THEOLOGY DRIVES METHODOLOGY

CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF

CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN

Karl Dahlfred

Copyright © 2012 by Karl Dahlfred

www.dahlfred.com

Scripture verses within quotations from other sources are retained in the version in which they are found in the original source.

All other Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved

Cover Design: Matthew Johnson

mattjohnsonoc@gmail.com

Cover Photo: “Billy Sunday” by George Bellows.

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license and used under the terms of that license.  Attribution: CopperKettle. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Billy Sunday was a late 19th and early 20th century evangelist who used and further modified the evangelistic methods popularized by Charles Finney.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The Nature And Means Of Conversion: A Long Standing Controversy

Goal Of The Present Study

Content Of The Present Study

Charles Grandison Finney

John Williamson Nevin

The Relationship Of Theology And Methodology

CHAPTER 2

RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA, AND THE LIVES OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN

Expansion And Freedom In Nineteenth Century America

The Absence Of European Christendom Propels Evangelism

Departure From The Calvinistic Consensus

The Second Great Awakening

Old Side - New Side Controversy

Old School - New School Controversy

New England Theology And New Haven Theology

The Life Of Charles Finney

The Life Of John Nevin

Conclusion

CHAPTER 3

THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

Definition Of Conversion

Theological Presuppositions

The Sovereignty Of God

Depravity And Human Ability

Election And Reprobation

Justification And Sanctification

Atonement

Perseverance

How Conversion Happens

God’s Role In Conversion

Man’s Role In Conversion

Means Of Conversion

Agents And Instrument Of Conversion

Means Are Necessary And Natural

No Particular Means Are Prescribed By Scripture

New Means Continually Needed

Means Necessary To Conversion

The Prayer Of Faith

Christian Living

Preaching And Personal Witness

A Call For Immediate Response

CHAPTER 4

THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN WILLIAMSON NEVIN

Definition Of Conversion

Theological Presuppositions

The Sovereignty Of God

Depravity And Human Ability

Election And Reprobation

Justification And Sanctification

Atonement

Perseverance

Incarnation

Mystical Union

The Church

How Conversion Happens

God’s Role In Conversion

Man’s Role In Conversion

Means Of Conversion

The Church Must Use The Means Given By God

Means Necessary To Conversion

The Word Of God

The Sacraments

The Church

The Family

The Pastoral Office

CHAPTER 5

THE VIEWS OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN ON CONVERSION, COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER AND SCRIPTURE

Definition Of Conversion

Theological Presuppositions

Human Depravity & Human Ability

The Sovereignty Of God

Election And Reprobation

Justification And Sanctification

Atonement

Perseverance

The Church

Role Of God In Conversion

Role Of Man In Conversion

The Nature Of Means

The Necessity And Character Of Means

Means Prescribed By Scripture

Correspondence Of External Forms And Internal Reality

Means Of Conversion That Should Be Employed

Preaching & Word Of God

Prayer

Christian Living

A Call For Immediate Response

The Sacraments

The Church

The Family

The Pastoral Office

CHAPTER 6

IMPLICATIONS OF FINNEY AND NEVIN’S THEOLOGY, WITH APPLICATION FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

Implications Of Finney And Nevin’s Theology

The Goal Of The Christian Life

The Importance Of The Anxious Bench And Derivative Methods

Special Evangelism And The Local Church

The Significance Of Decisions For Christ

The Source Of Confidence In Our Salvation

Respect & Responsibility In Evangelism

Applications For The Contemporary Church

Use Discernment In Choosing Methodology

Abandon The Altar Call And The Sinner’s Prayer

Praise God For Saving Sinners In Spite Of Unbiblical Methodology

Emphasize Ordinary Means Of Grace

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ENDNOTES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful to a number of people who made this book possible.  The mission organization with whom I serve, OMF International, was kind enough to extend my home assignment into a study leave so I could complete a Master of Theology (Th.M) at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University.  It was during that year of study that I wrote the Th.M thesis that is now published in this Kindle edition.

During my first semester of study, I was met with the formidable challenge of finding a professor who would supervise my thesis so I could finish my degree within a year.  Dr. Ashish Naidu graciously took me on and provided much helpful advice and feedback in both the initial outlining of the thesis, and in reviewing each chapter as I wrote them.  After completing the first draft, missionary colleagues Marten Visser and James Steer read my thesis, gave many helpful recommendations on content, and spotted numerous typos and errors that I had overlooked. For any remaining errors that you may encounter, I take full personal responsibility.  A hearty thanks also goes to Matt Johnson who kindly gave of his time and talent to design the cover of this book.

Since I only commuted to campus twice per week, I faced the challenge of working from home with my two small children present.  For that reason, I am grateful to my wife for doing double duty in caring for them and minding the home front while I occupied a seat at the local Starbucks.  The baristas never complained that my books and I took up one of their chair and table spaces day after day even though I only bought the smallest, cheapest coffee.  For that I am grateful.

My deepest thanks, however, must go to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He has given me the time and resources to research and write the work that you see before you.  It is my hope that what you find in the following pages is honoring to Him and a blessing to His church.

Karl Dahlfred

April 28, 2012 - Garden Grove, California

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION: A LONG STANDING CONTROVERSY

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” This was the question put to Paul and Silas by a Philippian jailer following an earthquake, which set the apostle and his co-worker free from prison (Acts 16:30). For Paul and Silas, the answer was simple. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31).  However, the question as to the precise nature of God’s saving action and the appropriate human means employed to convert sinners has been subject to much controversy in the ensuing centuries.

In early nineteenth century America, two men stood at a crossroads in the history of this debate. Charles Grandison Finney and John Williamson Nevin had radically different views on the nature of conversion, and the methods that should be employed to seek conversions.  The focus of the present study will be a comparison of their theology and the methods that flow out of that theology.  But the roots of their debate stretch back to the early days of the Church.

In the fifth century, Augustine and Pelagius debated the role of good works in salvation. In the seventeenth century, the disciples of Arminius rebelled against the Calvinistic establishment, rejecting belief in the inability of man to choose God.  In the eighteenth century, George Whitefield and John Wesley similarly parted ways due to conflict over the role of God and man in salvation.[1]  Despite such disagreements over the nature of salvation, Protestants of different theological persuasions have generally employed the same type of ordinary Church-based methods in seeking conversions and Christian growth: preaching the Word, the Sacraments, prayer, pastoral visitation, and catechetical instruction.  However, early nineteenth century America saw the dawn of great changes in evangelistic methodology.

Building on the back of John Wesley, many nineteenth century American evangelists began to not only call sinners to repentance but to call them to the front of the Church or meeting hall to indicate their repentance.  The external physical practice of going forward in response to what is now termed an “altar call” or some other external action came to be seen as a sure indicator of belief and repentance.  These outward signs were seen as evidences of inward transformation.  Initially popularized by revivalist Charles Grandison Finney, these “New Measures,” as they were called, became embedded in American religious life by later evangelists such as Billy Sunday, D.L. Moody, and Billy Graham.  These once “new” measures have hence become standard practice in many evangelical Churches in the world today.  Iain Murray notes that “[e]ven by the end of the nineteenth century it was a near universal opinion that the controversy over revival and new measures in the 1830s was of little relevance to the modern Church.”[2]  Such is the historical amnesia of the evangelical Church that these relatively recent innovations in evangelistic methodology are regarded by some as “traditional” evangelical Protestantism.[3]  There is currently little debate concerning the altar call, the sinner’s prayer, and the particular theology of conversion that underlies them.  But this has not always been the case.

When Finney and his associates began to gain momentum in their use and promotion of these new measures, they drew criticism from other, mostly Calvinistic, pastors and Churches.  Finney’s methodology, it was maintained, were undermining the Biblical faith and must be opposed.   Among those who rejected Finney’s innovative practices was Mercersburg Seminary professor John Williamson Nevin.  Seeing Finney’s revivalism creeping into the German Reformed Church, Nevin penned “The Anxious Bench,”[4] a stinging condemnation of Finney’s revivalism.  As an alternative, Nevin advocated a Church-centered, ordinary means of grace approach to evangelism and discipleship.  At an historical turning point for evangelicalism in America, and indeed the Church more broadly, Charles Finney and John Nevin represent two opposing understandings of the nature of evangelical conversion and the human means, or methods, used to bring about that conversion.

GOAL OF THE PRESENT STUDY

The goal of the present study is to examine the views of each of these men in their historical and theological context in order to better understand the divergent theologies and methodologies of conversion within evangelicalism, drawing out implications of both views, with an aim to recommending cautions and corrections for evangelism in the contemporary Church.

CONTENT OF THE PRESENT STUDY

The bulk of this study will consist of a summary and analysis of the theologies of Charles Grandison Finney and John Williamson Nevin with respect to the nature and means of conversion.  In the history of evangelical theology and practice, many Christians would not clearly identify with either Finney or Nevin yet the thought of these two men are eminently suited for the purposes of our study as they are articulate representatives of the two major schools of thought concerning the topic at hand.  A study of their theology and methodology will helpfully reveal the pertinent issues with which all evangelicals must grapple.

CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

On the one hand, Finney represents an Arminian point of view and the general course of popular American evangelicalism since the mid-nineteenth century.  With the sharp intellect of a trained lawyer and a passion for saving souls, Finney was a powerful public speaker. He used all the means at his disposal to convince listeners to change their hearts, and to submit to God in faith and repentance.  Although Finney acknowledged that the grace of God was involved in the conversion of sinners, he was convinced that the decisive variable in conversion rested in the will of a man himself.  If an evangelist could convince a listener to submit himself to God, then that man’s salvation had been won.  In order to help his listeners to make this decision to submit to God, Finney would ask for, and even demand, some physical indication that they had done so.  This might include calling people to walk down the center aisle of a Church to where the altar traditionally stood.  It might also include asking people to bow their heads and repeat a prayer of faith and repentance. Though these practices did not originate with him, Finney greatly popularized them and promoted them as essential to revival.

Not all Christians who use the methods which Finney popularized either necessarily know or understand the theological presuppositions behind them.  And not all would use the high pressure tactics of Finney, nor speak with sinners about their sin with such passion.  However, in places where the radicalism of Finneyesque high pressure evangelism failed, the kinder and gentler approach of men like D.L. Moody prevailed.[5]  But even where the radical edge of Finney’s evangelism has been modified, the practices that he popularized continue to promote a certain understanding of how conversion happens and the necessary means that man must use to bring conversion about.  Because these practices are in many places the unquestioned standard in evangelistic practice, and the theological foundations upon which they are built go unexamined, the thought and practice of Finney are a well suited subject for the purposes of this study.

JOHN WILLIAMSON NEVIN

In contrast to the famous Finney, John Nevin dwells in relative historical obscurity.  A minister in the German Reformed Church and professor of theology at Mercersburg Seminary (now Lancaster Seminary[6]), Nevin was a staunch proponent of what Reformed theologians call “ordinary means of grace.”  In contrast to the camp meetings and innovative revivalistic techniques of Finney and associates, Nevin was convinced that God would convict and convert sinners through the ordinary ministry of the established Church.  Nevin was a “high Church Calvinist,” depending upon God to use the local Church as his chosen means to regenerate and convert sinners who do not have the capacity within themselves to choose God. [7]  Means such as preaching, the sacraments, catechesis, and pastoral visitation would be the effective means of the conversion of sinners.  In Nevin’s estimation, specifically evangelistic sermons, revival meetings, and the “new measures” promoted by Finney were not only not necessary but were in fact dangerous.  Failing to understand or appreciate either the extent of human depravity or the power of self-deception within man, evangelists who used the altar call and other forms of public invitation only stirred up vain excitement and produced false conversions. Nevin was not the only voice to oppose Finney’s measures and theology.  However, given the fact that he was an articulate and prolific contemporary of Finney, and perhaps his polar opposite as regards the nature and means of conversion, Nevin presents a good foil to Finney in helping the reader to understand the implications of the issues at hand.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF THEOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY

In contemporary evangelicalism, it is often asserted that methodology does not matter as long as the message does not change.  In theological terms, it is thought that evangelistic methods fall in the category of adiaphora, or things indifferent.  However, as our present study unfolds, we will see that this is not the case.  The opposing theological presuppositions of Finney and Nevin lead to very different ideas as to the appropriate methods to be employed.  For both of these men, methods mattered greatly because depending upon the methods employed, one would find themselves working in harmony with the revealed will of God and furthering the work of His Church, or placing oneself in opposition to the workings of His Spirit and harming the cause of Christ.

This understanding of the intimate relationship between theology and methodology, however, has been largely lost in the contemporary Church.  Finney’s theology and practices eventually won the approval of popular evangelicalism and those advocated by Nevin have become a minority opinion, held mostly among Presbyterian and Reformed Churches, as well as among Calvinistic Baptists, Anglicans, and Independents.  Outside of these groups, there is little discussion as to the legitimacy of an ordinary means of grace approach to evangelism. However, some evangelical Christians seem to have a low level uneasiness with the altar call and sinner’s prayer methodologies.  While they may be neither so bold nor so knowledgeable as to question the accepted norm, they have lingering doubts as to the efficacy of these evangelistic methods.  Yet, because these methods and the theological presuppositions which undergird them are the accepted norm, many people do not realize that there is an alternative.

By embarking on the present study, it is my hope that in reviving a long forgotten theological controversy, the contemporary Church might regain an understanding of opposing theologies and methodologies of conversion for a more well informed belief and practice of evangelism in the modern world.  In order to do this, we will first briefly look at the historical context of nineteenth century American religious life together with biographical sketches of Charles Finney and John Nevin.  Secondly, we will examine in turn the theologies of Finney and Nevin with regard to the nature of conversion, followed by an examination of how they put their theology into practice.  Thirdly, we will compare the theology of these two men, with each other and in the light of Scripture.  The final part of our study will draw out the practical implications of Nevin and Finney’s theology and practice, together with recommendations for evangelistic practice in the contemporary Church.

CHAPTER 2

RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA, AND THE LIVES OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN

Before looking at the theology of Charles Finney and John Nevin directly, we need to understand their historical and theological context.  The nineteenth century in America was a time of colossal change in all areas of life, and Finney and Nevin appear at this crossroads in the life of the nation.  Though it is impossible in a study of this length to do justice to the trends and developments of the period, in this chapter we will provide a brief overview of the era, with particular attention to the social and religious changes in American life that are most pertinent to our subject. In order to grasp the significance of Finney and Nevin’s theology, we must understand the times in which they lived.  The first part of this chapter will situate us in the theological context of the nineteenth century.  The second part will provide biographical sketches of Charles Finney and John Nevin, to be followed by an examination of their theology in subsequent chapters.  Our surveys of their lives will be brief but sufficient to frame our later examination of their theologies of conversion.

EXPANSION AND FREEDOM IN NINETEENTH  CENTURY AMERICA

As the nineteenth century dawned, the newly formed United States of America found itself with a realm of possibilities before it, and a significant history behind it. Though the former thirteen colonies had won their independence from England less than twenty-five years earlier, the influence of European culture and religion were still strongly felt.  Americans enjoyed a newfound freedom and with the good part of a continent before them, America was truly the land of opportunity.  The political, religious, and geographic freedom to choose a different path than their European predecessors, would prove to be formative in the development of American values and ideals.

The United States saw tremendous growth in the nineteenth century, both numerically and geographically.  From a population of five million in 1800, the United States grew to seventy six million by 1910, eight times the percentage rate of growth in the British Isles during the same time period.[8] Up until 1830, population growth was due largely to native births but for the remainder of the century, the massive population growth would be due to waves of new immigrants entering the country.[9]  At independence, the Western boundary of the U.S. was the Mississippi river but by the end of the century, the nation would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  Many Americans, both newly arrived and native born, drove the expansion westward, seeking a better life held out by the promises of limitless possibility on the American frontier.  New settlements sprung up “almost overnight.  For example, Rochester, New York, which in 1812 was unbroken wilderness, became by 1830, a marketing and manufacturing centre of 10,000 people.”[10]  This same kind of astounding growth would be repeated throughout the nation.  Americans were highly mobile, pushing the frontier ever forward and the frontier itself epitomized the values of the budding nation.

THE ABSENCE OF EUROPEAN CHRISTENDOM PROPELS EVANGELISM

People came to America seeking something new and America afforded them that option.  In terms of religion, the United States had no state Church and people were therefore not bound to support by their taxes or by their attendance, any particular Church.  Indeed, many seemed to have been happy to be free of Church altogether.  “It has been estimated that in 1800 only 6.9 per cent of the population had a church membership.”[11]  Not only in the economic realm, but also in the religious realm, America was a free market.  Many small towns had several Churches and the various denominations could not agree upon what form of the faith should be taught in the public schools.  The great challenge facing the Church in America was how to win and keep a nation that was in danger of being “de-Christianized” by virtue of their newfound freedom from European Christendom, and by the prospect of the great material wealth and political independence that came with geographic expansion.  Because it could no longer be assumed that the majority of the population were Christians, evangelism became the pressing concern of American Churches.

DEPARTURE FROM THE CALVINISTIC CONSENSUS

The American concern for evangelism also propelled a theological change.  Up until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the theology of American Christianity had been largely Calvinistic, with an emphasis on man’s inability and God’s sovereignty in the salvation of sinners.  This theology encouraged a patient waiting for God to act in the regeneration and conversion of sinners.  Concerning this change, historian Kenneth Scott Latourette writes:

The emphasis on individual decision and conversion [in American evangelism] led to a modification of the Augustinian, Reformed theology... which was the heritage of most of the churches and was contained in the official statements of several of them. Some churches quite abandoned as much of that theology as taught the divine election of specific individuals to salvation. In practice, most but not all of the others tended to ignore it.[12]

Calvinistic theology did not seem to fit the democratic ideals or urgent evangelistic needs of the new nation.[13]   Settlers on the frontier were making decisions, both political and religious, apart from the power structures of the old world.  The majority of settlers were laymen and women who faced the challenge of living out their Christian faith in wilderness areas where there were no Churches, and few other people.  Many times, there were groups of settlers in a given area and these families gathered together to form Churches.  All support for such Churches was voluntary and many clergymen from the East who moved westward did so without any promise of support, unlike the state Church systems of Europe.  They “took up farms, worked on them six days a week for a livelihood for themselves and their families, and preached on Sundays.”[14]  However, many settlers lived in remote areas and missed the community that they enjoyed back East.  It was in this context that the camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening were to gain momentum and set the course of evangelicalism in the United States.

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING

Set against the backdrop of the Great Awakening led by Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century, the Second Great Awakening[15] was a series of revivals beginning in the 1780s and stretching into “the early decades of the nineteenth century.”[16] Near the end of the eighteenth century, a number of Eastern colleges including Williams, Amherst and Yale experienced spiritual awakenings among their students.  Near the turn of the century, revival came to the frontier states of Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Southeastern states stretching from Virginia to Georgia.[17]  Revivals in Southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic States accompanied the Church-based evangelistic meetings of Congregational evangelist Asahel Nettleton in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The revival meetings of Charles Finney in Western New York and other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States in the 1820s and 1830s would bring the revival to more urban centers and propel the young evangelist to national fame.  By the mid to late 1830s, genuine revival was waning even while methods thought to induce revival were gaining in popularity.[18]  In the later part of the century, evangelists such as D.L. Moody and Billy Sunday continued the revival meeting pattern set by their predecessors. It is difficult to determine how substantially the Second Great Awakening contributed to Church growth in the nineteenth century but by 1910, 43.5% of the population were members of a religious body.  Compared with a measly 6.9% in 1800, this is a very significant increase[19]  These statistics do not, of course, prove anything about the quality or nature of Christian belief among Church members, but they do show that a massive shift in American Christianity had occurred.[20]

Over the course of the century, however, the nature of these revivals changed notably.  The earlier revivals at the Eastern colleges and under Nettleton were distinctly Calvinistic.  They were more reserved and cautious in their manner of proceeding and calling for response.  Emotionalism was discouraged.  By the end of the century however, revival meetings were distinctly Arminian in theology and emotionalism was encouraged and even seen as essential in bringing about conversions. To understand how such colossal changes came about, we now turn to the revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801, and the pre-existing theological climate in which this and subsequent revivals occurred.

REVIVAL AT CANE RIDGE, KENTUCKY (1801)

In 1800, Kentucky represented the westernmost extent of the frontier and was sparsely populated.  From time to time, the scattered residents of this area gathered together for large camp meetings, which would last several days, during which time ministers from various denominations would preach and isolated settlers would enjoy times of fellowship together.[21] In the context of these camp meetings, “it appears there was in Kentucky in 1799, and for two or three succeeding years, a precious work of grace. Towards the close of it, a set of men arose, who attempted to carry the work farther than the Lord had done; and among them were exhibited... astonishing scenes of fanaticism.”[22]  The fanaticism which Iain Murray refers to here consisted of fainting, falling, crying out, and other visible expressions of great emotion which were encouraged by certain ministers in the Kentucky revivals.  However, what Murray here calls fanaticism, others called a work of the Holy Spirit and this differing understanding of the nature of the work of the Spirit of God and the nature of revival would give rise to great theological conflict and denominational schism during the course of the nineteenth century.  We will now briefly look at the origins and development of this conflict as it will help us to situate historically and theologically the thinking and practice of Charles Finney and John Nevin.

OLD SIDE - NEW SIDE CONTROVERSY

During the Great Awakening in mid-eighteenth century colonial America, a dispute arose regarding the type of fanaticism which would later be seen in the Kentucky revivals.  This dispute resulted in a split in the Presbyterian Church between Old Side and New Side Presbyterians.  Old Side Presbyterians maintained that one need only uphold the Westminster Confession of Faith to be a Church member in good standing, in contrast to the New Side Presbyterians who also required a person to show evidence of conversion and internal piety before admission to the Church as a communicant member.  As regards the physical peculiarities of the Great Awakening:

Old Siders were disturbed by incidents of weeping, screaming, fainting, bodily commotions like ‘epileptic fits’ which indicated loss of control, accompanying some awakening preaching. They claimed that this kind of behaviour [sic] did not manifest the gracious work of God's Spirit...  The advocates of the New Side understood the essence of true faith to be the religion of the heart and were convinced the revivals to be the work of the Holy Spirit. They described their opponents as legalists.[23]

OLD SCHOOL - NEW SCHOOL CONTROVERSY

Old Side and New Side Presbyterians eventually reunited into one Church in 1758 but tensions remained and resurfaced in the early nineteenth century as the Old School-New School Controversy.  Old School Presbyterians held that all ministers must strictly adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith and were highly suspicious of religious revivals and their calls for immediate response and repentance.  Revivals as such seemed to undermine God’s sovereignty in the salvation of sinners and the ordinary teaching ministry of the Church which God used to save sinners according to the timing of the Holy Spirit.  Old Schoolers emphasized God’s ordinary means of grace in converting sinners through the ministrations of the local Church, namely preaching, the sacraments, and catechetical instruction.  New School Presbyterians held to the Westminster Confession as well, yet along with their Calvinistic Congregationalist counterparts in New England were more open to religious revivals and thought it appropriate to call sinners to immediate faith and repentance.  The controversy however, was not a simple affair, and there seems to have been a continuum of views among both Old Schoolers and New Schoolers such that a simple categorization of particular persons is sometimes difficult.  Among the Old Schoolers there were some who were more willing to tolerate diversity within the Presbyterian denomination and thus received criticism from both Old Schoolers and New Schoolers.[24]

NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY AND NEW HAVEN THEOLOGY

Running parallel to the Old Side-New Side and Old School-New School debates were the rise of New England and New Haven theology.  Under pressure from both rationalists and Unitarians, proponents of the New England theology sought to make sense of the Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards and present to the world a modified Calvinism that would be more acceptable to its critics.  Thus, they adopted a governmental theory of the atonement and argued that “unconverted persons have ‘natural ability’ to choose virtue through the inclination of the will by the Holy Spirit.”[25] They were “more optimistic about human reason and ability than orthodox Calvinism [and] prepared the way for the New Haven theology of Nathaniel W. Taylor.”[26]  New Haven Theology, or “Taylorism”, rejected the imputation of original sin and “argued that sin is simply a voluntary action, although it is inevitable and certain.”[27]  Such modifications of orthodox Calvinism were rejected by Old School and New School Presbyterians alike although New Schoolers had the potential to drift into Taylorism due to their emphasis on revivals and the necessity of calling for response.  When Charles Finney’s methodology began to attract attention and criticism in the 1820s and 1830s, it was thought that he was in the New School camp.  However, as his views became clearer, it was discovered that Finney was actually a Taylorite.

