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Memorial Aèëresses
Pº Pº
Rev. 5AMES BRAND, D. D.,
AMD
PROFESSOR 30HN M. ELLIS,
olººl.I.E., 1893. –
E. J. GGGI) RICH, Publisher,


MEMORIAL ADDRESSES
ON THE OCCASION OF THE
ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE
Birth of President Charles G. Finney.
BY
REV. JAMES BRAND, D. D.
AND
PROFESSOR JOHN M. ELLIS.
OBERLIN, 1893.
E. J. GooDRICH, PUBLISHER.
:
:
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1893, by
E. J. GOODRICH,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
OBERLIN :
Press of Pearce & Randolph.
tºº§&
i
MEMORIAL ADDRESS
ON THE LIFE AND INFLUENCE OF PRESIDENT
CHARLES G. FINNEY.
BY THE REV. JAMES BRAND, D. D.
T is not the design of this address to follow the details of
President Finney's history. His autobiography and his
life, by Professor Wright, are before the public. To those
not familiar with these books, however, the following con-
densed outline may be of service: *
Mr. Finney was born August 29, 1792, in Warren,
Conn.; studied and practiced law in Adams, New York; was
converted in 1821, and entered at once upon his life work as
an evangelist. In 1830 was called to New York City as a
pastor. In 1835 was called from there to Oberlin as Pro-
fessor of Systematic Theology. In 185 I was elected Presi-
dent of Oberlin College; resigned that office in 1866. In
addition to evangelistic labors in this country and England,
and in connection with all his official duties, he was pastor
of the First Church of Oberlin from 1835 to 1872. After
resigning the pastorate, he still lectured in the Seminary till
1875 when he died at the age of 83.
His published works are: Systematic Theology, Lec-
tures on Revivals, Lectures to Professing Christians, three
volumes of sermons, his Autobiography, and a multitude of
articles in the Oberlin Evangelist.
If we should say that one hundred years ago there was
a man sent from God whose name was Finney, it would be
no mere flippant use of a Scriptural phrase. A man with
such an experience, raised up at such a time, to do such a
317628
4.
work, must have been sent from God. The social and re-
ligious condition of the country in 1792 needed such a man.
When Mr. Finney was born, this nation, with a population
of about four millions, was sixteen years old, with George
‘Washington, still in his first term, at its head, and Philadel-
phia the seat of government. John Adams was clearly in
sight of the Presidency, and Thomas Jefferson, with his
sandy complexion, red hair and awkward demeanor, but
with a splendid intellectual force, was looming up on the
horizon as a candidate for 1801. The foundations of Wash-
ington, D. C., were laid, but the region was a fever-stricken
swamp, and the road to it from Baltimore was through a
dense forest. The habits of thought and customs of society
were all of the eighteenth century. The political struggles
of the time were between Federalists and Democrats. The
currency of the country was that of the Old World, “reck-
oned in shillings or pistareens.” The mails went from Bos-
ton to New York three times a week. Letter postage was
eight cents, and for more than one hundred miles, twelve and
a half cents. In 18OO, Boston had 25,000 people. Cincin-
nati I 5,000. Cleveland had a few log cabins. Buffalo was
not yet laid out. “Fifty miles from the coast, nearly half
the homes were in log houses.” The mode of life among the
common people was very primitive. The evils of modern
luxury had not yet crept in. Manners were simple and
salaries small. The Rev. Abijah Weld “brought up eleven
children, besides keeping a hospitable house, and maintain-
ing charity for the poor, on $2OO.oO a year.” In the North,
President Dwight, of Yale, maintained that college com-
mencements and sleigh-riding, were amusements enough for
the people. In some parts of the South a favorite pastime
with many men, was called the “rough and tumble fight.”
“In this exercise,” says Mr. Adams, “neither kicking, bit-
ing, nor gouging was forbidden.”
The last twenty years of the eighteenth century were
5
marked by a very low state of public morals. The drinking
habit was universal. The great temperance movements did
not begin till twenty-five or thirty years later. As late as
1812, when Lyman Beecher was in Litchfield, Conn., he
says a consociation of ministers assembled, upon the occa-
sion of an ordination, and drank so deeply of the liquor pro-
vided, that the society complained bitterly of the amount
consumed. Ministers and lawyers controlled the politics of
the country, and physicians bled their patients for consump-
tion and old age. Mr. Beecher further says that on election
days, all the clergy used to “go in procession, smoke pipes,
and drink.” This was one of the steady habits of Connecti-
cut. The anti-slavery struggle had not yet begun. Garri-
son began his great work in 183 I. England did not eman-
cipate her slaves till 1834.
Education also was at a low ebb. Webster's spelling
book was the chief book of the New England schools, which
were kept only two months in summer and two in winter.
v Noah Webster glaimed that with Theology, Law and Poli-
tics, New England had some acquaintance, but with Classics,
History and Science they had none at all. “Want of
books,” he said, “made it impossible to investigate subjects
of interest.” “In 18oo, all the public libraries in the
United States, of every sort,” says Mr. Adams, “contained
not more than 50,000 volumes, one-third of which were
Theological.” When Mr. Finney was eight years old, Har-
vard had a faculty of three professors and four tutors, and
graduated annually about thirty-nine men. Yale, more or-
thodox than Harvard even at that early date, graduated
about the same number, one fourth of whom became minis-
ters. Lyman Beecher entered Yale the year after Mr. Fin-
ney's birth. As to Yale’s equipment, he says, “there was a
four foot telescope, all rusty. Nobody ever looked through
it, or if they did, not to edification. There was an air pump,
so out of order that a mouse under the receiver would live
6
as long as Methusaleh.” Princeton, though then forty-six
years old, was also small and poorly equipped.
Aeligiously, the last two decades of the eighteenth cen-
tury have been called the worst in the history of American
Christianity. “Paine's Age of Reason” was published in
1793, and was being eagerly devoured. Clergymen of Con-
necticut said “Religion has gradually declined among us.
The doctrines of Christ grow more and more unpopular.
Modern infidelity is making alarming progress.” A pastor
in Massachusetts, speaking of his church, said, “Not a sin-
gle young person has been received into it for sixteen years.”
The general assembly of the Presbyterian church in its pas-
toral letter in 1798, said, “A dissolution of religious society
seems to be threatened, by the supineness and inattention of
many ministers and professors of Christianity.” Down to 18OO
no foreign missionary work had been attempted. No theo-
logical seminaries had been founded. The separation of
church and state had not yet come. The Methodist denom-
ination had just held their first general conference, in Balti-
more in 1792. Theologically, the greater part of the coun-
try was Calvinistic, in the Old School sense. The younger
Edwards was in New Haven fighting the “half way Cove-
nant” and the incipient symptoms of Unitarianism, when
Mr. Finney was born. Samuel Hopkins had elaborated his
theological system, which with certain modifications, became
the foundation of the New School. His system was pub-
lished in 1793, but he could not claim more than one hun-
dred ministers in the United States who had accepted his
views. The orthodox clergy were extremely conservative.
Jedediah Morse, the “father of American Geography,”
while preaching an election sermon in 1803, said: “Let us
guard against the insidious encroachments of innovation—
innovation, that evil and beguiling spirit which is now stalk-
ing to and fro through the earth, seeking whom it may des–
troy.” Even many years later, when Lyman Beecher
7
went to Boston, speaking of the Old School views, he said:
“All was locked up and frozen from eternity, and the bot-
tom of accountability had fallen out. My first business was
to put it in again.”
The opening of the new century, however, witnessed a
tremendous intellectual awakening in every department of
thought. The two hundred newspapers of 18OI, doubled
in ten years. This awakening along all social, political, in-
dustrial and theological lines began with a great revival of re-
ligion called “the revival of 18oo,” which extended over near-
ly the whole country. Dr. Bennett Tyler, said that, one hun-
dred and fifty churches of New England were visited with a
refreshing from the presence of the Lord. The same was
true in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina.
Dr. Ebenezer Porter affirms that the day dawned which was
to succeed a night of sixty years. This great spiritual
arousement gave rise to nearly all the religibus institutions
which we now possess. There sprang from it first of all,
the “plan of union” of 1801, to evangelise New Connecti-
cut. In 1808 Andover Seminary was founded, on the basis
of theological compromise, to provide ministers. Two
years later the American Board was organized to express
the new evangelistic spirit of missions to the heathen. In
1815 the American Education Society was instituted to as-
sist in the preparation of ministers and missionaries. In
1826, the American Temperance Society was organized, to
express the spirit of moral reform. In 1822, Yale Theo-
logical department was instituted with Dr. N. W. Taylor at
its head. In 1830, began the American Home Missionary
Society. Meantime, the great controversy, which lasted till
1838 between old and new school, waxed so hot that East
Windsor Seminary was established in 1833, as a “barrier
against new school error.”
