Life of Charles G. Finney

GOULD LIBRARY EASTERN NAZARENE COLLEGE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/lifeofcharlesgfiOOhill LIFE OF CHARLES G. FINNEY. by 1 y- A. M. HILLS, Author of * Life and Labors of Mary A, Woodbridge,” “Holiness and Power/' “ Pentecostal Light/’ “ Food for Lambs,” and “The Whosoever Gospel.” OFFICE OF “GODLS REVIVALIST/’ Mount of Blessings, Cincinnati, Ohio. Copyrighted by Mrs. M. W. Knapp, 1902. 316 C^x>olcL- F2f--'7H^ l9o>^X^ DEDICATION. To MY precious son, Charles Finney Hills, whom I named after the blessed servant of Christ, whose life and labors are described in this book, in the fond parental hope that the great soul’s loyalty to Jesus and large usefulness might, in a measure, be reproduced in the child, and to all who are seeking a deeper and more conscious acquaintance with our Lord and the cnduement of power to serve him more effectively,—this book is prayerfully dedicated by THE AUTHOR. \ PREFACE. Our sainted publisher, Martin Wells Knapp, three years ago felt impressed to give to the world a ''Life of Charles G. Finney/’ less voluminous than his "Autobiography,” less costly than Professor Wright’s "Life of Finney,” and written by one acquainted with him from the standpoint of holiness. He fixed upon me to be the author, and I accepted the joyful task. vSoon after, a still higher Hand thrust upon me the arduous labors of bringing into existence Texas Ho- liness University, which, for the time, pushed aside all other labors. At the earnest solicitation of the precious brother, I took up the work three months ago, putting into it the few fragments of my spare time. Of course, I have made free use of Finney’s "Memoirs” and Professor Wright’s "Life” and "Remi- niscences,” to which I am greatly indebted. J. have, however, given an independent picture of the great man’s life and work, one not heretofore given. There' were some things which the public ought to know about Finnej, which he would never say of himself. There were some things which ought to be said about Finney's work, which none would say who was a 6 PsmPACB. not in full sympathy with his deep desire to attain to and to teach sanctification. God has granted to the author at least that one qualification. There is enough in this book quoted from Finney himself to teach any one, desirous of learning, how to be a successful fisher of men, and how to receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost. It lessens not a little the joy of having written the book that we can not place it in the hands of him who asked it of us. Texas Holiness University, ) Greenvieee, Texas. January 21, 1902. J CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Sent of God, 9 CHAPTER II. His Conversion, 17 CHAPTER III. Studying Theoeocy, - - i6 CHAPTER IV. Beginning His Ministry, 41 CHAPTER V. Revivals at Antwerp, “ Sodom,” Gouverneur, and DeKaeb, 51 CHAPTER VI. Revivals at Western, Rome, Utica, Auburn, Troy, and New Lebanon, . - - 64 CHAPTER VII. Ministeriai, Opposition and the New Lebanon Con- vention, 77 CHAPTER VIII. Revtvam at Stephsntown, Widminoton, Pbii.adbi.pbia, and Rbadinc. 1827-1830, 89 r — 8 Contents. CHAPTER IX. Rbvivai^s in Coi^umbia, New York City, Rochester, Auburn, Buffalo, Providence, and Boston. 1830- 1832, 102 CHAPTER X. Labors in New York City, 1832-1835—Trip to Itaev Revivae Lectures-—Oberein, 118 CHAPTER XI. Karey Labors in Oberein, 130 CHAPTER XII. Revivaes in Boston— Providence — Rochester, and again in Boston, 1842-1844—Renewed Baptism with the Hoey Ghost—Loss of His Wife, - 142 CHAPTER XIII. First Visit to Bngeand—Revivaes in Hartford, Western, Syracuse, and Rochester, - - - 158 CHAPTER XIV. Revivaes in Boston—Engeand—Scoteand, and Oberein —Ceose of His Life, 171 CHAPTER XV. Finney on Preachers and Preaching, - - - - 183 CHAPTER XVI. Finney on Freemasonry, 192 CHAPTER XVII. The Estimate of Finney made by Others—Finney as A Theoeogian, 204 CHAPTER XVIII. Finney on Santification and its Resuets in Oberein —Coeeege H1STORY----CEOSING Pictures, 218 Life OF Charles G. Finney. CHAPTER I. SENT OF GOD. Some ninteen hundred years ago, as the greatest Book tells us, ‘'there was a man sent from God, whose name was John/’ He had a priestly line of ancestors, reaching back fifteen hundred years. His immediate parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, were remarkably de- vout; for the record says, “They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and or- dinances of the Lord blameless and, furthermore, they were both “filled with the Holy Ghost.” An angel was sent to foretell the birth of their child, and to give to him the name of John. The angel also declared that the child too “should be filled with the Holy Ghost from birth,” and should “be great in the sight of the Lord.” It is a wonderful