By

CHARLES G. FINNEY

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO

Fleming H. Revell Company

LONDON AND EDINBURGH

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1868, by

E. J. GOODRICH,

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Northern

District of Ohio.

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THE LECTURER’S PREFACE.

Let it be remembered, that these Lectures were delivered to my own

congregation. They were entered upon, without my having previously marked

out any plan or outline of them, and have been pursued, from week to week,

as one subject naturally introduced another, and as, from one lecture to

another, I saw the state of our people seemed to require.

I consented to have the Editor of the Evangelist report them, upon his own

responsibility, because he thought that it might excite a deeper interest

in, and extend the usefulness of, his paper. And as I am now a Pastor, and

have not sufficient health to labor as an Evangelist, and as it has pleased

the Head of the Church to give me some experience in revivals of religion, I

thought it possible that, while I was doing the work of a Pastor in my own

church, I might, in this way, be of some little service to the churches

abroad.

I found a particular inducement to this course, in the fact that on my

return from the Mediterranean, I learned, with pain, that the spirit of

revival had greatly declined in the United States, and that a spirit of

jangling and controversy alarmingly prevailed.

The peculiar circumstances of the church, and the state of revivals, was

such, as unavoidably to lead me to the discussion of some points that I

would gladly have avoided, had the omission been consistent with my main

design, to reach and arouse the church, when she was fast settling down upon

her lees.

I am far from setting up the claim of infallibility upon this or any other

subject. I have given my own views, so far as I have gone, without

pretending to have exhausted the subject, or to have spoken in the best

possible manner upon the points I have discussed.

I am too well acquainted with the state of the church, and especially with

the state of some of its ministers, to expect to escape without censure. I

have felt obliged to say some things that I fear will not, in all instances,

be received as kindly as they were intended. But whatever may be the result

of saying the truth as it respects some, I have reason to believe, that the

great body of praying people will receive and be benefited by what I have

said.

What I have said upon the subject of prayer, will not, I am well aware, be

understood and received by a certain portion of the church and all I can say

I had not the most distant idea until recently, that these Lectures, is

this, or any other form, would ever grow into a book; but the urgent call

for their publication, in a volume, and the fact that I have had repeated

assurances that the reading of them in the Evangelist, has been owned and

blessed, to the quickening of individuals and churches, and has resulted in

the conversion of many sinners, have led me to consent to their publication

in this imperfect form.

The Reporter has succeeded, in general, in giving an outline of the

Lectures, as they were delivered. His report, however, would, in general,

make no more than a full skeleton of what was said on the subject at the

time. In justice to the Reporter, I would say, that on reading his reports,

in his paper, although there were some mistakes and misapprehensions, yet I

have been surprised that, without stenography, he could so nearly report my

meaning.

As for literary merit, they have none; nor do they lay claim to any It was

no part of my design to deliver elegant Lectures. They were my most familiar

Friday evening discourses; and my great, and I may add my only object, was

to have them understood and felt.

In correcting the Lectures for a volume, I have not had time, nor was it

thought advisable to remodel them, and change the style in which they had

been reported. I have, in some few instances, changed the phraseology, when

a thought had been very awkwardly expressed, or when the true idea had not

been given. But I have, in nearly every instance, left the sentences as they

were reported when the thought was perspicuously expressed, although the

style might have been improved by emendation. They were the editor’s

reports, and as such they must go before the public, with such little

additions and alterations, as I have had time to make. Could I have written

them out in full, I doubt not but they might have been more acceptable to

many readers. But this was impossible, and the only alternative was, to let

the public have them as they are, or refuse to let them go out in the form

of a volume at all. I am sorry they are not better Lectures, and in a more

attracting form; but I have done what I could under the circumstances; and,

as it is the wish of many whom I love, and delight to please and honor, to

have them, although in this imperfect form, they must have them.

C. G. FINNEY.

By perusing the above Preface, the reader will get a clue to the time and

circumstances that led to the delivery and publication of these Lectures. In

revising them for a new edition, I have done little more than correct the

phraseology in a few instances, add a few foot-notes, and replace the last

two Lectures by newly-written ones on the same texts, and prepared

especially for this edition. These Lectures are distinct from the course I

deliver to my theological class upon the same subject. That course I may

publish before my death. These Lectures have been translated in the Welsh

and French languages, and have been very extensively circulated wherever the

English or either of those languages is understood. One house in London

published 80,000 copies In English. They are still in type and in market in

Europe, and I have the great satisfaction of knowing that they have been

made a great blessing to thousands of souls. Consequently, I have not

thought it wise to recast them for the sake of giving them a more attractive

form. God has owned and blessed the reading of them as they have been, and

with the exceptions above noticed, I have given them to the present and

coming generations. If the reader will peruse and remember the foregoing

preface, he will understand what I said of the church and some of the

ministers, and why I said it. I beseech my brethren not to take amiss what I

have said, but rather to be assured that every sentence has been spoken in

love, and often with a sorrowful heart. May God continue to add His blessing

to the reading of these Lectures.

THE AUTHOR.

OBERLIN COLLEGE, Oct. 22, 1868.

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ADVERTISEMENT BY THE REPORTER

The work of reporting these Lectures was undertaken for the purpose of

increasing the interest and usefulness of the New York Evangelist. The

Reporter is wholly unacquainted with short-hand, and has, therefore, only

aimed to give a sketch of the leading thoughts of the discourse. It is

hardly necessary to mention that Mr. Finney never writes his sermons, but

guides his course of argument by a skeleton, or brief, carefully prepared,

and so compact, that it can be written on one side of a card, about half as

large as one of these printed pages. His manner is direct, and his language

colloquial and Saxon, and his illustrations are drawn from the commonest

incidents and maxims of life. The Reporter has aimed to preserve, as much as

he could, the style of the speaker, and is thought to have been in some

degree successful. If, in any cases, by letting his language run in a

colloquial strain, he has made the copy more simple and homely than the

original, he hopes to be pardoned easily for a fault by no means prevalent.

If any one should attempt to criticise the style of these Reports, he will

assuredly lose his labor; for the only ambition of the Reporter has been, to

make such a use of language as should fully convey the meaning, and fairly

exhibit the manner, of the Lecturer. When words have done this, they have

done their great work. The notes were taken with a pencil, and transcribed

in great haste, and sent to the printer without revision. In preparing them

for publication, in this form, Mr. Finney has reviewed them with reference

only to this pointâ€"the correct expression of the sentiment. The style of an

off-hand sketch has been preserved, partly of choice, and partly from

necessity. There was no time to remodel the work, and the public voice

seemed to be, that it was more attractive and more useful in its present

condensed form. Mr. Finney has, therefore, done little more than to amend

where the Reporter misapprehended the meaning, or did not express it with

sufficient distinctness. He has enlarged in a few places where the

illustrations, as given by the Reporter, seemed to be incomplete.

My labor with these sketches is now done; and its results are sent forth in

this permanent form, with the prayer, that God would employ the book, as he

has already done the newspaper edition, to rouse, and teach, and strengthen

his people, and to guide, unite, and encourage zealous Christians of all

classes, in the great duty of saving sinners.

J.L.

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CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

What a Revival of Religion is 9

LECTURE II.

WHEN A REVIVAL IS TO BE EXPECTED 22

LECTURE III.

How to Promote a Revival 35

LECTURE IV.

Prevailing Prayer 48

LECTURE V.

The Prayer of Faith 67

LECTURE VI.