Alongside of this greatest movement of American
thought in the realm of theology, there had sprung up that
8
greatest movement in the moral and political realm which,
after more than thirty years, ended at Appomatox. The
Presbyterian body, so closely allied to the Congregational in
doctrinal views, became the storm center of the theological
struggle, after it was largely over in New England. The
new school men maintained that their opponents, denying the
freedom of the will, held a theology which logically stood in
the way of the conversion of souls. The old school men
charged the new with holding views which would result in
the ruin of souls and the dissolution of the church. This
struggle was ended by the division of the Presbyterian body
in 1838.
Now, into this seething ocean of theological thought, in
which the giants of those days, Tyler, Taylor, Nettleton,
Baird, Beecher, Barnes were struggling, each rowing hard to
reach his own desired haven, the early life of Mr. Finney
was launched. His conversion was a great event in the his–
tory of the church of Christ. In that rural town in the
state of New York, on that quiet autumnal evening when
the young lawyer made up his mind to “settle the question
of his soul's salvation,” God was marshalling forces which
have affected, not only the conflict of the schools, but also
the destiny of myriads of souls. The greatest events are
often unheralded. Almost thief like, they steal into the his–
tory of the race, and are past before we are aware. It is
a fact of importance, bearing upon his influence, and reveal-
ing, in part, his independence of mind, that Mr. Finney was
not educated in any of the theological schools. He was
what the Romans would have called, a novus homo. He was
not the product of a long line of ancestors prominent in re-
ligious leadership or theological debates. He inherited but
little from the past. He came to the Bible, simply to solve
the destiny of his own spirit. He was “taken from the
world, not from the church.” He was brought up with very
9
little association with religious institutions. His Christian
life began in contact with men of the extreme High Cal-
vinistic type of training; men who held doctrines which his
logical mind could not preach. His native independence
and masterly analytical powers made it impossible for him to
move in the ruts of any existing system. He could not go
to the battle in Saul's armor. His religious influence was,
under God, all his own. -
Now, if we look for an explanation of Mr. Finney's
own system of thought, we shall not find it in any formal
discussion of the questions whieh were then agitating the
public mind. He was not naturally a controversialist. Al-
though at first a member of a very conservative presbytery,
from which he differed boldly and radically, he was never
tried for heresy as were Albert Barnes and other leading
men. The reason seems to lie in the fact that his manifest
life purpose was not to gain a victory for any school but
simply to bring all men to Christ. - x-
The key to his theological system is found in his con-
ception of God. That conception he seems to have received
directly from the Bible. What strivings and leadings of the
Holy Spirit, what soul-travail on the part of Christ, pre-
pared him for such views can never be known. But it ap-
pears certain that it was this conception of the nature of
the Divine Being that moulded his theology, and made him
what he was. While rejecting several of the inferences of
Calvinism, as untrue and unpreachable, the peculiarly Pauline
type of Mr. Finney's mind, led him to that view of God
which is the glory of the Calvinistic system. “God is a
spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wis-
dom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” His
idea combined the two great concepts of the Supreme Be-
ing, found in the Bible, and which have been too often sep-
arated—the majesterial and the paternal. God, to him was a
great King, and also a great Father. Men are subjects of
©
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an eternal Ruler and also children of an eternal Father.
Mr. Finney saw the evil of separating these two truths and
building our systems on one to the exclusion of the other.
The majesterial conception is the predominent one in Cal-
vinism. True, sublime, awful, but still, by itself, defective. The
paternal is the controlling thought of the theology of to-day.
True, beautiful, tender, but by itself defective. Each needs
the other as its complement. To cast off either one and
take the other is partial and narrow. The Bible contains
them both in combination. This age, peculiarly needs the
majesterial, as the age of the Westminister divines needed
the paternal. We cannot reject the former without reject-
ing the Epistle to the Romans. We cannot reject the latter
without repudiating the Lord’s prayer. Under the majesterial,
Mr. Finney was thrilled and awed by the stupendous fact,
that every man is a szlóject, as well as a child. He felt him-
self to be the subject of a divine law, the subject of a
broken law, the subject of a broken law to whom pardon
was offered. He caught the spirit of the Psalmist—“The
Lord reigneth, let the people tremble! The Lord reigneth,
let the earth rejoice!”
It was the importance of this conception that led Mr.
Finney to devote so large a part of his theological system
to a discussion of the Divine Government. The character
of the Supreme Being was so holy, so adorable, that the
most desirable thing conceivable was that God should reign,
absolutely, and forever. God's sovereignty was simply in-
finite love, guided by infinite wisdom, securing its ends of
good, by infinite power. God was bringing to pass in this
government under which we live, exactly what ought to be.
If a man comes into blessed harmony with God, he will in-
fallibly have all the good that this eternal government is
fitted to secure to him. If he does not, he will have the
best that a holy government can secure to an incorrigible
; : subject, eternal justice. Moreover, God was using with free
I I
moral agents exactly the means which ought to be used—
the great motives of rational hope and fear—the peace of
righteousness, the woe of sin. All this Mr. Finney would
say, is inferable directly from the nature and perfections of
God. Hence the sinner has nothing to fear, and everything
to hope from coming into harmony with God’s government;
and everything to fear, and nothing to hope, from any other
course. This forms the substance of his evangelistic
preaching. But as we have seen the majesterial conception
was never divorced from the paternal. All Biblical theology
includes both. The divine government includes the atone-
ment of Christ as an expression of God's Fatherhood. God
was suffering in Christ for the sins of his children. His
government could not be sustained and sinners saved with-
out his endurance of the cross. This view comes out in Mr.
Finney's sermons more directly than in his systematic the-
ology. That which awakened his own great emotional na-
ture and put the force and pathos into his tremendous ap-
peals, was the fact that sin was not simply rebellion against
a holy law but also the blow of the child at the infinitely
merciful face of the Father. -
I. The results of this conception of God, appear first,
in Mr. Finney's own personal relation to his Maker. To be
a rebel against this immutable government of wisdom and
love, to disobey this long-suffering Heavenly Father, would
involve the wreck of man's immortality. To be at one
with Him, to love what He loves, to hate what He hates, to
walk and work with Him, is the supreme good. Therefore
to subdue his own spirit absolutely to the will of God, was
his first duty. Milton's explanation of Cromwell's power
in the State and on the field of battle, may be justly applied
to Mr. Finney:—“From his thorough exercise in the art of
self-knowledge he subdued his domestic foes, his idle hopes,
his fears, his ambitions, and his desires. Having thus
learned to engage and subdue and triumph over himself, he
I 2
took the field against his outward enemies—a soldier prac-
ticed in all the discipline of war.”
2. His conception of God gave shape to his concep-
tion of the Scriptures. The discussions as to the authority
of Revelation which now agitate the Christian world, had
not arisen in his day, but his position is one which modern,
critical investigation cannot shake. God is infinitely holy,
wise, compassionate. Man is a moral wreck. The proof
that the Bible is divine is that it meets the requirements of
God's holy compassion on the one hand, and actually saves
wrecked humanity when tested by experiment, on the other.
President Finney found the authority of the Scriptures in
the experience of his own soul. He admitted that logically,
the Bible assumes many things, but the things it assumes
are the intuitive affirmations of man’s moral nature. There
is an inner as well as an outward revelation, and these two
agree. The final test, is this, that when any man follows
absolutely the directions of the Bible, he inevitably over-
comes sin, and becomes a righteous man. That being true,
the Bible is an infallible rule of life for the purpose for
which it was given. Mr. Finney believed in the Gospel as
he believed in the light of the sun. ” On his knees before
God, he fed upon, and literally devoured it. His soul was
fascinated with its marvelous simplicity, directness, and
force,—but especially with the fact that it so found him, and
so revealed God. \
3. It was from the same starting point, that Mr. Fin-
ney reached his views of sin. He felt that no adequate idea
of what sin is, can be obtained simply from a study of
Moral Philosophy, or from the consequences of sin. The
true estimate of its guilt can come only from an apprehen-
sion of the character and attributes of God, in connection
with moral freedom. Probably no man since the days of
Paul has ever portrayed the consequences of sin as has Mr. ,
Finney, and yet to his mind, the consequences of sin to man
I 3
never appeared so appalling, as the nature and guilt of it.
When a free soul yields itself up to commit a wrong, it is
not an accident. The whole rational being is involved in
the act. It is not simply a movement of some inferior pas-
sion or some subordinate desire, acting like an outlaw in
some remote territory of the soul—no, the thing is done in
the capitol, by the president of the realm, the entire, execu-
tive man. Moreover, every sin is not simply an attack on
the personality of God, and the existence of his govern-
ment, but it is the setting up of a rival government—the
organizing of life on a principle antagonistic to the moral
law and destructive to the universe. President Finney saw
that the tendency of men was to dwell upon the consequences
of sin rather than the nature and guilt of it. They looked
upon the world, and found it full of injustice, suffering and
tears, and they said, “Oh how terrible a thing sin is How
men suffer How hearts bleed!” All very true. We can-
not exaggerate the consequences of sin. But there is a
profounder argument than that. It is “the sinfulness of
sin”—the guilt of it, as against God. It is not the conse-
quences of sin, but the guilt of it, that constitutes our lost
condition. It is not the consequences of sin, but the guilt
of it, that requires the atonement of Christ. It is not the
removal of the consequences, but the removal of the love
and the guilt of it, that constitutes salvation.
