NOTICES TO OUR READERS

Death of REV. C. G. FINNEY

WE have to record the death of this widely-venerated servant of the Lord. He died at his own residence in Oberlin, Ohio, U.S.A., on the 16th of last month, at 3.15 a.m., his age being within a few days of eighty-three years. The day previous to his death he was in his usual health, taking his accustomed walk after tea. After nine p.m. he complained of suffering more than usual. A little before three a.m. his symptoms became alarming, and a physician was sent for. Hereof medical aid arrived, however, the Master came, and took with Him to the Kingdom of Light his aged servant, whoso name, in heaven, had long been "as ointment poured forth. Mr. Finney was conscious to the last. "Bless the Lord," he exclaimed, as his pain increased, "this won't last long. "His dying words were, ''Absent from the body, present with the Lord." As no two individuals can be better known to each other, both in respect to their internal experiences and visible lives, than were Mr. Finney and Dr. Mahan during the past forty-five years, our readers may expect in our next number some very important statements from the latter in respect to his old associate and '' companion in arms "— statements having a very essential bearing upon the subject most interesting to our readers, the doctrine of holiness.

R E V. C. G. FINNEY

BY REV. ASA MAHAN, D.D.

MY acquaintance with Mr. Finney commenced upwards of forty-five years ago. Since that time, as was intimated in our first number, no two individuals could have been better known to each other than were we, both in respect to our interior experiences and exterior lives. I proceed, therefore, as then indicated, as the survivor of the two, to present a few leading facts in regard to my friend, and brother in the Lord— facts which may be of interest and profit to the Christian public. Those who regard Mr. Finney as the greatest revivalist of this age, conceive but of one half, and that perhaps the least important feature, of his character. Nor can the revivals which occurred under his influence be understood, unless his character as a thinker, and the special form and manner of his teachings, be taken into full account. The revivals of religion which occurred not directly through, but in connection with, his labours, and occurred between the years 1826 and 1833, not only added from a quarter to half-a-million of souls to our churches, and that at a time when the population. of the United States was not one-third as numerous as now, but to a very great extent revolutionised the doctrines and usages of the Christian denominations in that country. Nor was this fundamental revolution confined to the United States. This I say from personal observation, that in this country the Gospel is preached to sinners, and measures are employed for the production of revivals of religion, unlike what obtained when I spent upwards of six months here twenty-six years ago, and this change is owing to teachings and measures denounced as new and subversive by many wise and good men during those revivals. Mr. Finney, with myself, I may add, commenced his ministry with the absolute conviction that forms of Christian error in doctrine and practice in the Church, as well as sin and unbelief out of it, "hindered the Gospel of Christ," and that the removal of the former is an immutable condition of removing the latter. Hence all his ministrations looked in these two fixed directions, truth and holiness in the Church, and the conversion of men from error and sin—men who are outside the Church. For the accomplishment of both these results, he was "endowed with power from on high," and was "mighty in word and deed."

The essential doctrines taught in these revivals were such as the following:—That sin consists wholly and exclusively in voluntary disobedience to known duty; that no moral agent is, or can be, accountable for any but his own sin, excepting so far as he may have had an agency in inducing sin in others; that sin, in all its forms, is absolutely inexcusable, and involves

to the creature a hopeless forfeiture of the eternal favour of God ; that the only hope for the sinner is in the atonement of Christ, as our incarnate God and Saviour; that prior to regeneration, all men in common, whatever their visible lives may be, are wholly without holiness, "without God, and without hope in the world " ; that the immutable condition of pardon and acceptance with God is *' repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ"; that in repentance and faith there must he a total and hearty renunciation of all sin, in all its known forms especially, a corresponding yielding to the will of God in all things, an unreserved consecration of all powers and possessions to Christ, and an absolute and exclusive trust in His merits and intercession ; that repentance and faith in the forms designated are the duties of the present movement, all acts and states being [alike] sinful, until this full surrender is made; that when made, all in common take rank at once among the sons of God; and, finally, that no individual living in the habitual neglect of any known duty, or in the habitual commission of any known sin, can be regained as a Christian, or in a justified state. Hence the universal cry, "Repent, and believe the Gospel." All measures adopted corresponded with the above teachings. Present decision was universally called for. It was as representing this sentiment that the memorable hymn, "Just as I am," was composed.