The conflict between Old School Calvinistic orthodoxy and the increasingly popular Taylorism and Arminianism of revival preachers raged from the 1820s to the mid-part of the century.  As the century closed, however, it was obvious that the debate was largely over.  An Arminian model of conducting revivals had won the day.  The debate had led to schisms and denominational realignments but the dust was beginning to settle.  A minority in the American Churches still upheld Calvinistic orthodoxy but the rise of Higher Criticism diverted their attention from continued critique of revivalism.

At the level of scholarship, the world-wide debate was not about revival or evangelism, it was about such things as the authorship of the Pentateuch and of Isaiah. Further, orthodox seminary professors did not want to contend on such matters with earnest fellow Christians such as Moody when an assault on the very foundations of the faith had to be met from another direction.[28]

The battle, however, raged mightily before victory was eventually ceded to the revivalists.  The first half of the century saw the rise of ardent proponents of these differing forms of Christian confession and piety, notable among them Charles Finney and John Nevin. It is to the stories of these two men that we now turn.

THE LIFE OF CHARLES FINNEY

EARLY YEARS

Charles Grandison Finney was born in Warren, Connecticut in 1792.  Though his grandfather “was instrumental in founding the Congregational Church in their community in 1756”, Finney’s family were “far from fervent Christians.”[29]  After his conversion, Finney “confessed that he had never heard a prayer uttered in his home.”[30]  When Finney was two years old, his family followed the course of many New Englanders at the time, moving from Connecticut to Western New York.  The family settled first in Oneida and later in Jefferson County.

FINNEY’S CONVERSION AND ORDINATION

As a young man, Finney trained as a lawyer and attended Church for four years before his conversion in October 1821.  George Gale, pastor of the Presbyterian Church where Finney was in attendance, made Finney the choir director even though he was not yet converted.  Biographer Louis Drummond calls Finney a “splendid pagan,”[31] meaning that even as a non-believer, he was a man of exceptional moral character.  Upon his conversion, Finney started studying for the Christian ministry immediately.  He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of St. Lawrence in 1823 and subsequently ordained to the ministry in June 1824.  In Finney’s Memoirs, he recalls that his theological studies with Gale prior to ordination where wrought with controversy because Gale held to traditional Calvinistic views of sin and atonement which Finney could not accept.[32]  However, it is questionable whether Finney’s opposition to Calvinism was as developed at the time of his conversion as it would become in later years.  Finney’s Memoirs were written at the end of his life and both critics and sympathizers believe that Finney reads back into his earlier years the doctrinal convictions of his later years, which at that time had not yet developed.[33]  Iain Murray comments, “The seeds of Finney’s ideas were no doubt present in the 1820s, but his portrait of himself in those years as a fully developed doctrinal reformer has to be taken with a huge pinch of salt.”[34]  Nevertheless, although his theology would later develop and find clearer expression, it would appear that even as young minister, Finney was not in fundamental accord with the basic principles of Calvinism as found in the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Recalling his examination for ordination before the Presbytery, Finney suggests that from the outset his thinking was not shaped by the doctrine of the Church into which he became a minister.

Unexpectedly to myself they asked me if I received the Confession of faith of the Presbyterian Church. I had not examined it;—that is, the large work, containing the Catechisms and Presbyterian Confession. This had made no part of my study. I replied that I received it for substance of doctrine, so far as I understood it. But I spoke in a way that plainly implied, I think, that I did not pretend to know much about it. However, I answered honestly, as I understood it at the time.[35]

ITINERANT EVANGELISM AND REVIVAL IN WESTERN NEW YORK

Following his ordination, Finney ministered to scattered country congregations on the frontier in Western New York, preaching wherever he could.[36] In 1825, a turning point came when Finney ran into his former pastor, George Gale, in Utica, New York.  Gale enlisted Finney’s help and in “the remaining months of 1825 the Church where Gale needed Finney's help in the town of Western, New York, which saw a powerful spiritual awakening, with some 140 professions of conversion.”[37]

The “Western revival” was to give its name to a wider movement of revival in Oneida County, which continued, it was said, up to the spring of 1827. Many men were engaged in the work but none was more suddenly prominent than Charles Finney who preached successively at Rome and Utica, the two largest towns of the county. Rome, with a population of some 4000, saw an estimated 500 added to the Churches - Baptist and Methodist as well as Presbyterian. According to one minister: “Worldly business was to a great extend suspended. Religion was the principal subject of conversation in our streets, stores, and even taverns.”[38]

From this point on, Finney’s fame began to spread and Rev. Nathan Beman invited him to preach in First Presbyterian Church in Troy, the largest Church in the Northern part of New York state.  The height of Finney’s work came with a great revival in Rochester, NY between September 1830 and March 1831.[39]  “Shops were closed so people could attend his meetings, and as a result of the changed hearts, the town taverns went out of business.”[40] The Rochester mission was his most successful.  Though Finney would continue to conduct revival meetings for the remainder of his life, using the “New Measures” that he had popularized in his earlier years, the level of success achieved at Rochester “was never quite repeated, suggesting that the method was not the cause, at least not on its own.”[41]  The nature of these “New Measures” which Finney advocated will be detailed further in the next chapter.

FINNEY’S METHODS

While the effect of the revivals under Finney brought him fame, his methodology in promoting these revivals brought him severe criticism. Like his older contemporary, New School Connecticut evangelist Asahel Nettleton, Finney believed in calling for repentance in evangelistic meetings.  Unlike the more reserved Calvinist, Finney pressured his listeners to indicate repentance through outward physical signs within the meeting.  While Nettleton stressed the duty of immediate repentance, he was also afraid of emotionalism and self-deception, and would thus send his listeners home to wait upon the Spirit to change their hearts.[42]  As we will see, Finney had no such reservations.

Finney’s first foray into calling for public response was in Evan’s Mill, New York in 1824.  He asked for people to stand to indicate acceptance of Christ.  He understood the act of remaining seated as an indication of rejection of Christ. It seems that he did not make any provision for those who may have already been Christians.  In using such methodology, Finney demonstrated that he considered the physical act to be a sign of spiritual conversion.[43] Although this type of calling for physical response became a hallmark of his ministry, Finney did not use anxious seat consistently until 1830.[44]

Finney’s preaching was intense and dramatic.  Eyewitnesses at Evan’s Mill “described his preaching as being accompanied by a wealth of descriptive arm waving and gesture.”[45] Since Finney was convinced that salvation was a matter of changing one’s own will, quite apart from a special work of the Holy Spirit, Finney expected results.  To attain these results, he used high pressure tactics to convince his hearers.

A person visiting Finney [during the Rochester revival] told him that he had no feeling regarding the condition of his soul. At this Finney picked up a fire poker and threatened to strike the man. The defensive reaction from the man caused Finney to remark that he was demonstrating feeling and should have feeling about his salvation also.[46]

It would seem that his personal manner in dealing with sinners also exhibited high-pressure tactics designed to induce a positive response.

Criticisms of Finney's methods with inquirers, if true, indicate that in his early days at least he did assert undue, even appalling, pressure on people at times. One account tells of his visit to a family, during which he asked one lady, "Do you love God?" She replied, “I think I do." Finney, then, is said to have shook his fist in her face and roared, “You lie!" and then he urged her to repent. She said that she could not, but Finney countered that with, “You lie! You can repent and be converted immediately.” This account was penned by strong opponents of Finney, so the accuracy, even basic truth, of it should be questioned, but it must be said that it is not entirely out of step with his words and attitudes at Evans' Mill... which are from his own account of events.[47]

Finney seems to have been so convinced of the necessity of his methods to revival that he also exerted a high degree of pressure on ministers and Church leaders to accept and endorse his measures.  Those who refused were denounced as “cold and dead, and the enemies of revivals.”[48] While opponents of Finney’s measures did not deny that there was some true spiritual fruit from his revivals, they also testified that a “number of Churches have experienced a revival of anger, wrath, malice, envy, and evil-speaking, (without the knowledge of a single conversion) merely in consequence of a desperate attempt to introduce these new measures.”[49] In a letter to Rev. Mr. Aikin of Utica, dated January 13, 1827, Asahel Nettleton reports that some “elders and Christians... are sending out private word to their Christian friends abroad, as follows: 'I have been fairly skinned by the denunciations of these men, and have ceased to oppose them, to get rid of their noise. But I warn you not to introduce this spirit into your church and society.’”[50]

Finney’s reportedly dramatic and sometimes harsh manner seems to have influenced other preachers to copy his style.  However, Finney’s measures did not originate with him.  Finney’s Memoirs, however, give the impression “that they burst upon Finney's mind directly from Scripture and from heaven.”[51] Charles Hambrick-Stowe, a sympathetic biographer of the evangelist, writes that “Finney was not the author of revival as many readers of his Memoirs were led to believe. He was more a product of American evangelicalism than its creator.”[52]  Iain Murray believes that many of his practices and views “can be traced to Methodism and to ideas that spread far in the aftermath of the Kentucky revival.”[53]

CONTROVERSY OVER NEW MEASURES

As Finney rose to fame and drew criticism, Asahel Nettleton met with Finney two times to try to convince Finney of his methodological errors and secure for him future usefulness.  They met for the first time in 1827 but Finney was not convinced by the older Nettleton.  Following this meeting, Finney preached a sermon in Troy, New York on Amos 3:3: “Can two walk together except they be agreed?”  The sermon was a denunciation of Nettleton and others who opposed Finney’s measures.  The evangelist intimated that they were “luke-warm and carnal,” had “frosty hearts,” and were no better than “impenitent sinners.”[54]  Nettleton saw Finney’s sermon as a “war cry” and took it “personally.”[55] Asahel Nettleton, Lyman Beecher, and other like-minded ministers met with Charles Finney, Nathan Beman, and others who supported Finney’s “new measures.”  The meetings did not result in any more agreement than had Finney and Nettleton’s previous meeting.

In a surprise turn of events, Lyman Beecher, Charles Finney, and the latter’s cohorts met in Philadelphia in May 1828 and agreed to mutual silence regarding these controversial issues.  Both sides seemed to have become battle weary and did not desire any further public controversy.  Asahel Nettleton was away in Virginia at the time and “must have been surprised at the news.”[56] Beecher was eventually won over to Finney’s side and later welcomed the evangelist to Boston.  Nettleton remained forever steadfast in his opposition.

FINNEY’S THEOLOGY EMERGES

During Finney’s early ministry, opponents such as Nettleton objected primarily to his methodology, not his theology.[57]  Finney was thought to be a New School Presbyterian and no one realized what Finney truly believed because his “theology was shielded by the ongoing conflict between Old Schoolers and New Schoolers.”[58]  Instead of his theology, “they focused on his “new measures.” The Old Schoolers focused on the disorder they promoted and the New Schoolers focused on how well they worked.”[59]  The task of assessing his theology was also made difficult by the fact that with the exception of his 1827 sermon in Troy denouncing Nettleton, none of Finney’s sermons were in print in the 1820s.

When he preached in Boston in the Fall of 1831, however, Asa Rand, a critical newspaper editor who was one of his hearers, took down good deal of his sermon on 'Make Yourselves a New Heart' and published lengthy extracts, together, with comment, in a pamphlet. It was not so much Finney's text (Ezekiel 18:31) that was especially noteworthy, but the meaning he gave to the words made the real significance of the 'new measures' unmistakable.[60]

In this sermon, Finney took Ezekiel’s text to mean that conversion consists in man changing his mind and deciding to obey God, quite apart from God effecting any “physical” change in his heart.[61]  Whereas his deviation from the Calvinism of the Westminster Confession of Faith was not necessarily evident prior to this time, this sermon made it clear that Finney rejected the ideas that man had a sinful nature, and that God’s action in regeneration was necessary for conversion.  Not only was it not necessary, but dangerous.  “The idea of a sinner’s being passive in regeneration, is calculated to destroy souls.”[62]  Christian conversion was not a change of “moral character.” Rather, “the simple volition of the sinner through the influence of motives, is a sufficient change; all that the bible requires. It is all that is necessary to make a sinner a Christian.”[63] Reflecting on Rand’s criticisms in his Memoirs, Finney stated unequivocally that what he preached at that time about divine regeneration and man’s agency were the opposite of the views held by Jonathan Edwards, whom Finney regarded as the clearest representative of the most common Calvinistic view.[64]

Following his sermon in Boston, Finney’s views were further developed in print with the publication of his Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835) and the later Systematic Theology (1846). His Systematic Theology would show the total nature of his break with the Calvinistic orthodoxy that he had previously affirmed as a Presbyterian minister.  The Lectures on Revivals were immensely popular and led to “the systemic use of the public invitation system.”[65]  While measures such as the altar call did not originate with Finney, he was the one largely responsible for establishing them in the regular practice of American evangelism.  Agreeing with Finney biographer Lewis Drummond, David Bennett, in The Altar Call, regards Finney as the “watershed between the evangelism of the eighteenth century and the mass evangelism of the nineteenth and twentieth.”[66]

OBERLIN COLLEGE AND LATER MINISTRY

Finney continued to conduct revivals throughout his life but the 1830s saw a distinct change in the focus of his ministry.  From May 1832 to March 1836, Finney pastored at Chatham Street Chapel in New York City, and then from 1836 to 1837 at Broadway Tabernacle, a structure specially built to Finney’s specifications.  In 1835, Finney began teaching at Oberlin College in Ohio and eventually left permanently for Oberlin.  In 1836, Finney finally left the Presbyterian Church in favor of the Congregationalists not long before an Old School majority in 1837 excised from the denomination large numbers of New School Presbyterian Churches that had been formed under the 1801 Plan of Union with the Congregationalists.[67]

The remainder of Finney’s life and ministry consisted in writing, teaching at Oberlin, pastoring a Congregational Church near the college, and some itinerant preaching. Finney made two trips to the British Isles to promote his form of revivalism, from November 1849 to April 1851 and again from December 1858 to August 1860.  In 1851, Finney became president of Oberlin College and was influential in opening higher education to women and African-Americans.  Finney’s abolitionist activities, along with his promotion of Christian perfectionism, would draw both praise and criticism, just as his promotion of the “new measures” had done. Finney continued teaching at Oberlin until 1866, after which time he remained in there until his death in 1875.

THE LIFE OF JOHN NEVIN

EARLY YEARS

In contrast to Charles Finney’s somewhat nominal Christian beginnings, John Williamson Nevin was born in a devout Presbyterian family in Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania on February 20, 1803.  Raised in the Presbyterian Church at Middle Spring, near Shippensburg, Nevin described his upbringing as of the “Scotch regime,” meaning “the Old Presbyterian faith,... based throughout on the idea of covenant family religion, Church membership by God’s holy act in baptism, and following this a regular catechetical training of the young, with direct reference with their coming to the Lord’s table.”[68]  Although biographer James Hastings Nichols characterizes Nevin’s boyhood Church as belonging to New Side Presbyterianism,[69] it is more likely that it was strongly Old Side, as D.G. Hart suggests, based upon Nevin’s own descriptions, and the congregation’s continued use of the Rous Psalter that was being displaced in New Side Congregations.[70]

NEVIN’S EDUCATION AND CONVERSION

At the age of fourteen, Nevin left rural Pennsylvania to begin studies at Union College in upstate New York.  Nevin’s time at Union was not positive.  He suffered from poor health and was disillusioned with the generic Protestantism that the school represented.  The school “was organized around the principle of representing the collective Christianity of the so-called evangelical denominations" and in Nevin’s mind represented a serious "falling away from the educational and churchly scheme" upon which he had been reared.[71]

Despite his later negative assessment of the form of piety at Union, Nevin did experience conversion at the college during services conducted by evangelists Asahel Nettleton.  Standing in Calvinistic tradition of the Puritans and Jonathan Edwards, Nettleton did not conduct meetings to elicit excitement but rather inward introspection upon the state of the soul.  Although Nevin’s conversion was “earnest and thorough,” he nevertheless recalls the experience in less than positive terms.

I, along with others, came into their hands in anxious meetings, and underwent the torture of their mechanical counsel and talk. One after another, however, the anxious obtained "hope"; each new case, as it were, stimulating another; and finally, among the last, I struggled into something of the sort myself, a feeble trembling sense of comfort- which my spiritual advisers, then, had no difficulty in accepting as all that the case required. In this way I was converted, and brought into the Church- as if I had been altogether out of it before about the close of the seventeenth year of my age.[72]

Upon his graduation from Union College in 1821, Nevin returned home for two years to rest.  His poor health continued as he suffered from dyspepsia, or indigestion, and he would later attribute part of his general gloom during these years to the “conversionist piety”[73] that he had received at Union. “Instead of taking comfort from the objective promises of the gospel, Nevin thought he should constantly examine himself and how well he was progressing.”[74]  Nevin, however, managed to rally and enrolled in Princeton Theological Seminary in 1823.  At one point he considered dropping out because of difficulties in Hebrew, but Nevin received the encouragement of an upperclassman and stayed the course.  At the end of his seminary studies, Nevin taught at Princeton for two years as a substitute for Charles Hodge who was away in Germany.  During this time, Nevin wrote Summary of Biblical Antiquities, a kind of Old Testament background commentary for use in training the young.

EARLY MINISTRATIONS AND FAMILY CHANGES

In the fall of 1828, Nevin was licensed to preach by the Carlisle Presbytery and returned to his father’s house in rural Pennsylvania, unsure of what he should do next.  For fourteen months, Nevin filled his time with occasional preaching, studies, and physical rest to improve his poor health.  After a brief trip to Pittsburgh to visit the newly formed Western Theological Seminary,[75] Nevin’s father died unexpectedly.  As the oldest child, Nevin was now responsible for his mother and sisters.  This turn of events delayed his move to Pittsburgh to begin teaching at the seminary but in 1829, he made the move, to be followed by his mother and sisters three years later.  In Pittsburgh, Nevin was heavily occupied with teaching, family, and community involvement.  In 1835, he married Martha Jenkins, the daughter of a wealthy owner of an iron works.

Though Nevin’s convictions were largely Old School, he also spoke out strongly in favor of abolition, which was generally a New School position. When the Old School majority voted to expunge New School Churches from the denomination in 1837, Nevin was one of ten presbyters to vote “no” in a presbytery numbering fifty.[76]  Though Nevin’s theological convictions were more Old School than New School, he viewed this move to turn out New School Churches as unconstitutional. While the Old School - New School controversy was raging in the late 1830s, Nevin began to tire of his teaching role at Western Seminary due to the financial difficulties which the school continued to endure.  Thus, when an unexpected invitation to come teach at Mercersburg Theological Seminary came in 1840, Nevin welcomed the call.

NEVIN’S MOVE TO MERCERSBURG SEMINARY AND THE GERMAN REFORMED CHURCH

Mercersburg Seminary was a denominational school, belonging to the German Reformed Church.  In moving to Mercersburg, Nevin did not only change schools but also denominations.  Nevin had been developing an increasing interest in German language and scholarship and the present move was seen by Nevin as an opportunity to further pursue that interest.

Archibald Alexander, Nevin’s former professor at Princeton, saw his move to the German Reformed Church as inconsequential.  Yet students of Nevin saw this event as a turning point in his life. Twentieth century Presbyterian biographer James Hastings Nichols thought that Nevin continued “to work in lines sketched by the Princeton theologians, until finally embracing the subtleties provided by the German Reformed.”[77] Theodore Appel, Nevin’s German Reformed biographer and Mercersburg faculty colleague, thought that “Nevin’s move into the German Reformed Church wore away his rough Presbyterian edges, the ‘harsh’ forthrightness of British Calvinism, and replaced them with the ‘broader’ and comprehensive theology of the ‘Calvinistic-Melancthonian school.’"[78]   Biographer D.G. Hart sees the move as an attempt to recover the serious minded high-Church piety of his Presbyterian youth in Middle Spring rather than a turning away from the Presbyterian Church.[79]

Although Nevin may not have been aware of it, the German Reformed Church was a troubled denomination when he entered it in 1840.  The Churches lacked a clear identity as a denomination and even more pressing was the lack of sufficient numbers of ministers to serve the Churches.  This clergy deficit was a significant factor in the influence that revivalism was having in the young denomination as itinerant evangelists preached and held services in the absence of settled ministers. As Nevin visited Churches in the denomination, he became increasingly concerned about the creeping effect that this religious variety of American individualism was having upon the Churches.

OPPOSITION TO REVIVALISM AND THE ANXIOUS BENCH (1843)

By the time that John Nevin had moved to Mercersburg Seminary and settled in, the high point of controversy over Charles Finney’s “new measures” had already passed.  Finney had moved to Oberlin to teach and write while his Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835) continued to circulate and to win over readers to his ways of revivalism. While Nevin had long been displeased with the theology and practices of Finney and those like him, it wasn’t until 1842 that revivalism landed on Nevin’s doorstep.

The German Reformed congregation in Mercersburg was looking for a new pastor and invited William Ramsay to come candidate and preach in their Church.  During the Sunday evening service, Ramsay “finished the service by inviting sinners who felt themselves under conviction of their guilt and unworthiness to come forward to the altar, sit on the bench, and receive the benefits of prayer.”[80]  Many people came forward, including elderly Church members in good standing.  Invited by Ramsay to say a few words, Nevin “warned the congregation not to mistake coming forward to the altar with genuine faith and repentance.”[81] Since the Church was in great need of a pastor, Nevin was hesitant to actively oppose the call which the congregation subsequently extended to Ramsay.  However, “Nevin wrote Ramsay a letter indicating his misgivings about the Presbyterian's methods. In response, Ramsay declined the call and informed the consistory that Nevin's letter was an important factor.”[82]  The Ramsay incident led to Nevin’s subsequent publication of The Anxious Bench in 1843, a stinging indictment of revivalism.  His critique included arguments “against the popularity of the new measures as proof of their genuineness,” an unmasking of the “psychological assumptions” of the invitation system “to show how manipulative such techniques were,” and the assertion that the anxious bench confuses “the outward form with the genuine article.”[83]  Unique to Nevin’s criticism of revivalism was his objection to its promotion of individualism which made the Church redundant.  Whereas Charles Hodge’s objection to Finney’s revivalism largely centered on his placing regeneration before justification, Nevin was more concerned with revivalism’s subjective piety which located the source of faith inside of oneself rather than outside, namely in the grace of Christ mediated by the Church.  The conclusion of The Anxious Bench set forth in brief Nevin’s alternative system of faith and piety, viz., the catechetical system.

For Nevin the catechism symbolized the regular ministry of the church, "sermons full of unction and light," "systematic instruction," an earnestness for holiness, pastoral visitation, catechesis, church discipline, and "patient perseverance in the details of the ministerial work." These were the God-appointed means of growing the church and its members.[84]

PHILIP SCHAFF AND THE MERCERSBURG THEOLOGY

The theology of the Church which Nevin began to develop in The Anxious Bench would see further refinement and encouragement with the arrival of Philip Schaff at Mercersburg Seminary in 1844.  A native of Switzerland, the German-educated Schaff complemented Nevin with his high Church theology, critique of Protestantism, and growing ecumenism.  Schaff brought with him Johann Neander’s idea of “evolution or development in the study of church history”[85] such that in his inaugural address at Mercersburg, Schaff made the bold assertion that “The Reformation is the legitimate offspring, the greatest act of the Catholic Church.”[86]  Schaff blamed the Puritan disdain for bad forms and the abuse of good forms as one of the causes of sectarianism in North American Churches.  With this idea and others already mentioned, Schaff confirmed “Nevin's sense of American Protestantism's defects and need for reform.”[87]

Nevin and Schaff together would become the originators of a minority position in the history of American theology called the Mercersburg Theology.  The distinctive emphases of this theology included the centrality of the incarnation of Christ in understanding the nature and role of the Church, a sacramental theology of the Church as mediating grace to individual Christians, and an ecumenism which invited many accusations that Nevin and Schaff were too friendly towards the Roman Catholic Church.    The Mercersburg theology was developed through various publications, most notably articles in The Mercersburg Review which, Nevin began and served as chief editor for many years.