Spirit of Prayer 83

LECTURE VII.

Be Filled with the Spirit 101

LECTURE VIII.

Meetings for Prayer 118

LECTURE IX.

Means to be Used with Sinners 134

LECTURE X.

To Win Souls requires Wisdom 149

LECTURE XI.

A Wise Minister will be Successful 166

LECTURE XII.

How to Preach the Gospel 185

LECTURE XIII.

How Churches can Help Ministers 213

LECTURE XIV.

Measures to Promote Revivals 238

LECTURE XV.

Hinderances to Revivals 263

LECTURE XVI.

Necessity and Effect of Union 294

LECTURE XVII.

False Comforts for Sinners 317

LECTURE XVIII.

Directions to Sinners 345

LECTURE XIX.

Instructions to Converts 364

LECTURE XX.

Instruction of Young Converts 392

LECTURE XXI.

Backsliders in Heart 412

LECTURE XXII.

Growth in Grace 428

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LECTURE I.

WHAT A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IS

Text.â€"O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the

years make known; in wrath remember mercy.â€"Hab. iii. 2.

IT is supposed that the prophet Habakkuk was contemporary with Jeremiah, and

that this prophecy was uttered in anticipation of the Babylonish captivity.

Looking at the judgments which were speedily to come upon his nation, the

soul of the prophet was wrought up to an agony, and he cries out in his

thy judgments may not make Israel desolate. In the midst of these awful

years, let the judgments of God be made the means of reviving religion among

Religion is the work of man. It is something for man to do. It consists in

obeying God with and from the heart. It is man’s duty. It is true, God

induces him to do it. He influences him by his Spirit, because of his great

wickedness and reluctance to obey. If it were not necessary for God to

influence menâ€"if men were disposed to obey God, there would be no occasion

prayer is, that men are wholly indisposed to obey; and unless God interpose

the influence of his Spirit, not a man on earth will ever obey the commands

of God.

the world has been produced by revivals. God has found it necessary to take

advantage of the excitability there is in mankind, to produce powerful

excitements among them, before he can lead them to obey. Men are so

spiritually sluggish, there are so many things to lead their minds off from

religion, and to oppose the influence of the Gospel, that it is necessary to

raise an excitement among them, till the tide rises so high as to sweep away

the opposing obstacles. They must be so excited that they will break over

these counteracting influences, before they will obey God. Not that excited

feeling is religion, for it is not; but it is excited desire, appetite and

feeling that prevents religion. The will is, in a sense, enslaved by the

carnal and worldly desires. Hence it is necessary to awaken men to a sense

of guilt and danger, and thus produce an excitement of counter feeling and

desire which will break the power of carnal and worldly desire and leave the

will free to obey God.

Look back at the history of the Jews, and you will see that God used to

maintain religion among them by special occasions, when there would be a

great excitement, and people would turn to the Lord. And after they had been

thus revived, it would be but a short time before there would be so many

counteracting influences brought to bear upon them, that religion would

decline, and keep on declining, till God could have timeâ€"so to speakâ€"to

convict them of sin by his Spirit and rebuke them by his providence, and

thus so gain the attention of the masses to the great subject of salvation,

as to produce a widespread awakening of religious interest, and consequently

a revival of religion. Then the counteracting causes would again operate,

and religion would decline, and the nation would be swept away in the vortex

of luxury, idolatry, and pride.

There is so little principle in the church, so little firmness and stability

of purpose, that unless the religious feelings are awakened and kept

excited, counter worldly feeling and excitement will prevail, and men will

not obey God. They have so little knowledge, and their principles are so

weak, that unless they are excited, they will go back from the path of duty,

and do nothing to promote the glory of God. The state of the world is still

such, and probably will be till the millennium is fully come, that religion

must be mainly promoted by means of revivals. How long and how often has the

experiment been tried, to bring the church to act steadily for God, without

these periodical excitements. Many good men have supposed, and still

suppose, that the best way to promote religion, is to go along uniformly,

and gather in the ungodly gradually, and without excitement. But however

sound such reasoning may appear in the abstract, facts demonstrate its

futility. If the church were far enough advanced in knowledge, and had

stability of principle enough to keep awake, such a course would do; but the

church is so little enlightened, and there are so many counteracting causes,

that she will not go steadily to work without a special interest being

awakened. As the millennium advances, it is probable that these periodical

excitements will be unknown. Then the church will be enlightened, and the

counteracting causes removed, and the entire church will be in a state of

habitual and steady obedience to God. The entire church will stand and take

the infant mind, and cultivate it for God. Children will be trained up in

the way they should go, and there will be no such torrents of worldliness,

and fashion, and covetousness, to bear away the piety of the church, as soon

as the excitement of a revival is withdrawn.

It is very desirable it should be so. It is very desirable that the church

should go on steadily in a course of obedience without these excitements.

Such excitements are liable to injure the health. Our nervous system is so

strung that any powerful excitement, if long continued, injures our health

and unfits us for duty. If religion is ever to have a pervading influence in

the world, it cannot be so; this spasmodic religion must be done away. Then

it will be uncalled for. Christians will not sleep the greater part of the

time, and once in a while wake up, and rub their eyes, and bluster about,

and vociferate a little while, and then go to sleep again. Then there will

be no need that ministers should wear themselves out, and kill themselves,

by their efforts to roll back the flood of worldly influence that sets in

upon the church. But as yet the state of the Christian world is such, that

to expect to promote religion without excitements is unphilosophical and

absurd. The great political, and other worldly excitements that agitate

Christendom, are all unfriendly to religion, and divert the mind from the

interests of the soul. Now these excitements can only be counteracted by

religious excitements. And until there is religious principle in the world

to put down irreligious excitements, it is vain to try to promote religion,

except by counteracting excitements. This is true in philosophy, and it is a

historical fact.

It is altogether improbable that religion will ever make progress among

heathen nations except through the influence of revivals. The attempt is now

making to do it by education, and other cautious and gradual improvements.

But so long as the laws of mind remain what they are, it cannot be done in

this way. There must be excitement sufficient to wake up the dormant moral

powers, and roll back the tide of degradation and sin. And precisely so far

as our own land approximates to heathenism, it is impossible for God or man

to promote religion in such a state of things but by powerful excitements.

This is evident from the fact that this has always been the way in which God

has done it. God does not create these excitements, and choose this method

to promote religion for nothing or without reason. Where mankind are so

reluctant to obey God, they will not act until they are excited. For

instance, how many there are who know that they ought to be religious, but

they are afraid if they become pious they shall be laughed at by their

companions. Many are wedded to idols, others are procrastinating repentance,

until they are settled in life, or until they have secured some favorite

worldly interest. Such persons never will give up their false shame, or

relinquish their ambitious schemes, till they are so excited by a sense of

guilt and danger that they cannot contain themselves any longer.

These remarks are designed only as an introduction to the discourse. I shall

now proceed with the main design, to show,

I. What a revival of religion is not;

II. What it is; and,

III. The agencies employed in promoting it.

I. A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IS NOT A MIRACLE.

1. A miracle has been generally defined to be, a Divine interference,

setting aside or suspending the laws of nature. It is not a miracle in this

sense. All the laws of matter and mind remain in force. They are neither

suspended nor set aside in a revival.

2. It is not a miracle according to another definition of the term

miracleâ€"something above the powers of nature. There is nothing in religion

beyond the ordinary powers of nature. It consists entirely in the right

exercise of the powers of nature. It is just that, and nothing else. When

mankind become religious, they are not enabled to put forth exertions which

they were unable before to put forth . They only exert the powers they had

before in a different way, and use them for the glory of God.

