oneida county, and his work began at Evan’s Mills and Antwerp. From the start he was importunate about the things that were God’s. After he had preached for a few weeks he called the people together and said to them, “You admit that what I preach is the Gospel. You profess to believe it. Now will you receive it? Do you mean to receive it, or do you intend to reject it? You must have some mind about it. And now I have a right to take it for granted, inasmuch as you admit that I have preached the truth, that you acknowledge your obligation at once to become Christians. This obligation you do not deny; but will you meet the obligation? Will you discharge it? Will you do what you admit you ought to do? If you will not, tell me; and if you will, tell me, that I may turn to the right hand or to the left.” He then demanded that they rise up and give pledges to make peace with God immediately. The congregation refused to move and Finney cried out, “Then you are committed. You have taken your stand. You have rejected Christ and his Gospel; and ye are witnesses one against the other, and God is witness against you all. This is explicit, and you may remember as long as you live, that you have thus publicly committed yourselves against the Savior, and said, ‘We will not have this man, Christ Jesus, to reign over us.’ ”
He had stung the congregation into action and, after a few further meetings when the spirit of God came upon him with such power “that it was like opening a battery upon them,” he had his first reward. A woman was struck speechless and lay in a sort of fit for sixteen hours after which her “mouth was opened, and a new song was given her. She was taken from the horrible pit of miry clay, and her feet were set upon a rock.” There was an additional significance in this first conversion since the subject was a professing Christian and had believed herself saved; but now her hope was annihilated and she knew that she had to come again to repentance. In comparison with such a triumph the conversion of the hotel-keeper, who was the leading Deist of the town, was gratifying, but not important. Nor was the fatal apoplectic stroke of a railer against religion at the very moment of his blasphemy anything more than a sign. What Finney wanted and what, by his own account, he got, were the souls of cold Christians and misled Universalists. It pleased him particularly to see the repentance of the Reverend Daniel Nash who had amazed Finney a year earlier by praying with his eyes open, being then “in a very cold and backslidden state.” This was at the meeting which licensed Finney and, a short time after, Father Nash “was taken with inflamed eyes; and for several weeks was shut up in a dark room. . . . He had a terrible overhauling in his whole Christian experience. . . .”
It is not necessary to follow Finney through his extraordinary career of revivalism. He stamped up and down the northwestern counties of New York, stopping only at rare intervals to ask God where to go next, turning the cold fire of his eyes on the vain and the hostile, breaking through rigid precedents, making penitents shriek in agony, and establishing himself as a cannoneer in the service of the Lord. His autobiography recounts incident after incident, almost all trivial but mounting into the hundreds, and suggests thousands of conversions besides. The mockers were the first to be converted, the tavern prettily changed itself into a chapel, and the thief made restitution for the Bible she had stolen. At last he became so important that the old guard determined to destroy him. They were dubious about his doctrine and they disliked his methods. “Conversions can be bought at too high a price,” cried Lyman Beecher. A few souls may be saved but “the general and more abiding result may be the ruin of a thousand souls.” “This is not religion,” says another, “it is fanaticism.” Startled observers noted strange sights along the trail of the revivalist. Men and women saw visions, assumed the right of prophecy, communicated directly with God. Everywhere the revivalists were insisting that the grace of God would be freely poured. Everywhere they invited all men to exercise their will to repentance. The safeguards of the established churches and the work of the regular preachers were equally jeopardized. Finney was breaking down all discipline, wearing out the spirit of the penitents with importunate demands for immediate repentance and, the moment repentance had come, was exalting the convert with the assurance of eternal grace. It was all extreme and the whole country was nervous with apprehension or hysterical with an unaccustomed freedom and delight. To Lyman Beecher, who had labored long in congregations, occasionally predicting a revival or timidly taking part in one, all of this was offensive. To Nettleton, proceeding in an orderly way, balancing emotion and intellect, refraining from all histrionics, seeking permanent conversions not quick ones, Finney and his co-workers were a peril. The cultivated East stood against the raw West.[1]
