1. Foster, Frank Hugh, A Genetic History of New England Theology (Chicago, 1907), pp 53–55.Google Scholar

2. Sweet, William Warren, The Story of Religions in America (New York, 1930), p. 185.Google Scholar The author comments that “It was the combination of these two influences—the presence among the people of a ‘tremendous amount of latent fear’ and the doctrine of human responsibility in conversion—that largely accounts for the great revival which began in central Massachusetts in the fourth decade of the eighteenth century… At the very center of this great religious movement stands Jonathan Edwards…

3. Mead, Sidney Earl, Nathaniel W. Taylor 1786–1858: A Connecticut Liberal (Chicago, 1942), pp. 17–18.Google Scholar Hopkins was supposed to have been greatly influenced by the piety exhibited by Mrs. Edwards and a willingness to be “damned for the glory of God” became popularly synonymous with “Hopkinsianism.” The “Hopkinsian Triangle” was a term derived from a series of pamphlets called The Triangle by “Investigator” (the Reverend Samuel Whelpley), later published in book form (The Triangle, [New York, 1832])Google Scholar. The three Calvinistic doctrines of Original Sin, Inability, and the Atonement formed the triangle, which Whelpley, an ardent Hopkinsian, attacked in his pamphlets. Cf. Barnes, Gilbert H. and Dumond, Dwight L. (eds.), Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Griinke Weld and Sarah Grimke 1822–1844 (New York, 1934), I, 10Google Scholar, and Foster, , History of New England Theology, pp. 107–155.Google Scholar

4. Mead, Sidney E., “Denominationalism: The Shape of Protestantism in America,” Church History, (12, 1954), p. 308.Google Scholar

5. Mead, Nathaniel William Taylor, p. 99. Mead demonstrates that these men had to become doctrinal fence straddlers, since they often reverted to the old Calvinism for their answers when doctrinal issues of a fundamental nature arose. Yet they were unwilling to be called either Calvinist or Arminian.

6. Baird, Samuel J., A History of the New School, and of the Questions Involved In The Disruption of the Presbyterian Church in 1833 (Philadelphia, 1868), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

7. Foster, , History of New England Theology, p. 547.Google Scholar

8. Beecher, Charles (ed.), Autobiography, Correspondence, Etc., of Lyman Beecher, D.D. (New York, 1865), II, 346–350.Google Scholar Cf. Mead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, p. 225.Google Scholar

9. Oberlin Evangelist, July 20, 1842.

10. Mead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, p. 220.Google Scholar

11. Information on this episode can be found in: Baird, , History of the New School, pp. 191–192Google Scholar; Foster, , History of New England Theology, p. 370Google Scholar; and Ahistrom, Sydney W., “The Scottish Philosophy and American Theology,” Churoh History, (09, 1955), pp. 262–264.Google Scholar

12. Reminiscences of Rev. Charles G. Finney. Speeches and Sketches at the Gathering of His Friends and Pupils, in Oberlin, July 18, 1876, Together With President Fairchild's Memorial Sermon, Delivered Before the Graduating Classes, July 30,1876 (Obelin, 1876), p. 49.Google Scholar The Rev. George Clark tells that he was present at New Haven sometime in the early 1830's at an interview between Finney and Taylor, and listened as these two discussed great theological questions. Mead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, p. 167Google Scholar, says that Finney spent the night at Taylor's home.

13. Walzer, William Charles, “Charles Grandison Finney and the Presbyterian Revivals of Northern and Western New York,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1944), p. 187.Google Scholar

14. Sweet, William Warren, Religion on the American Frontier 1783–1850, Vol. II, The Presbyterians (Chicago, 1936), 46–47.Google Scholar

15. Baird, , History of the New School, pp. 344–345.Google Scholar

16. Smith, Timothy, Revivalism and Social Reform (New York, 1958), p. 26.Google Scholar

17. Wood, James, Old and New Theology (Philadelphia, 1838), p. 7.Google Scholar Cf. Lefferts, Loetseher, A., “The Problem of Christian Unity in Early Nineteenth Century America,” Church History, (03, 1963), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

18. Memoirs of Charles G. Finney (New York, 1876), p. 54.Google Scholar

19. Foster, , History of New England Theology, p. 453.Google Scholar

20. Warfield, B. B., Princeton Theological Review, XIX (01, 1921), 17.Google Scholar See also Wright, George F., Charles Grandison Finney (Boston, 1891), pp. 25, 179, 181, 196, 200.Google Scholar Warfield was an Old School Presbyterian who was bitterly opposed to Finney's theology. His works are referred to occasionally in this paper because his research was impressive and his trenchant criticisms are well-stated, but nevertheless, biased.