3. It is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a

purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted meansâ€"as

much so as any other effect produced by the application of means. There may

be a miracle among its antecedent causes, or there may not. The apostles

employed miracles, simply as a means by which they arrested attention to

their message, and established its divine authority. But the miracle was not

the revival. The miracle was one thing; the revival that followed it was

quite another thing. The revivals in the apostles’ days were connected with

miracles, but they were not miracles.

I said that a revival is the result of the right use of the appropriate

means. The means which God has enjoined for the production of a revival,

doubtless have a natural tendency to produce a revival. Otherwise God would

not have enjoined them. But means will not produce a revival, we all know,

without the blessing of God. No more will grain. when it is sowed, produce a

crop without the blessing of God. it is impossible for us to say that there

is not as direct an influence or agency from God, to produce a crop of

grain, as there is to produce a revival. What are the laws of nature

according to which it is supposed that grain yields a crop? They are nothing

but the constituted manner of the operations of God. In the Bible, the word

of God is compared to grain, and preaching is compared to sowing seed, and

the results to the springing up and growth of the crop. And the result is

just as philosophical in the one case, as in the other, and is as naturally

connected with the cause; or, more correctly, a revival is as naturally a

result of the use of the appropriate means as a crop is of the use of its

appropriate means. It is true that religion does not properly belong to the

category of cause and effect; but although It is not caused by means, yet it

has its occasion, and may as naturally and certainly result from its

occasion as a crop does from its cause.

I wish this idea to be impressed on all your minds, for there has long been

an idea prevalent that promoting religion has something very peculiar in it,

not to be judged of by the ordinary rules of cause and effect; in short,

that there is no connection of the means with the result, and no tendency in

the means to produce the effect. No doctrine is more dangerous than this to

the prosperity of the church, and nothing more absurd.

Suppose a man were to go and preach this doctrine among farmers, about their

sowing grain. Let him tell them that God is a sovereign, and will give them

a crop only when it pleases him, and that for them to plow and plant and

labor as if they expected to raise a crop is very wrong, and taking the work

out of the hands of God, that it interferes with his sovereignty, and is

going on in their own strength: and that there is no connection between the

means and the result on which they can depend. And now, suppose the farmers

should believe such doctrine. Why, they would starve the world to death.

Just such results will follow from the church’s being persuaded that

promoting religion is somehow so mysteriously a subject of Divine

sovereignty, that there is no natural connection between the means and the

end. What are the results? Why, generation after generation has gone down to

hell. No doubt more than five thousand millions have gone down to hell,

while the church has been dreaming, and waiting for God to save them without

the use of means. It has been the devil’s most successful means of

destroying souls. The connection is as clear in religion as it is when the

farmer sows his grain.

There is one fact under the government of God, worthy of universal notice,

and of everlasting remembrance; which is, that the most useful and important

things are most easily and certainly obtained by the use of the appropriate

means. This is evidently a principle in the Divine administration. Hence,

all the necessaries of life are obtained with great certainty by the use of

the simplest means. The luxuries are more difficult to obtain; the means to

procure them are more intricate and less certain in their results; while

things absolutely hurtful and poisonous, such as alcohol and the like, are

often obtained only by torturing nature, and making use of a kind of

infernal sorcery to procure the death-dealing abomination. This principle

holds true in moral government, and as spiritual blessings are of surpassing

importance, we should expect their attainment to be connected with great

certainty with the use of the appropriate means; and such we find to be the

fact; and I fully believe that could facts be known, it would be found that

when the appointed means have been rightly used, spiritual blessings have

been obtained with greater uniformity than temporal ones.

II. I AM TO SHOW WHAT A REVIVAL IS.

It is the renewal of the first love of Christians, resulting in the

awakening and conversion of sinners to God. In the popular sense, a revival

of religion in a community is the arousing, quickening, and reclaiming of

the more or less backslidden church and the more or less general awakening

of all classes, and insuring attention to the claims of God.

It presupposes that the church is sunk down in a backslidden state, and a

revival consists in the return of a church from her backslidings, and in the

conversion of sinners.

I. A revival always includes conviction of sin on the part of the church.

Backslidden professors cannot wake up and begin right away in the service of

God, without deep searchings of heart. The fountains of sin need to be

broken up. In a true revival, Christians are always brought under such

convictions; they see their sins in such a light, that often they find it

impossible to maintain a hope of their acceptance with God. It does not

always go to that extent; but there are always, in a genuine revival, deep

convictions of sin, and often cases of abandoning all hope.

2. Backslidden Christians will be brought to repentance. A revival is

nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God. Just as in the case

of a converted sinner, the first step is a deep repentance, a breaking down

of heart, a getting down into the dust before God, with deep humility, and

forsaking of sin.

3. Christians will have their faith renewed. While they are in their

backslidden state they are blind to the state of sinners. Their hearts are

as hard as marble. The truths of the Bible only appear like a dream. They

admit it to be all true; their conscience and their judgment assent to it;

but their faith does not see it standing out in bold relief, in all the

burning realities of eternity. But when they enter into a revival, they no

longer see men as trees walking, but they see things in that strong light

which will renew the love of God in their hearts. This will lead them to

labor zealously to bring others to him. They will feel grieved that others

do not love God, when they love him so much. And they will set themselves

feelingly to persuade their neighbors to give him their hearts. So their

love to men will be renewed. They will be filled with a tender and burning

love for souls. They will have a longing desire for the salvation of the

whole world. They will be in an agony for individuals whom they want to have

savedâ€"their friends, relations, enemies. They will not only be urging them

to give their hearts to God, but they will carry them to God in the arms of

faith, and with strong crying and tears beseech God to have mercy on them,

and save their souls from endless burnings.

4. A revival breaks the power of the world and of sin over Christians. It

brings them to such vantage ground that they get a fresh impulse towards

heaven. They have a new foretaste of heaven, and new desires after union

with God; and the charm of the world is broken, and the power of sin

overcome.

5. When the churches are thus awakened and reformed, the reformation and

salvation of sinners will follow, going through the same stages of

conviction, repentance, and reformation. Their hearts will be broken down

and changed. Very often the most abandoned profligates are among the

subjects. Harlots, and drunkards, and infidels, and all sorts of abandoned

characters, are awakened and converted. The worst among human beings are

softened, and reclaimed, and made to appear as lovely specimens of the

beauty of holiness.

III. I AM TO CONSIDER THE AGENCIES EMPLOYED IN CARRYING FORWARD A REVIVAL OF

RELIGION.

Ordinarily, there are three agents employed in the work of conversion, and

one instrument. The agents are God,â€"some person who brings the truth to bear

on the mind,â€"and the sinner himself. The instrument is the truth. There are

always two agents, God and the sinner, employed and active in every case of

genuine conversion.

1. The agency of God is two-fold; by his Providence and by his Spirit.

(1.) 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 every thing seem to favor a revival. The state of the weather, and of

the public health, and other circumstances concur to make every thing just

right to favor the application of truth with the greatest possible efficacy.

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!

(2.) 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 sets 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 and cuts its way like fire. He makes the truth stand out in such

aspects, that it crushes the proudest man down with the weight of a

mountain. If men were disposed to obey God, the truth is given with

sufficient clearness in the Bible; and from preaching they could learn all

that is necessary for them to know. But because they are wholly disinclined

to obey it, God clears it up before their minds, and pours in a blaze of

convincing light upon their souls, which they cannot withstand, and they

yield to it, and obey God, and are saved.