4. It was his conception of God that gave to his
whole theological system its peculiar cast. In his revolt
against what he felt to be the untrue and unpreachable dog-
mas of high Calvinism, he was led to adopt, with some
modifications, the views of Drs. Hopkins and Taylor, ap-
parently, before he had ever read them. He held with
Hopkins, that all virtue consists in disinterested benevolence
—that all sin consists in selfishness, though he distinguished,
as Hopkins did not, between self-love and selfishness. He
agreed with Hopkins that man is accountable for no sin but
I4
his own; that the inability of a sinner to obey God is not
natural but moral—he can, but will not; that neither sin
nor righteousness is transferable. But he distinguished be-
tween purpose and pre-knowledge, as Hopkins failed to do,
and therefore rejected the statement that God had “pur-
posed " the existence of sin in the moral system, and de-
nied that sin is “on the whole for the general good.” These
views were to Mr. Finney a logical necessity when he pro-
posed to appeal to men to repent. Nevertheless, his theo-
logical system, as a whole, like that of the Hopkinsians, is
strongly Calvinistic in its fundamental elements. His phil-
osophy was, in the main, the Calvinistic philosophy. In-
stead of rejecting that system as such, as some in both
England and America are foolishly doing to-day, he modž-
fied Calvinism, as the New England theologians have done.
He took the great fundamental propositions of Calvin, the
sovereignty of God, the doctrines of election and reproba-
tion, and made them rational and practical. He enforced
them with a cogency, equal to that of Calvin himself, but
with Calvin’s inferential errors eliminated, because he had
reached a truer conception of the freedom of the will. The
great value of his theological work consists in his clearer
elaboration of three points, none of which were absolutely
original with him, but which he made of immense practical
value because they were wrought out by him, not as a Con-
troversialist, but preached to the millions, as the way of sal-
vation. The three points on which he dwelt were the AWa-
ture of the Divine Government, the Foundation of Moral
Obligation, and the Watural Ability of a Sinner to Obey
God. On the last point he has displayed an intellectual
acumen, a grasp of the subject, a clearness of analysis, which
I do not find in any other writer. An illustration of this is
found in his exposure of the fallacy of President Edwards,
that “The human will is always as the greatest apparent
good.” Edwards started with the true assumption that
I 5
every effect must have a 'cause, and that human volitions
are an effect, and must have a cause. So far Mr. Finney
agreed. But Edwards, denying the self-determining power
of the will, was compelled to look for the cause in outward
circumstances. Finney shows that there lies the source of
the fallacy, and that the sovereign power of the moral agent
himself is the cause of his own action, that this is the affir-
‘mation of consciousness; and that to deny the self-deter-
mining power of the will is not only a begging of the ques-
tion but leads to a false definition of freedom, which would
ultimately deny the fact of sin altogether, a conclusion
which Edwards himself would repudiate. A remarkable in-
stance of his power of condensed statement is found in con-
nection with the famous “atheistic dilemma” of Epicurus,
as to the existence of moral evil. Epicurus said, “God has
either the will, but not the power, to prevent evil, or the
power, but not the will, If he has the will but not the
power, he is impotent, which cannot be true of God. If he
has the power, but not the wiil, he is malignant. If he has
neither the will nor the power he is both impotent and ma-
lignant; therefore there is no righteous God.” The answer
to this dilemma which Dr. Talor, one of the keenest minds of
New England, wrought out laboriously, Finney threw into
the title of a single sermon—“Where sin occurs God cannot
wisely prevent it.” Mr. Finney's remarkable perspicacity
was equalled only by his perspicuity. As a theologian, he
stood for the progressive nature of Christian doctrine. He
would not stereotype his own conclusions. The theology
of the Reformation or of the Westminster Confession was
not the goal of theological thought. Neither, would he
say, in all probability, that the Oberlin Theology is the final
goal.
Mr. Finney did not claim to solve the relation of Divine
sovereignty to human accountability. But his modified Cal-
vinism which held firmly to the fundamental truths of that
I6
system—truths imbedded in the nature of God and the con-
stitution of the universe—while yet it repudiated Calvin's
conception of original sin, predestination, limited atonement,
and natural inability, seems to me to be peculiarly fitted to
meet the needs of the world.
5. It is easy to trace to the source I have mentioned,
Mr. Finney's idea of the Church and the Christian life. We
are accustomed to regard him, primarily, as the great
evange/ist; and the idea of an evangelist, in these days, is
that of a man who gathers great numbers into the church
from the world. But in addition to that, Mr. Finney's
equally important work consisted in raising the standard of
Christian living. It is this that makes his influence as an
evangelist unique. It was by no means the vast numbers of
young people who were converted under his preaching that
gave Oberlin its spiritual power. It was the type of conver-
sion he required, the kind of a Christian which he insisted
upon, the sanctity of the new life which he never ceased to
preach that characterized the spiritual life here. The motto
that floated over the old tent, here in the wilderness, “Aſo/7–
ness to the Lord,” explains the history of the place. From
Mr. Finney's conception of God, there was but a single step
to the conclusion that a redeemed soul must be holy. He
was profoundly impressed with the idea that the want of
spiritual power in the churches, was the result of a domina-
ting practical materialism. Hence his perpetual efforts to
secure revivals of religion among professing Christians. In-
deed, his fundamental idea of a revival was that of a revival
—a renewal of life in the Church. And only as he secured
that did he feel that anything was accomplished. He was
painfully conscious that in the wear and tear of life, that
holy sensitiveness of heart, that self-crucifying heroism
which marked the life of Jesus, is liable to be lost. . Hence
he realized the need of repeated “overhaulings” of his own
life. His wonderful experience while in Boston in 1843, is
I7
an example of this kind. Meditating on the “want of
power in the churches,” he was led to re-examine his own
relation to God, when, after a new struggle of self-surrender
to the Divine will, he came into that exalted and peaceful
state of communion with his Savior, in which he says he
found himself “as it were smiling in God's face, and saying,
he ‘did not want anything.’” In many points of intellect,
character, and experience Mr. Finney's life was similar to
that of President Edwards, and in none, more than in this
sympathy with God, this vision of the Divine excellency,
and this yearning that God might be glorified. It was this
that subdued his heart, and made him glad to live a life of
poverty if need be, here in Oberlin, while men of smaller
powers were making fortunes. That which Pope Pius the
IV. said of John Calvin might be said of Charles G. Finney,
—“The strength of that heretic consisted in this fact: money
never had the slightest charm for him. If I had such ser–
vants, my dominions would extend from sea to sea.” I will
only add that it would be a great mistake to infer that Pres-
ident Finney's view of life and of the Church, made him
gloomy or austere. That is not the effect of communion
with God. Such communion makes a man a prophet of
hope. As a preacher of Divine truth, he was a very serious
man. No one who takes in the situation of humanity, who
looks at the tragic side of human life, the moral drift of the
nations, and especially the world's devil spirit toward Christ,
can be otherwise than serious. And yet Mr. Finney's life
was full of tender, child-like simplicity, hope, courage, and
affection. He abounded in exalted joy and Christian good
cheer.
6. It is not a little surprising that, so far as I can learn,
President Finney attended almost no reform conventions and
delivered no lectures or addresses exclusively devoted to
the promotion of moral reform. Let no one infer from this,
however, that his influence was not potent in all such re-
I8
forms. If all Christian ministers preached as he did, there
would be but little need of special organizations for the
promotion of reform. He was not a temperance or anti-
slavery lecturer in the ordinary sense, yet the world knew
him as one of the most pronounced and powerful advocates
of these causes. His life illustrates the fact that a man can
be a great reformer by simply preaching the Gospel. He
did, of course, speak hundreds of times directly against the
sins of Sabbath desecration, intemperance, and slavery,
with tremendous emphasis. He said the Church was guilty
i n its indifference to the drink traffic—that a man's hands
were red with blood who stood aloof from the temperance
cause. The church that did not take sides with God and
array itself against all moral evils, was not a true church.
A church member who tampered and compromised with
either organized or individual wrongs, after light had been
thrown upon them, was not a true Christian. Every Chris-
tian is born a reformer when he is born again. To make
men true reformers is simply to make them true Christians.
In this way, by simply devoting his life to the winning of
men to Christ and illuminating the great truths of the Gos-
pel in their application to practical life, Mr. Finney became
one of the most radical and powerful abolitionists of his
time. No one of all the multitudes of his converts could
go out into the world anything less than a moral reformer.
It must not be inferred, however, that he did not favor
special, organized efforts in the line of reform. He himself
was an evangelist, called of God to do a more funnamental
work than lecturing on slavery, but his heart was with all
those engaged in that undertaking. He saw that mere out-
ward reform would not avail. The abolition of slavery and
of the saloon “must be brought about by promoting union
among Christians and extending correct views of Christian
responsibility.” “Anything that will unite the Church and
consolidate her efforts, and wisely direct them,” he said,
I9
“will correct the national morals, and nothing else can.”