As illustrating the influence of these revivals and the permanency of the results in the character of the converts, I will present a single fact. In the year 1831-2, according to my reckoning of time, Mr. Finney spent some six or eight months in the city of Rochester in the State of New York. During this interval a revival of immense power occurred—a revival in which thousands from all classes of the community, the highest especially, were gathered into the churches. Some fifteen years after this, he visited the city again, when another revival of great power occurred. During the period intervening between these revivals, the population of the city increased upwards of 300 per cent. While this second revival was in progress, the most full and careful census of crime in the city during this interval, and during a corresponding number of years prior to the first revival, was taken by the most competent men, the individual who had been for many years prosecuting attorney for the city superintending the whole investigation. The clear and undeniable results brought out were these, that while the average population had been three times greater in the second than in the first period, the actual amount of crime had been upwards of 300 per cent, greater in the first than in the second period. Nor did an individual in the city question the deduction, that the exclusive cause of this wonderful difference was that revival of religion. Similar results appeared everywhere in all places in proportion to the extent and power of the work. Everywhere the mass of these hundreds of thousands of converts evinced the genuineness of their faith by "fruits meet for repentance." These, among many others, were the individuals in all the churches who so readily exercised and so divinely exemplified the spirit and doctrine .of the higher life, when afterwards proclaimed by Brother Finney and myself. We would commend the above facts to the special consideration of unbelievers of all classes. Suppose that instead of Mr. Finney, individuals holding the dogmas of Messrs. Huxley, Tyndall, and Spencer, had visited that city at the time of his first visit, and had leavened all masses of the community there with their doctrines as fully as he did with his, does anyone imagine that the relative diminution of vice and crime would have been the same in the former case as in the latter I "By their fruits shall ye know them."

I now come to speak of certain very vital results which finally attended the history of these revivals. All the converts, and members of churches who entered, heart and soul, into the work did so with a sincere and earnest renunciation of all sin, with a supreme dedication of all to Christ, with an absolute purpose to render implicit obedience to His will, and with the conviction that whenever conscious failure should occur, the lost position was to be at once regained by a prompt return to God, and a renewal of the purpose of implicit obedience. Never were believers more sincere and earnest than we were in all these respects. We started, also, with the full belief that this consecration and obedience might and would be permanent, that our spiritual joys would never fade, and that our power 'with God and men, and revival influence, would never fail. Yet, notwithstanding all our hopes and earnest endeavours, and fervent prayers, the glory departed, the revival power passed away from individuals and churches, our spiritual joys died out, and everywhere, without exception, the dirge was heard :—

"In vain we tune our formal songs,

In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannahs languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies."

This held true under the ministry of Mr. Finney, and the ablest and most zealous advocates of the doctrines and measures taught and practised in those revivals. After he left Rochester, he became a pastor in the city of New York. There, despite his most earnest and uninterrupted endeavours, the primal joys of his converts and the revival power of his church, gradually faded out. He came to Oberlin with the full persuasion that in the experience of his theological students, his ideal of the Christian life and power would become real, and no teacher ever laboured more assiduously to secure the end sought, and no pupils ever struggled more intensely by prayer, consecration, and dint of resolution, to become all that their teacher desired. But all in vain. Such was the manifest failure of his efforts, that he became despondent, and more than hinted to me a purpose to abandon the work he had undertaken. Preachers of the Gospel everywhere spoke to me of their blasted expectations in regard to the permanency of the results of the teachings and measures and spirit which obtained in these revivals. The common disappointment and sadness were like those experienced by the disciples between the hours of our Saviour's crucifixion and burial, and resurrection.

While all my associates thus " mourned and wept," and seemed to be without hope that "deliverance would come from some other quarter," I said, "in the secret of my heart," I know that wo have all missed our way, and that (fod will make known to me" His own highway of holiness," if I faint not in prayer, and continue to search for that way " with all my heart, and with all my soul." When the way, God's own highway, was clearly, through the illumination of the Eternal Spirit, made manifest to me, and then to brother Finney, what a change occurred in our inner life, visible examples, and in the results of our ministry! in our conscious experience, and as representing the same, all such Scripture words and phrases as the following became home and heart terms, namely, "Kept in perfect peace"; "Joy unspeakable and full of glory"; "Christ in you the hope of glory"; "More than conquerors through Him that hath loved us ;" "Out of His belly shall flow rivers of living water." Under our public ministrations the results which we had failed to realise before, and which God has revealed as peculiarising the work of His ministry under the new dispensation, constantly manifested themselves, results such as the following, namely: believers becoming possessed of permanent inward experiences like our own, indued with unfailing "power with God and with men," "going from strength to strength," and " changed from glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord," while the word preached had constantly increasing power over the impenitent. During the fifteen years in which Br. Finney and myself laboured together at Oberlin, while revivals were very "few and far between" everywhere else, not a single year passed without from one to three general revivals, and the constant presence of the sanctifying and converting power of the Spirit. When, during a corresponding period, 1 occupied the post of president of Adrian College, in the State of Michigan, revivals of wondrous

power were, without exception, of yearly occurrence, and that while I can think of no revival during that period within thirty miles around, excepting in a single church where the same full salvation was constantly proclaimed as in the college. The experience and lives of multitudes in all the churchmen, multitudes who embraced our views, took on the same forms of permanence, and power as was true of our own experience, and that of believers under our immediate influence. Such were the results which, during the past forty years, have transpired in the interior lives, and under the observation of Br. Finney and myself. Can the reader be surprised at being told that long since every shadow of doubt passed from our minds, that we were, ourselves, walking in God's "way of holiness," and were " teaching others the right way of the Lord " 1 "The fig tree does not bear olive-berries, nor the vine figs." Error does not bring forth the fruits revealed in the Scriptures as peculiarising God's truth.