2. The agency of men is commonly employed. Men are not mere instruments in

the hands of God. Truth is the instrument. The preacher is a moral agent in

the work; he acts; he is not a mere passive instrument; he is voluntary in

promoting the conversion of sinners.

3. The agency of the sinner himself. The conversion of a sinner consists in

his obeying the truth. It is therefore impossible it should take place

without his agency, for it consists in his acting right. He is influenced to

this by the agency of God, and by the agency of men. Men act on their

fellow-men, not only by language, but by their looks, their tears, their

daily deportment. See that impenitent man there, who has a pious wife. Her

very looks, her tenderness, her solemn, compassionate dignity, softened and

moulded into the image of Christ are a sermon to him all the time. He has to

turn his mind away, because it is such a reproach to him. He feels a sermon

ringing in his ears all day long.

Mankind are accustomed to read the countenances of their neighbors. Sinners

often read the state of a Christian’s mind in his eyes. If his eyes are full

of levity, or worldly anxiety and contrivance, sinners read it. If they are

full of the Spirit of God, sinners read it; and they are often led to

conviction by barely seeing the countenance of Christians.

An individual once went into a manufactory to see the machinery. His mind

was solemn, as he had been where there was a revival. The people who labored

there all knew him by sight, and knew who he was. A young lady who was at

work saw him, and whispered some foolish remark to her companion, and

laughed. The person stopped and looked at her with a feeling of grief. She

stopped, her thread broke, and she was so much agitated she could not join

it. She looked out at the window to compose herself, and then tried again;

again and again she strove to recover her self-command. At length she sat

down, overcome with her feelings. The person then approached and spoke with

her; she soon manifested a deep sense of sin. The feeling spread through the

establishment like fire, and in a few hours almost every person employed

there was under conviction, so much so, that the owner, though a worldly

man, was astounded, and requested to have the works stop and have a prayer

meeting; for he said it was a great deal more important to have these people

converted than to have the works go on. And in a few days, the owner and

nearly every person employed in the establishment were hopefully converted.

The eye of this individual, his solemn countenance, his compassionate

feeling, rebuked the levity of the young woman, and brought her under

conviction of sin: and this whole revival followed, probably in a great

measure, from so small an incident.

If Christians have deep feeling on the subject of religion themselves, 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.

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

such a 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, and thus her convictions were lost. And no

doubt those professors of religion, by their folly, destroyed a soul, for

her convictions did not return.

The church is required to use the means for the conversion of sinners.

Sinners cannot properly be said to use the means for their own conversion.

The church uses the means. What sinners do is to submit to the truth, or to

resist it. It is a mistake of sinners, to think they are using means for

their own conversion. The whole drift of a revival, and every thing about

it, is designed to present the truth to your mind, for your obedience or

resistance.

REMARKS.

1. Revivals were formerly regarded as miracles. And it has been so by some

even in our day. And others have ideas on the subject so loose and

unsatisfactory, that if they would only think, they would see their

absurdity. For a long time, it was supposed by the church, that a revival

was a miracle, an interposition of Divine power which they had nothing to do

with, and which they had no more agency in producing, than they had in

producing thunder, or a storm of hail, or an earthquake. It is only within a

few years that ministers generally have supposed revivals were to be

promoted, by the use of means designed and adapted specially to that object.

Even in New England, it has been supposed that revivals came just as showers

do, sometimes in one town, and sometimes in another, and that ministers and

churches could do nothing more to produce them than they could to make

showers of rain come on their own town, when they are falling on a

neighboring town.

It used to be supposed that a revival would come about once in fifteen

years, and all would be converted that God intended to save, and then they

must wait until another crop came forward on the stage of life. Finally, the

time got shortened down to five years, and they supposed there might be a

revival about as often as that.

I have heard a fact in relation to one of these pastors, who supposed

revivals might come about once in five years. There had been a revival in

his congregation. The next year, there was a revival in a neighboring town,

and he went there to preach, and staid several days, till he got his soul

all engaged in the work. He returned home on Saturday, and went into his

study to prepare for the Sabbath. And his soul was in an agony. He thought

how many adult persons there were in his congregation at enmity with Godâ€"so

many still unconvertedâ€"so many persons die yearlyâ€"such a portion of them

unconvertedâ€"if a revival does not come under five years, so many adult heads

of families will be in hell. He put down his calculations on paper, and

embodied them in his sermon for the next day, with his heart bleeding at the

dreadful picture. As I understood it, he did not do this with any

expectation of a revival, but he felt deeply, and poured out his heart to

his people. And that sermon awakened forty heads of families, and a powerful

revival followed; and so his theory about a revival once in five years was

all exploded.

Thus God has overthrown, generally, the theory that revivals are miracles.

2. Mistaken notions concerning the sovereignty of God have greatly hindered

revivals.

Many people have supposed God’s sovereignty to be some thing 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 promoting a revival of religion. But there is no

evidence from the Bible that God exercises any such sovereignty as that.

There are no facts to prove it. But every thing goes to show that God has

connected means with the end through all the departments of his

governmentâ€"in nature and in grace. There is no natural event in which his

own agency is not concerned. He has not built the creation like a vast

machine that will go on alone without his further care. He has not retired

from the universe, to let it work for itself. This is mere atheism. He

exercises a universal superintendence and control. And yet every event in

nature has been brought about by means. He neither administers providence

nor grace with that sort of sovereignty that dispenses with the use of

means. There is no more sovereignty in one than in the other.

And yet some people are terribly alarmed at all direct efforts to promote a

revival, and they cry out, “You are trying to get up a revival in your own

strength. Take care, you are interfering with the sovereignty of God. Better

keep along in the usual course, and let God give a revival when he thinks it

is best. God is a sovereign, and it is very wrong for you to attempt to get

preaching as the devil wants. And 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.

3. You see the error of those who are beginning to think that religion can

be better promoted in the world without revivals, and who are disposed to

give up all efforts to produce religious awakenings. Because there are evils

arising in some instances out of great excitements on the subject of

religion, they are of opinion that it is best to dispense with them

altogether. This cannot, and must not be. True, there is danger of abuses.

In cases of great religious as well as all other excitements, more or less

incidental evils may be expected of course. But this is no reason why they

should be given up. The best things are always liable to abuses. Great and

manifold evils have originated in the providential and moral governments of

God. But these foreseen perversions and evils were not considered a

sufficient reason for giving them up. For the establishment of these

governments was on the whole the best that could be done for the production

of the greatest amount of happiness. So in revivals of religion, it is found

by experience, that in the present state of the world, religion cannot be

promoted to any considerable extent without them. The evils which are

sometimes complained of, when they are real, are incidental, and of small

importance when compared with the amount of good produced by revivals. The

sentiment should not be admitted by the church for a moment, that revivals

may be given up. It is fraught with all that is dangerous to the interests

of Zion, is death to the cause of missions, and brings in its train the

damnation of the world.

Finally.â€"I have a proposal to make to you who are here present. I have not

commenced this course of Lectures on Revivals to get up a curious theory of

my own on the subject. I would not spend my time and strength merely to give

you instructions, to gratify your curiosity, and furnish you something to

talk about. I have no idea of preaching about revivals. It is not my design

to preach so as to have you able to say at the close, “We understand all

What do you hear lectures on revivals for? Do you mean that whenever you are

convinced what your duty is in promoting a revival, you will go to work and

practise it?