HEADED TO ROME?

The sacramental aspect of Mercersburg Theology received its most detailed elaboration in The Mystical Presence (1846), Nevin’s treatise on the real presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.  Owing to his developed sacramental theology and organic view of Church history, seeing Protestantism as the natural development of the Catholic Church, Nevin became a vocal proponent of ecumenism and for a period of about two years seriously considered becoming Roman Catholic.  Anti-Catholic sentiment was high during the mid-nineteenth century and Nevin felt the weight of the monumental decision before him as he teetered on the fence between Heidelburg and Rome.  It is unknown what changed Nevin’s heart and mind that eventually kept him within the Protestant fold, but by 1854 he was showing signs of affirming the legitimacy and ministry of the Protestant Church.[88]

COLLEGE PRESIDENCIES AND LATER LIFE

In addition to his teaching and writing, Nevin also served as president of Marshall College (1841-1853), a German Reformed school in Mercersburg.  In 1853, Nevin retired from his duties at both Mercersburg Seminary and Marshall College while he went through a valley of disquietude on the fence between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.  During the next eight years, Nevin occupied himself with a mostly domestic life on the farm, striking up a friendship with former President James Buchanan whose farm was adjacent to his. In 1861, Nevin came out of retirement to teach at, and later become president of Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Prior to his departure from Marshall several years earlier, Nevin had successfully advocated for the merger of Marshall College with the Lancaster-based Franklin College in order to sure up the fledgling financial status of the former.  The bottom line had been so tight at Marshall that Nevin had served as its president without pay for the whole duration of his twelve-year tenure in that position.  His second tenure as a college president lasted from 1866 to 1876 when Nevin retired for his second and final time.

Although Nevin’s scholarly output would never equal that of the seven-year period following the publication of The Mystical Presence, he continued to write during his first retirement and second presidency.  During this time, he produced an average of three published articles per year.[89]  As the outgrowth of the Mercersburg Theology, Nevin helped develop a revised liturgy for the German Reformed Church, which received criticism and occasioned the publication of his Vindication of the Revised Liturgy (1867).  This would be his last major work.

In retirement, Nevin was active in his local German Reformed Church although after 1883, his failing eyesight and difficulty getting around often prevented Church attendance. On June 6, 1886, John Nevin died at home after a brief illness.[90]

CONCLUSION

Having now briefly surveyed the life and times of Charles Finney and John Nevin, the following two chapters will examine the nature and means of conversion as these two men understood them.  This will then be followed in the second half of our study by an evaluation of their thought for its relevance to the contemporary Church.

CHAPTER 3

THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

Having surveyed in the previous two chapters the lives and historical context of Charles Finney and John Nevin, we now turn to the topic of conversion in the theology of these two men.  The present chapter will examine Finney’s views and the following chapter those of Nevin.  Both chapters will follow the same general organization in order to aid the reader in comparing the two.  In order, we will define conversion, summarize theological presuppositions, and then look at the means to be employed in bringing about conversion.

DEFINITION OF CONVERSION

In examining Finney’s theology of conversion, it is necessary to deal with not only what he believed, but also what he did not believe.  In his Lectures on Revivals of Religion and Systematic Theology, from which much of the following material is drawn, Finney regularly defines his views in contrast to Calvinistic views, which he perceived as both common, and dangerous, to revivals.[91]  The true import of Finney’s views are, thus, best understood when seen in comparison with the Calvinistic views that he fought so diligently against.

In traditional Calvinistic doctrine, there is a distinction drawn between regeneration and conversion.  Regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit upon a sinner’s heart, changing the person’s nature and efficiently enabling that person to certainly exercise faith and repentance.  Man is completely passive in regeneration.  Conversion, on the other hand, is the certain effect of regeneration whereby a sinner repents from his sins and exercises faith in Christ.[92]  Finney rejects this distinction as “arbitrary,... anti-scriptural and injurious” and sees regeneration and conversion as “synonymous terms.”[93]  As such, Finney informs the readers of his Systematic Theology that he uses the two interchangeably.[94]  Finney bases this conclusion on the fact that “both conversion and regeneration are sometimes in the Bible ascribed to God, sometimes to man, and sometimes to the subject [of conversion].”[95]  In the following discussion of his views, I will follow Finney’s interchangeable use of terms.  Readers who are more familiar with the Calvinistic distinction between regeneration and conversion should bear this in mind in order to clearly understand what Finney is advocating.

For Finney, conversion is a change of moral character effected by the sinner when the sinner changes his heart.  Both God and the sinner are active in conversion, yet it is the sinner himself who chooses to become regenerate.  In contrast to the Calvinistic view, Finney often emphasizes that regeneration does “not imply any change of substance, but only a change of moral state or moral character.”[96]  By change of substance, Finney means that the Holy Spirit does not “physically” change the human heart but only works as an external agent of persuasion.  Finney asserts that when “God affirms that He regenerates the soul with or by the truth, we have no right to infer that He does it in some other way...That He exerts any other than a moral influence, or the influence of divine teaching and illumination, is sheer assumption.”[97]  Ultimately in the hands of man’s free will decision, regeneration is a “voluntary attitude and preference of the soul.”[98]  In his Systematic Theology lecture on Regeneration, Finney gives a more expanded definition.

Regeneration, to have the characteristics ascribed to it in the Bible, must consist in a change in the attitude of the will, or a change in its ultimate choice, intention, or preference; a change from selfishness to benevolence; from choosing self-gratification as the supreme and ultimate end of life, to the supreme and ultimate choice of the highest well-being of God and of the universe; from a state of entire consecration to self-interest, self-indulgence, self-gratification for its own sake or as an end, and as the supreme end of life, to a state of entire consecration to God, and to the interests of His kingdom as the supreme and ultimate end of life.[99]

Thus, for Finney, regeneration (or conversion) is the choice of a person to turn away from self-interest to interest in God.   It lies within the power of each person to turn his heart toward God, quite apart from any physical change of heart effected by the Holy Spirit.[100]  Conversion is, by necessity, instantaneous, and produces “a change from entire sinfulness to entire holiness.”[101]

THEOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

Having briefly defined conversion, we will now explore Finney’s theological presuppositions which inform his understanding of conversion.  Any one point of a person’s theology is informed by their convictions in other areas of theology.  Thus, as we examine other areas of his doctrine, we will see why he defines conversion as he does and understand how his beliefs in other areas inform his doctrine of conversion.  As our study progresses, we will also see the implications of his views on conversion.  In the present section, we will examine in turn Finney’s views on the sovereignty of God, depravity, human ability, election, reprobation, justification, sanctification, atonement, and perseverance.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

Finney often asserted that it is necessary to use means in the conversion of sinners, and this was done in reaction to a certain view of God’s sovereignty, which he ascribed to his critics.  Finney credits to them the view that God’s sovereign activity in converting sinners and bringing revival is wholly independent of using natural means.  As such, his opponents are portrayed as passively waiting around for God to work, instead of pursing the conversion of sinners. In the first of a series of lectures on revivals of religion given in New York City, Finney asserts:

Revivals have been greatly hindered by mistaken notions concerning the Sovereignty of God. Many people have supposed God's Sovereignty to be something very different from what it is. They have supposed it to be such an arbitrary disposal of events, and particularly of the gift of His Spirit, as precluded a rational employment of means for promotion revival... He administers neither providence nor grace with that sort of sovereignty that dispenses with the use of means... men cannot do the devil's work more effectually than by preaching up the Sovereignty of God as a reason why we should not put forth efforts to produce a revival.[102]

While there was certainly a difference in the means employed by Finney and his detractors, Finney’s portrayal of them as just sitting around is exaggerated at best.  One of Finney’s most ardent opponents, Asahel Nettleton, held to a Calvinistic view of God’s sovereignty yet saw numerous revivals during his itinerant evangelistic ministry in New England during the opening years of the Second Great Awakening.[103]  However, because Calvinistic evangelists usually did not pressure people to take an immediate profession of faith as Finney did, he saw this as passivity and a failure to use God’s duly instituted means.[104]

Positively stated, Finney saw God’s sovereignty in the naturally ordained laws of nature.  It was man’s responsibility to pick up, and use the tools and circumstances that God had divinely set in place. “There is no natural event in which His own agency is not concerned,” states Finney, and the evangelist should sow with the expectation that if it is done right, then there will surely be a harvest.[105] Christians should never wait for God to act, but must recognize the opportunities that God has set before them.  They must take advantage of them before the opportunity is past.

Though Finney believed that the Spirit of God did not act sovereignly to change hearts, He was nonetheless still active in the conversion of sinners.  This can be seen in Finney’s illustration of a man being warned of his impending doom just before stepping over the precipice at Niagara Falls.  He concludes that, “in the conversion of a sinner there is something more than the providence of God employed; for here not only does the providence of God so order it, that the preacher cries, Stop, but the Spirit of God forces the truth home upon him with such tremendous power as to induce him to turn.”[106]  Thus, God’s sovereignty in the salvation of sinners consists in ordering circumstances for them to hear the truth, and by impressing that truth upon their minds.  However, his sovereignty stops short of actually effecting a change upon a person’s heart.  The power to change the heart lies solely at the discretion of the individual.

DEPRAVITY AND HUMAN ABILITY

Understanding Finney’s views on human sinfulness and ability are the bedrock upon which the rest of his theology of conversion is laid.  There is a consistent logic to his theology, and Finney saw clearly that one’s view of depravity would lead to certain views on conversion and the means to be used in seeking conversions.[107]

Regarding depravity, Finney saw as his main nemesis the doctrine of constitutional sinfulness.  This doctrine, maintained by Calvinists, asserts that man is sinful by nature, or constitution, and will inevitably sin because it is part of the nature with which he was born.  When this is the case, the heart needs to be physically changed by the Holy Spirit in order to be able to choose God.[108]  Defining what he means by depravity, Finney states:

Moral depravity, as I use the term, does not consist in, nor imply a sinful nature, in the sense that the substance of the human soul is sinful in itself. It is not a constitutional sinfulness. It is not an involuntary sinfulness. Moral depravity, as I use the term, consists in selfishness; in a state of voluntary committal of the will to self-gratification.[109]

For Finney, sinfulness is entirely voluntary.  Man does not suffer from physical depravity, namely a disease of the moral nature over which he has no control.  Because “moral law legislates only over free, intelligent choices,”[110] constitutional sinfulness is unthinkable because sin is only ever a result of “a sinful ultimate aim or intention.”[111] If man sins by nature, it would cease to be sin.  Moral depravity “is sin itself and not the cause of sin,” and is not “an attribute of human nature.”[112]

For Finney, the idea of a sinful nature was “anti-scriptural and nonsensical dogma.”[113]  The doctrine of constitutional depravity ascribed sinfulness to the Creator who is the author of nature.[114]  This doctrine also destroyed evangelism by giving the sinner a ready excuse for not repenting.  In contrast, Finney believed that the will is not bound by sin, and since we are not under constraint, we have the ability to obey God if we will to do so.[115]  The choice is entirely ours and we are without excuse in the sight of God. Discussing the nature of conversion in relation to Adam, Finney explained:

Adam changed his heart, or governing purpose, from good to evil. Now suppose that God, when he came to reprove him for his transgression, had bid him repent and make him a new heart, and Adam should say, “I cannot make a new heart.” God might reply, “Why not? You have just done it. You have changed your heart, or governing purpose, from my service to your own selfish objects. Now change it back again and turn to me.”[116]

It was Finney’s conclusion that if you tell a sinner that they need the Holy Spirit to change their heart before they could repent, then the sinner can blame God for their lack of repentance.  Also, if an evangelist must wait for God to change hearts, then he could not call sinners to immediate repentance.  For Finney, the question of human depravity was not an academic debate about nature versus nurture.  Rather, it was a practical doctrine that had real world implications for the souls of men.

ELECTION AND REPROBATION

Finney asserts that God’s election of some to salvation is on the basis of foreseen faith, and his reprobation is on the basis of foreseen wickedness.[117]  The deciding factor in man’s salvation rests in man’s free choice, although that choice is not equated with a good work.[118]  Similarly, man’s reprobation is entirely his own doing. “He is voluntary in it, and he does not neglect the means of grace because he is reprobated, but was reprobated because God foresaw that he would take this course.”[119]  Therefore, man cannot blame God for his reprobation because those “who are not elected may be saved, if they will but comply with the conditions, which they are able to do.”[120]

In laying out his understanding of election, Finney makes sure that readers know that God elects people to salvation in conjunction with means, not apart from them.  Repentance and regeneration are necessary.  And interestingly, Finney says that sanctification is also necessary as the primary means of salvation.  In defining election, Finney writes:

It is, that all of Adam's race, who are or ever will be saved, were from eternity chosen by God to eternal salvation, through the sanctification of their hearts by faith in Christ. In other words, they are chosen to salvation by means of sanctification.[121]

Finney’s statement here represents a significant departure from traditional Protestant evangelicalism, which asserts that the means of salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.  Including sanctification here makes Finney’s formulation bear close resemblance to the Catholic unification of justification and sanctification as single process which eventuates in salvation.  In the next section, we will see in greater detail how Finney’s doctrine of justification differs from traditional Protestant theology.  However, to summarize the current section, we can say that Finney thought God, in election and reprobation, did all that he could to induce men to salvation, with their salvation ultimately depending on their choice to obey or disobey God.

JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION

In his Systematic Theology lecture on Justification, Finney devotes more space to denouncing imputation than he does to positively asserting his own view on the ground of justification, which only comes at the end of the lecture.

Finney strongly objects to the legal forensic view of justification where Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us in a one time event.  Finney asserts that one can only be justified if he is actually and truly just.  Therefore, “there can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground of universal, perfect, and uninterrupted obedience to law.”[122] For this reason, Christ’s “obedience could no more than justify Himself. It can never be imputed to us.”[123]   The “old school view of justification” promotes a falsehood in maintaining that people could still have sin, yet be justified in God’s sight. If justification is a one time event without actual righteousness being subsequently required, this view leads to antinomianism.[124]  As a ground for our justification, Finney thus rejects Christ’s work on the cross and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinners. Sins are forgiven, not on the basis of imputation, but upon a “governmental decree of pardon or amnesty” where the law does not pronounce a sinner just but treats him as if he were just.[125] For Finney, the atonement of Christ is “the necessary condition of safely manifesting the benevolence of God in the justification and salvation of sinners.”[126]  In the next section, we will explore further Finney’s governmental view of the atonement.

In contrast to the view that imputation is the ground of justification, Finney asserts that “the disinterested and infinite love of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the true and only foundation of the justification and salvation of sinners.”[127]  However, while the love of God is the ground of justification, there are also several conditions for justification without which justification is not possible.  These conditions include faith, repentance, love, obedience, and perseverance to the end.  On the one hand, Finney attempts to make a clear distinction between grounds and conditions of justification, affirming that we are not saved because our own good works but solely because of the infinite love of God.[128]  However, because of his strong emphasis upon sanctification as a condition of our justification, it seems that Finney sees sinless perfection as necessary for justification and ultimate salvation. “Present sanctification, in the sense of present full consecration to God, is another condition, not ground, of justification.”[129] Finney clarifies:

By sanctification being a condition of justification, the following things are intended:

(1.) That present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and His service, is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God.

(2.) That the penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full-hearted consecration continues.[130]

Although Finney has elsewhere said that we are not saved by our good works, his words here lead to the inevitable conclusion that at a practical level, our salvation is dependent upon our continued obedience.  This is not the same as a Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverance of the saints that affirms a progressive sanctification, and allows for one to be simultaneously sinner and justified.  In Finney’s view, sanctification is not the necessary outflow of justification.  Rather, justification proceeds from sanctification. Commenting on the conditions of justification, Finney writes, "We shall see that perseverance in obedience to the end of life is also a condition of justification. Some theologians have made justification a condition of sanctification, instead of making sanctification a condition of justification. But this we shall see is an erroneous view of the subject."[131]  For Finney, the differences between his views and those who affirm imputation were not merely semantic.  After summarizing the common Calvinistic view on imputation, Finney concluded that this was “another gospel from the one I am inculcating.”[132]

ATONEMENT

From our comments in the previous section on the role of sanctification in justification, one might conclude that the atonement is not important for Finney.  However, Finney believes that it is highly important, granted that it is defined in a certain way.  First of all, the atonement does not mean a literal payment of debt.[133]  Finney finds this understanding of the atonement to be out of accord with Scripture and opens the way for universalism.[134]  The atonement as a literal payment for debt is unnecessary because there no need to satisfy “any implacable spirit in the divine mind... He was [already] sufficiently and infinitely disposed to extend pardon to the penitent, if this could be wisely, benevolently, and safely done.”[135]

Rejecting the atonement as a literal payment of debt as a requirement of retributive justice, Finney asserts that the atonement was nonetheless necessary as a requirement of public justice. Through the atonement, God upholds his moral government of the universe and satisfies the demands of public justice.  By covering the sins of the people in this way, he shows that there are serious consequences for violation of the law yet also demonstrates his mercy upon sinners by not punishing them according to the letter of the law.

In his infinite love, God does not wish to punish sinners but he cannot leave their sin unpunished lest his free unconditional pardon of their sins encourages them to continue to sin with impunity.[136]  As the governor of the universe, God wants to uphold the spirit of the law, which is love, and to secure the greatest common good in conformity with the spirit of the law.  God’s aim is that his subjects obey the law.  In order to both pardon their sin and to ensure their future obedience to the law, atonement must be made in order to demonstrate the penalty which is due for sin.  In the atonement, Christ did not pay for the sins of anyone and “the atonement, of itself, does not secure the salvation of any one.”[137]  He atoned for the sins of the people only in the sense of demonstrating what they would have deserved had God chosen to inflict the penalty of sins upon them.[138]  To use Finney’s words, “the atonement is the governmental substitution of the sufferings of Christ for the punishment of sinners. It is a covering of their sins by His sufferings.”[139]  Because the demands of a public demonstration of the consequences of violating the law have been fulfilled by the sufferings of Christ, it is thus possible to pardon sinners without executing the penalty of sin upon them.

PERSEVERANCE

Finney would agree with Calvinists that perseverance of the saints is necessary for ultimate salvation.  He would differ, however, as to the nature and source of that perseverance.  The nature of perseverance, for Finney, is not a resting upon the mercy of God while continuing to struggle against sin in a process of progressive sanctification.  Growing in grace and “in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ... does not imply that there is yet sin remaining in the regenerate heart which we are required to put away by degrees.”[140]  Rather, perseverance is a continued state of perfect obedience.

For Finney, the source of perseverance is the Christian themselves.  While God does what he can to help his elect to persevere in the faith, he does not guarantee their perseverance.  The source of perseverance of the saints is their own moral resolve to continue in a state of complete obedience to God.  Finney writes:

The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true ... In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground.[141]

The Christian’s present and ultimate justification depends on their continued obedience.  Thus it is imperative that the Christian not only convert once, but maintain his conversion.  Likewise, preachers bear great responsibility for exhorting converts to persevere in the faith.  Reflecting on an earlier period when he did not understand this, Finney wrote:

I was often instrumental in bringing Christians under great conviction, and into a state of temporary repentance and faith . . . . [But] falling short of urging them up to a point, where they would become so acquainted with Christ as to abide in Him, they would of course soon relapse into their former state.[142]

HOW CONVERSION HAPPENS

To wrap up the first part of this chapter on the nature of conversion in Finney’s theology, we will now look at the role of God and man in conversion.  The remainder of the present chapter will then focus upon the means, or methods, that Finney thought should be employed in seeking conversions.

GOD’S ROLE IN CONVERSION

While Finney asserts that conversion is a voluntary decision on the part of a person, he also affirms that God is presently active in the salvation of sinners.  Finney’s point of difference with Calvinists was not whether God is active in salvation, but rather, how he is active.  Finney denies that God, by His Spirit, exerts any physical change upon the heart of man.[143]  Such change is unnecessary because man’s ability to choose God is unimpaired by constitutional depravity.  Finney’s beliefs are strikingly similar to Pelagius’ that grace is “purely an external aid provided by God” and that there is “no room for any special interior action of God upon the soul.”[144]  Both Charles Hodge and John Nevin charged Finney with Pelagianism, but he denied it.[145]  In response, Finney asserts that God is active in conversion in two primary ways, 1) the providential ordering of circumstances, and 2) the agency of the Holy Spirit in impressing truth upon the mind. On these two points, Finney writes as follows in his Lectures on Revivals of Religion:

By His providential government He so arranges events as to bring the sinner's mind and the truth in contact. He brings the sinner where the truth reaches his ears or his eyes.  It is often interesting to trace the manner in which God arranges events so as to bring this about, and how He sometimes makes everything seem to favour [sic.] a revival... How He sometimes sends a minister along just at the time he is wanted! How He brings out a particular truth just at the particular time when the individual it is fitted to reach is in the way to hear!

God's special agency by His Holy Spirit. Having direct access to the mind, and knowing infinitely well the whole history and state of each individual sinner, He employs that truth which is best adapted to his particular case, and then drives it home with Divine power. He gives it such vividness, strength, and power that the sinner quails, and throws down his weapons of rebellion, and turns to the Lord. Under His influence the truth burns its way like fire... God makes it clear before their minds, and pours in upon their souls a blaze of convincing light which they cannot withstand; and they yield to it, obey God, and are saved.[146]

In addition to providential ordering of events, and the impressing of truth upon the mind, God has one more important role to play in men’s salvation.  God has made salvation available by the atonement of Christ.  As mentioned in the previous section, this is not a literal payment of the debt which we owe to God for sin.  Rather, it is a satisfaction of public justice which makes it possible for God to grant pardon, or amnesty, to sinners without threatening His moral government of the universe.  Thus, God makes salvation both possible and available for sinners who will repent from their sins and consecrate themselves to God.

MAN’S ROLE IN CONVERSION

While God works upon the sinner in various ways, man also bears a heavy responsibility in the conversion of both his own soul and the souls of others.  Because conversion is a free will decision of the individual, the deciding factor in conversion rests upon whether the individual can be convinced that he needs to convert.  Thus Christians must labor zealously for the conversion of others, and the sinner himself must decide to convert.

In Finney’s thinking, man is both active and passive in his own conversion.  First, and most importantly, man is active in his conversion by deciding to convert.  In his sermon, Sinners Bound to Make Themselves a New Heart, Finney emphasized this point strongly. Taking as his text Ezekiel 18:31, "Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die,” Finney explained:

It is evident that the requirement here, is to change our moral character; our moral disposition; in other words, to change that abiding preference of our minds, which prefers sin to holiness; self-gratification to the glory of God.[147]

For Finney, it is entirely within the ability of man to effect his own conversion because man is not under the restraint of a sinful nature.  He is “naturally free and able to obey the commandments of God,” and without this freedom, man could not truly be a moral agent.[148]  In conversion, man is at the forefront of the action.  The sole way in which man might be called passive in his conversion is through his willing reception of truth communicated to him by God and by other men.

MEANS OF CONVERSION

In the final section of this chapter we will look at the means that Finney thought must be employed in the conversion of sinners.  After surveying Finney’s thought on the roles of means in general, we will look at in turn specific means that Finney thought necessary, together with the reasons attached to them.

AGENTS AND INSTRUMENT OF CONVERSION

In discussing means and measures to be used for the conversion of sinners, Finney spoke of three agents and one instrument.  The three agents were the Spirit of God, the subject of regeneration (i.e. the sinner himself), and some other person, such as an evangelist.  Each of these agents need to make use of the one instrument, namely, the truth, in order to see a sinner convert.[149]  These categories differ from a Calvinistic understanding, which identifies man as an instrument rather than an agent.  This is logical given Finney’s higher estimation of man’s ability to impress truth upon his fellow man, and man’s ability to decide for or against God apart from direct divine intervention in changing his heart.