Mr. Finney’s “Philosophy of Emancipation” explains his
relations to other great reformers. He cannot be said to
have stood either with the conservative or the extreme radi-
cal wing of Abolitionists, in the anti-slavery struggle. He
did not occupy exactly either the position of Wm. Lloyd
Garrison or of Dr. Leonard Bacon. While agreeing with
Garrison that immediate emancipation was a ' duty, that
justice to God and man could accept nothing less, he did not
sympathize with that great Abolitionist in losing heart in
the reformation of the Church, as the agent of the reform.
. He knew that the anti-slavery principle was itself the child
of Christian faith. To abandon the Church was to abandon
the last hope of the world. Let the Church be reformed,
he said. Let her eyes be open to the true spirit of the
Gospel, as applied to human life, and she will sweep slavery
out of existence. I do not mean to imply that Mr. Garri-
son lost faith in a true Christian Churcn, but according to
his friend, Oliver Johnson, he held that a slave-holding
church, or a church indifferent to the wrongs of the slave,
could not be, in the nature of things, a church of Christ. I
understand that Mr. Finney, radical as he was, took issue
with Garrison on that point. He would admit the utter
failure of such a church, for want of proper instruction, but
still hold that it might, in other respects, have the elements
of a Christian church which only needed enlightening and
awakening to its duty on that subject. To say, as I do,
that I believe that Mr. Finney was right in this matter, is
not saying that the two men were very wide apart, or that
Garrison was to be condemned for denouncing pro-slavery
churches. It is only saying that Mr. Finney made a larger
allowance than did Garrison for that blindness of mind which
obscures the sense of ethical justice in a given direction,
while yet the general purpose may be to do the will of God.
Both men held the same conception of what the Church
2O
ought to be. Both denounced pro-slavery churches. The
one believed in pouring into pro-slavery minds the light and
love of Christ, thus correcting the defective judgment and
awakening the conscience in regard to the slave. The other
believed that an Abolitionist should come out from such a
church, and denounce it as utterly reprobate. It is indeed
conceivable that had Mr. Finney made more direct anti-
slavery and temperance addresses, and attended more politi-
cal and reformatory conventions with his brethren, he might
have widened his influence for good in those directions.
And yet the wisdom of his course seems to be justified by
its fruits. He, more than any other single man, breathed
into Oberlin the spirit of radical moral reform. I have not
learned that any of the multitudes that went out from under
his influence here have been specially lacking in that direc-
tion. True Christian teachers of youth, always stand nearer
to the sources of power than any other class of men. The
country has certainly been profoundly affected by Mr. Fin-
ney and his co-laborers and pupils who caught the hot spirit
of reform, not so much from his outward attitude as from
the contagion of his spiritual life.
7. I shall not dwell here on Mr. Finney as a preacher,
except to say that his conception of God, here as elsewhere,
made him set the ministry at the head of all other callings.
He was a great Theological teacher, but his real prominence,
as he stands before the world, was in the pulpit. His pulpit
was his throne of power. To stand before a great audience
persuading men to be reconciled to God, was so much the
habit of his mind, and so alluring to his imagination, that
even his “Systematic Theology,” as it appeared in the first
edition, abounded with powerful hortatory passages, which
a stricter literary and scientific taste required to be stricken
out of the second edition. I have listened to some of the
greatest preachers of our own time and read the sermons of
many others, but nothing in that line has ever thrown such
2 I
a light upon certain texts, by clear analysis; nothing has
controlled my judgment by simple definition, or awakened
my conscience, or touched my heart as some of Mr. Finney's
sermons. Each sermon reminds me at times of a great
breaker on the Atlantic coast. It begins with a gradual
heaving and swelling, away out in the deep water, and then,
with the weight of the whole Atlantic behind it, begins to
roll in, gaining in height, and force, and volume, and inten-
sity, as it advances, till it reaches its climax, when the crest
whitens and breaks and the mighty mass is dashed in shud-
dering foam on the shore; drenching for the thousandth
time everything that lies in its way. Comparing the preach-
ing of the two great evangelists, Nettleton and Finney, Ly-
man Beecher says, “the one was reverential, timid, secretive;
the other bold, striking, demonstrative. Nettleton set snares
for sinners; Finney, rode them down zwith a cavalry charge.”
Professor Park once said to his class in theology, with that
peculiar lift of his shoulders and emphasis of his arm which
his pupils remember so well, “The greatest sermon—yes,
the greatest sermon I ever heard was in the Old South
Meeting House, here in Andover. It was preached by Rev.
Charles G. Finney. He never exhorted men to feel, but he
so preached that they could not help feeling.”
In any attempt to sum up the influence of Mr. Finney
on religious thought and life, we must bear in mind that un-
like most great men he had two thrones of power, the pulpit
and the theological chair. From the one he touched great
masses of people, from the other he moulded the teachers of
the future. -
(I) In general, it may be said that he gave a larger
place in the investigation of Scripture to reason than most
men of his time were accustomed to do. His great aim was
to make a reasonable Theology. He could accept nothing
either from the Bible or from tradition that was not logical-
ly consistent. He held that “the Bible was made for the
22
mind, not the mind for the Bible.” He took the liberty,
perhaps, at times, with unnecessary violence, to reject the
dogmas of the past, especially as he fonnd them in the Pres-
byterian body to which he at first belonged. He says that
some of the Old School positions so embarrassed him at ev-
ery step that he often said to himself, “If these things are
taught in the Bible, I must be an infidel.” But he did not
find them taught in the Bible “on any principle of interpra-
tion that could be admitted in a court of justice.” In the
early part of the century, preachers of the Princetonian type
took little pains to speak to their age. They preferred to
avoid the ethical, that they might secure what they called
the evangelical development of truth. All doctrines were
stated from the extreme Calvinistic point of view. They
had a habit of dragooning into the service of certain theo-
logical statements, whole platoons of Scripture texts, many
of which were evidently designed to be in better business.
Sam Lawson's description of the Old Town minister was not
so far from the truth: “He was gret on texts, the Doctor
was. When he had a pint to prove, he'd jest go through the
Bible and drive all the texts ahead on him, like a flock o'
sheep. And then if there was a text that seemed agin him,
why, he'd come out with his Greek and Hebrew, and kind o'
chase it round a spell, jest as ye see a fellar chase a contra-
ry bellwether and make it jump the fence ater the rest. I
tell you there warn't no text in the Bible that could stand
agin the Doctor when his blood was up.”
Mr. Finney not only made reasonable but popularized
Theology. Being set down in early life in a theological
“valley of dry bones,” “he passed round about, and behold,
they were very many in the open valley.” They were rep-
resented in the one extreme by Princeton and at the oppos-
ite extreme by Harvard. “And lo, they were very dry.
And he prophesied upon them, and behold there was a noise
and a shaking, and the bones came together, and flesh came
23
up upon them, and skin covered them above, and breath
came into them and they lived, and stood upon their feet an
exceeding great army.” Thus a rational Theology was
brought alive to living men. It cannot be denied, however,
that great revivals of religion have often sprung up under the
Old School doctrine of inability to repent; because, I sup-
pose, God is not controlled by men's want of logic. He
uses, but does not depend upon “the foolishness of preach-
ing.” Beyond all reasonable doubt, however, all consistent-
ly logical presentations of the truth, which appeal to reason
and conscience, with a view to convict of sin, must use sub-
stantially the New School position. It is probable, there-
fore, that Mr. Finney, though engaged but little in doctrinal
controversy, did at least as much to advance the New School
cause in the Presbyterian body as any other single man.
On the othel hand, while always maintaining the constitu-
tional freedom of the will, he also held that every man is
morally enslaved, and needs divine help not to make him
able to repent, but to make him willing. Mr. Finney did
not elaborate this side of the truth with the same frequency’
and force that he did the fact of freedom. His generation
needed the emphasis on the latter. Ours needs it on the
former. The boast and conceit of our time has come to be
that, the existence of which the men of fifty years ago de-
nied. It is a pity that the human mind can not carry along
the two Biblical ideas in combination—cannot avoid Scylla
without falling into Charybdis. . .
(2) Another part of the legacy which Mr. Finney has
left us, lies in his vigorous war on rationalism. In the last
analysis there are but two views of man—the one holds that
he is only defective, unfortunate, finite, and needs only edu:
cational development, which is possible without supernatur-
al aid. The other holds that man's moral nature is de-
praved, that he is guilty and needs spiritual regeneration;
that he cannot be saved without supernatural interposition.
24
Mr. Finney, like the Apostle Paul, with an emphasis drawn
from his own experience and from his views of the moral
law, declared that the latter was the only true view of man.