Will you follow the instructions I shall give you from the word of God, and

put them in practise in your own lives? Will you bring them to bear upon

your families, your acquaintance, neighbors, and through the city? Or will

you spend the winter in learning about revivals, and do nothing for them? I

want you, as fast as you learn any thing on the subject of revivals, to put

it in practice, and go to work and see if you cannot promote a revival among

sinners here. If you will not do this, I wish you to let me know at the

beginning, so that I need not waste my strength. You ought to decide now

whether you will do this or not. You know that we call sinners to decide on

the spot whether they will obey the Gospel. And we have no more authority to

let you take time to deliberate whether you will obey God, than we have to

let sinners do so. We call on you to unite now in a solemn pledge to God,

that you will do your duty as fast as you learn what it is, and to pray that

He will pour out his Spirit upon this church and upon all the city this

winter.

_________________________________________________________________

LECTURE II.

WHEN A REVIVAL IS TO BE EXPECTED.

Text.â€"Wilt thou not revive us again; that thy people may rejoice in

thee?â€"Psalm lxxxv. 6.

THIS Psalm seems to have been written soon after the return of the people of

Israel from the Babylonish captivity; as you will easily see from the

language at the commencement of it. The Psalmist felt that God had been very

favorable to the people, and while contemplating the goodness of the Lord in

bringing them back from the land where they had been carried away captive,

and while looking at the prospects before them, he breaks out into a prayer

for a Revival of Religion. “Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people

ordinances of his house among them, he prays that there may be also a

revival of religion, to crown the work.

Last Friday evening I attempted to show what a Revival of Religion is not;

what a Revival is; and the agencies to be employed in promoting it. The

topics to which I wish to call your attention to-night, are,

I. When a Revival of Religion is needed.

II. The importance of a Revival when it is needed.

III. When a Revival of Religion may be expected.

I. WHEN IS A REVIVAL OF RELIGION NEEDED?

1. When there is a want of brotherly love and Christian confidence among

professors of religion, then a revival is needed. Then there is a loud call

for God to revive his work. When Christians have sunk down into a low and

backslidden state, they neither have, nor ought to have, nor is there reason

to have, the same love and confidence toward each other, as when they are

all alive, and active, and living holy lives. The love of benevolence may be

the same, but not the love of complacency. God loves all men with the love

of benevolence, but he does not feel the love of complacency toward any but

those who live holy. Christians do not and cannot love each other with the

love of complacency, only in proportion to their holiness. If Christian love

is the love of the image of Christ in his people, then it never can be

exercised only where that image really or apparently exists. A person must

reflect the image of Christ, and show the spirit of Christ, before other

Christians can love him with the love of complacency. It is in vain to call

on Christians to love one another with the love of complacency, as

Christians, when they are sunk down in stupidity. They see nothing in each

other to produce this love. It is next to impossible that they should feel

otherwise toward each other, than they do toward sinners. Merely knowing

that they belong to the church, or seeing them occasionally at the communion

table, will not produce Christian love, unless they see the image of Christ.

2. When there are dissensions, and jealousies, and evil speakings among

professors of religion, then there is great need of a revival. These things

show that Christians have got far from God, and it is time to think

earnestly of a revival. Religion cannot prosper with such things in the

church, and nothing can put an end to them like a revival.

3. When there is a worldly spirit in the church. It is manifest that the

church is sunk down into a low and backslidden state, when you see

Christians conform to the world in dress, equipage, parties, seeking worldly

amusements, reading novels, and other books such as the world read. It shows

that they are far from God, and that there is great need of a Revival of

Religion.

4. When the church finds its members falling into gross and scandalous sins,

then it is time for the church to awake and cry to God for a Revival of

Religion. When such things are taking place, as give the enemies of religion

an occasion for reproach, it is time for the church to ask God, “What will

5. When there is a spirit of controversy in the church or in the land, a

revival is needful. The spirit of religion is not the spirit of controversy.

There can be no prosperity in religion, where the spirit of controversy

prevails.

6. When the wicked triumph over the church, and revile them, it is time to

seek for a Revival of Religion.

7. When sinners are careless and stupid, and sinking into hell unconcerned,

it is time the church should bestir themselves. It is as much the duty of

the church to awake, as it is of the firemen to awake when a fire breaks out

in the night in a great city. The church ought to put out the fires of hell

which are laying hold of the wicked. Sleep! Should the firemen sleep, and

let the whole city burn down: what would be thought of such firemen? And yet

their guilt would not compare with the guilt of Christians who sleep while

sinners around them are sinking stupid into the fires of hell.

II. I AM TO SHOW THE IMPORTANCE OF A REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN SUCH

CIRCUMSTANCES.

1. A Revival of Religion is the only possible thing that can wipe away the

reproach which covers the church, and restore religion to the place it ought

to have in the estimation of the public. Without a revival, this reproach

will cover the church more and more, until it is overwhelmed with universal

contempt. You may do any thing else you please, and you can change the

aspects of society in some respects, but you will do no real good; you only

make it worse without a Revival of Religion. You may go and build a splendid

new house of worship, and line your seats with damask, put up a costly

pulpit, and get a magnificent organ, and every thing of that kind, to make a

show and dash, and in that way you may procure a sort of respect for

religion among the wicked, but it does no good in reality. It rather does

hurt. It misleads them as to the real nature of religion; and so far from

converting them, it carries them farther away from salvation. Look wherever

they have surrounded the altar of Christianity with splendor, and you will

find that the impression produced is contrary to the true nature of

religion. There must be a waking up of energy, on the part of Christians,

and an outpouring of God’s Spirit, or the world will laugh at the church.

2. Nothing else will restore Christian love and confidence among church

members. Nothing but a Revival of Religion can restore it, and nothing else

ought to restore it. There is no other way to wake up that love of

Christians for one another, which is sometimes felt, when they have such

love as they cannot express. You cannot have such love without confidence;

and you cannot restore confidence without such evidence of piety as is seen

in a revival. If a minister finds he has lost in any degree the confidence

of his people, he ought to labor for a revival as the only means of

regaining their confidence. I do not mean that this should be his motive in

laboring for a revival, to regain the confidence of his people, but that a

revival through his instrumentality, and ordinarily nothing else, will

restore to him the confidence of the praying part of his people. So if an

elder or private member of the church finds his brethren cold towards him,

there is but one way to remedy it. It is by being revived himself, and

pouring out from his eyes and from his life the splendor of the image of

Christ. This spirit will catch and spread in the church, and confidence will

be renewed, and brotherly love prevail again.

3. At such a time a Revival of Religion is indispensable to avert the

judgments of God from the church. This would be strange preaching, if

revivals are only miracles, and if the church has no more agency in

producing them, than it has in making a thunder storm. To say to the church,

that unless there is a revival you may expect judgments, would then be as

ridiculous as to say, If you do not have a thunder storm, you may expect

judgments. The fact is, that Christians are more to blame for not being

revived, than sinners are for not being converted. And if they are not

awakened, they may know assuredly that God will visit them with his

judgments. How often God visited the Jewish church with judgments, because

they would not repent and be revived at the call of his prophets! How often

have we seen churches, and even whole denominations, cursed with a curse,

because they would not wake up and seek the Lord, and pray, “Wilt thou not

4. Nothing but a Revival of Religion can preserve such a church from

annihilation. A church declining in this way cannot continue to exist

without a revival. If it receives new members, they will, for the most part,

be made up of ungodly persons. Without revivals there will not ordinarily be

as many persons converted as will die off in a year. There have been

churches in this country where the members have died off, and there were no

revivals to convert others in their place, till the church has run out, and

the organization has been dissolved.