21. Foster, , History of New England Theology, p. 457.Google Scholar Taylor's views are most adequately dealt with in Mead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, passim. Mead has a footnote on pp. 224–225Google Scholar which briefly surveys some of the literature on Taylor and explains his (Mead's) differences with Foster and Haroutunian. Cf. Haroutunian, , Piety versus Moralism. (New York, 1932), pp. 256–257.Google Scholar See also Ahlstrom, Sydney E. (ed.), Theology in America New York, 1967), pp. 41–45,Google Scholar and “Theology in America: A Historical Survey,” in The Shaping of American Religion, I, Religion in American Life, 4 vols., Smith, James W. and Jamison, A. Leland, eds. (Princeton University Press, 1961), 254–260.Google Scholar

22. Swing, A. T., “President Finney and an Oberlin Theology,” Bibliotheca Sacra, LVII (1900), 465.Google Scholar

23. Foster, , History of New England Theology, p. 453.Google Scholar Cf. Warfield, , Perfectionism, II, 19.Google Scholar disapproval of his theology of perfectionism.) (Later on several New School Presbyteries passed resolutions of censure expressing their

24. Mead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, p. 158.Google Scholar See also McLoughlin, William, Modern Revivalism (New York, 1959), pp. 30–78.Google Scholar

25. Foot, Joseph I., “Influence of Pelagianism in the Theological Course of the Rev. C. G. Finney Developed in His Sermons and Lectures,” Literary and Theological Review, V (1838), 50.Google Scholar Cf. Mead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, p. 114,Google Scholar and Haroutunian, , Piety versus Moralism, pp. 255–256.Google Scholar

26. Baird, , History of the New School, p. 217.Google Scholar

27. Walzer, , “Charles Grandison Finney and the Presbyterian Revivals,” p. 179.Google Scholar

28. A concise statement of Old School Calvinism can be found in Haroutunian, , Piety versus Moralism, pp. 143–144.Google Scholar

29. Finney, , Memoirs, p. 59.Google Scholar

30. Taylor, Richard Shelley, “The Doctrines of Sin in the Theology of Charles Grandison Finney,” (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University School of Theology, 1953), p. 253.Google Scholar

31. Cole, Charles C. Jr, The Social Ideas of the Northern Evangelists (Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 63.Google Scholar

32. Mead, Hiram, “Charles Grandison Finney,” Congregational Quarterly, XIX, (01 1877), 2.Google Scholar

33. Finney, , Memoirs, p. 12.Google ScholarFoster, , History of New England Theology, p. 253,Google Scholar suggests that Finney's consciousness of his own freedom to act was one of his arguments in favor of free will, but Wright, , Finney, p. 6Google Scholar, says that Finney may have written in some theology' when he penned his Memoirs that was not there in his early years. He wrote the Memoirs when he was nearly eighty years old.

34. Taylor, , “Doctrine of Sin in the Theology of Finney,” p. 249.Google ScholarMead, , Nathaniel W. Taylor, p. 65,Google Scholar says that most evangelists had to discard or evade the basic doctrines of Calvinism.

35. Fowler, P. H., Historical Sketch of Presbyterianism Within the Bounds of the Synod of Central New York (Utica, 1877), p. 262.Google Scholar

36. Finney, , Memoirs, p. 60.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 51.

38. Ibid., p. 54.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid., p. 157.

41. Cross, Whitney R., The Burned-Over District (Cornell University Press, 1950), p. 160.Google Scholar Cross says that Finney contributed a set of practices more than a theology and thereby “served to popularize and vitalize the New Haven theology.”