In a vivid chapter in her Trumpets of Jubilee, Constance May-field Rourke has described the clash of Lyman Beecher and Finney, but not with the same emphasis that Finney himself has given to it. At the head of a band of evangelists, Finney was marching upon New England and Beecher, unable to stop him, summoned such of his friends as he could and met the evangelist at New Lebanon. Finney’s account of the conference is full of implications and innuendo. That everybody played politics is perfectly obvious, but it must be guessed from omissions and not from anything Finney says: “We soon discovered that some policy was on foot in organizing the convention, on the part of Dr. Beecher. However we regarded it not. The convention was organized and I believe Dr. Humphrey presided as moderator.” The intervals between these sentences, not the words themselves, tell the story. Preliminaries went on with a great deal of jockeying for position. The Westerners refused to be placed in the dock as culprits. They demanded the source of their opponents’ information. According to Finney, Beecher replied that “our spiritual dignity forbids us to answer any such questions”; and Mr. Nettleton, it seems, “became so very nervous that he was unable to attend several of our sessions.” Dr. Beecher had some skill in disputation and moved that the Western evangelists, being parties to the question, should not be allowed to testify as to the nature of their own work. Defeated there, he objected to women taking part in social meetings, but this objection was over-ruled by an appeal to the eleventh chapter of Corinthians. Mr. Nettleton then read a letter which summarized the accusations against Finney. We know that they alluded to the new measures, the use of the anxious bench, to bullying and frightening penitents, to accepting conversions without proof of their reality, the abandonment to hysteria and the other unconventional forms of evangelism. But Finney, in his entire chapter on this subject, never once specifies what these accusations were. He alludes to them only as “these complaints,” or “false reports,” or “such and such and such.” The convention passed a series of resolutions denouncing the excesses of revivalism. The Westerners denying that they ever had been guilty of these excesses, insisted on considering the resolution as a model for future guidance, in which spirit they accepted them. Dr. Beecher and Nettleton persisted in considering the resolutions as a rebuke to their rivals. The parting shot came from Mr. Finney who proposed a resolution against lukewarmness in religion, condemning it as strongly as the other resolution had condemned the excesses of enthusiasm. Dr. Beecher wryly remarked that there was no danger of lukewarmness, “whereupon the convention adjourned”�
��that is, according to Finney’s own account. Miss Rourke, following Beecher’s autobiography, says that after nine days of discussion the conference was about to take a fraternal course when Beecher leapt to his feet and, interposing himself between the two groups, cried out to Finney and the opposition, “Gentlemen, you needn’t think you can catch old birds with chaff. It may be true that you don’t go personally into ministers’ parishes, but in the noise and excitement, one and another of the people in the towns want you to come and preach, and you are mighty reserved, and say, ‘Ah, no, we cannot come unless the ministers invite us,’ and so you send them back like hounds to compel them to call you. Finney, I know your plan, and you know I do! You mean to come into Connecticut, and carry the streak of fire to Boston. But if you attempt it, as the Lord liveth, I’ll meet you at the state line, and call out all the artillery, and fight you every inch of the way, and then I’ll fight you there.”
It is amusing to note that Finney says that he does not remember these words. He quotes only the last three sentences omitting all reference to the sore point of dispute between the stationary and irregular preacher; and he suavely says that as he does not remember the occasion and, as Dr. Beecher does, “let it illustrate the spirit of his opposition.”
He can afford to be generous. He claims that Beecher was grossly deceived and ignorant of the character and motives of the revivalist, and that he himself had no design or desire to go to Connecticut or to Boston. Yet, in a short time, that very pressure to which Beecher so angrily alluded manifested itself in Beecher’s own congregation. After Finney had undertaken a peculiarly searching work in Providence, he was invited by the Congregational ministers and churches to go to Boston and labor there. He was warned not to bear down too hard, for if he smashed the pretensions of professing (but unsanctified) Congregationalists, the Unitarians would use his arguments against him. But the flail of the Lord was not to be halted. Finney knew that threshing can not be done mincingly. He preached in Beecher’s own church and once, at an inquiry meeting there, he tried to show that Christians “were expected to forsake all they had and deliver everything to Christ. . . .” As he paused before calling on the inquirers to kneel, Dr. Beecher rose— according to Finney’s account—and said, “You need not be afraid to give up all to Christ, your property and all, for he will give it right back to you.” Mr. Finney, without appearing to contradict Dr. Beecher, managed nevertheless thoroughly to correct the impression which the latter had made. At Rochester, where there were no Beechers present to belittle his appeal, a penitent actually handed over to Finney a quitclaim deed in due legal form executed ready for deliverance, “in which he quitclaimed to the Lord Jesus Christ all ownership of himself and of everything he possessed.”
The Stammering Century Page 15