A minister told me that he once labored as a missionary in Virginia, on the

ground where such a man as Samuel Davies once flashed and shone like a

flaming torch; and that Davies’s church was so reduced as to have but one

male member, and he, if I remember right, was a colored man. The church had

got proud, and was all run out. I have heard of a church in Pennsylvania,

that was formerly flourishing, but neglected revivals, and it became so

reduced that the pastor had to send to a neighboring church for a ruling

elder when he administered the communion. [1]

5. Nothing but a Revival of Religion can prevent the means of grace from

doing a great injury to the ungodly. Without a revival, they will grow

harder and harder under preaching, and will experience a more horrible

damnation than they would if they had never heard the Gospel. Your children

and your friends will go down to a much more horrible fate in hell, in

consequence of the means of grace, if there are no revivals to convert them

to God. Better were it for them if there were no means of grace, no

sanctuary, no Bible, no preaching, and if they had never heard the Gospel,

than to live and die where there is no revival. The Gospel is the savor of

death unto death, if it is not made a savor of life unto life.

6. There is no other way in which a church can be sanctified, grow in grace,

and be fitted for heaven. What is growing in grace? Is it hearing sermons

and getting some new notions about religion? Noâ€"no such thing. The Christian

who does this, and nothing more, is getting worse and worse, more and more

hardened, and every week it is more difficult to rouse him up to duty.

III. I AM TO SHOW WHEN A REVIVAL OF RELIGION MAY BE EXPECTED.

1. When the providence of God indicates that a revival is at hand. The

indications of God’s providence are sometimes so plain as to amount to a

revelation of his will. There is a conspiring of events to open the way, a

preparation of circumstances to favor a revival, so that those who are

looking out can see that a revival is at hand, just as plainly as if it had

been revealed from Heaven. Cases have occurred in this country, where the

providential manifestations were so plain, that those who are careful

observers, felt no hesitation in saying that God was coming to pour out his

Spirit, and grant a revival of religion. There are various ways for God to

indicate his will to a peopleâ€"sometimes by giving them peculiar means,

sometimes by peculiar and alarming events, sometimes by remarkably favoring

the employment of means, by the weather, health, etc.

2. When the wickedness of the wicked grieves and humbles and distresses

Christians. Sometimes Christians do not seem to mind any thing about the

wickedness around them. Or if they talk about it, it is in a cold, and

callous, and unfeeling way, as if they despaired of a reformation: they are

disposed to scold at sinnersâ€"not to feel the compassion of the Son of God

for them. But sometimes the conduct of the wicked drives Christians to

prayer, and breaks them down, and makes them sorrowful and tender-hearted,

so that they can weep day and night, and instead of scolding and reproaching

them, they pray earnestly for them. Then you may expect a revival. Indeed

this is a revival begun already. Sometimes the wicked will get up an

opposition to religion. And when this drives Christians to their knees in

prayer to God, with strong crying and tears, you may be certain there is

going to be a revival. The prevalence of wickedness is no evidence at all

that there is not going to be a revival. That is often God’s time to work.

When the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a

standard against him. Often the first indication of a revival, is the

devil’s getting up something new in opposition. It will invariably have one

of two effects. It will either drive Christians to God, or it will drive

them farther away from God, to some carnal policy or other that will only

make things worse. Frequently the most outrageous wickedness of the ungodly

is followed by a revival. If Christians are made to feel that they have no

hope but in God, and if they have sufficient feeling left to care for the

honor of God and the salvation of the souls of the impenitent, there will

certainly be a revival. Let hell boil over if it will, and spew out as many

devils as there are stones in the pavements, if it only drives Christians to

God in prayerâ€"they cannot hinder a revival. Let Satan get up a row, and

sound his horn as loud as he pleases; if Christians will only be humbled and

pray, they shall soon see God’s naked arm in a revival of religion. I have

known instances where a revival has broken in upon the ranks of the enemy,

almost as suddenly as a clap of thunder, and scattered themâ€"taken the very

ringleaders as trophies, and broken up their party in an instant.

3. A revival may be expected when Christians have a spirit of prayer for a

revival. That is, when they pray as if their hearts were set upon a revival.

Sometimes Christians are not engaged in prayer for a revival, not even when

they are warm in prayer. Their minds are upon something else; they are

praying for something elseâ€"the salvation of the heathen and the likeâ€"and not

for a revival among themselves. But when they feel the want of a revival,

they pray for it; they feel for their own families and neighborhoods, and

pray for them as if they could not be denied. What constitutes a spirit of

prayer? Is it many prayers and warm words? No. Prayer is the state of the

heart. The spirit of prayer is a state of continual desire and anxiety of

mind for the salvation of sinners. It is something that weighs them down. It

is the same, so far as the philosophy of the mind is concerned, as when a

man is anxious for some worldly interest. A Christian who has this spirit of

prayer feels anxious for souls. It is the subject of his thoughts all the

time, and makes him look and act as if he had a load on his mind. He thinks

of it by day, and dreams of it by night. This is properly praying without

ceasing. The man’s prayers seem to flow from his heart liquid as waterâ€"“O

been bowed down, so that they could neither stand nor sit. I can name men in

this state, of firm nerves, who stand high in character, who have been

absolutely crushed with grief for the state of sinners. They have had an

actual travail of soul for sinners, till they were as helpless as children.

The feeling is not always so great as this, but such things are much more

common than is supposed. In the great revivals in 1826, they were common.

This is by no means enthusiasm. It is just what Paul felt, when he says, “My

State, who prayed for sinners, and finally got into such a state of mind,

that she could not live without prayer. She could not rest day nor night,

unless there was somebody praying. Then she would be at ease; but if they

ceased, she would shriek in agony till there was prayer again. And this

continued for two days, until she prevailed in prayer, and her soul was

relieved. This travail of soul, is that deep agony, which persons feel when

they lay hold on God for such a blessing, and will not let him go till they

receive it. I do not mean to be understood that it is essential to a spirit

of prayer, that the distress should be so great as this. But this deep,

continual, earnest desire for the salvation of sinners, is what constitutes

the spirit of prayer for a revival. It is a revival begun so far as this

spirit of prayer extends.

When this feeling exists in a church, unless the Spirit is grieved away by

sin, there will infallibly be a revival of Christians generally, and it will

involve the conversion of sinners to God. This anxiety and distress

increases till the revival commences. A clergyman in Wâ€"â€"n told me of a

revival among his people, which commenced with a zealous and devoted woman

in the church. She became anxious about sinners, and went to praying for

them, and she prayed and her distress increased; and she finally came to her

minister, and talked with him, and asked him to appoint an anxious meeting,

for she felt that one was needed. The minister put her off, for he felt

nothing of it. The next week she came again, and besought him to appoint an

anxious meeting; she knew there would be somebody to come, for she felt as

if God was going to pour out his Spirit. He put her off again. And finally

she said to him, “If you do not appoint an anxious meeting I shall die, for

meeting, and said that if there were any who wished to converse with him

about the salvation of their souls, he would meet them on such an evening.

