Call to Commitment

 

As I read the autobiography of Charles Finney, there are not a few occasions, in which I discover his keen sense of humor. In these writings that I have selected from his first and fourth chapter, although they contain very serious faults in the ministry and in Christianity in New England in Finney´s day, they also contain humorous descriptions of the styles of preaching that he experienced. If I would dedicate this chapter to humor, I could go through the book and find a good number of stories richly humorous, but obviously that is not my purpose in presenting the ministry of Charles Finney. Perhaps, however, we might stumble upon other instances of humor, as we point to some of the most important and interesting stories of his life.

 My purpose in this chapter is to show the necessity of the knowledge of the gospel, in those who proclaim it. When Jesus left simple Galilean disciples in charge of future Christianity, “He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures” (Lk.24:45). I have seen that people with little training or education can receive a clarity of truth in their experience, which they share as they expound the gospel. Others only show their ignorance.

 Above all, Finney points to the greatest need of anyone, who attempts to minister the great revelations of heaven to people on this earth, and that is the power of the Holy Spirit in preaching. For that reason, after opening the disciples understanding, four verses later, Jesus counsels them to “tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Lk. 24:49)

  

Charles Finney´s Pre-conversion Experience with Christianity

 Total ignorance in preaching 

My parents were neither of them professors of religion, and I believe among our neighbors there were very few that professed religion. I seldom heard a Gospel sermon from any person, unless it was an occasional one from some travelling minister, or some miserable holding forth of an ignorant preacher that would sometimes be found in that country. I recollect very well that the ignorance of the preachers that I heard, when I heard any at all, was so great that the people would return from meeting and spend a considerable time in irrepressible laughter, in view of the strange mistakes which had been made and absurdities which had been advanced.

 My father was induced to remove again into the wilderness skirting the southern shore of Lake Ontario, a little south of Sackett's Harbor (New York State). Here again I lived for several years, enjoying no better religious privileges than I had in Oneida County. Almost the only preaching that I heard was that of an Elder Osgood, who was a man of considerable religious zeal, but of very little education. His ignorance of language was so great as to divert the attention of the people from his thoughts to the very comical form of expressing them. For example, instead of saying, "I am," he would say, "I are," and in the use of the pronouns thee and thou, etc., he would mix them up in such a strange and incongruous manner, as to render it very difficult indeed to keep from laughing while he was either preaching or praying. Of course I received no religious instruction from such teaching.

 

Monotonous preaching

 The preaching where I attended school was by an aged clergyman, an excellent man, and greatly beloved and venerated by his people, but he read his sermons in a manner that left no impression whatever on my mind. He had a monotonous, humdrum way of reading what he had probably written many years before.

 But to give some idea of his preaching, let me say that his manuscript sermons were just large enough to put into a duodecimo Bible. I sat in the gallery and observed that the parson placed his manuscript in about the middle of his Bible, and inserted the four fingers of each hand at the places where were to be found the passages of Scripture to be quoted in the reading of his sermon. This made it necessary for him to hold his Bible before him in both hands, and rendered all gesticulation with his hands impossible. As he proceeded, he would read the passages of Scripture where his fingers were inserted, and thus liberate one finger after another until the fingers of both hands were read out of their places. I observed that when his fingers were all read out, he was near the close of his sermon. His reading was altogether unimpassioned and monotonous. And although the people attended very closely and reverentially to his reading, yet to me, I must confess, it was not much like preaching, or to say the least not much like that which I thought preaching ought to be.

 

Finney´s law profession and the influence of Scripture

 In studying elementary law, I found the old authors frequently quoting Scripture and referring especially to the Mosaic institutes as authority for many of the great principles of common law. This excited my curiosity so much that I went and purchased a Bible, the first one I had ever owned; and whenever I found a reference by the law authors to the Bible, I turned to the passage and consulted it with its connection. This soon led to my taking a new interest in the Bible, and I read and meditated on it much more than I had ever done before in my life. However, much of it I did not understand.

  A little consideration convinced me that l was by no means in a state of mind to go to heaven if I should die in that condition. It seemed to me that there must be something in religion that was of infinite importance, and it was soon settled with me that, if the soul was immortal, I needed a great change in my inward state of mind to be prepared for happiness in heaven. But still my mind was not made up as to the truth or falsehood of the Gospel and of the Christian religion. The question, however, was of too much importance to allow me to rest in any uncertainty on the subject.