MEANS ARE NECESSARY AND NATURAL

Finney was very emphatic in affirming the need to use means in seeking the conversion of sinners.  He viewed his opponents’ belief that the Holy Spirit needs to change the heart as a denial of the need to use means.  In his Lectures on Revivals of Religion, Finney claimed that “Generation after generation has gone to hell, while the Church has been dreaming and waiting for God to save them without the use of the means.”[150] Countering this claimed negligence on the part of Calvinists, Finney affirmed that “God administers neither providence nor grace with that sort of sovereignty that dispenses with the use of means.”[151] By this statement, Finney means that God only works through natural means.  He does not work through supernatural means in the conversion of sinners but only by those means which he has already given to His Church.  Neither conversions nor revivals depend upon the supernatural agency of God’s Spirit but can be had at anytime when the right methods are used. Again, in his Lectures on Revivals, Finney asserts that a “revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means.”[152]  If one does not make right use of the constituted means, then one could fairly be said to be neglecting the salvation of souls.  Given this view, one can see why Finney spoke so strongly against those who refused to use his methods.[153]

NO PARTICULAR MEANS ARE PRESCRIBED BY SCRIPTURE

Finney believed that the Bible only prescribed the message of the Gospel, but not the measures, by which the Gospel should be promoted.  The only biblically appointed means, if one could call it such, is the Gospel message.  Beyond that, “it was left to the discretion of the Church to determine, from time to time, what measures should be adopted, and what forms pursued, in giving the Gospel its power.”[154]  Aside from the Gospel message itself, the only other requirement was that all things be done decently and in order.[155]  “It is preaching the Gospel which there stands out prominently as the great thing. The form is left out of the question.”[156]  The most common forms of public worship in Finney’s day had not descended from heaven, but “been arrived at by degrees, and by a succession of New Measures.”[157]

NEW MEANS CONTINUALLY NEEDED

It was Finney’s view that new measures, or methods, are continually needed in order to gain the attention of every new generation.  Men become accustomed to a set way of conducting religion and continue to “retain the form of religion while they lose the substance.”[158]  In order to wake people up from this nominal form of religion and produce true spiritual life, it is necessary to get their attention with something new. On the necessity of novelty in evangelism, Finney writes:

Without new measures it is impossible that the Church should succeed in gaining the attention of the world to religion.  There are so many exciting subjects constantly brought before the public mind, such a running to and fro, so many that cry "Lo here!" and "Lo there!" that the Church cannot maintain her ground without sufficient novelty in measures, to get the public ear.[159]

If the Church fails to gain the attention of the world with innovative measures, then it will be impossible to wake up a slumbering Church and get them to respond to the Gospel.[160]  Finney had a low estimation of the present forms being using in the Churches of his time, and thought that new measures to excite the public attention were urgently needed.  Finney writes:

There is so little principle in the Church, so little firmness and stability of purpose, that unless it is greatly excited, it will go back from the path of duty, and do nothing to promote the glory of God.[161]

Despite his focus on introducing new innovations, Finney cautioned that “novelties should be introduced no faster than they are really called for,” lest more attention is given to novelties than to the Gospel.[162]

Historically, Finney’s measures called great attention to themselves and garnered great opposition, to which Finney responded.  Looking back over Church history, Finney observed that all men of God who were used mightily were opposed because they introduced new measures.  This was, in fact, the primary reason why Luther and other Reformers were so vigorously opposed by the Roman Catholic Church.[163]  In his lecture on How to Promote Revivals, Finney claims that many ministers opposed the new measures employed by him simply because they are new.[164]  His “Old School” detractors were irrationally prejudiced, speaking against the new measures merely because they are not the same forms to which they are accustomed.  These ministers act as if their forms of public worship and piety descended from heaven with an inviolable “Thus saith the LORD,” and cannot be changed.[165]  To the charge that he is a fanatic, Finney replied that his opponents are the real fanatics. Their “unkind, angry zeal, for a certain mode and manner of doing things, and the overbearing, exterminating cry against new measures, SAVOUR STRONGLY OF FANATICISM.”[166]

MEANS NECESSARY TO CONVERSION

THE PRAYER OF FAITH

Finney asserted that there “is reason to believe that millions are in hell because professors [of religion] have not offered the prayer of faith” for non-believers.[167]  If Christians were to pray with the “kind of faith that ensures blessing,” then many more would be converted to Christ than presently are.[168]  Several things are necessary for Christians to obtain the faith to pray the prayer of faith for the conversion of sinners.  Christians must obtain some evidence that God will answer them by searching the Scriptures for a promise of God, and then claiming the plain sense meaning of the promise.  They also must cherish a good desire for a sinner’s salvation and consecrate themselves entirely to God.  They must persevere in prayer and walk everyday with God.[169]  The non-conversion of children and domestic servants is to be blamed upon the lack of such prayer.  Thus, it is incumbent upon all professing Christians to foster the faith necessary to pray in faith for the conversion of sinners.  Finney was not bothered by the fact that this placed a heavy responsibility upon Christians.  Finney writes:

You say: ‘This leaves the Church under a great load of guilt.’ True, it does so; and no doubt multitudes will stand up before God, covered all over with the blood of souls that have been lost through their want of faith.[170]

CHRISTIAN LIVING

In addition to speaking the truth to sinners, Finney put a great premium upon holy living.  A great many impressions for the Gospel have been effaced by careless living on the part of Christians.  “If Christians themselves have deep feeling on the subject of religion, they will produce deep feeling wherever they go.  And if they are cold, or light and trifling, they inevitably destroy all deep feeling, even in awakened sinners.”[171]  Finney states that all Christians “are required to be witnesses in this way, because example teaches with so much greater force than precept. This is universally known. "Actions speak louder than words." But where both precept and example are brought to bear, the greatest amount of influence is brought to bear upon the mind.”[172]

For Finney, holy living can be said to be a means of conversion, in that it impresses the truth of the Gospel upon the minds of sinners. “The failure [of Christians] to testify in this [way] is the great stumbling-block in the way of mankind.”[173]

PREACHING AND PERSONAL WITNESS

Whether in the hand of man, or the hand of God, the one instrument that could be used in securing conversions was truth. “There never was, and never will be, any one saved by anything but truth as the means. Truth is the outward means, the outward motive, presented first by man, and then by the Holy Spirit.”[174]  Whether in public preaching or personal conversation, this truth must be pressed home upon the hearts of men so that they might change their will.

In speaking with sinners, Finney believed that great wisdom was required because different sinners needed to be spoken to in different ways in order to secure their conversion. “Be careful,” Finney counseled, “to find the point where the Spirit of God is pressing a sinner, and press the same point in all your remarks”[175]  Time is of the essence because their destiny will be decided while “the Spirit is striving with them.”  One must seize the opportunity now before their convictions fade, and they are lost forever.[176]  Finney warned:

One false impression, one indiscreet remark, one sentence misunderstood, a slight diversion of mind, may wear him the wrong way, and his soul be lost... How solemnly and carefully then should Christians walk, how wisely and skilfully [sic.] work, if they do not wish to be the means of the loss of a soul![177]

To guide Christians in the work of soul winning, Finney delineated three classes of sinners, which Christians would encounter, 1) Careless sinners, 2) Awakened Sinners, and 3) Convicted Sinners.  Careless sinners are those sinners who are not interested in religion and have no conviction of sin.  To speak with them about their souls, one must find the right time when they are disengaged from other employments, sober, and in good temper.  They should be spoken with kindly, solemnly, respectfully, and very plainly, addressing the conscience with the great and fundamental truths.  One must be patient and not take his part in anything, meaning that one should not agree with his criticisms of Christians lest he be given excuses.  He should be told that he has to answer for his own sins.  One should bring up his particular sins, not general sins, as these will make no impact.  It is also best to be short.[178]

On the other hand, awakened sinners must be spoken with differently.  The awakened sinner is one who “feels a little on the subject of religion”[179]  He has been awakened by providential circumstances, and is open to hear about religion but not yet convicted of sin.  One still needs to show him his sin.  Finney counsels that when a sinner is awakened, one should “lose no time to pour in light upon his mind,” using the divine law to show him God’s strictness towards sinners.[180]  If possible, you should “melt him down on the spot,” for you can sometimes “do more in five minutes, than in years- or a whole lifetime- while he is careless or indifferent.”[181]

The final class of sinners that Finney addresses is convicted sinners.  Great skill must be used in speaking with this type of sinner.  When a person is convicted, but not yet converted, there is a hidden reason, or secret sin, that he is hanging on to.[182]  “You may often do incalculable good,” Finney counseled, “by finding out precisely where the difficulty lies, and then bringing the truth to bear on that point.”[183] The Christian should never allow a person to hang on to any sin, and thus give him false hope of being converted.  In this way many have false hope of conversion while still selfishly hanging onto sin.[184]  In fact, Churches are filled with hypocrites because people were never made to see that God requires entire consecration to God.[185] In order to produce genuine conversions, one should make “the sinner see clearly the nature and extent of the Divine law, and press the main question of entire submission to God.”[186] Much discernment is needed, however, so that false conversions are note produced.  Finney warns:

Great evils have arisen, and many false hopes have been created, by not discriminating between an awakened, and a convicted, sinner: For the want of this, persons who are only awakened are immediately pressed to submit - “you must repent," "submit to God" -when they are in fact neither convinced of their guilt, nor instructed so far as even to know what submission means. This is one way in which revivals have been greatly injured - by indiscriminate exhortations to repent, unaccompanied by proper instruction.[187]

Finney firmly believed that winning souls is largely a matter of studying how to do it.[188] If one applies the truth to the soul in the right way, many true converts will be produced and false believers will be exposed.

A CALL FOR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE

Because men are capable of changing their mind at anytime, Finney thought that if one could impress the truth forcefully enough upon a sinner’s mind, it was possible for him to convert on the spot.  Unlike Calvinistic evangelists such as Asahel Nettleton, Finney did not counsel convicted sinners to wrestle with God until they had some assurance that they were truly repentant.  If sinners were not forced to make an immediate decision for Christ, then the opportunity for them to be saved might be lost forever.[189]  Preachers should persuade sinners to repent immediately, and not give them time to go home and think about it.  To do so was a grave error.  Such a preacher was remiss to allow the opportunity to slip by because people’s impressions and convictions of sin might fade.  Then the opportunity for them to repent would be passed.  To illustrate this, Finney recalls the story of a young woman:

I knew a case once of an individual who was very anxious, but one day I was grieved to find that her convictions seemed to be all gone. I asked her what she had been doing. She told me she had been spending the afternoon at a certain place, among some professors of religion- not thinking that it would dissipate her convictions to spend an afternoon with professors of religion! But they were trifling and vain people, and her convictions were lost. And no doubt those professors of religion, by their folly, destroyed a soul, for her convictions did not return.[190]

Because the opportunity for salvation can be easily lost, Finney thought that it was imperative to speak directly and forthrightly with awakened sinners. When sinners became convicted, an immediate call to decide for Christ is necessary.  Some physical response or verbal profession of faith should be ascertained from the sinner to show that they had made a decision.  In many cases, Finney was not content unless sinners made a clear demonstration of their reception or rejection of the Gospel message.  Finney’s own account of his preaching in Evan’s Mill, New York in 1824 illustrates the type of means which Finney thought necessary to secure decisions:

I told the people at the close of my sermon, that I had come there to secure the salvation of their souls. That my preaching, I knew, was highly complimented by them; but that after all, I did not come there to please them but to bring them to repentance... If they did not purpose to become Christians, and enlist in the service of the Savior, I wanted to know it that I might not labor with them in vain. I 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? ...  Now I must know your minds. And I want that you who have made up your minds to become Christians, and will give your pledge to make your peace with God immediately, should rise up; but that on the contrary, those of you who are resolved that you will not become Christians, and wish me so to understand, and wish Christ so to understand, should sit still.” After making this plain, so that I knew that they understood it, I then said: "You who now are willing to pledge to me and to Christ that you will immediately make your peace with God, please to rise up. On the contrary, you that mean that I should understand that you are committed to remain in your present attitude, not to accept Christ - please, those of you that are of this mind, to sit still." They looked at one another, and at me;- and all sat still, just as I expected. After looking around upon them for a few moments I said: “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 that which 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.'” This is the purport of what I urged upon them, and as nearly in these words as I can recollect. When I thus pressed them they began to look angry, and arose en masse and started for the door.[191]

In the account above, Finney asked the congregation to stand or remain seated to indicate their decision. But, as his ministry developed, so did his methods. The anxious seat, or bench, was one popular method regularly employed by Finney to call for response.  In addition to the anxious seat, Finney also used anxious meetings and protracted meetings to secure positive response to the Gospel.  But no method solicited as much opposition as the anxious seat.[192]

In explaining his use of the anxious seat, Finney defines it as “the appointment of some particular seat in the place of meeting, where the anxious may come and be addressed particularly, and be made subjects of prayer, and sometimes be conversed with individually.”[193]  The practice of calling people out of a congregation to come to the anxious seat is the precursor to what has come to be termed an “altar call” in contemporary Churches.  Though the use of the anxious seat was strongly criticized by some, Finney was mystified as to the reason. “What is the great objection?” Finney asked, “I cannot see it.”  Not finding any logical or biblical reasons for opposition to the anxious seat and other new measures, Finney assumed that they were opposed merely because they were new.[194]

In Finney’s mind, there were two great advantages to using the anxious seat.  The first was to destroy pride that inhibits conversion. Finney observed that:

When a person is seriously troubled in mind, everybody knows there is a powerful tendency to conceal it.... if you can get him willing to have it known, if you can get him to break way from the chains of pride, you have gained an important point towards his conversion.[195]

The second advantage to using the anxious seat was its ability “to detect deception and delusion, and thus prevent false hopes.”[196]  By forcing a public decision, the anxious seat effectively destroys nominalism.  Finney explains:

Thus you see that when a person is called upon to give a pledge, if he is found not to be decided, he makes it manifest that he was not sincere...his delusion is brought out, and he finds himself a lost sinner still; whereas, if you had not done it, he might have gone away flattering himself that he was a Christian.  If you say to him, "There is the anxious seat, come out and avow your determination to be on the Lord's side," and if he is not willing to do so small a thing as that, then he is not willing to do anything, and there he is, brought out before his own conscience. It uncovers the delusion of the human heart, and prevents a great many spurious conversions, by showing those who might otherwise imagine themselves willing to do anything for Christ, that in fact they are willing to do nothing.[197]

For Finney, the failure of a person to respond to the preacher in a specified way was a sure indication that the person was rejecting Christ.  Likewise, a positive outward response was a sure indication that genuine conversion had taken place.  This could be assumed because conversion is nothing more than a man changing his mind about something, quite apart from a special work of the Spirit in changing the heart.  If a man came forward and professed faith, then he had evidently changed his mind.  As Finney understood it, calling for a public profession of faith in this way served exactly the same function as baptism did in the early Church.[198]

In using the anxious seat, Finney does not appear to have considered other factors that could influence people to make public professions of faith.  Variables such as peer pressure, psychological manipulation, and emotionalism are not accounted for.  Finney operated on the assumption that when the truth had been properly understood by a person, there was a direct correspondence between an outward response to the Gospel message and genuine inward conversion. Any subsequent backsliding was not taken as an indication that there had been a false conversion.  Rather, one had merely failed to maintain their Christian walk.  Indeed, a person could be converted many times over since every time a Christian sins, he ceases to be holy, and thus loses his justification.[199]

CHAPTER 4

THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN WILLIAMSON NEVIN

Having examined Charles Finney’s understanding of conversion, we now turn to the views of John Nevin.  Following the order of the previous chapter, we will define conversion, summarize theological presuppositions, and then look at the means to be employed in bringing about conversion.  After completing our surveys of the thought of both Finney and Nevin, the remaining chapters will be devoted to comparison and analysis of their views.

DEFINITION OF CONVERSION

Following traditional Calvinism, John Nevin draws a distinction between regeneration and conversion.  The two are intricately connected but one can still distinguish between them.  In The Anxious Bench, Nevin’s critique of the revivalism popularized by Finney, he writes that regeneration “is instantaneous, but as such not to be perceived directly in any case by the subject.  It can be perceived only in its effects.  But these belong to conversion, the change that flows from regeneration.”[200]

For Nevin, regeneration could happen at any time, whether that be in the womb, infancy, childhood, or later adulthood.[201]  In contrast to the instantaneous nature of regeneration, conversion was often a gradual process that occurs as children are reared in the bosom of the Church.[202]  Sudden conversions of unchurched adults could also be expected as the part of normal Church ministry.  But this type of conversion should not be promoted to the exclusion of the gradual conversion of those who grow up in the Church.[203]  In a classroom lecture on the internal means of redemption, Nevin defines conversion and states its connection to regeneration:

Conversion is the turning around of man. He exercises a power granted to him by baptismal grace, i.e. in the act of regeneration. Any system that makes salvation come from the subject is dangerous. Man is able to convert himself only in proportion as he apprehends by faith that salvation and righteousness are presented to him in Christ. Conversion is a process, not accomplished in a moment.[204]

As seen above, Nevin ascribed to man a role in his own conversion, but not apart from the supernatural work of Christ in man.  He believed that one can talk about regeneration and conversion separately but they are as closely united as the seed and sprout of a plant:

The sprout depends upon conditions, yet it is the product of the life of the seed; so with conversion, which, though also dependent on conditions, is yet the product and growth of the fact             of regeneration.  In this way regeneration is made to include what belongs in a measure to conversion.[205]

Keeping in mind the close connection between regeneration and conversion, Nevin maintained that there are two parts of conversion: “the illumination of the mind and the renovation of the will; the later belongs properly to conversion. Regeneration may be said to include the germ of conversion.”[206]  The sinner is passive in regeneration but active in conversion.[207]  On the one hand, it is “not sufficient that man should be merely passive.”[208]  But on the other hand, neither “illumination nor renovation can take place without the activity of the will.”[209]

In his statements on regeneration and conversion, Nevin showed that he was conscious of the extreme views that were sometimes taken.  While Calvinists emphasized the complete passivity of man in his own salvation, men such as Finney located the deciding factor in salvation in man himself.  With both these views in mind, Nevin sought to strike a balance between the two:

Some have supposed that if the mind could be enlightened, that would be all that is necessary; others, all that was necessary was a change of disposition. Both these theories are wrong, because they would make conversion depend in a manner on the man himself.[210]

Regeneration and conversion can thus be said to start in neither the will nor the understanding alone.  They go together and each depends on the action of the other for a man to become a new creation in Christ.[211]

To conclude this first section on Nevin’s definition of conversion, it should be noted that Nevin primarily conceived of salvation as being united to Christ.  Thus, Nevin does not often speak of salvation, or conversion, in terms of divine decrees or forensic justification.  Rather, the essence of being a Christian is to be joined to Christ in a mystical union.  Thus, it could be fairly said that for Nevin, to be converted is to be united to Christ.  With conversion in mind, Nevin asserts that mystical union with Christ is “conditioned by faith, which enables us to come into contact with the operations of the Spirit and with the life of Christ.”[212] In the following section on Nevin’s theological presuppositions, we will explore further how the mystical union informed Nevin’s understanding of conversion.

THEOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

Having briefly defined conversion, we will now explore Nevin’s theological presuppositions, which inform his understanding of conversion.  As our study progresses, we will also see the implications of his views on his understanding of conversion.  Nevin generally follows a Calvinistic framework in his theology, however he deviates from that tradition on some points, as will be seen.  Thus, we will briefly examine Nevin views on the sovereignty of God, depravity, human ability, election, reprobation, justification, sanctification, atonement, perseverance, incarnation, mystical union, and the Church.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

Nevin had a high view of God, maintaining that all things were under his control and ordered by his divine decrees.[213]  God’s governance of the universe and his determination of events extends over the realms of both creation and redemption.  Nevin affirmed:

God chooses men and things to accomplish His purposes, whose intentions seem to defeat them, as for example Joseph’s brethren...  It is folly to grant the superintendence of God in nature, and then deny his wisdom displayed in the moral life of humanity and as represented in the history of the world.[214]

God is sovereign in arranging the affairs of the world so that man might be effectively saved by God and united with Christ.  In election, he chose those whom he will save and thus regenerates their hearts that they will be united to the life of Christ in conversion. In contrast to his opponents’ view, Nevin states, “The Holy Ghost in the sinner, or the sinner as born of the Spirit of Christ, submits to God. Any view that stops short of this is rotten as Pelagianism itself.”[215] The necessity of God’s supernatural working in the sovereign regeneration of sinners is thus affirmed.

DEPRAVITY AND HUMAN ABILITY

Nevin maintained that man’s nature is corrupted by sin due to his organic unity with Adam, through whom the nature of humanity as a whole was corrupted.[216]  Contrary to the Pelagians, Nevin affirms the federal headship of Adam.[217]  What was true of Adam is true of humanity as a whole.  Explaining the results of the fall, Nevin says:

Adam ceases to stand in a harmonious and properly constituted union with God. His faculties are disordered, his understanding darkened and his will powerless and bound to evil. A general disablement of human nature has been the result of Adam’s fall.[218]

Man’s ability to do good, and to choose to obey God, have been lethally affected, thus rendering him incapable of remedying his own misery apart from divine grace.  Man does not merely sin, needing only correction and self-will in order to “get religion.”[219]  Such a view is a “monstrous perversion.”[220]  Contrasting these errors with his own view, Nevin writes:

In opposition to this, the true theory of religion carries us continually beyond the individual, to the view of a far deeper and more general form of existence in which his particular life is represented to stand. Thus sin is not simply the offspring of a particular will, putting itself forth in the form of actual transgressions, but a wrong habit of humanity itself, a general and universal force, which includes and rules the entire existence of the individual man from the very start. The disease is organic, rooted in the race, and not to be overcome in any case by a force less deep and general than itself. As well might we look for the acorn to forsake in growing the type of its proper species, and put forth the form of a mountain ash or stately elm. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." So deep and broad is the ruin from which man is to be delivered by the Gospel. And here again, the same depth and breadth are presented to us also in the Christian salvation itself. Man is the subject of it, but not the author of it in any sense. His nature is restorable, but it can never restore itself.”[221]

Following this view of the depravity of man, Nevin affirmed the need of a divine supernatural working of the Spirit to physically regenerate the heart of man and unite him to God.