He did not know of one, but when he went to the place, to his astonishment

he found a large number of anxious inquirers. Now do not you think that

woman knew there was going to be a revival? Call it what you please, a new

revelation, or an old revelation, or any thing else. I say it was the Spirit

of God that taught that praying woman there was going to be a revival. “The

her heart, and filled it so full that she could contain no longer.

Sometimes ministers have had this distress about their congregations, so

that they felt as if they could not live unless they could see a revival.

Sometimes elders and deacons, or private members of the church, men or

women, have the spirit of prayer for a revival of religion, so that they

will hold on and prevail with God, till he pours out his Spirit. The first

ray of light that broke in upon the midnight which rested on the churches in

Oneida county, in the fall of 1825, was from a woman in feeble health, who,

I believe, had never been in a powerful revival. Her soul was exercised

about sinners. She was in an agony for the land. She did not know what ailed

her, but she kept praying more and more, till it seemed as if her agony

would destroy her body. At length she became full of joy, and exclaimed,

“God has come! God has come! There is no mistake about it, the work is

and her family were almost all converted, and the work spread all over that

part of the country. Now, do you think that woman was deceived? I tell you,

no. She knew she had prevailed with God in prayer. She had travailed in

birth for souls, and she knew it. This was not the only instance, by many,

that I knew in that region.

Generally, there are but few professors of religion that know any thing

about this spirit of prayer which prevails with God. I have been amazed to

see such accounts as are often published about revivals, as if the revival

had come without any causeâ€"nobody knew why or wherefore. I have sometimes

inquired into such cases; when it had been given out that nobody knew any

thing about it until one Sabbath they saw in the face of the congregation

that God was there, or they saw it in their conference room, or prayer

meeting, and were astonished at the mysterious sovereignty of God, in

bringing in a revival without any apparent connection with means. Now mark

me. Go and inquire among the obscure members of the church, and you will

always find that somebody had been praying for a revival, and was expecting

itâ€"some man or woman had been agonizing in prayer, for the salvation of

sinners, until they gained the blessing. It may have found the minister and

the body of the church fast asleep, and they would wake up all of a sudden,

like a man just rubbing his eyes open, and running round the room pushing

things over, and wondering where all this excitement came from. But though

few knew it, you may be sure there has been somebody on the watch-tower;

constant in prayer till the blessing came. Generally, a revival is more or

less extensive, as there are more or less persons who have the spirit of

prayer. But I will not dwell on this subject any further at present, as the

subject of prayer will come up again in this course of lectures.

4. Another sign that a revival may be expected, is when the attention of

ministers is especially directed to this particular object, and when their

preaching and other efforts are aimed particularly at the conversion of

sinners. Most of the time the labors of ministers are, it would seem,

directed to other objects. They seem to preach and labor with no particular

design to effect the immediate conversion of sinners. And then it need not

be expected that there will be a revival under their preaching. There never

will be a revival till somebody makes particular efforts for this end. But

when the attention of a minister is directed to the state of the families in

his congregation, and his heart is full of feeling of the necessity of a

revival, and when he puts forth the proper efforts for this end, then you

may be prepared to expect a revival. As I explained last week, the

connection between the right use of means for a revival, and a revival, is

as philosophically sure as between the right use of means to raise grain,

and a crop of wheat. I believe, in fact, it is more certain, and that there

are fewer instances of failure. The effect is more certain to follow. The

paramount importance of spiritual things makes it reasonable that it should

be so. Take the Bible, the nature of the case, and the history of the church

all together, and you will find fewer failures in the use of means for a

revival, than in farming, or any other worldly business. In worldly business

there are sometimes cases where counteracting causes annihilate all a man

can do. In raising grain, for instance, there are cases which are beyond the

control of man, such as drought, hard winter, worms, and so on. So in

laboring to promote a revival, there may things occur to counteract it,

something or other turning up to divert the public attention from religion,

which may baffle every effort. But I believe there are fewer such cases in

the moral than in the natural world. I have seldom seen an individual fail,

when he used the means for promoting a revival in earnest, in the manner

pointed out in the word of God. I believe a man may enter on the work of

promoting a revival, with as reasonable an expectation of success, as he can

enter on any other work with an expectation of success; with the same

expectation as the farmer has of a crop when he sows his grain. I have

sometimes seen this tried and succeed under circumstances the most

forbidding that can be conceived.

The great revival in Rochester began under the most disadvantageous

circumstances that could well be imagined. It seemed as though Satan had

interposed every possible obstacle to a revival. The three churches were at

variance; one had no minister, one was divided and about to dismiss their

minister. An elder of the third Presbyterian church had brought a charge of

unchristian conduct against the pastor of the first church, and they were

just going to have a trial before the presbytery. After the work began, one

of the first things was, the great stone church gave way, and created a

panic. Then one of the churches went on and dismissed their minister right

in the midst of it. Another church nearly broke down. Many other things

occurred, so that it seemed as if the devil was determined to divert the

public attention from the subject of religion. But there were a few

remarkable cases of the spirit of prayer, which assured us that God was

there, and we went on: and the more Satan opposed, the Spirit of the Lord

lifted up the standard higher and higher, till finally a wave of salvation

rolled over the place.

5. A revival of religion may be expected when Christians begin to confess

their sins to one another. At other times, they confess in a general manner,

as if they were only half in earnest. They may do it in eloquent language,

but it does not mean any thing. But when there is an ingenuous breaking

down, and a pouring out of the heart in making a confession of their sins,

the flood-gates will soon burst open, and salvation will flow over the

place.

6. A revival may be expected whenever Christians are found willing to make

the sacrifice necessary to carry it on. They must be willing to sacrifice

their feelings, their business, their time, to help forward the work.

Ministers must be willing to lay out their strength, and to jeopard their

health and life. They must be willing to offend the impenitent by plain and

faithful dealing, and perhaps offend many members of the church who will not

come up to the work. They must take a decided stand with the revival, be the

consequences what they may. They must be prepared to go on with the work,

even though they should lose the affections of all the impenitent, and of

all the cold part of the church. The minister must be prepared, if it is the

will of God, to be driven away from the place. He must be determined to go

straight forward, and leave the entire event with God.

I knew a minister who had a young man laboring with him in a revival. The

young man preached pretty plain, and the wicked did not like him. They said,

We like our minister, and we wish to have him preach. They finally said so

much that the minister told the young man, “Mr. Such-a-one, that gives so

much towards my support, says so and so. Mr. A. says so, and Mr. B. says so.

They think it will break up the society if you continue to preach, and I

Spirit of God immediately withdrew from the place, and the revival stopped

short. The minister, by yielding to the wicked desires of the wicked, drove

him away. He was afraid the devil would drive him away from his people, and

by undertaking to satisfy the devil, he offended God. And God so ordered

events, that in a short time he had to leave his people after all. He

undertook to go between the devil and God, and God dismissed him.

The people, also, must be willing to have a revival, let the sacrifice be

what it may. It will not do for them to say, “We are willing to attend so

revival if it will not disturb our arrangements about our business, or

revival, till they are willing to do any thing, and sacrifice any thing,

that God indicates to be their duty. Christian merchants must feel willing

to lock up their stores for six months, if it is necessary to carry on a

revival. I do not mean to say any such thing is called for, or that it is

their duty to do so. But if there should be such a state of feeling as to

call for it, then it would be their duty, and they ought to be willing to do

it. They ought to be willing to do it if God calls, and he can easily burn

down their stores if they do not. In fact, I should not be sorry to see such

a revival in New York, as would make every merchant in the city lock up his

store till spring, and say he had sold goods enough, and now he would give

up his whole time to lead sinners to Christ.