42. The pamphlet literature was voluminous. An example of Unitarian pamphleteering was: Ephraim Perkins, A “Bunker Hill” Contest, A.D. 1826. Between the “Holy Alliance” For the Establishment of Hierarchy, and Ecclesiastical Domination Over the Human Mind, On the One Side; and the Asserters of Free Inquiry, Bible Religion, Christian Freedom and Civil Liberty on the Other. The Rev. Charles Finney, “Home Missionary,” And High Priest of the Expeditions of the Alliance In The Interior of New York; Head Quarters, County of Oneida, (Utica; 1826). The Presbytery of Oneida answered with A Narrative of the Revival of Religion In the County of Oneida, Particularly In the Bounds of the Presbytery of Oneida, In The Year 1826 (Utica: (1826)Google Scholar. Perkins then rejoined with Letter to The Presbytery of Oneida County, New New York, and Their Committee, The Rev. John Frost, Rev. Moses Gillet, and Rev. Noah Coe, “Appointed to Receive Communications From Ministers and Others Respecting the Late Revival, In This County,” By “A Plain Farmer” of Trenton, (Utica, 1827). A Universalist pamphlet directed against one of Finney'a allies was: Skinner, Dolphus, A Series of Letters on Important Doctrinal and Practical Subjects, addressed to Rev. Samuel C. Aiken, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, in Utica, N. Y. to which are annexed a Bible Creed and Six Letters to Rev. D. C. Lansing, D.D., late Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, in said city, on the subject of A Course of Lectures Delivered by Him Against Universalism, in the winter of 1830, (Utica, 1833).Google Scholar

43. Letters of the Rev. Dr. Beecher and Rev. Mr. Nettleton, on the “New Measures” in Conducting Revivals of Religion, With A Review of a Sermon by Novanglus (New York, 1828), p. 99.Google Scholar

44. Nettleton's clashes with Finney are covered in: Tyler, Bennet, Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Asahel Nettleton, D.D. (Hartford, 1845), pp. 238ff.Google Scholar, Finney, , Memoirs, pp. 195ff.,Google ScholarBeecher, , Autobiography, II, 93–94Google Scholar; Weisberger, Bernard A., They Gathered at the River (Boston, 1958), pp. 116–120Google Scholar; and McLoughlin, , Modern Revivalism, pp. 33–39.Google Scholar

45. A Pastoral Letter of the Ministers of the Oneida Association to the Churches Under Their Care on the Subject of Revivals of Religion, (Utica, 1827), passim.Google Scholar

46. Nevin, John W., The Anxious Bench (Mercersburg, 1843), passim.Google Scholar This is a trenchant criticism of new measures. Nevin was answered by Weiser, B., The Mourner's Bench, or An Humble Attempt to Vindicate New Measures (William Chapman, Jr., 1844).Google Scholar A more recent account is in Nichols, James Hastings, Romanticism in American Theology (University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 52–63.Google Scholar

47. The proceedings were printed in full by the Unitarians in the Christian Examiner and Theological Review IV, (07 and 08, 1827), 357–370.Google Scholar Beecher's account of it is found in the Autobiography, II, 89–108.Google Scholar See also Finney, , Memoirs, pp. 201–225Google Scholar; and the Western Recorder, (08 7, 1827).Google Scholar A good source is Cole, Charles C. Jr, “The New Lebanon Convention,” New York History, XXX (10, 1950), 391–394.Google Scholar

48. Beecher increasingly sided with Finney while Nettleton became alienated from almost the entire New School. See Fletcher, Robert S., A History of Oberlin College (Oberlin, 1943), I, 30.Google Scholar

49. Finney, Charles G., Lectures on Revivals of Religion (New York, 1835), Preface.Google Scholar

50. Perry Miller says that “Indeed, Finney's chapter on ‘False Comforts for Sinners’ is so complete an uprooting of the historic American conception of Protestantism, so profound a reading of new meanings into the age of the Revival, that it is in effect a declaration of evangelical independence.” Miller, Perry, The Life of the Mind in America (New York, 1965), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

51. Independent Ministers of South Wales to Finney, July 13, 1940. Finney Papers (Oberlin College Library). See also Congregational Ministers of North Wales to Finney, February 27, 1840, Ibid.