ELECTION AND REPROBATION

Nevin follows a traditional Calvinistic view of election and reprobation, with some slight modification.  The term “predestination”, as understood by Nevin, includes both election and reprobation.[222]  He affirms that election “means that God has chosen some men to salvation in preference to others,” and that reprobation means “the passing by of those who are left in their sins and go down to destruction.”[223]  Election is not dependent on foreseen faith, as in the Arminian view, nor does it depend on any other personal qualifications.[224]  However, God does arrange the affairs of the lives of individuals in order to bring salvation to them.  This includes the place and family of birth.  Nevin asserts that “the permission to be born in a heathen land or in a Christian, or to be born in a particular family with favorable advantages, is just as much an election as an election to eternal life.”[225]  Nevin thought that such providential placement of individuals for election to eternal life is comprehended in the Jesus’ words, “No man cometh unto me, except the father draw him.”[226]

The peculiarity of Nevin’s expression of the doctrine of election comes in his affirmation of that Christ has redeemed the whole human race. Christ died to redeem all of humanity but that redemption is only applied to some individuals.  He does not advocate universalism but sees the redemption of the whole race in Christ as the necessary corollary of the fall of the whole race in Adam.  Given this view, Nevin accounts for the reprobation of some by attributing their damnation to individual sinners.  He explains that, “while the redemption in Christ is as broad as the whole human race, there are, notwithstanding, individuals who by their relations and own free will exclude themselves.”[227]

Nevin affirms that God’s passing by of the reprobate is “a positive act”, yet admits that this is difficult to understand.  The doctrine of election “appears to lie altogether beyond the grasp of the human mind.”[228]  One the one hand, we want to avoid fatalism in assigning the destruction of some to the decree of God.  Reprobation and perdition are the result, not of God’s decree, but “of man’s own disobedience and perverse conduct.”[229]   But on the other hand, if we take “the rigid speculative view, to save the free agency of man, we are apt to lose the idea of man’s dependence upon God.  The true view seems to lie between these extremes; and since we are not able to comprehend the subject fully, our safest plan, therefore, is to steer between these two extremes.”[230]

JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION

Nevin sees justification and sanctification as different but related parts of a process that brings one into union with God.  Justification is “the absolution of guilt, and by it the sinner is freed from the curse of the law... It implies pardon or remission of sins, and the declaration of being made righteous.  The pardon consists in being freed from sin and from the curse of the law.”[231]  Justification is an act of God that finds its ground in Christ’s righteousness, and the “ground of righteousness is the life of Christ in its broadest sense. The sinner has no righteousness of his own. He must be justified and made righteous through Christ.”[232]  Justification is forensic but it is not merely so.  It “corresponds with the beginning of the mystical union, in which both it and sanctification are included.”[233]

Justification is a single act of God though it is only brought to completion over a period of time.[234]  This is to be distinguished from the Roman Catholic view which merges justification and sanctification into one, making sanctification the ground for one’s justification.  Rather, justification “is the commencement of sanctification and underlies the whole process.”[235]  Though one leads to the other, justification and sanctification may be differentiated by what they remove. “Justification changes the state of man; sanctification induces a new inward habit as far as it prevails.”[236]  From the objective act of justification grounded in the life of Christ, sanctification flows as a subjective experience.  As experienced through faith in Christ, sanctification is composed of two parts, the mortification of sin and cultivation of holiness.[237]  In justification, man is united to Christ and the life of Christ is imputed into his being.  Actual righteousness thus grows out of the life of Christ in the justified man.  In this way, justification becomes complete when it is met by corresponding activity, i.e. faith, on the part of the subject. In this sense, justification may be seen as the germ of sanctification.[238]  Nevin clearly rejects, however, the view that, “on the ground of repentance and obedience sinners may be justified.”[239]

ATONEMENT

Nevin affirms a penal substitutionary view of the atonement.  At the cross, “the burden of God’s wrath” was upon Christ, who frees sinners “from the curse of the law.”[240]  The atonement is “universal in its intention, but limited in its application.  The Bible, the means of grace, and the gracious influence of the Holy Ghost are suitable for all, yet they do not answer for all, nor are they properly used and applied by all.”[241]

PERSEVERANCE

In the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, Nevin departs from traditional Calvinism by virtue of his understanding of baptism.  In baptism, there is something of a “saving relation to Christ” but not all those who are baptized continue in the faith.[242]  Thus, Nevin reasons that it is possible that “God might decree a man to be converted and not to be saved finally.”[243]  In a similar manner, he postulates that it “might be affirmed that some were predestinated to be regenerated, but not saved.”[244]

On the one hand, Nevin displays a high degree of confidence in the efficacy of ordinary means of grace to bring people in union with Christ, and to sustain them in it.[245]  But on the other hand, he does not believe that perseverance follows on necessarily from election.  “This doctrine flows in some form from the doctrine of divine decrees, though not absolutely.”[246]  Nevin summarizes his view:

Perseverance of saints is not of the nature of a physical certainty, but is only certain so far as it springs from the free will, assisted by divine grace.  It is a moral, but not a physical certainty; but it is only so by perceiving and watching against apostasy.[247]

For Nevin, the subject of perseverance is “obscure.”  His affirmation of perseverance is guarded, allowing for backsliding and ultimate perdition before a certain point in life is reached.  “All that we can affirm is that there is a possibility up to a certain point of falling away, and that there is also a point which carries with it a guarantee of perseverance.”[248]  Unfortunately, Nevin does not specify the nature of these points or how to recognize them.

INCARNATION

The incarnation of Christ was central to Nevin’s understanding of the Christian faith.  It is the “key that unlocks the sense of all God’s revelations” and “the great central FACT of the world.”[249]  All of nature, and especially humanity, longs for a “true and real union with the nature of God, as the necessary complement and consummation of its own life.”[250]  Striving after this goal is the great driving force of nature, of all pagan religions, and of Judaism.[251]  Therefore it is only in Christ, the incarnation of the divine in human flesh, that man is able to find the satisfaction of his true and ultimate desire.  It is only in God that man “finds himself... and wakes to the full sense of his own being.”[252] “The incarnation then is the proper completion of humanity.”[253]  The necessity of this union with God became even more pronounced following the fall, when man began to cry loudly for an atonement from sin.[254]  Since Christ is the perfect union of man and God, the incarnation is the “one only medium of such inward, living communication with the divine nature.”[255]  The incarnation of Christ is absolutely essential for salvation for there is no other way that man can reach his goal of union with God.  Conversion, therefore, is the process of becoming united with the divine, through the humanity of Christ in the incarnation.

MYSTICAL UNION

In his explanation of what it means to united to Christ, Nevin laid out three types of union.  First, there is a legal union, external to the parties involved, in which “the merits of Christ are legally set over to believers.”[256]  Secondly is a moral union, “ which rests upon sympathy.”[257]  Thirdly, there is a mystical union, “which indicates oneness of life like that which pervades the members of the same body.”[258]

Nevin believed that the mystical union is the foundation for the other unions, and the source of life for the Christian.  This life, which gives life to men, is found outside of man in the life of the incarnate Christ.  Without the incarnation, this union would be impossible, for it is the humanity of Christ that “becomes the door through which our humanity passes into union with his divinity.”[259]  Nevin summarizes the nature and benefits of the mystical union in this way:

The restoration to be real, must begin beyond the individual. In this case as in the other the general must go before the particular, and support it as its proper ground. Thus humanity, fallen in Adam, is made to undergo a resurrection in Christ, and so restored, flows over organically, as in the other case, to all in whom its life appears. The sinner is saved then by an inward living union with Christ as real as the bond by which he has been joined in the first instance to Adam. This union is reached and maintained, through the medium of the Church, by the power of the Holy Ghost.  It constitutes a new life, the ground of which is not in the particular subject of it at all, but in Christ, the organic root of the Church. The particular subject lives, not properly speaking in the acts of his own will separately considered, but in the power of a vast generic life that lies wholly beyond his will, and has now begun to manifest itself through him as the law and type of his will itself, as well as of his whole being.[260]

As Nevin indicates here, the life to which man is made part lies outside of himself.  In this manner, he affirms the objective nature of the Christian’s salvation.  Salvation does not depend upon a subjective feeling in man, nor does it consist in his degree of obedience to God’s commands. However, this mystical union with Christ is “conditioned by faith, which enables us to come into contact with the operations of the Spirit and with the life of Christ.”[261]  But this faith accomplishes nothing apart from the activity of God’s Spirit. “The mystical union is accomplished by the Holy Spirit on the one side and faith on the other, but as counterparts.”[262]  Both active faith and the work of the Spirit are necessary in bringing man into union with Christ.  Neither works in independence of the other.  Nevin’s emphasis, however, is upon the Spirit’s appropriation of the life of Christ to the believer.  “The Spirit brings the whole person of Christ into union with man.”[263]  Thus, the source of man’s union with Christ is the activity of God, not the activity of man.

THE CHURCH

For John Nevin, the Church was essential in God’s plan to bring humanity into union with himself.  As the body of Christ, the Church arises necessarily from the incarnation, and brings a new constitution of life into the world.[264]  In its visible, historic expression, the Church is “an assembly of Christians in one place, a congregation,” and is “the complex totality of all believers.”[265]

The Church, in its ideal form, possess the attributes of “unity, catholicity, holiness, apostolicity and infallibility.”[266]  None of these are perfectly expressed in this world but as the Church grows and develops, she will eventually attain to them all in the millennial Church Triumphant.[267]  Nevin wrote that the Church “is a process, never fully commensurate with the idea, yet approximating always towards such commensuration.”[268]

Contrary to the developing popular view of his time, Nevin emphasized that the Church was a divinely ordained institution, not merely a voluntary society of like-minded individuals.[269]  As such, the Church was “the last and deepest ground of man’s life,” unlike Islam, Judaism, or any other religion or voluntary organization.[270]  As the manifestation of the life of Christ in this world, the Church was divinely imbued with certain means, which are necessary to carry out its mission. Nevin wrote that:

the means of grace comprehended in its [viz. the Church’s] constitution [were] all-sufficient under God for the accomplishment of its own purposes.  The means are felt to be something more than mere devices of human ingenuity, and are honored and diligently used accordingly as the ‘wisdom of God and the power of God’ unto salvation.[271]

The ordinary “means of grace” which Nevin had in mind were:

A ministry apt to teach; sermons full of unction and light; faithful, systematic instruction; zeal for the interests of holiness; pastoral visitation; catechetical training; due attention to order and discipline; patient perseverance in the details of the ministerial work[272]

The above means were those to which Nevin believed that the Church must focus its energy.  He had little confidence in so-called “New Measures,” such as the Anxious Bench, against which he wrote a lengthy critique.  The novelty and excitement of the individualistic revivalism promoted by Finney and his imitators had no divine sanction.  God had prescribed certain means for the conversion and continued growth of His people,  and these means were the natural expression of the life of the Church.  The Church is central to both evangelism and discipleship because it is the Church alone that can impart life.[273]

HOW CONVERSION HAPPENS

To wrap up the first part of this chapter on the nature of conversion in Nevin’s theology, we will now look at the role of God and man in conversion.  The remainder of the present chapter will then focus upon the means, or methods, that Nevin thought should be employed in seeking conversions.

GOD’S ROLE IN CONVERSION

Reacting to the individualistic revivalism of Charles Finney, Nevin asserted that God was the one who saved and converted through the means of grace.[274]  Salvation could never come from the subject himself but had to come from God, working through the Church.  God elected some unto salvation, called them, and regenerated them through the Church.  The subjective experience of repenting and believing was secondary to the objective work of God in uniting them to Christ.  While man was active in conversion, it was only as a result, and in cooperation with the Spirit of God.  Nevin wrote: “The Holy Ghost in the sinner, or the sinner as born of the Spirit of Christ, submits to God. Any view that stops short of this is rotten as Pelagianism itself.”[275]  Salvation originated from God and ultimately depends upon God, not upon any subjective experience or self-will in the activity of man.

MAN’S ROLE IN CONVERSION

While it is God who originates salvation and gives life to man in bringing him into union with Christ, Nevin also affirms that man plays a role in his conversion.  It is God who regenerates man, but man subjectively apprehends Christ in the Gospel.  His response is repentance and faith.  Redemption was objectively accomplished by Christ, and humanity redeemed by virtue of its organic union with Christ.  However, redemption is applied through the means of grace.  It “is accomplished by the power of the Holy Ghost on the one side, and by faith on the other, which, however, is always through external media.”[276]  The “external media” that Nevin had in mind was the preaching of the Word, the Sacraments, and other ordinary means of grace given to the Church.  Both the individual, and the Church more broadly, are to use these means for the conversion and continued growth of God’s people.

MEANS OF CONVERSION

In the final section of this chapter we will look at the means that Nevin thought must be employed in the conversion of sinners.  After surveying Nevin’s thought on the roles of means in general, we will look at in turn specific means that Nevin thought necessary, together with the reasons attached to them.

THE CHURCH MUST USE THE MEANS GIVEN BY GOD

Of the many means that one might use to promote the Gospel, the Church must use the means given by God.  The Church possesses a spiritual life that comes from God.  This life is brought to bear upon man “in the Church, by means of institutions and agencies which God has appointed, and clothed with power, expressly for this end.”[277]  While conversion and sanctification depend upon the agency of the Holy Spirit, these ends are “accomplished by means or instruments, which are the Word and Sacraments.”[278]  Nevin often used the phrase “Word and Sacraments” as shorthand for all the means and methods that God has appointed for His Church.  In The Anxious Bench, Nevin also talked of the ordinary means of grace as the system of the Catechism.[279]  God’s appointed means consisted of more than just catechetical training but Nevin took the Catechism as a symbol for the whole.[280] This was done in contrast to the system of the Bench, where the Anxious Bench was made to represent the whole system of New Measures and the principles behind them.  The Bench was at war with the Catechism and its measures were not only insufficient but harmful to the interests of true Christianity.[281]  Contrasting the Bench with the Catechism, Nevin writes:

It is a different system altogether that is required to build up the interests of Christianity in a firm and sure way. A ministry apt to teach; sermons full of unction and light; faithful, systematic   instruction; zeal for the interests of holiness; pastoral visitation; catechetical training; due attention to order and discipline; patient perseverance in the details of the ministerial work; these are the agencies by which alone the kingdom of God may be expected to go steadily forward, among any people. Where these are fully employed, there will be revivals; but they will be only as it were the natural fruit of the general culture going before, without that spasmodic, meteoric character which too often distinguishes excitements under this name.[282]

The great weight of Nevin’s hope for biblical Christianity was upon steady, diligent use of God’s means for building up his Church.  Comparing the Catechism with the Bench, Nevin wrote: “The common and the constant are of vastly more account than the special and the transient.”[283]  Conversions should rightly be expected to come from within the Church and through the means of her regular ministries.  Nevin specifically rejected the premise of the Bench that conversions should normally be expected from outside the Church and apart from ordinary means.[284]  In the final chapter of The Anxious Bench, Nevin points to the ministry of Richard Baxter in Kidderminster, England as an historical example of the power of the Catechism.  When Baxter first came to Kidderminster, the parish was an unregenerate and rude place, their former pastor having been a drunkard.  However, as Baxter preached regularly, visited parishioners at home, and instructed them in the catechism, a transformation took place.  Baxter, as cited by Nevin, wrote:

The congregation was usually full, so that we were fain to build about five galleries after my coming thither; the church itself being very capacious, and the most commodious and convenient that ever I was in. Our private meetings, also, were full. On the Lord's days there was no disorder to be seen in the streets; but you might hear a hundred families singing psalms and repeating sermons. as you passed I through them. In a word, when 1 came thither first there was about one family in a street that worshipped God and called on His name; and when I came away, there were some streets where there was not one poor family in the side that did not so; and that did not by professing serious godliness, give us hopes of their sincerity.[285]

Nevin believed that ministers and Churches who followed the example of Baxter would see the growth of healthy biblical Christianity, but those who used some other means did a great amount of harm and were to be opposed.  Nevin granted that God could use even ill-conceived methodology to save sinners yet this did not excuse such methodology, which spawned spurious revivals, gave false hope to thousands, and brought unconverted sinners into the Church.[286]  In the next chapter we will hear more from Nevin on the errors of the Bench but we will first conclude the present chapter by looking at Nevin’s thoughts on the means that should be positively employed.

MEANS NECESSARY TO CONVERSION

THE WORD OF GOD

The most primary and central means for the conversion of sinners is the Word of God.  The Word is powerful to regenerate and convert because in it is the life of Christ.[287]  It is a “means by which the redemption of Christ is applied to man externally.”[288]  However, the “Word is not sufficient per se to save man. It’s design is principally to enlighten the mind, and to point the sinner to Christ.”[289]  The Word “depends on conditions to make it effective,” and must be united with faith on the part of man.[290]

Both the reading and preaching of the Word are effective in bringing man into union with Christ, but Nevin believed that it had its greatest effect when preached.[291]  This is due in part to the fact that the spoken word has “more effect than truth entering the mind under an abstract form [viz. reading].”[292]  More importantly, however, there is also a social dynamic between preacher and listeners that creates a greater impact than solitary reading.  Nevin explains:

By the social principle we have a mass of minds in the case of believers, who are in sympathy with the truth preached, which not only gives back a response, but also affects the preacher, giving him more confidence and power, and also has effect on all present.  This clothes the truth not only with power for believers, but for unbelievers. The Word in this case is clothed with its proper life from the Spirit of the Church.[293]

By the same reasoning, Nevin argues for the value of liturgical forms, corporate reading of the Apostles’ Creed and articles of faith, and responsive readings in public worship services.  The Word is made more powerful in the lives of believers as God’s people share in it together.  This dynamic “clothes the truth not only with power for believers, but for unbelievers.”[294]  The written Word alone is insufficient for making the Word “efficacious to its full power.”[295]  Nevin explains:

The Word of God to accomplish its purpose must be a living word. This is the only form under which it is full and complete  The power of the Church is required under the form of the preached Word and worship, as well as other ways, to disseminate the Gospel of Christ.[296]

THE SACRAMENTS

Apart from the preached Word, Nevin gave priority to the Sacraments as means of grace for the conversion and upbuilding of His people.  Nevin cites historical precedent for this view, asserting that in “the early Church the sacraments were regarded as the principal media in the application of redemption.”[297]

Briefly defined, Nevin held that a sacrament is “an invisible grace going along with a visible sign.”[298]  In both baptism and the Lord’s Supper, there is an actual grace communicated to the recipient.  As a means of conversion, the sacraments convey and carry forward the application of redemption.  Sacramental grace begins in baptism and grows from there.  Baptism “does not secure conversion, but lays a proper ground for it in a subjective way by a divine act.”[299]  Nevin prefers the term “baptismal grace” over “baptismal regeneration” because sometimes conversion never follows baptism.  “Baptism places the individual in a covenant relationship to God, which, however, is no guarantee that the final result will be reached.”[300]

Although Nevin does not hold that baptism certainly regenerates a person, it may still be considered as a sacrament of regeneration, but only as the Spirit creates faith and repentance in the life.  Infant baptism precedes that later illumination whereby the grace conferred in baptism is made effective when it is united with faith.[301]

Like baptism, there is also a grace communicated to the subject in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  What baptism begins, the Supper continues.  Nevin writes: “The Lord’s Supper is designed to carry forward the objective process by which the grace of Christ is made over more and more to the subject.”[302] The Sacraments have great value in strengthening the faith of God’s people and uniting them with God through the incarnation.  However, they are not effective in the Roman Catholic sense of ex opere operato.  Nevin writes: “All depends on the exercise of faith by the subject on the one side and the continual influence of the Spirit on the other.  The sacraments have no power in themselves separated from the Spirit. Nor has the Word sundered from the Spirit any power.”[303]

THE CHURCH

Flowing from his conception of the Church as a life-giving organism rooted in the Incarnation, Nevin believed that the common way for people to come to faith in Christ was through the ordinary, everyday ministries of the local Church.  This begins in infancy with baptism and is continued and strengthened throughout life.  It is within the Church, and through the Church, that conversion most often occurs.  To neglect an ordinary means of grace ministry is to neglect the primary means for conversion that God has appointed.

Nevin observed, however, that where the system of the Bench was in full effect, confidence in this normal, progressive ministry of the Church was negated.[304]  It should be noted that one of Nevin’s primary objections to the Anxious Bench was not “sudden conversions in later life.”[305]  These might be expected of any normal Gospel ministry.  The problem lay in the fact that such conversions were being touted as the normal, and expected, way that people become Christians.  The result was that the ordinary means ministry of the local Church were brushed aside as redundant and powerless to truly effect conversions.  Commenting on the view of the Church held by advocates of the Bench, Nevin wrote: “Apart from its seasons of excitement, no particular Church is expected to have much power.”[306]  On the contrary, Nevin believed that the power of the Church lay precisely in the common acts of preaching, corporate worship, the Sacraments, family worship, pastoral visitation, and catechesis.  And this process of conversion begins early in life, and encompasses the whole family.  The system of the Bench, with its emphasis on sudden conversion later in life, harmfully neglects the raising up of children in the way of the Lord.  Nevin asserted that if “conversion is not expected nor sought in this way among infants and children, it is not often likely to occur.”[307]

The ordinary ministries of the Church were important in another way, connected with Nevin’s understanding of conversion as an ongoing process.[308]  Nevin observed that the system of the Bench made conversion everything, and sanctification, nothing.[309]  The Bench makes conversion “to be the all in all of the Gospel economy, and the development of the Christian life subsequently a mere secondary interest” that might be “safely left... to take care of itself.”[310]  By emphasizing sudden conversion as the high point and climax of power in the Church, the Bench drew attention away from the more common, ongoing ministry of the Church that was need to sustain converts.  It is not insignificant that in Finney’s Systematic Theology, there is no chapter on the Church, a doctrine to which the authors of most other systematic theologies devote significant space.  But where the Bench almost entirely neglects the Church, Nevin reiterates again and again the Church’s absolute necessity for both conversion and Christian growth.  Emphasizing the necessity of the Church as God’s appointed means, Nevin writes:

But in the gospel, all is made to hang on the growth of the Church itself, in grace and living power.  This is the great object to be reached after in the ministerial and pastoral work; and it is only as this is in some good measure secured, that this work can be brought to bear with proper efficiency on the world beyond.[311]

THE FAMILY

In Nevin’s mind, the family was a “vital and fundamental force in the general organization of the Church.”[312]  As such, it was necessary to take all proper pains to “promote religion in families as the indispensable condition of its prosperity under all other forms.”[313]  It was the specific duty of parents to care for their children’s spiritual well-being, to teach them to pray, and to teach them the Catechism.  Parents should lead their children in worship around the “family altar”, and should take advantage of opportunities to instill in their minds “the great truths of religion ‘in the house and by the way.’”[314]  Parents should also be careful to live pious and holy lives, as their example is necessary “to impart life to all other forms of influence.”[315]

THE PASTORAL OFFICE

Nevin believed that God had given pastors to his Church as a divinely ordained means for the conversion and upbuilding of his people.[316]  Their office was an organic extension of the Church, and its necessity and power grew directly out of the Church.  In the Great Commission, Christ instituted the apostles as the first ministers and subsequently imbued them with power to fulfill that ministry on the day of Pentecost.[317]  Similarly, contemporary ministers receive supernatural power for the fulfillment of their office at the time of ordination.[318]  In an essay on Nevin’s understanding of the pastoral office, Sam Hamstra, Jr. wrote:

Nevin taught that God had designed the office of the ministry as the medium by which his grace is channeled to the world and to his people so that individuals are elevated to true dignity and, thus the moral fiber of the community is enhanced. Ministers are “ambassadors” of God’s grace, transmitting the life-transforming power of God that will “build people in faith and hope of the gospel unto everlasting life.” “Ministers of Christ” therefore, “are set in the world to be at once the representatives of his authority and the ambassadors of his grace.”[319]

To fulfill their divine calling, pastors should devote themselves especially to preaching, to catechetical instruction, and to personal visitation.  Nevin wrote:

The faithful minister is found preaching the Gospel from house to house as well as in a more public way; visiting families that are under his care, expressly for this purpose; conversing with old and young on the great subject of personal religion; mingling with the poor, in their humble dwellings, as well as with those in better circumstances; ministering the instructions of religion, or its consolations, at the bed-side of the sick or dying; and in one word laying himself out in continual labors of love towards all as the servant of all for Jesus’ sake.[320]

On the subject of preaching, we have already commented above in the section on the Word of God as a means of conversion.  Concerning catechetical instruction and pastoral visitation, a few words are in order.

While instruction of the whole congregation was important, Nevin thought that the pastor had a special responsibility towards the children and young people of the congregation.  Through the use of the catechism, the pastor had a powerful tool whereby children might be taught the faith, in hopes that they would eventually make a profession of faith and participate in the Lord’s Supper.[321]  The pastor should be careful to avoid dead formalism in his catechetical instruction to youth, and “he should make a distinct effort to develop a good relationship with them.”[322]

In addition to personal instruction to young people, Nevin was convinced that the pastor should visit congregation members for instruction and counsel.  Visiting congregation members personally was an important way that the pulpit is brought to the individual.  Visitation helps the pastor to develop a closer relationship with his people and helps them to come to view him as a trusted advisor and sympathetic friend.

For Nevin, not only were the pastoral functions important, but also the spiritual life of the pastor himself.  An ungodly example could negate any positive impact that faithful prosecution of his pastoral activities may have had.  Nevin writes:

The holiness of his own life particularly becomes, in these circumstances, an agency powerful     beyond all others to recommend and enforce the gospel he is called to preach. To all who know him, his very presence carries with it the weight of an impressive testimony in favor of the truth.[323]

CHAPTER 5

THE VIEWS OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN ON CONVERSION, COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER AND SCRIPTURE

Having surveyed the views of both Charles Finney and John Nevin, the present chapter will be a comparison and analysis of their views with the aim of drawing out the implications of each for evangelistic methodology in particular, and the Christian life in general.  We will follow the same general order of presentation as the previous two chapters, namely looking at the definition of conversion, followed by theological presuppositions.  We will then compare their thoughts on the nature and use of means in general, followed by a comparison of their views on specific means to be employed in seeking conversions.