The logical acumen and spiritual intensity with which he de-
fended the supernatural, not only from the Word of God but
also from man's moral nature, have left no standing ground
for the infidel rationalist, who understands the facts in the
CaSe. -
(3) Few men have left their mark more indelibly on
the spiritual life and Christian education of the country than
Mr. Finney. The fact that he made the vicarious suffering
of the God-man the one true type of benevolence, the fact
that he made doctrinal preaching both practical and popu-
lar, by touching so deftly the springs of human sympathy
and probing so deeply the recesses of the conscience, the
fact that his own record of his life has come to thousands
and thousands as that of a man who saw and felt more of
God than they themselves have done, must make him a spir-
itual force in the nation for generations to come. To be
sure, he was maligned by the extreme Calvinists for his New
School views, and cast out by the New School men of New
England because of alleged errors as to the doctrine of per-
sonal righteousness, and yet, like that of Oliver Cromwell,
whom it required one hundred and fifty years to vindicate,
Mr. Finney’s influence will go on increasing in proportion as
he becomes better understood. Some may have thought
that when he left the metropolis and came to this place, then
in the woods, he was throwing away his prospects and bury-
ing his great abilities, but it was probably a great providen-
tial advantage to his influence that he left New York and
'entered upon the struggles and self-denials of Oberlin. This
field, combining church, college and theological seminary,
was peculiarly fitted to the bent of his mind and the devel-
opment of his powers, and to be the medium of his life forc-
es to the world. Probably through no other channel could
25
he have wielded"a greater power. As teacher, preacher and
pastor to an immense number of wide-awake plastic minds,
he had an advantage which but few even in a college com-
munity ever possessed. The church in Yale College, for ex-
ample, organized for good reasons fifty-seven years after the
college itself, and vast as has been its influence for good
upon the country, has always had to labor under certain
confessed disadvantages incident to a church separated from
the community and made up entirely of men. It has been
admitted that it is against nature to expect young men to
enjoy attending a sanctuary “where the sexes do not exist
in something like natural proportions.” This accounts for
the proverbial bad behavior of students in many of our older
college churches, and the difficulties with which their pas-
tors have to struggle. Mr. Finney had the advantage in
this respect from the start. He not only had the college
and community combined in one church, but also among the
students themselves he had the sexes together “in their nat-
ural proportions,” according to God's own arrangement.
These circumstances had much to do with the fact that such
multitudes went out from here to all parts of the country
during Mr. Finney's forty years of service, so impressed with
his views and with his evangelistic spirit. Through Oberlin,
moreover, his influence upon the education was hardly less
marked than upon the religion of the country. Some years
ago, a statement was made of the religious and educational
influence of Yale College Church upon other schools of learn-
ing. It cannot be immodest to make a similar reference
here to Mr. Finney's influence through this college. So far
as he was influential in moulding Oberlin, to that extent he
has left his mark on a score or more of higher institutions
of learning in the South and West which in principle and
spirit are the children of Oberlin. Many of these institu-
tions have been organized and manned by persons who felt
the power of Mr. Finney's religious life. Ten years ago,
26 * *
three hundred and thirty-three professors and teachers had
gone out from here to other colleges and schools of higher
education, several of them as presidents of colleges. Nearly
three hundred men had graduated from the Theological De-
partment during Mr. Finney's term of labor, and it is not
too much to say that of the twenty-five to thirty thousand
persons who have been connected with the college down to
the present day, but few have gone forth without carrying,
consciously or unconsciously, some influence from his life.
Adding to this the tens of thousands who have been led to
Christ in this country and England by his revival labors and
the reading of his works, we are surely justified in repeat-
ing that a hundred years ago this man must have been sent
from God. Mr. Finney's monument is not that block of
granite, appropriate as it is, which now marks his grave.
The real monument to his greatness is Oberlin, with its col-
lege and its churches and the renewed lives of the vast mul-
titudes now on both sides of the river of death, whose im-
mortality has been brightened by the words he uttered and
the life he lived.
In conclusion the question arises, does this generation
need and should we emphasize this Calvinistic system of
thought as Mr. Finney held it? To my view there can be
but one answer. For it is generally conceded that a decay
of the sense of guilt for sin has set in as a phenomenon of
modern Christian experience. Now, the lowering of the
sense of guilt for sin inevitably lowers the significance of
almost every Gospel truth. Diminish that, and you dimin-
ish the sense of the need of redemption. Faith loses its im-
portance. The penalties of the Divine Law lose their
wholesome terrors. “The wrath to come” becomes a mere
figure of speech. The Divine government ceases to have
any objective reality. The atonement becomes superfluous.
Human responsibility is narrowed down to the limits of stat-
27
ute law. That obligation to be holy which so dignifies a
free immortal soul, is obscured, just in proportion as the
sense of the sinfulness of sin is lost. These results, in some
measure, already appear in our latest religious thought and
experience. The silent, subtle conviction is apparently
spreading, that to be a sinner is not the supreme calamity
after all... This change has come about, I believe, by a ceas-
ing, on the part of the pulpit and the pew to dwell sufficient-
ly upon the nature and attributes of God. In speaking of
the relation of man to his Maker, in recent years, “govern-
mental analogies” have been largely discarded and “vital an-
alogies” now monopolize the field. The Biblical emblems
of retribution have also been avoided. Those Scripture top-
ics which merely tend to cultivate the affections without
profoundly awakening the conscience have been specially
brought to the front. This is the drift of the age.
Now, as we have seen, Mr. Finney's tremendous sense
of the guilt of sin sprang from his conception of God.
What then, was the influence of this theological system upon
himself? I reply, it affected him just as the same views
affected Paul. It crucified his pride and selfish ambition.
It smote down his spirit of self-indulgence. It flooded his
soul with a sense of God’s love. It gave him a quenchless
yearning for souls. It made him the messenger of hope.
What has been the influence of this type of theology on
society and civilization ? I know it has been called austere,
yet it has awakened in man the most heroic endeavors and
promoted the sweetest amenities of life. It has been called
a creed of intellectual servitude, yet, wherever it prevails, it
crushes tyrants and breaks the chain of the slave. It has
made the noblest heroes of history: William the Silent,
Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cromwell, Milton, Bunyan, the Pil-
grims who made America, the Puritans who put their feet
upon the necks of kings. This system of theology is the
natural foe of that soft-handed self-indulgence from which
28
our civilization is suffering to-day. Even Mr. Froude, speak-
ing of this system, before it had received its modern modifi-
cations, says, “The Calvinists attracted to their ranks al-
most every man in western Europe who hated a lie. What-
ever exists at this moment, in England and Scotland of con-
science, of fear of doing evil, is the remnant of convictions
which were burned by the Calvinists into the hearts of the
people.” Put now Mr. Finney's exalted view of God, his
profound conception of sin, and his idea of the consequent
glory of redemption, along side of the vague incipient ra-
tionalism which is beginning to work to-day in all denomi-
tions, and judge which of the two human nature needs.
The one encourages the pride of intellect, the other humbles
it to the dust. The One says to men, you need better en-
vironment; the other, you need a new heart. The one says
if you would have peace of mind contemplate your fine men-
tal endowment; the other says, if you would have peace,
you must be in league with the righteous God. The one
says, what is called sin, is a misfortune; the other, “it is ex-
ceedingly sinful.” The One says society must realize its
hope in the line of natural progress; the other, Šays it must
come in the line of supernatural regeneration. The one
tells me, I must be trained; the other, I must be forgiven.
The verdict of history is, that the result of the former is cul-
tured selfishness; that of the latter, an unselfish and purified
soul.
As I understand Mr. Finney, his doctrinal views are ex-
actly those of Paul, and the churches which Paul established
among men were never mere academies for 2gnorant souls,
but the birthplaces for a new life. His creed guarded man
at once against two fatal extremes—presumption and des-
pair. Pressing the appalling fact of sin, as measured by
the character of God, it precluded presumption. Proclaim-
ing an infinite atonement it precluded despair.
29
I suggest, then, that what our time, with its flaring civ-
ilization, and its frenzied rush for money and for power, es-
pecially needs, is that system of truth which, like the Epistle
to the Romans, is loyal both to the rights of God and the
actual condition of man. These august truths, with all their
beneficent severity, with all their measureless tenderness,
must be burned into the hearts of men. Professor Austin
Phelps, speaking of the necessity of retaining the “Biblical
emblems of retribution” in our preaching, says that the ef-
fect of the abandonment of them “may not discover itself in
a sudden departure from the ancient faith. More naturally
it appears in a slow insidious subsidence of the vitality of
faith as a power of control over the character and life. Beliefs
remaining, faith expires. The popular theology takes on a
soft molluscan subsistence which is a melancholy travesty
on the Pauline system of ideas. A vertebrate theology has
been the power of the pulpit in all ages. In all things that
concern the administration of God’s moral government, hu-
man nature is fatally decrepit. Guilt has taken moral
stamina out of us. Morally, we are a race of paralytics. In
the conflict for eternal life we are limp. The sinews of our
strength are flabby. “There is no health in us.” Dr. Bush-
nell says, “One of the things most needed, in the recovery
of men to God, is this very thing—a more decisive manifes-
tation of the “wrath principle.” Intimidation is the first
means of grace. No bad mind is arrested by love and
beauty till such time as it is balked in evil, and put on ways
of thoughtfulness; and nothing can be so effectual for this,
as a distinct apprehension of the “wrath to come.”