52. John Keep to Smith, Gerrit, 11 13, 1839, Gerrit Smith Papers (Syracuse University Library).Google Scholar

53. The Biblical Repertory and Theological Review, VII (1835), 526–527.Google Scholar The writer said: “We tender him our thanks for the substantial service he had done the church by exposing the naked deformities of the New Divinity. He can render her still another, and in rendering it perform only his plain duty, by leaving her communion, and finding one within which he can preach and publish his opinions without making war upon the standards in which he has solemnly professed his faith.” In the next issue of the same journal he said again, “We conclude this article, as we did our former, by pointing out to Mr. Finney his duty to leave our church.” Ibid., pp. 673- 674. (Finney did eventually leave the Presbyterian Church. He resigned from the third Presbytery on March 13, 1836, and then accepted the pastorate of the Sixth Free Church or Broadway Tabernacle under Congregational rather than Presbyterian rules.)

54. Ibid., pp. 482, 663.

55. Literary and Theological Review, II (12 1835), 697. 698.Google Scholar An excellent discussion of the Lectures is in: McLoughlin, , Modern Revivalism. pp. 83–91.Google Scholar

56. Foot, , Literary and Theological Review, V (03, 1838), 71.Google Scholar

57. Asa Rand, The New Divinity Tried. The pamphlet by Rand, and another called the “Review of ‘The New Divinity Tried’,” were published in the Spirit of the Pilgrims, V (03 1832).Google Scholar The tone of the “Review” was to defend Finney from charges of heresy insisting that although he explained the doctrines of Christianity differently he was nevertheless orthodox.

58. Warfield, , Princeton Theological Review, X1X (01 1921), 47.Google Scholar

59. Wright, , Finney, p. 181.Google Scholar

60. Foster, , History of New England Theology, p. 453.Google Scholar

61. “Let me inquire again”; said Finney, “what are you doing for the conversion of sinners around you; and what for the conversion of the world? … Suppose there are a thousand million of men upon the earth; and suppose that one hundred million of these were just such Christians as you are, in your present state, and at your present rate of usefulness—when would the church be converted?” Oberlin Evangelist, February 13, 1839. Further, he stressed the fact that the older Christians should seek out the young converts so that they can help them to become stabilized and be in a better position to resist temptation. Ibid., January 29, 1840.

62. Ibid., August 28, 1839.

63. Ibid., February 12, 1845.

64. Foster, , History of New England Theology, pp. 464–465.Google ScholarWright, , Finney, chapter VIIGoogle Scholar illustrates the importance of the Skeletons in understanding the early theology of Finney.

65. Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, XIX (1847), 237.Google Scholar The reviewer said: “This is in more senses than one a remarkable book. It is to a degree very unusual in original work; it is the product of the author's own mind. The principles which he holds, have indeed been held by others; and the conclusions at which he arrives had been reached before; but still it is abundantly evident that all the principles here advancd are adopted by the writer, not on authority, but on conviction, and that the conclusions presented have all been wrought out by himself and for himself. The work is therefore in a high degree logical. It is as hard to read as Euclid. Nothing can be omitted; nothing passed over slightly.”

66. Ibid., p. 239.

67. Finney, C. G., The Reviewer Reviewed: or Finney's Theology and the Princeton Review (Oberlin, 1847), p. 59.Google Scholar

68. Finney, Charles G., Sermons on Important Subjects (New York, 1836), p. 80.Google Scholar

69. Wright, , Finney, pp. 197–198.Google Scholar

70. Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology, II, Preface.

71. Warfield, Benjamin B., Perfectionism, (Philadelphia, 1958), p. 193.Google Scholar A defense of Finney can be found in Wright, George F., “Dr. Hodge's Misrepresentation of President Finney's System of Theology,” Bibliotheca Sacra, XVI (04, 1876), 381–392.Google Scholar

72. Wright, , Finney, pp. 208–209.Google Scholar One of Finney's students and admirers said that he “failed to ground law in the holiness of God and made it too much a matter of Expedience. It was the old error of Grotius. Government was a means to the good of being, rather than an expression of God's nature.” See Strong, Augustus H., Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism (Philadelphia, 1899), p. 383.Google Scholar

73. Finney, , Memoirs, p. 46.Google Scholar

74. Wright, , Finney, pp. 232–233.Google Scholar Finney's statement on ministers seeking immediate decisions is in his Lectures on Systematic Theology, II, 520.Google Scholar

75. Swing, , Bibliotheca Sacra, LVII (1900), 466–467.Google Scholar

76. Finney, Charles G., Sermons on Gospel Themes (Oberlin, 1876), pp. 335–336.Google Scholar

77. Ibid, p. 97.

78. Finney, Charles G., Lectures to Professing Christians Delivered in the City of New York in the Years 1836 and 1837 (New York, 1837), pp. 294–295.Google Scholar Stressing urgency, Finney said: “Some wait to become dead to the world. Some to get a broken heart. Some to get their doubts cleared up, before they come to Christ. THIS IS A GRAND MISTAKE. It is expecting to do that first before faith, which is only the result of faith.”