Both Finney and Nevin embraced particular systems of theological convictions, and these convictions led them to employ certain means in seeking conversions, and to reject others.  Methodology is not neutral and we will see in this chapter, and the next, how particular theological convictions undergird particular methodologies.  In this chapter, we will touch briefly on the practical ramifications of their views.  However, the main work of drawing out the implications of their views, together with contemporary application, will be done in the next chapter.

DEFINITION OF CONVERSION

Both Finney and Nevin agreed that man is active in conversion, and that conversion is fundamentally turning away from sin, and submitting to God.  However, this is where the similarity ends.  They differ on three main points, 1) the relationship between regeneration and conversion, 2) the time frame in which conversion occurs, and 3) the way in which God is active in man’s conversion.

While Finney affirmed the fundamental unity of regeneration and conversion, Nevin separated them out into two distinct, but related, events.  The reason for this difference is that Finney located the deciding factor in man’s salvation in man himself.  Man was responsible for regenerating and converting himself by an act of the will.  Thus, both of these acts necessarily happened simultaneously by the act of decision.  The human heart was not unduly encumbered by sin.  Therefore, a decision for, or against, God was possible at all times.

Nevin, however, did not unite regeneration and conversion because God was the source of salvation, not man.  Man’s heart required, as a prerequisite to man’s activity in conversion, a change wrought by the Holy Spirit.  Because man was passive in regeneration but active in conversion, the two events could be distinguished.  These events could be distinguished by reason of their nature and source, and they could also be separated in time.

As both Finney and Nevin have observed, there is a close connection between regeneration and conversion such that the two are difficult to distinguish.  Nevin himself observed that regeneration “can be perceived only in its effects.”[324]  Despite the close connection between the two, it is important to distinguish between them because Scripture locates the source of man’s salvation in the activity of God, not in the activity of man.  When Nicodemus asked Jesus how it is possible for man to be born again (John 3:4), Jesus did not tell him that man need only change the intention of his will in order to be born again.  Rather, Jesus located the new birth in the activity of the Spirit. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).  A belief in the necessity of regeneration by the Spirit does not necessarily result in passivity and a failure to use means to seek conversion, as Finney attributed to his opponents.[325]  Calvinist preachers such as Asahel Nettleton believed in the passivity of man in regeneration, yet actively preached with the aim of leading people to repent.  Nevin himself believed in lively preaching and active engagement of listeners to lead them to continually put their faith in Christ.  In his defense of the unity of regeneration and conversion, it would seem that Finney was fighting the straw man of hyper-Calvinism rather than actual opponents.  In every age, proponents of passivity can be found on the fringes of Calvinism but such a view is not the mainstream of Calvinistic orthodoxy.

Although Finney did acknowledge that God was at work in salvation in the form of moral influence, his view put the greater emphasis upon man’s work in salvation.  However, the Scriptures put the emphasis upon God’s activity in salvation.  Along with Jonah, we must confess that “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jonah 2:9).  Otherwise, the result is an unscriptural de-emphasis of God’s work in salvation and a prideful exaltation of man’s work in effecting his salvation.

THEOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS

HUMAN DEPRAVITY & HUMAN ABILITY

The difference in perspective between Finney and Nevin on the sinfulness of man is perhaps the hinge upon which the rest of their theology of conversion turns.  Finney rightly observed that unless his opponents were to change their view of human depravity, they could never be expected to agree with his understanding of conversion.[326]

Because Finney believed that man’s heart was not sinful by nature, or constitution, it was possible for man to repent at any time.  Man was not so corrupt that he could not be induced to repent with the right amount of persuasion.  And when salvation depends wholly upon being sufficiently persuaded to change one’s mind, it is incumbent upon preachers to use all means necessary to get people to change their mind.  Reliance upon God in evangelism is made functionally redundant.  A low view of human depravity leads necessarily to a high view of man’s ability to effect his own salvation, and the salvation of others.

Nevin, on the other hand, maintained that man, left to himself, did not have the ability to repent because he was sinful by nature.  There was something fundamentally flawed in the human heart that affected every part of his being, including his will, his ability to reason, and to choose.  The result of this belief is a dependence upon God to change the human heart.  Man, left to himself, cannot change his own heart and make himself desire God.  A high view of human depravity leads necessarily to a low view of human ability to effect his own salvation, and the salvation of others.  Dependence upon God is absolutely necessary and there is only so much that a preacher can do to effect salvation.  Preachers must preach because God uses human means, but no amount of high pressure persuasion can induce man to genuinely repent, unless God is at work in changing the sinner’s heart.

While Finney defended his view rationally by claiming that the opposite view gave sinners an excuse for not repenting, his low view of human depravity is not in accord with the collective testimony of Scripture.  The Apostle Paul wrote that all mankind are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).  And following the Psalmist, Paul writes elsewhere that none “is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God” (Rom. 3:11).  Moses wrote that every intention of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5), and Jeremiah likewise testified that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)  Although Finney was right in saying that man’s sinfulness is a sinful habit, he was wrong in concluding that this habit was the whole of human sinfulness.  Sinful habits arise from a sinful nature.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

Finney’s low view of human depravity and high view of human ability led necessarily to diminished role for God in the salvation of sinners.  Finney and Nevin both believed that part of God’s sovereign role in saving sinners was ordering the times and circumstances of their lives that they might hear the truth at an opportune time.  However, Finney’s scheme admits necessarily to the sovereignty of man in his own salvation since the deciding variable is located in man.  For Nevin, however, God was sovereign in salvation since he elected some to salvation on the basis of his own good pleasure, not because of foreseen faith on the part of the subject.

Because Finney believed that God was not so sovereign as to save sinners in spite of human failings, he urged Christians to push for immediate repentance before feelings of anxiety or guilt wore off.  If such feelings dissipated, then God was unable to save the sinner.  The result was high pressure evangelism.  Nevin, on the other hand, displayed a high degree of confidence in God sovereignly saving sinners through the ordinary means of Church ministry.  Thus, he was not concerned about inducing a profession of faith on the spot as Finney was, since feelings of anxiety or guilt over sin that were truly from God would persevere, and the sinner would ultimately be saved.  This later view is more in accord with the testimony of Scripture.  In all his writings to the Churches, the Apostle Paul displays great confidence in God’s calling in the lives of his people and his ability to save those whom he had called.  To the Philippians, Paul wrote, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

ELECTION AND REPROBATION

Finney locates the ultimate cause for God’s election or reprobation of sinners in the free will of sinners themselves.  In this way, God is cleared from responsibility for man’s damnation, and man’s free will is preserved.  Nevin rejects this view, pointing out that if we are to preserve “the free agency of man, we are apt to lose the idea of man’s dependence upon God.”[327]  Nevin, on the other hand, credited God with the salvation of sinners on the basis of His free election of man to eternal life, not on the basis of any conditions in man himself.  Nevin and Finney might agree however, that man, not God, is responsible for his own destruction.  Nevin affirmed only single predestination, not double predestination as did Calvin.

JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION

On the issues of justification and sanctification, Nevin and Finney differ as widely as do traditional Reformation Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.  Finney’s rejection of imputation and penal substitutionary atonement as the basis for justification of the sinner naturally results in affirmation of sanctification as the necessary ground of justification before God.[328]  As one who self-identified as a Protestant, Finney, of course, denied that man was saved by good works.[329]  However, his token denial of Pelagianism cannot be taken too seriously in the face of the overwhelming thrust of his broader theology of justification and sanctification.  The need for one to be completely sanctified as a condition of justification was likely a driving force in Finney’s later emphasis upon Christian perfection.

On the issues of justification and sanctification, the overwhelming testimony of Scripture is with Nevin, and against Finney.  Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone, and is not on the basis of good works, lest any man should boast (Eph. 2:8-9). Imputation may not make sense to Finney but it is the position of Scripture. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).  And again, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  In answer to Finney’s objection that belief in imputation of righteousness leads to antinomianism, the Apostle Paul answers, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:1-2).  Finney’s fear is unfounded, as is evidenced by James, who affirmed that good works naturally flow from genuine faith (Jas. 2:14-17).

ATONEMENT

As touched on in the previous section, the penal substitutionary view of the atonement has the support of Scripture, and is the position held by Nevin in the historic Protestant tradition.  The governmental theory of the atonement, as held by Finney, lacks Scriptural support.  It functionally implies that Christ did not accomplish anything at the cross, as pertains to redemption.  The governmental theory makes the sacrifice of Christ to be of value only as a demonstration that God the Father is serious about sin.  When anything other than a penal substitutionary view is taken, one must find some other basis for justification than Christ’s work on the cross.  And the only other basis is human merit, as evidenced in Finney’s belief that sanctification is a condition for justification.  Under the governmental scheme, the glory ascribed to God in the redemption of sinners is diminished because Christ did not actually redeem anyone.  The focus of the Gospel message is thus no longer upon what God has done for us in Christ, because he has not done much.  Man becomes greater, and Christ lesser.

PERSEVERANCE

Finney and Nevin seem to agree that the perseverance of the saints is not assured, yet upon different bases. Finney believed that one is only justified as long as he is living in perfect obedience.[330]  Man’s final perseverance depends ultimately upon man’s ability to maintain his justification.  Nevin, on the other hand, affirmed that God granted perseverance to some, but rejected the traditional Calvinistic position that perseverance naturally followed on from regeneration and conversion on the basis of God’s election and divine decrees.  Neither Finney nor Nevin’s views wholly accord with Scripture.  The Apostle Paul displayed great confidence in the fact that God would grant perseverance to his people (Phil. 1:6).  And contrary to Nevin’s assessment of the Calvinist position, perseverance does follow on from election, as evidenced in passages such as Rom. 8:30: “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

THE CHURCH

Both Finney and Nevin were involved with local Churches, yet they had extremely different views on the nature and importance of the Church.  In Finney’s Systematic Theology, there is a noticeable lack of attention given to the doctrine of the Church.  The cause of this omission is suggested in his Lectures on Revivals of Religion, where Finney wrote:

There is so little principle in the Church, so little firmness and stability of purpose, that unless it is greatly excited, it will go back from the path of duty, and do nothing to promote the glory of God.[331]

Finney does not reject the Church, as such, but demonstrates a low degree of confidence in the Church to carry out the Great Commission.  His confidence, rather, was in a continual series of new excitements and novelties designed to get the attention of a sleepy Church, awakening them from their nominalism.[332]

Nevin, on the other hand, completely rejects Finney’s pessimistic view of the Church.  For Nevin, the Church is God’s divinely established institution for communicating grace to his people.  The Church imparts life.[333]  In Nevin’s scheme, the Church is not optional, but indispensable.

Although we may grant that many Churches lack power and life, the weight of Scripture gives a role of central importance to the Church in God’s plan of redemption.  The Church is a God-given institution, as Christ testified when he said, “I will build my Church” (Matt. 16:18).  In praying for the disciples who would compose his Church, Christ indicated that it would be through the life of the Church community that people would know that he came from God: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21).  Paul’s missionary journeys resulted in the establishment of Churches, which were “the pillar and buttress of the truth” and whose leaders were expected to keep the tradition handed down to them (1 Tim. 3:15, 2 Thess. 3:6).  It was not a continual series of evangelistic rallies and innovations in worship that Paul commended for the care and growth of his Church.  Rather, it was godly elders to whom Paul entrusted the Churches (Titus 1:5; Acts 20:28).

ROLE OF GOD IN CONVERSION

While Finney and Nevin agreed that God is active in the conversion of sinners, they disagreed as to the nature and extent of that involvement.  For Finney, God’s activity is limited to that of arranging circumstances for a sinner to be receptive to the truth, and impressing that truth upon his mind.  God’s power for salvation is the power of persuasion, not the power of changing the heart so that the sinner desires God.  In Finney’s scheme, it may be fairly said that God does all that he can do and then waits, and hopes, for man to respond positively.  In Nevin’s scheme, God is active in all the ways that Finney would affirm but he also changes the heart of man in regeneration so that he will certainly believe and be saved.

For both Finney and Nevin, there is an expressed dependence on God for the salvation of sinners.  But for Finney it is much less so.  In Scripture, God asserts that he goes beyond merely arranging circumstances providentially and impressing truth upon the mind.  He also changes hearts.  God has declared, through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them” (Ezek. 11:19-20, cf. Ezek. 36:26-27).  Nevin’s view is thus in accordance with Scripture, whereas Finney’s understanding is deficient.

ROLE OF MAN IN CONVERSION

Both Finney and Nevin affirmed that man is active in his own conversion, but they differ as to the source of that conversion.  Finney makes man the ultimate decision maker in his own conversion, whereas Nevin ascribes that role to God.  A consequence of Finney’s view is that man is given room for boasting in his own wisdom or intelligence that caused him to choose God.  Such boasting is removed in Nevin’s scheme, as God is the ultimate deciding factor in bringing about the salvation of men.

Aside from the individual subject of conversion himself, Finney and Nevin placed great emphasis upon the need for a preacher.  The Word of God is God’s truth that must be pressed upon man’s mind.  However, the preacher who follows Finney’s system of theology is left with a crushing burden of responsibility for the conversion of sinners.[334]  Their salvation depends, in large part, on his ability to be convincing.  Nevin also places great importance upon preaching, but in his theological system the preacher does not labor under the burden of believing that his listeners’ salvation ultimately depends upon his skill and ability in preaching.  For Nevin, the power of God in causing salvation lies in the ordinary means of grace that are used by men, but made effective unto salvation by God.  Since Finney lacks such confidence in the ordinary, everyday workings of the Church, preachers must whip up excitement and novelty to gain a hearing before pressing men to submit to God immediately.

Scripture affirms the activity of man in conversion, evidenced by the many calls for man to repent (Matt. 3:2, Mark 6:12, Acts 2:38, Acts 17:30).  But man is not the deciding variable in his salvation. Otherwise, why would God say, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:13)?  Or to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” (Rom. 9:15).  The source of man’s salvation is not in his own power of decision, as Finney asserted.  Otherwise, Jesus would have responded with an imperative to Nicodemus’ question regarding the new birth.  Instead, Jesus cited the sovereign activity of the Holy Spirit as the source of regeneration and conversion, not man (John 3:1-8).

THE NATURE OF MEANS

In this next section, we will look at Finney and Nevin’s differing beliefs regarding the nature and use of means in general.  This will be followed by a comparison of their views on specific means.

THE NECESSITY AND CHARACTER OF MEANS

Neither Finney nor Nevin would deny that means should be employed in the conversion of sinners.  The fact that Nevin would advocate for the use of means is significant because it flies in the face of Finney’s caricature of those who hold the theological views that Nevin does.  Finney claimed that those who believe in the inability of the sinner to change his own heart were passively waiting around for God to work, apart from means.[335]  On the contrary, Finney’s detractors were not failing to use means.  They simply were not using Finney’s means.

Finney saw God’s work in conversion as occurring entirely through the use of natural means, to the exclusion of any supernatural or miraculous intervention.  “A revival is not a miracle” wrote Finney, “nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means.”[336]  Finney believed in God’s providential arrangement of circumstances and pressing truth upon the sinner’s mind.  However, these all happened through naturally constituted means that God had already set in place.  In saying that “Revival is not a miracle” Finney is not denying that God has any role in the world, or in salvation.  Rather, he is specifically targeting those who claim that a special work of the Spirit is needed to change the sinner’s heart.  Nevin would agree with Finney, to a large extent, that God works through naturally constituted means but he would still affirm the supernatural work of the Spirit in regeneration.

MEANS PRESCRIBED BY SCRIPTURE

Finney believed that the Bible prescribed no particular means to promote the Gospel other than the Gospel message itself.[337]  Anything that gained a hearing and was effective in producing conversions was fair game in terms of methodology.  Nevin, on the other hand, advocated a strict adherence to the methods handed down to us through the Church and the pages of Scripture.

There is a sense in which Finney is correct in saying that the means that are in use today “have been arrived at by degrees, and by a succession of New Measures.”[338]  The style and manner of preaching, administering the Sacraments, prayer, and other Churchly activities have certainly changed over time.  However, Finney is incorrect to say that Scripture does not prescribe any measures.  All of the means advocated by Nevin are either explicitly commanded by Scripture, or can be necessarily derived from Scriptural precedent and example.

Because Finney did not believe that the Scriptures prescribed any particular methods, one might think that Finney would have been open to a wide range of methods.  In reality, however, Finney vigorously advocated for certain “New Measures” and denounced those who disagreed with his methodology.   A new age called for new measures, thought Finney.  And without such measures, there was no way that the Gospel could go forth powerfully.  Finney wrote:

Without new measures it is impossible that the Church should succeed in gaining the attention of the world to religion.  There are so many exciting subjects constantly brought before the public mind, such a running to and fro, so many that cry "Lo here!" and "Lo there!" that the Church cannot maintain her ground without sufficient novelty in measures, to get the public ear.[339]

Throughout his writing, particularly when addressing the issue of new measures, Finney displayed an extreme degree of confidence in the ability of his measures to bring results.  And he could not understand how anyone would be opposed to his measures, except out of undue attachment to old forms, or sheer prejudice against what is called a new innovation.[340]  If we compare Finney’s advocacy for new measures to the pages of Scripture, we find a very stark difference in emphasis.  While Finney thought that the Church always needed something new, the emphasis of Scripture is upon guarding what has been handed down.  Old Testament Israel was to diligently keep the law of Moses (Deut. 6:1-25), and Jesus said that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it (Matt 5:17).  When Paul instructed Timothy concerning the establishment of new Churches, he told him to guard the deposit which had been given to him (1 Tim. 6:20, 2 Tim 1:14).  Completely absent from Scripture is Finney’s concern for continually finding more effective methods that would excite the crowds, and gain a hearing.  Nevin’s emphasis, however, upon faithfully using the means of grace that we find in Scripture, is true to the spirit of the Scriptures.

CORRESPONDENCE OF EXTERNAL FORMS AND INTERNAL REALITY

From a pragmatic perspective, the crucial factor in deciding upon what means are to be used to seek conversions is whether the means used accomplish the ends desired.  Means, by nature, are external methods that are designed to affect some real change inwardly, and spiritually, within a person.  Both Finney and Nevin desired to see people obtain to a true and living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that flowed out of a regenerate heart.  A lack of correspondence between the internal and the external was only a sham religion.  Finney and Nevin’s disagreement, however, came in the way in which we are to discern that inward change.

Finney proceeded on the assumption that if someone, in response to a preacher’s invitation, made a visible external act indicating conversion, then that person was certainly converted.  The act of coming forward, nodding the head, or raising the hand was a test of submission to God.  All those who submitted to such a test were certainly converted.  This accorded with Finney’s theology of conversion, namely that conversion is merely a changing of one’s mind.  And because the mind, according to Finney, is not unduly affected by a sinful nature, man is thus able to make such a decision, rationally and freely.[341]  Finney does not seem to ever acknowledge that those making professions of faith via the anxious bench or similar methods could have any motivation other than submission to God.  Thus, for Finney, there is an exact and necessary correspondence between the external act of profession of faith and internal spiritual transformation.  It does not seem to have occurred to Finney that others factors, such as emotionalism, peer pressure, or psychological manipulation could have been primary motivating factors in the conversions gained through the anxious bench.

Nevin, on the other hand, did not share Finney’s conviction that external professions of faith necessarily indicated genuine, internal, spiritual conversion.  Nevin believed that there were several factors, which conspired together to produce false conversions where the system of the Bench prevailed.  The Bench diverts attention away from the question of submitting to God, and toward the question of going to the Bench.  Because of the social dynamic of excitement that prevails where it is used, the Bench interferes with true spiritual reflection upon one’s spiritual state. “True religious feeling,” Nevin wrote, “is inward and deep; shrinks from show; forms the mind to a subdued humble habit... High excitement always tends to destroy men’s reverence for God and sacred things.”[342] In such an environment, Nevin wrote, a decision for Christ made at the Bench is not necessarily a true decision for Christ.  It is merely a decision for the Bench.[343]  Although Nevin admits that some have come to a genuine and saving knowledge of Christ through the use of the Bench, the number is far fewer than is generally claimed because of the false assumption that external action is sure evidence of internal change.

MEANS OF CONVERSION THAT SHOULD BE EMPLOYED

We will now briefly compare Finney and Nevin’s views on the specific means to be employed.  While they both commended some of the same means, there is often a vast difference in how they thought they should be used, and their degree of effectiveness.

PREACHING & WORD OF GOD

Both Finney and Nevin were convinced of the necessity of preaching the Bible as a means of conversion.  For Finney, the truth of the Scriptures were a tool to be wielded in the hand of the preacher.  Conversion depended on his ability to press the truth of the Scriptures upon the mind of his listeners.  The most effective preaching, in Finney’s mind, was done in specially constituted revival meetings with the aim of converting sinners in a short period of time.  He had a low estimation of the effectiveness of the preaching of many ministers, as he believed that much of it was not done with the aim of converting people. Rather, ministers must preach for immediate conversion.[344] However, many do not do so.  Of such preachers, Finney wrote: “The character of the age is changed, but these men retain the same stiff, dry, prosing style of preaching, that answered half a century ago.”[345]

Nevin also believed in the power of preaching, but not in that type of specially constituted preaching that did not flow out of the regular ministry of the Church.  It was the regular Sabbath preaching of the local Church, over a protracted period of time, which had the power of God for the conversion of sinners.  The power was in the Word of God, not in the preacher himself.  However, the preacher had no excuse for dullness.  Nevin advocated for preaching that was simple, plain, practical, passionate, and experiential.[346]  And the godly example of the pastor in the context of personal relationships with his people would give much force to what was preached from the pulpit on Sunday.[347]

PRAYER

Nevin accords importance to prayer as “essential to religion”, and it is one of the means of grace which Christians are to use.[348]  However, neither Nevin nor Scripture elevate prayer to the place of importance in conversion as does Finney.  Completely unfounded is Finney’s assertion that the lack of faithful prayer on the part of Christians for specific people is the direct cause for them not coming to faith.[349]

CHRISTIAN LIVING

Finney and Nevin both agreed that consistent godly living on the part of Christians is an important testimony to the truth, and that hypocritical Christians could turn people away from God.  However, Finney had a higher estimation than Nevin of the power of a negative testimony.  Consistent with his belief that the ultimate deciding factor in salvation lay with man, Finney thought that the hypocrisy of professing believers had the ability to keep people from being saved.  Impressions that could lead one to faith could be effaced by the careless living of so-called Christians.  Such a view, however, is inconsistent with the sovereign power of God in redemption that is evidenced in the pages of Scripture.  Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit, yet the Gospel went forth (Acts 5).  Simon Magnus tried to get the power of the Holy Spirit for his own selfish purposes, and the seven sons of Sceva tried to cast out demons in the name of Jesus, in whom they did not believe (Acts 8:9-25, Acts 19:11-20).  Yet the Gospel went forth.  Finney’s belief that man could ultimately impede God’s purposes in salvation is inconsistent with Scripture.

A CALL FOR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE

Finney and Nevin could not be more different on the issue of whether a preacher should call for immediate, visible response to the Gospel as a way to produce conversion.  Finney thought it was absolutely essential, and any preacher that did not use this method was negligent at best.  Nevin thought that it was positively harmful, and dangerous to the interests of true Christianity.

Admittedly, conversion involves a decision to submit to God, and to follow Christ.  Finney’s main motivation for using the anxious bench or some other call for physical response was to bring people to a crisis decision where they would be forced to decide for or against God.  It was a system designed to force nominal Christians and non-believers to see clearly that they had to decide between God and themselves.[350]  The problem with this system, as Nevin points out, was that instead of destroying nominal Christianity, it actually created it.