It is equally important to a symmetrical presentation of
the truth and the preservation of a “vertebrate theology”
that we preserve, as Mr. Finney always did, the Biblical dis-
tinction between saved and unsaved men. Professor Drum-
mond has nobly expressed himself on this point. He says,
“It is an old fashioned theology which divides the world in
3O
this way, which speaks of men as living and dead, lost and
saved,—a stern theology, all but fallen into disuse. This
difference between the living and the dead in souls, is so un-
proved by casual observance, so impalpable in itself, so start-
ling as a doctrine, that schools of culture have ridiculed or
denied the grim distinction. Nevertheless the grim distinc-
tion must be retained. It is a scientific distinction “He
that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of
God hath not life.’”
It is impossible to justly estimate the legacy left to
Oberlin College, Oberlin students, and to the Oberlin
Churches by the life and work of President Finney. The
best evidence of its reality, however, lies in the affectionate
devotion of his own people who sat under his preaching and
communed with him for nearly forty years- His unique
combination of radically opposite qualities of mind; his doc-
trinal severity combined with the tenderest sympathy; his
metaphysical type of thought combined with the most prac-
tical concrete application; his rigid logic combined with a
profoundly emotional nature; his commanding and even dic-
tatorial authority combined with the most child-like humility
—these, balancing the forces of his life, compelled the re-
spect of all. But I believe it was the absolute transparency
of his character that gave him the permanent place in the
affections of his people, and that brings back so many, year
after year to speak reverently of his name and drop a tear
over his grave. Probably no man ever lived forty years in
one community, with his heart of hearts so plainly on his
sleeve, with so little to conceal and so much to express,
no man was ever known through and through, ln every
trait, every virtue, every fault, as was Mr. Finney in Oberlin,
and yet was so trusted and loved, increasingly as the
years went on. Let me now read to you the exquisite let-
ter of the First Church upon accepting his resignation of the
pastoral office in 1872:
* 3 I
Dearly Beloved Pastor.—
At your repeated and earnest request to be relieved of the pastoral Care
care of this church, on account of your advanced age and feebleness of body,
we have finally agreed to accept your resignation.
We cannot, therefore, forbear expressing to you our sense of the priceless
service which, without any adequate pecuniary reward or even support from
us, you have freely rendered to the Church: -
1. In your consistent and blameless Christian life—a delightful and ever-
shining example of the grace of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.
2. In your tender sympathy with every individual member of the church,
especially with the sick and the afflicted—and your intense interest in the wel-
fare of us all.
3. In your ceaseless, zealous, and effectual efforts for the salvation of
sinners, your wise conversation with enquirers after Christ, and your thor-
ough organization of the Church for the prosecution of this work.
4. In your ſervid and pungent sermons wrought out through much be-
lieving prayer and fathful, intelligent study of Gods's word and most truly
accepted of God, as the marvellous accompanying power of his spirit so fre-
quently witnessed by us, clearly proves.
5. In your labors and prayers for the church universal, your revival ef-
forts abroad, your published letters and books, all breathing the same spirit
of love and power which have characterized your Christian activity at home.
It is our most earnest desire that you will spend the remnant of your
days in loving Christian fellowship among us, and that as God gives you
strength we may often see your face ond hear your voice in the pulpit, in the
prayer meetings and in friendly social greeting.
And may the blessing of Israel’s God be upon you, that your last days
may be unclouded and happy, that your soul may rest in the infinite peace of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, until an entrance shall be administered
unto you abundantly into his everlasting kingdom.
For myself, I thank God for the privilege of working
where he wrought and reaping where he had sown. Al-
though knowing. him personally less than two years, he
stands before my mind to-day as one of the three kingly
men, Theodore D. Woolsey, Edwards A. Park, Charles G.
Finney, who have helped my life, and to whom I owe an
immeasurable debt.
32
MEMORIAL ADDRESS
ON CERTAIN ELEMENTS OF PRESIDENT FINNEY'S POWER
As A PREACHER. -
BY PROFESSOR JOHN M. ELLIS.
Charles G. Finney was born in Warren, Conn., August
29, 1792. The one hundred years which have passed since
that date are doubtless the most remarkable Ioo years
of the world's history. The influence of Mr. Finney has
been one of the potent factors in producing these remarka-
ble years. More and more his name is receiving honorable
mention as his work and power are better known and ap-
preciated. There can be no question that it is to stand
among the few greatest leaders of religious thought of the
century. His grave and the granite block that marks it in
our quiet cemetery will be increasingly a shrine sought out
and visited with growing interest and veneration by coming
generations.
It is fitting, therefore, that we observe this centennial
year, and call to mind the advantages which providehtially
came to Oberlin in its pioneer days in the western wilder-
ness, from the presence and labors of this wonderful man.
And this all the more when we remember that almost a gen-
eration has passed since he closed his public career. Only
a small number of those here to-day recall his death seven-
teen years ago, and fewer still ever heard his voice in the
pulpit. The new generation may well improve the occasion
to learn something of the character and work of one who
had so commanding an influence in founding and moulding
the institutions and character of this community.
33
I count it one of the greatest privileges of my life to
have come under this influence, and for thirty years to have
heard and felt the inspiration of this great preacher and
thinker. It is because of this privilege I have been asked
to speak on this occasion. I propose to speak from per-
sonal recollection and reflection of some of the elements of
Mr. Finney's power as a preacher—that what I say may be
of the nature of personal testimony.
Such a character and life are an inexhaustible mine,
which men will not cease to work and from which may be
gathered endless lessons of wisdom and inspiration. -
What I have to say may fall under four heads:
The external manner of his preaching.
The plan or method in the structure of his sermons.
The subject matter, and -
The man himself, or the personal elements of his power
—the manner, the method, the matter, the man.
I. Mr. Finney was endowed by nature with many of
the qualities that make an orator, He had a commanding
form, above the ordinary stature, broad-shouldered—erect
as a soldier, even when he was, past four score years, agile
and graceful as an athlete, and easy in movement as an ac-
complished actor. His head was large and broad-browed—
with strong lines in the face, mouth and features wonder-
fully mobile and capable of every variety of expression. His
voice, not striking when first heard or attracting attention
to itself ever, was still of wonderful power, of great flexibil-
ity, sweeping readily from the highest to the lowest notes in
a single utterance, musical in quality, so penetrating that
every utterance could be heard throughout the large audi-
ence even in a whisper, and capable of tender pathos and
and touching entreaty, as well as of the thunderings of wrath
or tones of solemn warning and stern authority. The feat-
ure most commanding your attention and never forgotten
was the eye—that seemed to look you through and through
34
and hold you with its fascination under its continued scru-
tiny, till you felt that your very soul was being searched.
And no one in a vast congregation could escape its
penetrating and magnetic power. The thoughtless were
sobered by it, the uninterested were attracted into attention,
the scoffer quailed before it, and into every heart this pierc-
ing glance opened a way for the entrance of the truths
uttered by the great soul that looked through it into
your soul. Again this piercing eye would beam with ten-
derness and gentleness, or fill with tearful yearning and en-
treaty.
For the most part Mr. Finney’s manner was simply con-
versational and direct, the same variety of intonation and
expression as in common intercourse. He came into inti-
mate relations with his hearers. It was real intercourse. He
seemed to be talking with you and to you, utterly uncon-
scious of any effort at effect or rhetorical art. There was
none. He had something to explain to you or convince you
of or persuade you to do, and he gave himself to do it. Ev-
erything in his manner was as natural and unconscious as
the words and actions of a child. His style was strictly ea.
zeupore, nothing elaborate, no highly wrought phrases or
complicated sentences, but every word suggested by the ex-
igencies of the moment and suited to set home the thought.
Direct, simple, transparent, not a word was used without an
obvious meaning, nor one not needed for the effect to be se-
cured. It must not be supposed, however, that his manner
was lacking in vigor. Though perfectly simple and natural,
it was always impressive and often intensely impassioned.
As his feeling kindled with his theme, every form of rhetori-
cal figure and device seemed pressed into service, but as un-
consciously and without art as in the quietest discourse.
The soul of the preacher rose to the sublimest heights of
fervid eloquence and poured itself out in overwhelming argu-
ment and and vivid description and persuasive appeal. Mr.
35
Finney possessed remarkable dramatic power. No acting
could be more perfect or effective. And yet there was really
no acting about it. Every movement and gesture and tone
of voice were as natural and unstudied as his breath. Hence
everything was graceful and appropriate. Nothing seemed
out of place. He seemed able to do anything without of.
fense—could recline upon the seat behind the pulpit to il-
lustrate the ancient method of reclining at meals and how
the weeping woman bathed the Savior's feet with her tears.