79. Quoted in Miller, Perry, The Life of the Mind in America, p. 33.Google Scholar

80. Warfield, , Princeton Theological Review, XIX (07, 1921), 482Google Scholar said: “When Finney strenuously argues that God can accept as righteous no one who is not intrinsically righteous, it cannot be denied that he teaches a work-salvation, and has put man's own righteousness in the place occupied in the Reformation doctrine of justification by the righteousness of Christ.”

81. Finney, , Sermons on Important Subjects, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

82. Mead, Sidney E., “Denominationalism: The Shape of Protestantism in America,” Church History (12, 1954), p. 308.Google Scholar Mead is referring to criticism voiced by John W. Nevin in The Anxious Bench.

83. Finney, , Memoirs, pp. 183–184.Google Scholar

84. Finney, , Sermons on Important Subjects, p. 20.Google Scholar

85. Brand, James and Ellis, John, Memorial Addresses on The Occasion of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of President Charles G. Finney (Oberlin 1893). p. 21.Google Scholar

86. Finney, , Sermons on Gospel Themes, p. 193.Google Scholar “All men …,” said Finney “naturally have freedom of will.… This freedom is in the will itself, and consists in its power of free choice. To do or not to do, and this is a moral sovereign over its own activities. In this fact lies the foundation for moral agency.”

87. Finney, , Memoirs, pp. 50–51.Google Scholar There is a smug tone to the Memoirs at this point, since Finney abandoned the Westminster Confession in his argument with the Universalist. One can legitimately wonder, however, whether he could have formulated such a sophisticated argument at this point in his ministerial career even with the legal background which would have helped in some ways.

88. McLoughlin, , Modern Revivalism, p. 25.Google Scholar

89. Wright, , Finney, p. 22.Google Scholar Finney came in contact with Jonathan Edwards' Works on revivals at the home of S. C. Aiken in Utica,, New York. Wright says, “Of these he ‘often spoke with rapture,’ according to Dr. Aiken.…” Wright suggests that Finney toned down some of his harsh expressions after this experience. A letter by Aiken telling of Finney's reading of the works of Edwards while at his home is in the Beecher, , Autobiography, II, 91.Google Scholar

90. Taylor, , “Doctrine of Sin in the Theology of Finney,” p. 185.Google Scholar

91. Finney, , Sermons on Gospel Themes, pp. 5, 122, 206.Google Scholar

92. Walzer, , “Charles Grandison Finney and the Presbyterian Revivals,” p. 196.Google Scholar

93. Finney, , Sermons on Important Subjects, p. 139.Google Scholar Two visitors from England traveling in New York State in 1830 observed that many were teaching total depravity as a “voluntary rebellion against God.” Reed, Andrew and Matheson, James, A Narrative of the Visit to the American Churches, By the Deputation From the Congregational Union of England and Wales (New York, 1835), II, 26.Google Scholar

94. Finney, , Sermons on Important Subjects, p. 139.Google Scholar

95. Ibid., pp. 229–253.

96. Ibid, Sermon X “Doctrine of Election,” passim.

97. Ibid., Sermon I “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” passim.

98. Cross, , Burned-over District, p. 159.Google Scholar

99. Miller, , The Life of the Mind in America, p. 27.Google Scholar

100. Mead, Sidney E., “Denominationalism: The Shape of Protestantism in America,” Church History (12, 1954), pp. 308–309.Google Scholar

101. Miller, , The Life of the Mind in America, pp. 28–29.Google Scholar See also Cross, , Burned-over District, p. 199Google Scholar; Tyler, , Freedom's Ferment, pp. 23, 45Google Scholar; and McLoughlin, , Modern Revivalism, p. 131Google Scholar.

102. Johnson, James E., “Charles G. Finney and Oberlin Perfectionism,” Journal of Presbyterian History, (03, 1968), pp. 42–57,Google Scholar and Ibid., (June, 1968), pp. 128–138.