Nevin reasoned that when a preacher expounds the Gospel and presses it upon the souls of his listeners, the question before them is, “Will I submit to God?”  This is the great struggle, which they must mull over in their minds.  However, when the preacher invites his listeners to go forward, the question of “Will I go forward?” becomes uppermost in their minds, arresting reflection upon the more important question of submission to God.[351]  Nevin explains:

Take a single case in illustration of the way in which the system may be expected to work. Here is a gentle girl, sixteen or seventeen years of age. She finds herself in the midst of a large congregation where at the close of the sermon the minister, encouraged by the general seriousness of the house, invites all who are concerned for the salvation of their souls to come forward and place themselves on the anxious seat. She has been perhaps a long time under some concern, or it may be that God's truth has been felt for the first time on this occasion; not with great force perhaps, but so at least as to bring her spirit to a solemn stand in the presence of her Maker. She hears the invitation, but shrinks from the thought of doing what the minister demands. The call however is reiterated, and enforced by the most exciting appeals to the imagination. After a few moments there is a stir; one is going forward to the bench, and then another, and mother. She is struck, moved, agitated. A struggle has commenced in her bosom, which she herself is not prepared to understand. May she not be fighting against God, she asks herself, in refusing to go forward with the rest? May it not be in her case, at this moment, now or never? All this is solemnly crowded on her alarmed conscience by the whole character of the occasion, in the way in which it is managed by the minister. Already her soul has passed from the element of conviction into the element of excitement. The “still small voice” of the Spirit is drowned amid the tumult of her own conflicting thoughts. But see, she yields. With a desperate struggle, she has thrown herself forth into the aisle. Trembling and agitated in every nerve, poor victim of quackery, she makes her way, consciously in the eye of that large watching assembly, from one end of the house to the other, and sinks, half fainting with the effort, into a corner of the magic seat. And now, where is she, in spiritual position? Are her tears the measure of her sorrow for sin? Alas, she is farther off from God than she was before this struggle commenced in her father's pew. Calm reflection is departed. Her hold upon the inward has been lost.[352]

In such an environment, Nevin writes, a decision for Christ made at the Bench is not necessarily a true decision for Christ.  It is not necessarily indicator of religious feeling.[353]  It is merely a decision for the Bench.[354]

Nevin asserted that decisions made in such an environment cannot be said to be rational and free, having been made in the flurry of religious excitement.[355]  However, observed Nevin, conversions at the anxious bench are usually taken at face value, and presumed to be evidence of the very finger of God.[356]

While Finney is to be commended for his desire for people to clearly see the need to decide for, or against God, his blindness to the psychological and social dynamics at work in the system of the Bench is inexcusable.  However, this oversight is consistent with his high view of human ability and reason, and his low view of the extent of human depravity.  A more realistic, and Scriptural, view of the ability of people to deceive themselves, however, might have led Finney, as it did Nevin, to see through the apparently resounding successes produced by the system of the Bench.

Though equally concerned for true conversion, Nevin never advocated for calling for immediate response.  He feared, rightly, that such a call would confuse the issue of what it meant to truly submit to God.  A genuine decision for God came in the quietness of reflection in the context of the local Church, and her ordinary ministries.  Nevin acknowledged that sudden conversions can be expected to occur in the course of normal Gospel ministry.  In the pages of Scripture, we see numerous sudden conversions (Acts 2, 9, 10, 16).  However, nowhere in Scripture do we see the type of high pressure calling for response that was characteristic of the system advocated by Finney.  The sudden conversions that we see, for example, in the book Acts, are brought about by God, quite apart from the type of invitation present in the system of the Bench.

THE SACRAMENTS

The differing importance that Finney and Nevin place upon the Sacraments is directly related to their convictions on methodology in general.  For Nevin, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are non-negotiable institutions given by God for the health and growth of the Church.  For Finney, they are non-essential methods which may be taken or left as best suits the needs of the contemporary Church.  Finney’s Systematic Theology doesn’t address the sacraments, but in his Lectures on Revivals of Religion, he indicates that the anxious bench has functionally replaced baptism.  Arguing for the benefit of the Bench in pushing people for decision, Finney writes:

The Church has always felt it necessary to have something of the kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles baptism answered this purpose. The Gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ were called on to be baptized. It held the precise place that the anxious seat does now, as a public manifestation of a determination to be a Christian.[357]

Finney did not counsel against baptism but, at the very least, he seems to have viewed it as redundant.  In the Scriptures, however, Christ commanded baptism as an integral part of disciple-making (Matt. 28:18-20).  Concerning the Lord’s Supper, the Lord Jesus himself said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19, cf. 1 Cor. 11:24), a command which the Apostle Paul says he received from Jesus and passed on to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:23), apparently as a continuing ordinance.  The overwhelming testimony of Church history also affirms the Sacraments as essential to the growth and advancement of the Gospel.

THE CHURCH

Nevin put great confidence in the power of God, working through the local Church, to effect conversions.  These conversions would often be gradual but could sometimes be sudden. But, in either case, conversion came through the Church, and the Church was essential to the Christian life.  In fact, the Church was the source of Christian life.[358]  But whereas Nevin saw the Church as a non-negotiable means of conversion, Finney did not see the Church as having power for conversion, outside of times of excitement and novelty.[359]  Any Church that did not use the methods prescribed by Finney was allowing people to go to hell.[360]  Jesus, however, saw the Church as essential for his mission in the world.  The Church is Christ’s body (1 Cor. 12:27), and as Christians love one another, the world will know that Jesus came from God (John 13:35, 17:20-21).  Jesus said that he would build the Church, the institution which would overcome the schemes of the devil (Matt. 16:18).  The weight of Scripture is on the side of Nevin.  The Church is a divinely ordained means for the conversion and growth of his people, not merely a group of like-minded individuals who voluntarily associate themselves.

THE FAMILY

Finney and Nevin both believed that the Family had a role in influencing a person towards, or away from salvation.  For Finney, the godly example of one’s family could do much to commend the Gospel, and an ungodly example could turn one away from salvation.  However, if a family has within it an awakened sinner, then that family has an invaluable opportunity to press the truth in upon the mind of that sinner and bring them to conversion.  For Finney, the damnation of children and domestic servants could also be directly tied to the failure of parents to pray in faith for them.[361]  Nevin would agree with Finney that a godly family example is vitally important but Nevin’s greater emphasis was on regular instruction in the Scriptures and the catechism, in faith that God would bring about conversion in his own time.  Given the Scriptural commands to teach one’s children (Deut. 6, Eph. 6:4), Nevin’s emphasis on catechetical instruction has biblical principle and historical precedent in its favor.  And the godly example of family as a means of conversion and Christian growth must also be affirmed, given Jesus’ statement that the world will know his disciples by their love (John 13:35, 17:20-21), and Paul’s words concerning families (Eph. 5:22-6:4).

THE PASTORAL OFFICE

Although Finney put great emphasis on preaching, which was often conducted in the buildings of local Churches, he did not have much use for pastors, as such.  Those pastors who went along with the New Measures scheme of novelty and excitement received Finney’s commendation.  But those who would not employ his measures were dismissed as cold and dead.  Finney’s lack of attention to the regular duties of pastors, outside of times of revival, speaks loudly of his estimation of the pastorate.  This stands in stark contrast to the portrait that Nevin paints of the ideal pastor, engaged not only in public preaching, but also in personal ministry from house to house, visiting people of all classes and states.  The picture of the pastor given by Nevin more closely accords with Scripture than that of Finney.  The Apostle Paul wrote that God has given pastors and teachers to the Church in order to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph 4:11-12).  Likewise, in his final words to the Ephesian elders, Paul urged them to care for God’s people over which He had made them overseers (Acts 20:28).  Regular pastoral care, not continual novelty, is the apostolic precedent.

CHAPTER 6

IMPLICATIONS OF FINNEY AND NEVIN’S THEOLOGY, WITH APPLICATION FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

In this final chapter, we will look at the implications of Finney and Nevin’s theology for their methodology, and for the broader Christian life.  We will then draw from our study some concluding applications for evangelism and discipleship in the contemporary Church.

IMPLICATIONS OF FINNEY AND NEVIN’S THEOLOGY

THE GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

In Finney’s system of theology, the experience of dramatic conversion lies at the center of the Christian experience.  The primary focus of the Church is to get people saved, and only secondarily to urge them on in Christian obedience in order to maintain their justification.  The goal of the Christian life is thus to escape hell and get to heaven.  This is essentially a man-centered vision of the Christian life that has little to do with seeking God for his own sake.  Finney’s Systematic Theology lacks any discussion of the nature or attributes of God, a topic which is usually found at the very beginning of other systematic theologies.  This omission represents not merely an oversight, but a distinct man-centeredness in Finney’s thought.  This anthropocentric vision of Christianity flows over into his methodology.  Finney focused on getting people saved, not getting to know God.  This emphasis is seen in his exaltation of the revival meeting and the Bench, and his neglect of the importance of everyday Church ministry.

Nevin, on the other hand, saw the driving force behind all of man’s religious striving as a desire to achieve union with God.  In the incarnation, Christ became man and thus made the way for man to be united with God.  This union takes place through the medium of the Church, as the presence of the body of Christ in this world.  Because the goal of the Christian life, and the focus of Nevin’s theology, was union with God, his emphasis was on those regular ministries of the Church that would bring people into greater union with God.  Nevin certainly wanted people to experience conversion and to escape from hell, but these were only means to the end of knowing and experiencing God.  The greatest good was knowing and glorifying God, and thus the goal of the Christian life for Nevin was more God-centered than that of Finney.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ANXIOUS BENCH AND DERIVATIVE METHODS

If one were to agree with Finney’s views on the extent of human depravity, the ability of man, and limited nature of God’s involvement in saving people, then the anxious bench and other New Measures would be very logical methods for seeking conversions.  If man can repent at any time, and God is already doing as much as he can, then the onus of bringing about conversions necessarily falls upon man.  It is up to man to come up with the best possible methods in order to save as many people as possible.  A failure to use the best and most innovative methods is equivalent to a failure to truly desire men’s salvation.

Locating the source of man’s salvation in man and his methods also places upon the backs of Christians a crushing burden of responsibility that has the potential to lead to imbalance and burnout.  If your lack of action in pursing the salvation of men could result in their damnation, then it is imperative that you exhaust yourself at all times in seeking their salvation.  Devoting time to discipleship, recreation, or family, are of secondary importance, by far.  Lives are on the line.  The time spent on a family picnic might have been the only opportunity that someone had to hear the Gospel from you.  But because you went on a picnic, someone is now going to hell.

However, when one does not share his theology, Finney’s methods make less sense.  A largely Calvinistic understanding of the Scriptures, such as Nevin’s, does not lead to the New Measures which Finney promoted.  If human sinfulness stretches to man’s very nature such that he cannot choose God unassisted, and if God regenerates people according to his own timing, no amount of human persuasion can bring about a genuine conversion.  Given the propensity of the human heart to deceive itself, and to be motivated by self-interest, a preacher should have a heightened awareness of the likelihood of false conversions issuing from the use of the anxious bench and other similar methods.

If, like Nevin, we believe that God is sovereign in the calling, regeneration, and conversion of sinners, then a high pressure system that presses for conversion is unnecessary, unbiblical, and harmful.   The Bench should be abandoned.  If one were to share Nevin’s conviction that God is the author of salvation, and that he will save sinners in the way that he has prescribed, then a consistent implementation of those views would lead one to arrive at a belief in the importance of the ordinary means of grace in the local ministry of the Church. Such beliefs also foster an attitude of humble dependence upon God, and a comfort and reassurance that He is a loving heavenly Father who is both powerful and willing to care for the souls of men.

SPECIAL EVANGELISM AND THE LOCAL CHURCH

Finney’s lack of belief in the divine nature of the Church, the ordinary means of grace, and the pastoral office, lead to the belief that these things could be safely abandoned or ignored when they don’t seem to be working.  This led Finney to seek better methods in the form of specially designed meetings and methods that, in Finney’s estimation, were more effective in producing converts and advancing the Gospel.  Special revival meetings and other novelties were continually needed to advance the Gospel.  Because the Church has so little life and power, and no divine mandate for her traditional methods, new excitements must therefore be continually sought.

Nevin, on the other hand, had a high confidence in the Church and the ordinary means of grace.  His confidence was in these divinely-ordained institutions, and not in specially organized meetings and innovative methods.  A significant implication of Nevin’s beliefs is a vastly diminished importance upon specially designed evangelistic programs, events, and attractions.  Although God may be pleased to save some people in connection with them, such events do not merit the primary time and attention of the Church.  Focusing on such special evangelism detracts from the ordinary means of grace that God has blessed for the growth of his Church.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DECISIONS FOR CHRIST

An important, and necessary, implication of Finney’s theology is decisional regeneration, namely the belief that man’s heart is regenerated ex opere operato on the basis of a external profession of faith.  This belief flows from Finney’s high confidence in man’s ability to decide for, or against, Christ, unencumbered by a sinful nature.  If man needs no heart change, then God’s intervention is of minimal importance. Thus, it is only logical to conclude that man saves himself.   And because man’s sinfulness is no more than a bad habit, and his mind relatively unscathed by sin, the decision that he makes in the midst of a revival meeting is likely an accurate reflection of the state of his heart.  Thus, external conformity is a true indicator of internal change.

For his part, Nevin thought that such confidence in revival meeting decisions was naive.  The heart of man is sinful, prone to deception, and subject to the social pressure and emotional excitement of the revival meeting such that decisions made in that environment were extremely unreliable.  Also, an implication of belief in the need for God to regenerate the heart prior to conversion is the possibility of someone thinking that they had made a decision for Christ, when really they had not.  A person can feel guilty for a time, but such conviction may not be from the Lord and thus wears off after a while.  One can feel bad about their sin without truly wanting to repent.  If a person is induced to profess faith in the time between when they start feeling guilty for their sin, but before they leave an exciting evangelistic meeting, a false profession can result.

Another related implication of Nevin’s theology is hesitancy to accept at face value all professions of faith.  Such professions may be genuine, but the circumstances in which they were made affects the likelihood of their validity.  A profession of faith made in a revival meeting is thus not worthy of much confidence.  However, if a person makes a profession of faith on their own initiative after a protracted period of experience with the ordinary means of grace of the Church, such a profession has a higher likelihood of being genuine.  External conformity is not necessarily an indicator of internal change but external profession and piety may be evidence of the internal work of the Spirit in regeneration and conversion.

THE SOURCE OF CONFIDENCE IN OUR SALVATION

In Finney’s system of theology, one must necessarily look to themselves in order to have confidence in their salvation.  Salvation is dependent upon maintaining a state of continued sanctification and sinlessness.  Any unrepented sin causes a person to lose their justification.  Christians are thus placed on a subjective roller coaster of introspective examination, losing and regaining their salvation on a regular basis.  The practical and pastoral implication of such theology for the Christian life is a higher potential for frustration, discouragement, and depression.  A type of legalism that minimizes sin can also result.  Confidence in God’s promises and care for our souls is greatly diminished.

In Nevin’s theology, however, the redemption of man is located outside of man himself.  Salvation is found in being united to the incarnate and risen Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Salvation is objective, in that it is found beyond man, not within man.  The benefits of redemption are applied to man, and his hope and confidence are in Christ’s work and being, not in his own ability to maintain a state of sinlessness.  Confidence and joy in the Christian life are found in the promises of God and in his impartation of life to his Church.

RESPECT & RESPONSIBILITY IN EVANGELISM

Finney and Nevin’s theology result in very different understandings of the evangelist’s responsibility, and his approach to potential converts.  In Finney’s system, the evangelist bears enormous responsibility for developing his ability to effectively persuade people to change their mind.  For an evangelist, such an understanding can lead to pride when evangelism is going well and converts are being made.  It can also lead to unhealthy feelings of guilt and a sense of failure when evangelism is not going well, and few converts are being made.  The implications of Nevin’s theology, on the other hand, is that God receives the credit for effective evangelism, but sinners themselves receive the blame for their impenitence.  Both pride and excessive guilt are avoided.

While their theologies lead to differing internal feelings on the part of the evangelist, Finney and Nevin’s theology also lead the evangelist to treat their listeners differently.  Since Finney does not believe the Spirit is necessary to effect conversion, the skill which the evangelist requires is the same as that required by the salesman to make a sale.   The evangelist is turned into a slick salesman.   He creates a high pressure environment, and people are pushed to make decisions that they may not be ready to make.  A person’s doubts, hesitations, or personal issues are mere obstacle to push past on the way to secure a decision.  The evangelist’s listeners thus do not receive the respect that they deserve as those who are made in God’s image.

Nevin’s theology leads to quite an opposite relationship and dynamic between an evangelist and his listeners.  Because Nevin’s confidence was in God working in, and through, his appointed means over an extended period of time, it was possible to give people the respect that they deserve and to care for them sensitively as people.  There was no pressure to secure a decision now because the Lord will bring about their conversion in his timing.  The implications of Nevin’s theology are thus more conducive to the practice of Christian love, respect for the image of God in people, and pastoral care and sensitivity.

APPLICATIONS FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

Although it has been more than one hundred years since the deaths of Charles Finney and John Nevin, their theology of the nature and means of conversion bear great relevance for the contemporary evangelical Church.  We have already seen several implications of their theology, and we will now make some direct applications of our study for evangelism and discipleship today.

USE DISCERNMENT IN CHOOSING METHODOLOGY

In contemporary evangelicalism, there is broad acceptance of methodological innovation and many believe that it is possible to change the methods used without changing the message being preached.  However, in examining the theology and methodology of Charles Finney and John Nevin, it is evident that different methodologies are derived from different messages.  Also, by their very nature, different methodologies send different messages.  If we are to assume the correctness of a certain theological system, then there are certain methods which naturally flow out of, and promote, that system.  Particular methodologies have embedded within them particular theologies.

In the contemporary evangelical Church, there is a vast amount of cross-pollination of methods and resources.  Churches of one denomination, or no denomination, produce a model of ministry which proves successful, and this model is then borrowed by Churches of another denomination.  Evangelism or discipleship resources are produced by a Christian from a certain background, and those resources receive broad distribution in a variety of Church circles.  In many ways, this sharing of models, methods, and resources is a great benefit to Churches. It displays our essential unity in Christ, and provides helpful resources to those who would otherwise need to take the time and effort to develop their own.  However, there is perhaps not always enough examination of models, methods and resources in light of the adopting Church’s doctrinal convictions.

While Finney did not invent the New Measures that he promoted, he can be credited with popularizing those measures, which continue to be practiced in the contemporary Church.  Although no one talks anymore of the “anxious bench”, the practice of calling people out of a meeting and pressing for a profession of faith remain with us today, in the form of the altar call and the sinner’s prayer.[362]  In many places, these are standard practice, and it is imagined that Christianity cannot go on without them.  However, not all who use the altar call or the sinner’s prayer would necessarily share all of Finney’s theology.  These practices have been handed down and those who use them may or may not be aware of the theology behind them.  However, the altar call and the sinner’s prayer, by their very nature, carry with them certain assumptions about human sinfulness, human ability, and the nature of God’s activity in saving sinners.  Regardless of what a Church or preacher formally affirms, these methods communicate certain things about God and man.  The use or non-use of these methods communicate a certain Gospel or Gospel alternative.

Another area that calls for methodological discernment is music.  Musical style is often disputed in what is called “worship wars”.  Should a Church use hymns, praise choruses, or some more cutting-edge musical style?  Debates often revolve around style, comfort level, and ability to attract, or retain, Church members.  But do certain musical styles communicate different messages?  Can the same words be put to radically different tunes, yet create the same response in listeners?  Churches need to think more carefully about what is being communicated theologically by the music that they use, and then adjust their music selections to accord with what they want to communicate theologically.

In the areas of evangelistic methods, music choice, and elsewhere, Churches need to think carefully about what a consistent application of their doctrinal convictions look like in practice.  Methodology is not neutral.  Churches may be undermining their very mission by using borrowed methodology that is hostile to their core convictions.  A Church in the Reformed tradition, for example, may wish to communicate traditional Calvinism in their teaching and worship, but the use of the altar call and the sinner’s prayer in their evangelism is a denial of what they formally affirm.

American evangelicalism is extremely pragmatic, looking for what “works,” yet there must be greater attention to seeking out those methods which flow naturally from a particular Church’s convictions in Scripture, not someone else’s convictions.  This is not to say that Presbyterians have nothing to learn from Methodists, or vice versa.  Rather, it means that Churches must be discerning in the methods or practices that they employ.  A method, model, or resource that comes from a Church with very different theology may appear to “work” for that Church, but it may work for the wrong reasons.  Accepting or rejecting a certain method or resource based on its source does not necessarily represent a sectarian, or tribal, spirit.  Rather, it can, and must, be driven by a desire to be faithful to Scripture and to apply Scripture in a consistent manner.  It is incumbent that Churches think through the methodology that they use instead of uncritically borrowing from other sources or using the methods that they have inherited simply because “that is what has always been done.”

ABANDON THE ALTAR CALL AND THE SINNER’S PRAYER

As we have already pointed out in the previous chapter, the anxious bench is built on unbiblical foundations.  The contemporary use of the altar call and the sinner’s prayer are built on those same foundations. The use of these methods produces many false conversions because the theology underlying them assumes too little about the extent of human depravity and the activity of God in salvation, and too much about man’s ability.  People are full of conflicting and sinful motivations.  We are able to deceive ourselves into thinking we want one thing when really we want something else.  In the pressure of the moment, we can choose one thing, yet regret that choice later on when we are less affected by our emotions, our peers, or physical exhaustion.  Our best choices are often made with careful reflection and consideration, not in the pressure of the moment.  Pragmatically, the altar call and the sinner’s prayer simply do not produce the results that they are supposed to produce.   The majority of people who make a decision for Christ at the altar never go on with the Lord.  Contrary to what proponents of these methods claim, there is no harm done in abandoning them.  No one is being denied the opportunity to become a Christian.  If salvation is truly of the Lord, any genuine profession of faith that has come in connection with the altar call or the sinner’s prayer would have come in some other way.  God saves people in his time, and in his way.  He saves people through the use of means, but it is not the means of the slick salesman that we should use. Rather, it is the ordinary means of grace that God has appointed for the conversion of his people.

PRAISE GOD FOR SAVING SINNERS IN SPITE OF UNBIBLICAL METHODOLOGY

Even if we agree that the altar call and the sinner’s prayer are founded on unbiblical assumptions, that they produce false conversions, and should thus be abandoned, there remains the question of how to respond to those who claim to have been saved through going forward for an altar call or praying the sinner’s prayer.  There are many today who have a false assurance of faith because they have externally conformed to an evangelist’s invitation to go forward or to pray a certain prayer.  This type of nominalism and easy-believism must be combatted.  Conversion statistics from evangelists who use the altar call and the sinner’s prayer should not be blindly accepted at face value.  However, professions of faith that come from such evangelism cannot be entirely dismissed, either.  If a person who made a “decision for Christ” in such a way displays an accurate understanding of the Gospel and appears to exhibit genuine saving faith, there is no reason to doubt their salvation merely because they came to Christ in connection with unbiblical methodology.

While we should always strive for Biblical faithfulness, we must admit that if God only used perfect vessels, no one would ever be saved.  God often works in spite of poor methodology and unbiblical theology to save his people.  The fact that God works in the midst of human unfaithfulness and confusion does not justify either.  Yet we must praise God for saving people from death and hell, bringing them from the kingdom of darkness to the glorious kingdom of His Son - regardless of the manner in which they came to faith.  God is sovereign in the salvation of His people and the lack of theological or methodological perfection should not take away from the gratitude of his people when God brings lost sinners home.

EMPHASIZE ORDINARY MEANS OF GRACE

Finney was in error when he said the Bible prescribes no methods other than the Gospel itself.  The evangelical Church, however, has largely followed Finney in chasing after continual novelty in order to bring in more people.  This excessive devotion to finding the right methodology displays a lack of trust in the methods that God has already given in the Scriptures.  Ultimately, it also proves to be less effective in producing true conversions and Gospel growth than do the ordinary means of grace that God has commanded in Scripture.  In the words of Nevin, what the Church needs is

A ministry apt to teach; sermons full of unction and light; faithful, systematic instruction; zeal for the interests of holiness; pastoral visitation; catechetical training; due attention to order and discipline; patient perseverance in the details of the ministerial work[363]

Contemporary Churches would do well to focus on these methods for conversion and Church growth, rather than continually searching for innovative new methods that promise to get better results.