The action always served to bring the scene before the eye
with living effect. As he put his hand over his eyes, peered
into the distance, stretching himself on tiptoe and stepping
part way down the pulpit steps in his eager gaze, we all
seemed to see the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son,
looking up the road toward a wayworn ragged traveler in the
distance and discovering that it was his son. As he stood
as if holding a bell rope and with steady motion tolling the
great judgment bell for what seemed minutes together, we
heard its solemn tones pealing the summons to the judg-
ment day. The doom of the lost, the death knell, swept
over the audience like a voice of the Eternal, and we held our
breath till the scene was passed. Every form of representa-
tion was attempted with absolute fearlessness. Nothing
seemed impossible, nothing too bold to be set forth in ac-
tion and used. to enforce the truth, and always the action
was but the outworking of the inward emotion, Laughing,
weeping, the shout of victory, the cry of despair, the wail-
ing of the lost, the songs of the redeemed, were all set forth
with vivid illustration. Naturalness, directness, simplicity,
grace and force, dramatic action and intense earnestness were
the characteristics of Mr. Finney's pulpit manner.
2. There was the same simplicity in the method of his
sermons. Mr. Finney never wrote his sermons. In his ear-
ly preaching he used no notes of any kind. After preach-
ing, as he relates, he began to write an outline of the dis-
36
course to preserve it. In later years, he used a very con-
densed skeleton, written upon two sides of a single card or
small sheet, one word standing for a head or suggesting the
proposition. No effort and little if any thought was ex-
pended upon the plan of the discourse. At first thought;
we are disposed to say that the success of the great preach-
er was in spite of his plan or lack of plan. There was no at-
tempt at novelty or surprise in the order of thought. The
simplest propositions were laid down in an order suited to
define and unfold the meaning of the main thought. An
example will illustrate the most common type. The text is,
“Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Sav-
ior Jesus Christ.” I propose to show, 1st. What is grace
as the term is here used. 2nd. What the injunction to grow
in grace does not mean. 3rd. What it does mean. 4th.
The conditions of growth. 5th. What is not a proof of
growth. 6th. What is proof. 7th. How to grow in grace,
and conclude with remarks. -
Often under each of these heads would be a number of
special divisions and subdivisions. The outline, which very
commonly took a form like the foregoing, could have been
anticipated by any frequent hearer, and all possible unex-
pectedness in the order of thought was forestalled by the
uniform announcement of the heads at the beginning of the
discourse. At first thought, this seems a rhetorical defect,
but on reflection I am inclined to believe that this simplicity
and uniformity of plan were favorable to Mr. Finney’s effect-
iveness and power. Such a plan gave room for the logical
discriminations and careful definitions which were character-
istic of his mental operations. It gave opportunity for repe-
tition and restatement of truth in varied forms which he em-
ployed to give the truth effect. It favored the concentration
of the whole discourse upon the end or ends to be accom-
plished. There was no danger of being turned from the
point by the demand of an elaborate rhetorical order and
37
skillfully devised effort for novelty. And the “Remarks” at
the close, which not infrequently constituted a large part of
the discourse, gave room for every variety of effective con-
clusion. Here would come the applications of the truth ex-
pounded, the appeal to the conscience and emotions, the
solemn warnings, the dangers of neglect, the persuasive ur-
gency to immediate acceptance of the truth and decisive ac-
tion.
Not infrequently the plan of the sermon, while entirely
simple and derived directly from the text, showed great or-
iginality and skill of adaptation. The plan of one of the
last sermons which I heard from Mr. Finney was so natural
and yet so apt that it stamped itself indelibly upon my
memory. The text was a favorite one with him. Eccl. 8:
11, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed
speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set
in them to do evil.” There are, he began, two important
truths implied in this passage, and three directly asserted.
This announcement set any thoughtful mind to inquiring,
how can this be. The passage seems like a single assertion
or two, at most, and yet, as soon as the different proposi-
tions are stated, you see at once that they are all clearly in
the text, and the order in which they naturally come from
the text is the order for their most effective presentation.
The first implied truth is, Men are under sentence for their
evil work. This sentence is pronounced—all are under con-
demnation. Then the three truths asserted: Ist. This sen-
tence is not executed speedily—for wise reasons it is de-
layed. 2nd. The heart of men is fully set to do evil. 3rd.
This is due to the fact that the sentence is not executed
speedily. And then the second implied truth, The sentence
though delayed, will be executed. It is easy to see what an
opportunity this arrangement afforded for telling effect under
his vivid portrayal and solemn appeal, and the pathetic warn-
ing with which the whole appeal would be left upon the
38
hearer's mind in the last proposition. The sentence is out
and execution will not be delayed forever. • .
3. And this suggests the third element of the great
preacher's power, the truth which he presented, the doc-
trine of God and man and sin and salvation which he sought
to hold up to his hearers. This is the theme of another on
this occasion, and need not be enlarged upon by me. In
general, we must notice that it was a complete Gospel, the
divine truth in its double aspects which he preached. As I
reflect, I am impressed with the number of contrasted or
double-sided truths which were the staple of Mr. Finney's
preaching, God's sovereignty and absolute power, and man’s
freedom and natural ability; salvation by faith and grace,
and the need of entire obedience and righteousness of life
for any salvation; the abounding mercy of God in the Gos-
pel with his yearning for the sinner, and the certainty and
terribleness of the punishment of the incorrigible; infinite
love, and unyielding law; the absolute authority of the
Scriptures and profound reverence for their teaching, and
the validity of human reason and the voice of conscience in
the soul of man. The deep things of God were declared to
be past finding out, mysteries beyond the power of the hu-
man mind to fathom; yet religion was simple and easily
comprehended by rational intelligence. At one time one
side of these contrasted truths was pressed with unqualified
urgency, as if it were the only side, but at another the com-
plementary truth was set forth with equal clearness and ur-
gency.
The entire ability of every man to repent and perform
all duty at once was especially insisted upon, because it was
a truth that had become obscured by current theological
discussion; but his need of grace, his dependence upon God
for salvation were not omitted. The duty of entire obedi-
ence, of setting right all wrong, and of righteousness of life
as a condition of pardon, was constantly and prominently
.39
urged; and it was shown that no faith or gracious exercises
or mercy of God would suffice without this. The high
standard of duty, of honesty, of fair dealing, charity, kind-
ness and religious faith and consecration was held up until
men said, who then can be saved Many who had long
professed to be Christians gave up their hope and were
stricken with conviction. The self-righteous moralist felt
the foundations of his confidence dropping away, and all
classes were overwhelmed with condemnation and ready to
cry for mercy. Then the abundant grace of God in Christ,
the complete provision for saving to the uttermost those who
would come, were presented to despairing souls and they
were urged simply to surrender unconditionally to Christ for
deliverance.
The sufficiency of Christ, his power to deliver from all
sin, and his readiness to save the chief of sinners was the
crowning theme of this evangel. Salvation was not de-
liverance from the punishment of sin but from sin—from the
power of sinful desire and tendency. Men were to aim and
expect to be kept from all sin, to be made whole in Christ.
The reasonableness of the claims of God and of the
Bible was a prominent feature of this preaching. Every
claim was shown to be seconded and enforced by the neces-
sary and deepest convictions of the human soul. There was
no apologizing for the truth, no attempt to soften its de-
mands, or make it palatable to the worldly taste. But it
was assumed that the real convictions of men were always
on the side of God's law. Appeal was made fearlessly to
the common sense and common consciousness and experi-
ence of his hearers as sustaining the truth. Mr. Finney had
himself come to his views of God and duty through, a ra-
tional study of the Bible or through reason enlightened and
guided by revelation and the Spirit of God, and his preach-
ing sought to bring others by the same path. No man ever
spoke more directly to the conscience. He tore away the
4O
i
jº
:
:
subterfuges and excuses of unbelief and godlessness and laid
the burning truth upon the naked soul. And he found the
the strongest ally in the necessary convictions of every ra-
tional mind. He carried the citadel of the human heart by
creating a mutiny within and securing the co-operation of
the man's own consciousness and experience.
4. But the most important element in the great
preacher's power was the man himself, his own personality
and divinely fashioned and inspired character.
By nature Mr. Finney was endowed with intellectual
powers of the highest order. He was marked by real genius
as truly as Shakespeare or Milton. Though never trained
in the schools he was possessed of true culture and of wide
attainments in knowledge. Like the great dramatist,
he seemed to acquire the knowledge of men and of
things by a kind of intuition. He knew all the
workings of the human soul as if he had studied all
history and literature and moved among all phases of life
and society. He took in the thought of a book or a
speaker before it was half expressed. He was familiar with
the field of science, history, politics, as well as of philosophy
and theology, and could speak upon them all as if he had
made each a special study. He had quick and profound
philosophical insight, and he was nowhere more at home
than in discussing the great principles which underlie all
thought and science. But his profundity was not obscurity.