The reader is now fully prepared to understand the essential error in the fixed ideal of the Christian life, the ideal which obtained in those revivals, and generally obtains in the churches, and that, as distinguished from "the new and living way" afterwards disclosed. The convert was, first of all, brought to a full and exclusive dependence upon the atonement and mediation of Christ for pardon and acceptance with God. So far he was rightly taught, and was started upon the track of truth. And it is this form of faith which keeps the spark of spiritual life from totally dying out in most believers. In the matter of holy living, on the other hand, our convert was brought to a full renunciation of sin in all its forms, to a supreme and undivided consecration of self and possessions to Christ, and to a sincere and supreme purpose of heart to render, in future, absolute obedience to every indication of the Divine will. It will be perceived at once, that the permanence of such obedience depends wholly upon the strength of this self-formed purpose to overcome the power of temptation certain to be met in the subsequent life. In the first stern encounter this purpose fails, of course, and the convert finds himself "in captivity under the law of sin and death." The lapse is followed by repentance, and a renewal of the holy purpose previously relied on. Another encounter occurs, followed by the same failure, the same repentance and renewed purpose of obedience. The convert soon perceives himself to be under a law, not of success, but of failure, not of victory, but defeat. As a necessary consequence primal hope gives place, at length, to despondency, primal joy to the cry, "Where is the blessedness when first I saw the Lord'!" and the whole Christian life takes an enfeebled and sickly hue. Such is the ordinary course of Christian experience and life, a life bearing in itself the fixed principle of failure, defeat, and inward spiritual barrenness and desolation.

Let us suppose, now, that while the convert is brought to the same exclusive trust in the grace of Christ for pardon or justification, the same renunciation of sin, the same consecration to Christ, and the same purpose of obedience as before, he is also fully taught and persuaded that his dependence upon Christ is just as absolute for grace to render the obedience required and purposed as it is for the pardon of his sins, that grace just as full and free exists in Christ for our sanctification as for our justification, that we are just as " complete in him " in the one relation as in tho other, and that both blessings are available upon the same identical conditions, namely, that with a faith that "staggers not at the promise of Clod through unbelief, Christ, as "the Mediator of the new covenant," be inquired for by us to do it for us." The convert now, renouncing totally not only all sin, but all self-dependence in all its forms, absolutely entrusts the entire matter of his salvation and life to Christ, accepts of Christ, and trusts in Him as his "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." As a consequence of this final and universal trust, he is confirmed, settled, and strengthened, quickened and energised in all his activities and pui-poses of obedience, not by the force of self determination, but by "the power of God," "strengthening him with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Christ assumes the direct care and control of all the interests, activities, and purposes of obedience committed to His keeping, sanctities and cleanses the believer with the washing of water by the Word, "cleanses him from all his filthiness, and from all his idols," " endues him with power from on high " for his life-mission and work, moulds his whole being into the Divine likeness "fromglory to glory," and "Himself and the Father come to him and make their abode with him." In the centre of every purpose of obedience, Christ, with the power of the Eternal Spirit, takes up His abode, and girds the soul "with everlasting strength," for the perfecting of such obedience. Thus girded, thus strengthened, and thus "abundantly furnished for every good work," the convert cannot in every "conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil," be less than "more than conquerer through Him that hath loved us." Temptation must overcome Christ and the power of the Spirit before it can for a moment bring the trustful soul "into captivity unto the law of sin and death." When "Christ dwells in the heart by faith," and the soul is "endued with power from on high," the believer's triumph and victory are just as sure and complete as were those of Christ. "Because I live ye shall live also." Such, in contrast with the dreary wilderness in which we once wandered, and the mass of believers are making their weary journey, is "the new and living way," in which my brother and myself walked together, and taught others to walk, for the last forty years, and we never had occasion to be "ashamed of the Gospel of Christ" in the form in which we taught it. In thinking of the present state of my brother in Christ, and old companion in arms, I am reminded of a remark which Mr. Whitefield once made in respect to Mr. Wesley. In the regard of his Calvinistic brethren, with whom all differences and alienations are now divinely settled, Mr. Wesley was hardly less than a hopeless reprobate. "Do you think," Mr. Whitefield asked one of these Calvinistic brethren, "that we shall ever see Mr. Wesley in heaven V "I think it, very doubtful," was the reply. When you and I get to heaven, should we permitted to go through the gates into the city," continued Mr. Whitefield, " we shall stand at such a distance from the throne, and he so near it, and so encircled with the divine glory, that I doubt whether we shall ever get a sight of him." My brother Finney, I doubt not, is now standing upon the crystal sea, and very near that throne. I have a strong hope that having had such long and tender fellowship with him, I shall, when called as he was— and that must be soon—I shall, I say, stand by his side there. And now readers, one and all, in my own, and in the name of my departed brother in the Lord, I will venture to record for your sake the following words: "That which we have .seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." The fellowship and fulness of joy which he now has before the throne is in reserve for you, and "the fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," and the consequent fulness of joy, in which we walked together for the past forty years, you may now possess. "Only believe."