story, and yet is natural, after all, and quite the thing to be expected. Such parents ought to have had a remarkable child; for blood and ancestry will tell. But here is a more wonderful story still, illustrat- ing in a more striking way God’s ample resources to produce great men. About eighteen huinired years 9 lO CHARI.BS G. Finney. later, August 29, 1792, in Warren, Litchfield County, Connecticut, there was another man sent from God. No angel foretold his birth, nor him for he named ; was called ''Charles Grandison’' Finney, after a char- acter in a novel written by Richardson, with which his parents were better acquainted than with their Bible. But this man, also, was destined to be "filled with the Holy Ghost,’’ and to become "the great preacher of righteousness.” To be sure, one of his ancestors, seven generations back, came over in the Mayflower, which makes an illustrious pedigree in Massachusetts ; but, to speak as men usually speak, he had no priestly or famous ancestry, none lifted above the common level of hu- manity. Moreover, his immediate parents, so far from being "righteous” and "blameless” and "filled with the Holy Ghost,” were utterly godless. When Finney was twenty-nine years old, he had never heard a word of prayer in his father’s house ! Evidently no Chris- tian lullabies nor psalms of David ever greeted his childish ears, or soothed to infant slumbers; for he tells us he had never owned a Bible till he bought one to hunt up the passages referred to in his law books. Strange origin this for "the prince of evangelists!” One of God’s great surprises—like Martin Luther, the famous Reformer, coming from a peasant-miner's home; and Abraham Lincoln, the greatest President of the world’s greatest Republic, coming from a picj^- neer’s log-cabin! Evidently when God wants a really great man, He knows how to produce him and where to find him. Nor, viewed from a religious standpoint, were his surroundings any more propitious than his home. When Charles was but two years old, his parents Ln^i^ OF CHARI.FS G. Finney. II moved into the wilderness of Central New York in Oneida County. ‘'There/' he says, ‘T seldom heard a sermon, unleiss from some traveling minister, or some miserable holding forth of an ignorant preacher. I remember well how the people would return from meeting, and spend a considerable time in irrepressible laughter at the strange mistakes made and the absurdi- ties which had been advanced." When Charles reached the age of sixteen, a meeting-house was erected in his neighborhood; but his parents, as if afraid of a sanctuary and Christian civili- zation, took their family, and made another plunge into the wilderness, going to the extreme eastern end of Lake Ontario, and far to the north, approaching the line of Canada. Here again his life was unblessed by religious privileges. But the New England emigrants, true to their native instincts, planted their common schools even in the wilderness; and these the bay Charles attended until he was himself able to teach a country school. When he was twenty years old, he returned to Con- necticut. He then went to New Jersey, to teach in a German community, returning twice to his native State to continue his studies under a graduate of Yale. He thus taught and studied for six years as best he could, until his teacher informed him that in two years more of private study he could complete the course of study then pursued at Yale. His teacher invited the earnest young student to go with him to some Southern State and open an academy. He was inclined to accept the proposal; but his parents, hearing of it, immediately came after him and persuaded him to go home with them to Jefferson County, New York. This was in i8i8, when Finney 12 of CharIvEs G. B'inney. was twenty-six. After making his parents a vis^, he concluded to enter, as a student, the law office of Mr. Wright, in the town of Adams, of that county.- He afterward wrote: ‘'Up to this time I had never enjoyed what might be called religious privileges. I had never lived in a praying community, except dur- ing the periods when I was attending the high school in New England; and the religion in that place was of a type not at all calculated to arrest my attention. The preaching was by an aged clergyman, an excel- lent man, and greatly beloved and venerated by his people ; but he read his sermons, written probably many years before, in a manner that left no impression on my mind. His reading was altogether unimpas- sioned and monotonous; and, although the people attended very closely and reverentially to his reading, it seemed to be always a matter of curiosity what he was aiming at, especially if there v/as anything more in his sermon than a dry discussion of doctrine.

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