 When I read my Bible, I learned what Christ had said in regard to prayer and answers to prayer. He had said, "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." I read also what Christ affirms, that God is more willing to give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children. I heard (Christians) pray continually for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and as often confess their leanness, and that they did not receive what they asked for.

 They exhorted each other to wake up and be engaged, and to pray earnestly for a revival of religion, asserting that if they did their duty, prayed for the outpouring of the Spirit, and were in earnest, that the Spirit of God would be poured out, that they would have a revival of religion, and that we who were impenitent would be converted. But in their prayer and conference meetings they would continually confess, substantially, that they were making no progress either in prayer or effort, or in securing a revival of religion. Their inconsistency with their professions, the fact that they prayed so much and were not answered, was a sad stumbling block to me.

 On one occasion… I was asked if I did not desire that they should pray for me. I said, "I suppose I need to be prayed for, for I am conscious that I am a sinner; but I do not see that it will do any good for you to pray for me, for you are continually asking, but you do not receive. I was quite in earnest in what I said, and not a little irritable, I think.

 

The preaching of Rev. Gale

At Adams, for the first time, I sat statedly for a length of time under an educated ministry. Rev. George W. Gale, from Princeton, N.J., became, soon after I went there, pastor of the Presbyterian church in that place… I found it impossible to attach any meaning to many of the terms which he used with great formality and frequency. What did he mean by repentance? Was it a mere feeling of sorrow for sin? Was it altogether a passive state of mind? or did it involve a voluntary element? If it was a change of mind, in what respect was it a change of mind? What did he mean by the term regeneration? What did such language mean when spoken of as a spiritual change? What did he mean by faith? Was it merely an intellectual state? Was it merely a conviction, or persuasion, that the things stated in the Gospel were true? What did he mean by sanctification? Did it involve any physical change in the subject or any physical influence on the part of God? I could not tell, nor did he seem to me to know himself, in what sense he used these terms, and the like. 

 

The utter lack of Holy Spirit baptism

 But there was another defect in Brother Gale's education, which I regarded as fundamental. If he had ever been converted to Christ, he had failed to receive that divine anointing of the Holy Ghost that would make him a power in the pulpit and in society for the conversion of souls. He had fallen short of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which is indispensable to ministerial success. When Christ commissioned his apostles to go and preach, he told them to abide at Jerusalem till they were endued with power from on high. This power, as everyone knows, was the baptism of the Holy Ghost poured out upon them on the day of Pentecost. This was an indispensable qualification for success in their ministry.

  I did not suppose then, nor do I now, that this baptism was simply the power to work miracles. The power to work miracles and the gift of tongues were given as signs to attest the reality of their divine commission. But the baptism itself was a divine purifying, a filling them with the Holy Ghost, bestowing on them a vast divine illumination, filling them with faith and love, with peace and power; so that their words were made sharp in the hearts of God's enemies, and were quick and powerful like a two-edged sword. This is an indispensable qualification of a successful minister.

 But this part of ministerial qualification, Brother Gale did not possess. And I have often been surprised and pained that to this day so little stress is laid upon this qualification for preaching Christ to a sinful world. Without the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit, a man will never make much progress in preaching the Gospel. The fact is, unless he can preach the Gospel as an experience, present religion to mankind as a matter of consciousness, his speculations and theories will come far short of preaching the Gospel.

 (Gale) lacked the unction that is always an essential preparation for the Gospel ministry. So far as I could learn his spiritual state, he had not even the peace of the Gospel, when I sat under his ministry, and he certainly had not its power. Let not the reader from anything that I have said suppose that I did not love Mr. Gale, and highly respect him. I did both. He and I remained the firmest friends, so far as I know, to the day of his death.

 I have said what I have in relation to his views, because I think it applicable, I am afraid I must say, to the great majority of the ministers even of the present day. I think that their practical views of preaching the Gospel, whatever their theological views may be, are very defective indeed; and that their want of unction, and of the power of the Holy Ghost, is a radical defect in their preparation for the ministry. I say not this censoriously, but still I would record it as a thing that has long been settled in my mind, and as a fact over which I have long had occasion to mourn. And as I have become more and more acquainted with the ministry in this and other countries, I am persuaded that, with all their training, and discipline, and education, they are wanting in practical views of the best way of presenting the Gospel to men, in their views of adapting means to secure the end, and especially in their want of the power of the Holy Ghost.