His thinking was as clear and intelligible as the thoughts of
childhood. His power of analysis, of logical discrimina-
tion and definition, and accurate inference, were like
the processes of a mathematical demonstration. Starting
with simple self-evident principles he defined and expanded
and constructed a chain of argumentation that compelled
assent at every step. He saw at a glance the inconsistencies
and sophistries of error and untruth, and dissected and expos-
.ed them with fearless precision. As with all greatest minds,
º
g
º
* 4 I
his mental processes were performed with incredible rapidity.
He saw the thought you were trying to present before you
had well begun to present it. He seemed to reach his con-
clusion at a single leap, by direct intuition, though really go-
ing through many steps of inference.
Next to these powers of thought, I should name his
imaginative power. The great orator needs to be a poet.
Mr. Finney had the creative faculty of a poet and painter.
He could picture ideal worlds as distinct and vivid as the
world of sense. He had an eye for the unseen. The past
he could bring up with all the vividness of the present, and
the future came before his vision with the reality of the past.
He could reproduce to his own mind the scenes of Bible his-
tory, the life of Christ, the future world, as if he had been in
them—all the details stood out in distinctness, and lived in
his fancy. -
Hence his power of vivid portrayal, setting before
others the scenes which filled his own mind. His power of
description and narration made events as real as sight.
Everything which he touched started into life and you saw
what he saw. The ideal became real, the spiritual became
sensible. Every form of figure and illustration sprung up in
his fertile brain as occasion demanded.
Closely related to this imaginative power, and coloring
all other mental qualities, was an intense emotional nature.
With the great poet he combined the highest logical and ra-
tional powers with the most susceptible and ardent feeling.
His sensibilities fused all his thought, argument, exposition
and description into a burning, glowing appeal. His own
heart was aflame with the truth, and it kindled the hearts of
others. In his later years there was seldom a sermon in
which his eyes were not suffused, and often he was entirely
overcome with emotion. The sternness and majesty of law
might be his theme but his heart melted in tenderness and
sympathy for those who were exposed to its retribution.
42 *
Dwelling upon the character of Satan and the justice of his
punishment, he was overcome with pity at the thought of
his sad condition,-"Poor devil, poor devil,” he exclaimed
and broke into violent weeping. The doom of the lost was
a frequent theme, but it was presented with such an over-
coming sense of pity and sorrow that everyone felt the truth
of the text, “As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure
in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from
his way and live.” He could say with Paul, “I ceased not
night and day to warn everyone with tears.”
As resulting from these qualities and combining them
all in one, I mention what may be called his spiritual vision,
his power of apprehending and making real spiritual verities.
The facts as to God, the future life, the lost condition of
men, the power of the Spirit, which all Christians hold to
in theory and profess to believe, but have so little sense of,
were all realities to Mr. Finney’s ardent faith. He lived as
seeing the invisible. These things of the spiritual realm en-
tered into his thought and life with as clear reality and con-
trolling influence as the things of sense and time. From the .
very beginning of his Christian life he seemed to have access
to the hidden things of God. The day on which he was
converted he believed that he had a vision of the risen Christ,
heard his voice, communed with him as he would with a
real person, and often in later experiences he seemed to
come into almost sensible intercourse with his Savior. And
these special exaltations were only the culmination of a con-
stant sense of the divine and the eternal which marked his
whole religious life.
He believed, accepted and trusted in God, in Christ as
a savior and sanctifier. He rested in the truth with absolute
assurance. The truth came to possess his being. It came
to seem true. The dimness and vagueness which obscure the
divine and spiritual to most of us were taken away. The
vail was rent. He walked in the light. Hence, he was
43
moved, controlled, inspired by the reality. He felt
the danger and guilt of the unsaved. His soul yearned
over dying men. As the young people gathered in
great numbers for the opening of the college year, and there
seemed to be little interest or effort to bring in the uncon-
verted, as we met them on the street, I can never forget the
tearful emotion with which he exclaimed, “I shall die if
these young people are not converted. I can’t stand it to
see them going on in sin to death.”
In prayer he spoke directly to God. He seemed
to stand in his immediate presence. It was no for-
mality or empty words. He came to his Father and
Savior and opened his heart as a child. To a
stranger there sometimes seemed a lack of reverence, or
an undue familiarity, but no man was ever more truly rever-
ent. Those who understood his spirit were lifted, by the
overflowing filial confidence and devout sense of the divine
presence manifest in the prayer, into almost supernatural
nearness to God; we were carried on the wings of his faith
to the very holy of holies. And here was the great secret
of the preacher's power over men. He moved others to be-
lieve because it was so clear that he believed himself. The
enthusiasm of his own confidence was catching. It com-
pelled assent. The intensity of his conviction and emo-
tion set other hearts aflame. It melted away opposition
and argument and indifference. - -
The power of his words with men, from the first day of
his Christian life till the last, seems something incredible.
Immediately upon his conversion he went about to call upon
his associates to urge them to repent, and almost without
exception they were converted. He went into the weekly
prayer-meeting of the church, which was crowded on ac-
count of the rumors of his conversion, and told them his
experience, and a great revival began on the spot. He visit-
ed his home, and his father and mother were turned to Christ.
44
He relates that so far as he could remember all of those with
whom he conversed during the first weeks after his conver-
sion started upon the Christian life, with such effectiveness
did he speak and such was the contagion of his own faith
and enthusiasm under the Spirit's power. And this power
attended him throughout his ministry. Men felt that he
spoke of what he knew; that he believed what he said. It
was no theory, it was a personal experience. The divine
things that were such realities to his own soul he made real
to others.
Partly as a result and partly as a cause of this intensity
of conviction, another feature of Mr. Finney's preaching
should be noticed. It may be thought by some a defect
and source of weakness rather than power. But I think it
must be regarded as one of the sources of his great success
in moving men. This feature is the tendency he exhibited
of concentrating attention upon one phase of truth and
holding it up as if it were the whole truth or the only im-
portant truth. The particular aspect or side of truth which
engaged his attention, seemed for the time to occupy the en-
tire field of his vision. It grew in importance as he con-
templated it. It seemed as if it was the only consideration
to be urged upon men. At another time it would be a com-
plementary truth, as already suggested, pressed with the
same energy. This tendency undoubtedly exposed him to
misinterpretation and misunderstanding. It led to strong,
if not exaggerated and one-sided assertions. Truths would
be stated as absolute and unqualified, when they were really
limited or modified by contrasted or opposing or comple-
mentary facts. To understand his real views, one needed to
take his teaching all together, and qualify the seemingly ex-
treme statements in one direction by his equally clear state-
ments in another. He had no ambition for the appearance
of consistency. But this power to see and press one thing
at a time, was undoubtedly an element of effectiveness and
* A
45
power. It seems the only way most minds can be made to
really feel the force of truth. It is the way of the great
Apostle to the Gentiles, and even Christ is not careful to
prune and qualify until there is no room for cavil or misin-
terpretation. It was Mr. Finney's power to strip off the
covering of a great truth and cut off the branches which
might hinder its penetrating effect, give it point and steadi-
ness of aim, and then drive it home by the concentrated
force of argument, illustration and appeal, till it was fixed
ineradicably in the hearers' minds. And in this way only
could he have penetrated the armor of indifferenſte and un-
belief and worldliness in which men are encased.
* In all this he believed in the present supernatural power
of God. He regarded himself as the ambassador of the
Most High. He spoke God’s message, not his own words
or the word of man, but the word of God. He expected
great things because he expected the fulfillment of the prom-
ised gift of the Holy Spirit. He expected that the power
of the Spirit would attend his word, would touch the heart,
convict and save. He looked for immediate results, and
aimed at them. When the way of salvation had been clearly
presented and the truth set before men's minds, he sum-
moned them to decide, to choose at once the way of life.
' They were urged to make their choice manifest on the spot.
In his ordinary preaching it was not uncommon for him to
call those who were ready to seek for God to come forward
and take special seats, and then with touching, pathetic earn-
estness he urged them to this step. And they came from
all parts of the church, sometimes to the number of hun-
dreds, and after a few special words of entreaty for their im–
mediate acceptance of Christ he lifted them in soulful sup-
plication to the mercy and grace of God.
Only the revelations of the judgment day will declare the re-
sults of this ministry. God honored such faith and zeal with
fruits such as it has seldom fallen to one man to garner.
46
The church of Christ throughout the world for nearly three-
fourths of a century has felt the influênce of this life and
been lifted to a higher and diviner experience by the exam-
ple and power of its God-inspired achievement. And its in-
fluence has only begun. We are here to share in the blessings
it may still bring. The great natural gifts bestowed upon
this servant of God we may not hope to possess, but the
consecration, the faith, the clear vision of spiritual realities,
the yearning love for souls, the simplicity and directness of
aim and effort, the concentration of thought and energy
upon one great end, the saving of lost men, may be ours.
The greatest elements of power in this life are within the
reach of every earnest soul. They are the great want of the
ministry and every Christian worker to-day. Wherever
found, they will bring again, by the blessing and power of
God, the same abundant fruitage in saving men.
JAN 3 19 i8