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[1] Both Wesley and Whitefield “showed that Christ is to be preached with compassion to all men; both taught human responsibility and insisted that sin alone is the cause human ruin; both knew that God is longsuffering towards all, 'not willing that any should perish'. Iain H. Murray, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1994), 178.

[2] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 357.

[3] Iain Murray notes that after 1870, writers on revival presented a one-sided view of former revivals, not understanding or appreciating the nature of the critique against what had become standard measures.  It was thought that men like Charles Hodge discredited Finney just because they did not like his doctrine of human responsibility. Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 357-8.  Some recent works have expressed concern over these widely practiced methods, uncovering the history of them and making recommendations for modern practice: David Bennett, The Altar Call - Its Origins and Present Usage (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000); Erroll Hulse, The Great Invitation: Examining the Use of the Altar Call in Evangelism (Laurel, Miss.: Audubon, 2006); Patrick McIntyre, The Graham Formula (Mammoth Spring, Ark.: White Harvest, 2005); Iain H. Murray, The Invitation System (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1967; repr., 2002).

[4] John Williamson Nevin, The Anxious Bench (Second Edition), Antichrist, and the Sermon Catholic Unity (ed. Augustine Thompson, O. P.; repr., Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2000).

[5] Cf. “Revivalism in Britain” in Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 391-414.

[6] Lancaster Theological Seminary, “Brief History of Lancaster Theological Seminary,” n.p. [cited March 29, 2011]. Online: http://www.lancasterseminary.edu/153410327232544700/site/default.asp.

[7] The phrase “high Church Calvinist” is borrowed D. G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin - High-Church Calvinist (Phillipsburg, Pa.: P&R, 2005).

[8] Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harpers, 1953), 1227.

[9] Ibid., 1227.

[10] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 225.

[11] Latourette, 1229.

[12] Latourette, 1046.

[13] Murray notes, “Democracy had begun to change the whole orientation of society. Together with the assertion of the right of private judgment, there came a new faith that majorities were right. Confidence was now to be put in the view and decision of the majority - 'populism' rather than in the judgment of history or of the educated few.” Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 174.

[14] Latourette, 1231.

[15]  There is disagreement among scholars as to whether anything worthy of the title “Second Great Awakening” ever occurred.  Mark Noll argues in America’s God (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 181) that “to the extent that the United States ever experienced a Second Great Awakening, Methodist expansion was it."  Despite the vague and imprecise nature of the term, it still remains in current usage and is useful in describing a movement, which had a significant role in shaping religion in America. Cf. Russ Patrick Reeves, “The Immediacy of Salvation in the Second Great Awakening: How Revivalism Redefined Evangelicalism” (paper presented at the meeting of The Historical Society, Washington D.C., May 2010).

[16] John D. Hannah, Charts of Modern and Postmodern Church History (ZondervanCharts) (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 8.

[17] Ibid., 9.

[18] Reeves, “The Immediacy of Salvation in the Second Great Awakening” 3. Reeves observes that the dating of the end of the Second Great Awakening is imprecise and many scholars disagree.  However, most seem to locate the end in the early to mid 1830s.

[19] Latourette, 1230.

[20] Ibid., 1230.

[21] cf. Hannah, 9.

[22] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 171.

[23] Seung Ho Son, “Christian Revival in the Presbyterian Church of Thailand between 1900 and 1941. An Ecclesiological Analysis and Evaluation” (Th.D diss., University of Stellenbosch, 2003), 39-40.

[24] Thomas Rufus Browning, “The Evolving Criticisms Against Charles G. Finney and What They Teach Us Regarding the Evaluation of Innovations in Worship” (paper presented for RS100 Interdivisional Research Seminar at Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Tex., 2001), 12-3.

[25] Robert Benedetto et al, Historical Dictionary of Reformed Churches (Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, 1999), 214.

[26] Ibid., 214.  Taylor studied at Yale Divinity School under Jonathan Edwards’ grandson Timothy Dwight but the younger Taylor went beyond the modifications to Calvinism that his teacher had made; cf. Robert C. Walton, Chronological and Background Charts of Church History (ZondervanCharts) (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 59.

[27] Benedetto, Historical Dictionary of Reformed Churches, 214.

[28] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 362.

[29] Lewis Drummond, Charles Grandison Finney and the Birth of Modern Evangelism (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983), 33.

[30] Ibid., 33.

[31] Ibid., 36.

[32] Finney, Memoirs, 44-5.

[33] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 258; Drummond, Charles Grandison Finney, 44.

[34] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 258.

[35] Finney, Memoirs, 53-54.

[36] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 229.

[37] Ibid., 229.

[38] Ibid., 230.

[39] “Some Places and Dates of Finney's Revivals & Travels”, Christian History 20 (1988): 13.

[40] “Charles Grandison Finney: Did You Know?” Christian History 20 (1988): 3.

[41] David Bennett, The Altar Call - Its Origins and Present Usage (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000), 112.

[42] Bennet Tyler and Andrew Bonar, Asahel Nettleton - Life and Labors (repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996), 118-9.

[43] Ibid., 106.

[44] Ibid., 107.

[45] Ibid., 105.

[46] “Charles Grandison Finney: Father of American Revivalism” Christian History 20 (1988): 7.

[47] Bennett, 107.

[48] Tyler, Asahel Nettleton, 340.

[49] Ibid., 343-4.

[50] Ibid., 342, 346.

[51] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 258.

[52] Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 9.

[53] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 258.

[54] Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney, 66.

[55] Ibid., 66.

[56] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 237.

[57] Ibid., 244.

[58] Browning, “The Evolving Criticisms Against Charles G. Finney,” 17.

[59] Ibid.,18.

[60] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 244. Finney was not happy with the “garbled extracts” of his sermon that Asa Rand published, together with critical comments, in The New Divinity Tried, Being an Examination of a Sermon Delivered by the Rev. C.G. Finney, on Making a New Heart (Boston: Light and Harris, 1832). Thus, in order that his views might be accurately represented, Finney later republished it as a two part sermon in an1834 book titled Sermons on Various Subjects. In comparing Finney’s later authorized version with Rand’s earlier publication, there is virtually no difference between the two on the points that Rand criticized. Cf. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism, 79; Finney, Memoirs, 350; Charles Finney, “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” n.p. [cited June 27, 2011]. Online: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1836SOIS/01sois_sinners_bound.htm

[61] Finney uses the word “physical” to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating the human heart.  In Finney’s theology, this “physical” change of heart is unnecessary and thus stands in contrast to the mere change of will or intention that causes conversion.

[62] Ibid., 3.

[63] Rand, The New Divinity Tried, 2. Iain Murray has summarized the main theological point of the sermon, saying that Finney “made clear that the whole idea that an unregenerate man was governed by a fallen nature was wrong... a decision of the will, not a change of nature, was all that was needed for anyone to be converted.” Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 244-5.

[64] Finney, Memoirs, 350; Finney, Systematic Theology, 303.

[65] Bennett, The Altar Call, 112.

[66] Bennett, The Altar Call, 112.; cf. Drummond, Charles Grandison Finney, 12.

[67] Murray, Revival and Revivalism, 257.

[68] D. G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin - High-Church Calvinist (Phillipsburg, Pa.: P&R, 2005), 37.; cf. John Williamson Nevin, My Own Life: The Earlier Years (Lancaster, Pa.: Historical Society of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, 1964), 2.

[69] James Hastings Nichols, Romanticism in American Theology: Nevin and Schaff at Mercersburg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 7.

[70] Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 38.

[71] Ibid., 43.

[72] Ibid., 45.; cf. Nevin, My Own Life, 9-10.

[73] Ibid., 46.

[74] Ibid., 46.

[75] The school would later be given its current name, “Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.”

[76] Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 57.

[77] Ibid., 61.

[78] Ibid., 61.

[79] Ibid., 59-60.

[80] Ibid., 89.

[81] Ibid., 90.

[82] Ibid., 90.

[83] Ibid., 91, 93, 94.

[84] Ibid., 96. Cf. John Williamson Nevin, The Anxious Bench (Chambersburg, Pa.: Publication Office of the German Reformed Church, 1843), 4.

[85] Ibid., 104.

[86] Ibid., 104; Cf. Philip Schaff, The Principle of Protestantism (1845; repr. New York: Garland, 1987), 49 (emphasis original).

[87] Ibid., 104.

[88] Ibid., 167.

[89] Ibid., 188.

[90] Ibid., 226.

[91] Charles G. Finney, Finney’s Systematic Theology: The Complete and Newly Expanded 1878 Edition (ed. Dennis Carroll, et al. Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 1994), 269. Cf. Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Virginia Beach, Va.: CBN University Press, 1978).

[92] Cf. Westminster Confession of Faith 13:1; Canons of Dordt, Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine, Article 3.  The Westminster Standards were Finney’s immediate context in the Presbyterian Church, where he was ordained from 1824 to 1836.  However, Finney appears to have been better acquainted with the views of Jonathan Edwards, whom he took to be a good representative of the “common Calvinistic view.” Finney, Systematic Theology, 303.

[93] Finney, Systematic Theology, 271.

[94] Ibid., 271.

[95] Ibid., 271.

[96] Ibid., 272.

[97] Ibid., 284.

[98] Charles G. Finney, The Memoirs of Charles G. Finney - The Complete Restored Text (Ed. Garth M. Rosell and Richard A. G. Dupuis. Grand Rapids: Academie, 1989), 350.

[99] Finney, Systematic Theology, 273.

[100] “No such change is needed, as the sinner has all the faculties and natural abilities requisite to render perfect obedience to God” Ibid., 271-2; also “Sinners must not wait for and expect physical omnipotence to regenerate them” 285.

[101] Ibid., 276-7.

[102] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 12-13.

[103] Bennett Tyler, Nettleton’s biographer, reports that one who often met with him said of Nettleton that “While none leant more than he on divine sovereignty - none more carefully used the best means, philosophically adapted to gain his end.” Tyler, Asahel Nettleton - Life and Labors, 308.

[104] In his advice on speaking with awakened sinners, Finney said that the Christian should “melt him down on the spot.” Ibid., 167.

[105] Ibid., 5, 13.

[106] Charles Finney, “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” n.p. [cited June 27, 2011]. Online: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1836SOIS/01sois_sinners_bound.htm

[107] Finney, Systematic Theology, 269.

[108] Finney used the term “physical” to indicate the type of heart change that Calvinists believed that man needed, namely an active work of God that altered the fundamental nature of the heart.  Finney believed that the heart was not fundamentally sinful by nature, and thus needed only moral persuasion, not a fundamental, or “physical”, change of its nature.

[109] Ibid., 245.

[110] Ibid., 245.

[111] Ibid., 246.

[112] Ibid., 249.

[113] Ibid., 256.

[114] Ibid., 250.

[115] Ibid., 306-7.

[116] Asa Rand, The New Divinity Tried, Being an Examination of a Sermon Delivered by the Rev. C.G. Finney, on Making a New Heart (Boston: Light and Harris, 1832), 2.

[117] Finney, Systematic Theology, 449, 465.

[118] “Nor is it that any are chosen to salvation for, or on account of their own foreseen merits, or good works.” Ibid., 449.

[119] Ibid., 472.

[120] Ibid., 457-8.

[121] Ibid., 449.

[122] Ibid., 362.

[123] Ibid., 363.

[124] Ibid., 369.

[125] Ibid., 361.

[126] Ibid., 364.

[127] Ibid., 376.

[128] “Our own works, or obedience to the law or to the gospel, are not the ground or foundation of our justification.” Ibid., 375.

[129] Ibid., 368.

[130] Ibid., 369.

[131] Ibid., 368.

[132] Ibid., 369.

[133] Ibid., 228.

[134] “Universalists taking it for granted, that Christ had paid the debt of those for whom He died, and finding it fully revealed in the Bible that He died for all mankind, naturally, and if this were correct, properly, inferred the doctrine of universal salvation.” Ibid., 228.

[135] Ibid., 212.

[136] Finney asserts that unless atonement is made, then “the danger is very great, that the exercise of mercy will be understood as encouraging the hope of impunity in the commission of sin.” Ibid., 212, cf. 210.

[137] Ibid., 229.

[138] Ibid., 213.

[139] Ibid., 211.

[140] Ibid., 277.

[141] Ibid., 116.

[142] Charles Finney, “Lecture 4: Sanctification,” n.p. [cited 6 July 2011]. Online: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1840OE/400212_sanctification_4.htm.

[143] Finney, Systematic Theology, 284.

[144] B.L. Shelley, “Pelagius, Pelagianism,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2001), 897-8.

[145] Finney, Systematic Theology., 282.  Both Charles Hodge and John Nevin charged Finney with Pelagianism. Cf. Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 87, 97.

[146] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 8-9. Cf. Finney, Systematic Theology, 282, 284; Finney, “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” n.p. [cited June 27, 2011]. Online: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1836SOIS/01sois_sinners_bound.htm

[147] Finney, “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” n.p. [cited June 27, 2011]. Online: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1836SOIS/01sois_sinners_bound.htm.  Published by Finney in 1834 in a book titled Sermons on Various Subjects, this sermon, together with another sermon, How to Change Your Heart, was Finney’s authorized version of his 1831 sermon Make Yourselves a New Heart. The previous sermon had been published in part by Asa Rand, together with critical comments, in The New Divinity Tried, Being an Examination of a Sermon Delivered by the Rev. C.G. Finney, on Making a New Heart (Boston: Light and Harris, 1832).  Finney was not happy with the “garbled extracts” of the original sermon that had been published.  Thus, he later republished it in two parts so that his views might be accurately represented. Cf. Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism, 79; Finney, Memoirs, 350.

[148] Finney, Systematic Theology, 307.

[149] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 8; Finney, Systematic Theology, 274.

[150] Ibid., 6.

[151] Ibid., 13.

[152] Ibid., 4.

[153] Finney’s strong condemnation of his detractors may be seen in his sermon on Amos 3:3, directed against Nettleton and Beecher, among others. He labeled his critics as “luke-warm and carnal” men, who had “frosty hearts,” and were no better than “impenitent sinners.” Hambrick-Stowe, Charles G. Finney, 66.

[154] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 261.

[155] Ibid., 290.

[156] Ibid., 262.

[157] Ibid., 260.

[158] Ibid., 283.

[159] Ibid., 286-7.

[160] Ibid., 284.

[161] Ibid., 2.

[162] Ibid., 287.

[163] Ibid., 271.

[164] “In the present generation, many things have been introduced which have proved useful, but have been opposed on the ground that they were innovations.” Ibid., 274.

[165] Ibid., 284.

[166] Ibid., 290.

[167] Ibid., 83.

[168] Ibid., 70.

[169] Ibid., 71-2.

[170] Ibid., 83.

[171] Ibid., 11.

[172] Ibid., 146.

[173] Ibid., 146.

[174] Ibid., 181.

[175] Ibid., 178.

[176] Ibid., 178-9.

[177] Ibid., 178-9.

[178] Ibid., 162-4.

[179] Ibid., 167.

[180] Ibid., 167.

[181] Ibid., 167.

[182] Ibid., 169-72.

[183] Ibid., 174.

[184] Ibid., 174-176.

[185] Ibid., 176.

[186] Ibid., 177.

[187] Ibid., 178.

[188] Ibid., 177.

[189] Ibid., 168.

[190] Ibid., 11.

[191] Finney, Memoirs, 65-6.

[192] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 281.

[193] Ibid., 281.

[194] Ibid., 274.

[195] Ibid., 281.

[196] Ibid., 281.

[197] Ibid., 282.

[198] “The Church has always felt it necessary to have something of the kind to answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles baptism answered this purpose. The Gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were willing to be on the side of Christ were called on to be baptized. It held the precise place that the anxious seat does now, as a public manifestation of a determination to be a Christian.” Ibid., 282.

[199] The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true ... In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground." Finney, Systematic Theology, 116.

[200] John Williamson Nevin, The Anxious Bench (Second Edition), Antichrist, and the Sermon Catholic Unity (ed. Augustine Thompson, O. P.; repr., Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2000), 68.

[201] Ibid., 68.

[202] “His focus was consistently on the gradual conversion that takes place as the believer is united to Christ through the Church.” Sam Hamstra, Jr. and Arie J. Griffioen, eds. Reformed Confessionalism in Nineteenth-Century America - Essays on the Thought of John Williamson Nevin (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 1995), 160.

[203] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 68.

[204] William H. Erb, ed. Dr. Nevin’s Theology - Based on Manuscript Class-Room Lectures (Reading, Pa.: I. M. Beaver, Publisher, 1913), 289.

[205] Ibid., 289.

[206] Ibid., 290.

[207] Ibid., 289.

[208] Ibid., 282.

[209] Ibid., 290.

[210] Ibid., 290.

[211] Ibid., 290.

[212] Ibid., 293.

[213] Ibid., 138-148.

[214] Ibid., 83.

[215] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 49.

[216] “The legal and physical imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity is organic, the legal resting on the physical fact.” Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 204.

[217] Ibid., 205.

[218] Ibid., 210.

[219] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 64-5.

[220] Ibid., 64-5.

[221] Ibid., 65.

[222] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 148.

[223] Ibid., 151, 159.

[224] Ibid., 150-1.

[225] Ibid., 152.

[226] Ibid., 155.

[227] Ibid., 162.

[228] Ibid., 159, 162.

[229] Ibid., 159-60.

[230] Ibid., 162-3.

[231] Ibid., 295-6.

[232] Ibid., 297.

[233] Ibid., 296.

[234] Ibid., 299, 304.

[235] Ibid., 313.

[236] Ibid., 313.

[237] Ibid., 313-4.

[238] Ibid., 300.

[239] Ibid., 297.

[240] Ibid., 296. Cf., 323.

[241] Ibid., 156.

[242] Ibid., 324.

[243] Ibid., 322.

[244] Ibid., 322.

[245] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 67-8.

[246] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 321.

[247] Ibid., 324.

[248] Ibid., 324.

[249] Nevin, The Mystical Presence, 187.

[250] Ibid., 188.

[251] Ibid., 190-1.

[252] Ibid., 189.

[253] Ibid., 188.

[254] Ibid., 189.

[255] Ibid., 189.

[256] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 290-1.

[257] Ibid., 291.

[258] Ibid., 291.

[259] Ibid., 292.

[260] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 65.

[261] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 293.

[262] Ibid., 291.

[263] Ibid., 291.

[264] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 423, 426. Cf. Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 67.

[265] Ibid., 422.

[266] Ibid., 427.

[267] Hamstra, Reformed Confessionalism, 107.

[268] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 428, cf. Hamstra, Reformed Confessionalism,109.

[269] For Nevin, “the Church was an organic institution founded by God” and “not a mere aggregation or collection of different individuals, drawn together by similarity of interests and wants.” Hamstra, Reformed Confessionalism, 105, 106.

[270] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 428.

[271] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 67.

[272] Ibid., 61.

[273] Ibid., 61-62, 67.

[274] Ibid., 59-60.

[275] Ibid., 49.

[276] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 358.

[277] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 67.

[278] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 314. Cf. 282.

[279] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 64.

[280] Nevin likely had in mind the Heidelberg Catechism, but the Westminster Longer and Shorter Catechisms were probably also in view.

[281] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 61.

[282] Ibid., 61.

[283] Ibid., 71.

[284] Ibid., 70.

[285] Ibid., 76.  Nevin’s source of information about Baxter’s ministry was The Reformed Pastor, Baxter most well known work.  A current edition is available from the Banner of Truth Trust: Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, ed. William Brown (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974).

[286] Ibid., 14, 20-21, 43, 44, 48.

[287] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 286, 287.

[288] Ibid., 283.

[289] Ibid., 283-4.

[290] Ibid., 283.

[291] Ibid., 356.

[292] Ibid., 356.

[293] Ibid., 358-9.

[294] Ibid., 358.

[295] Ibid., 358.

[296] Ibid., 359.

[297] Ibid., 284.

[298] Ibid., 286.

[299] Ibid., 284.

[300] Ibid., 288.

[301] Ibid., 285.

[302] Ibid., 285.

[303] Ibid., 285.

[304] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 68.

[305] Ibid., 68.

[306] Ibid., 34.

[307] Ibid., 68.

[308] “His focus was consistently on the gradual conversion that takes place as the believer is united to Christ through the Church.” Hamstra, Reformed Confessionalism, 160.

[309] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 33.

[310] Ibid., 70.

[311] Ibid., 70.

[312] Ibid., 69.

[313] Ibid., 69.

[314] Ibid., 69.

[315] Ibid., 69.

[316] Hamstra, Reformed Confessionalism, 176, 180.

[317] Ibid., 171-176.

[318] Ibid., 179.

[319] Ibid., 180.

[320] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 69-70.

[321] Hamstra, Reformed Confessionalism, 182-3.

[322] Ibid., 183.

[323] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 70.

[324] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 68.

[325] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 12-13.

[326] Finney, Systematic Theology, 269.

[327] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 163.

[328] Finney, Systematic Theology, 368-9.

[329] Ibid., 375.

[330] “The Christian, therefore, is justified no longer than he obeys, and must be condemned when he disobeys or Antinomianism is true ... In these respects, then, the sinning Christian and the unconverted sinner are upon precisely the same ground." Ibid., 116.

[331] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 2.

[332] Ibid., 284.

[333] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 67.

[334] Finney held that the lack of praying in faith was directly responsible for the damnation of many. Acknowledging the psychological consequences that this could have, he wrote, “You say: ‘This leaves the Church under a great load of guilt.’ True, it does so; and no doubt multitudes will stand up before God, covered all over with the blood of souls that have been lost through their want of faith.” Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 83.

[335] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 13, 30.

[336] Ibid., 4.

[337] Ibid., 261.

[338] Ibid., 260.

[339] Ibid., 286.

[340] Ibid., 283-4.

[341] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 49.

[342] Ibid., 56.

[343] Ibid., 45-6.

[344] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 26.

[345] Ibid., 287.

[346] Hamsta, Reformed Confessionalism, 182.

[347] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 70.

[348] Erb, Dr. Nevin’s Theology, 408.

[349] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 83.

[350] “Another bearing of the anxious seat is to detect deception and delusion, and thus prevent false hopes.” Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 281.

[351] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 35-6.

[352] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 38-9.

[353] Ibid., 22.

[354] Ibid., 45-6.

[355] Ibid., 49.

[356] Ibid., 44.

[357] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 282.

[358] Nevin, The Anxious Bench, 67.

[359] Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, 2-3.

[360] “Generation after generation has gone to hell, while the Church has been dreaming and waiting for God to save them without the use of the means.” Ibid., 6.

[361] Ibid., 82-3.

[362] Though Finney regularly called for public response to the Gospel, he did not use the sinner’s prayer per se.  The formulaic and systematic use of the sinner’s prayer was a post-Finney development.

[363] Ibid., 61.

Table of Contents

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2 RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA, AND THE LIVES OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN

CHAPTER 3 THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

CHAPTER 4 THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN WILLIAMSON NEVIN

CHAPTER 5 THE VIEWS OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN ON CONVERSION, COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER AND SCRIPTURE

CHAPTER 6 IMPLICATIONS OF FINNEY AND NEVIN’S THEOLOGY, WITH APPLICATION FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Table of Contents

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 2 RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA, AND THE LIVES OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN

CHAPTER 3 THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY

CHAPTER 4 THE NATURE AND MEANS OF CONVERSION IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN WILLIAMSON NEVIN

CHAPTER 5 THE VIEWS OF CHARLES FINNEY AND JOHN NEVIN ON CONVERSION, COMPARED WITH EACH OTHER AND SCRIPTURE

CHAPTER 6 IMPLICATIONS OF FINNEY AND NEVIN’S THEOLOGY, WITH APPLICATION FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CHURCH

BIBLIOGRAPHY