7. A revival may be expected when ministers and professors are willing to

have God promote it by what instruments he pleases. Sometimes ministers are

not willing to have a revival unless they can have the management of it, or

unless their agency can be conspicuous in promoting it. They wish to

prescribe to God what he shall direct and bless, and what men he shall put

forward. They will have no new measures. They cannot have any of this

new-light preaching, or of these evangelists that go about the country

preaching. They have a great deal to say about God’s being a sovereign, and

that he will have revivals come in his own way and time. But then he must

choose to have it just in their way, or they will have nothing to do with

it. Such men will sleep on till they are awakened by the judgment trumpet,

without a revival, unless they are willing that God should come in his own

wayâ€"unless they are willing to have any thing or any body employed, that

will do the most good.

8. Strictly I should say that when the foregoing things occur, a revival, to

the same extent, already exists. In truth a revival should be expected

whenever it is needed. If we need to be revived it is our duty to be

revived. If it is duty it is possible, and we should set about being revived

ourselves, and, relying on the promise of Christ to be with us in making

disciples always and everywhere, we ought to labor to revive Christians and

convert sinners, with confident expectation of success. Therefore, whenever

the church needs reviving they ought and may expect to be revived, and to

see sinners converted to Christ. When those things are seen which are named

under the foregoing heads, let Christians and ministers be encouraged and

know that a good work is already begun. Follow it up.

REMARKS.

1. Brethren, you can tell from our subject, whether you need a revival here

or not, in this church, and in this city; and whether you are going to have

one or not. Elders of the church, men, women, any of you, and all of

youâ€"what do you say?

Do you need a revival here?

Do you expect to have one?

Have you any reason to expect one?

You need not make any mist about it; for you know, or can know if you will,

whether you have any reason to look for a revival here.

2. You see why you have not a revival. It is only because you do not want

one. Because you are not praying for it; nor anxious for it, nor putting

forth efforts for it. I appeal to your own consciences. Are you making these

efforts now, to promote a revival? You know, brethren, what the truth is

about it. Will you stand up and say that you have made the efforts for a

revival and been disappointedâ€"that you have cried to God, “Wilt thou not

3. Do you wish for a revival? Will you have one? If God should ask you this

to-nightâ€"let it begin hereâ€"let it begin in my heart NOW? Would you dare to

say so to God, if you should hear his voice to-night?

_________________________________________________________________

[1] Why not, in such a case, let any member of the church, male or female,

distribute the elements? Is it indispensable to have an elder?

_________________________________________________________________

LECTURE III.

HOW TO PROMOTE A REVIVAL.

Text.â€"Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he

come and rain righteousness upon you.â€"Hosea x. 12.

THE Jews were a nation of farmers, and it is therefore a common thing in the

Scriptures to refer for illustrations to their occupation, and to the scenes

with which farmers and shepherds are familiar. The prophet Hosea addresses

them as a nation of backsliders, and reproves them for their idolatry, and

threatens them with the judgments of God. I have showed you in my first

lecture what a revival is notâ€"what it isâ€"and the agencies to be employed in

promoting it; and in my second, when it is neededâ€"its importanceâ€"and when it

may be expected. My design in this lecture is to show,

HOW A REVIVAL IS TO BE PROMOTED.

A revival consists of two parts; as it respects the church, and as it

respects the ungodly. I shall speak to-night of a revival in the church.

Fallow ground is ground which has once been tilled, but which now lies

waste, and needs to be broken up and mellowed, before it is suited to

receive grain. I shall show, as it respects a revival in the church,

1. What it is to break up the fallow ground, in the sense of the text.

2. How it is to be performed.

I. WHAT IS IT TO BREAK UP THE FALLOW GROUND?

To break up the fallow ground, is to break up your heartsâ€"to prepare your

minds to bring forth fruit unto God. The mind of man is often compared in

the Bible to ground, and the word of God to seed sown in it, and the fruit

represents the actions and affections of those who receive it. To break up

the fallow ground, therefore, is to bring the mind into such a state, that

it is fitted to receive the word of God. Sometimes your hearts get matted

down hard and dry, and all run to waste, till there is no such thing as

getting fruit from them till they are all broken up, and mellowed down, and

fitted to receive the word of God. It is this softening of the heart, so as

to make it feel the truth, which the prophet calls breaking up your fallow

ground.

II. HOW IS THE FALLOW GROUND TO BE BROKEN UP?

1. It is not by any direct efforts to feel. People run into a mistake on

this subject, from not making the laws of mind the object of thought. There

are great errors on the subject of the laws which govern the mind. People

talk about religious feeling, as if they thought they could, by direct

effort, call forth religious affection. But this is not the way the mind

acts. No man can make himself feel in this way, merely by trying to feel.

The feelings of the mind are not directly under our control. We cannot by

willing, or by direct volition, call forth religious feelings. We might as

well think to call spirits up from the deep. They are purely involuntary

states of mind. They naturally and necessarily exist in the mind under

certain circumstances calculated to excite them. But they can be controlled

indirectly. Otherwise there would be no moral character in our feelings, if

there were not a way to control them. We cannot say, “Now I will feel so and

at it intently, till the involuntary affections arise. Let a man who is away

from his family, bring them up before his mind, and will he not feel? But it

can direct his attention to any object, about which he ought to feel and

wishes to feel, and in that way he will call into existence the proper

emotions. Let a man call up his enemy before his mind, and his feelings of

enmity will rise. So if a man thinks of God, and fastens his mind on any

parts of God’s character, he will feelâ€"emotions will come up, by the very

laws of mind. If he is a friend of God, let him contemplate God as a

gracious and holy being, and he will have emotions of friendship kindled up

in his mind. If he is an enemy of God, only let him get the true character

of God before his mind, and look at it, and fasten his attention on it, and

his enmity will rise against God, or he will break down and give his heart

to God.

If you wish to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, and make your

minds feel on the subject of religion, you must go to work just as you would

to feel on any other subject. Instead of keeping your thoughts on every

thing else, and then imagine that by going to a few meetings you will get

your feelings enlisted, go the common sense way to work, as you would on any

other subject. It is just as easy to make your minds feel on the subject of

religion as it is on any other subject. God has put these states of mind

under your control. If people were as unphilosophical about moving their

limbs, as they are about regulating their emotions, you would never have got

here to meeting to-night.

If you mean to break up the fallow ground of your hearts, you must begin by

looking at your heartsâ€"examine and note the state of your minds, and see

where you are. Many never seem to think about this. They pay no attention to

their own hearts, and never know whether they are doing well in religion or

notâ€"whether they are gaining ground or going backâ€"whether they are fruitful,

or lying waste like the fallow ground. Now you must draw off your attention

from other things, and look into this. Make a business of it. Do not be in a

hurry. Examine thoroughly the state of your hearts, and see where you

areâ€"whether you are walking with God every day, or walking with the

devilâ€"whether you are serving God or serving the devil mostâ€"whether you are

under the dominion of the prince of darkness, or the Lord Jesus Christ.

To do all this, you must set yourself at work to consider your sins. You

must examine yourselves. And by this I do not mean, that you must stop and

look directly within to see what is the present state of your feelings. That

is the very way to put a stop to all feeling. This is just as absurd as it

would be for a man to shut his eyes on the lamp, and try to turn his eyes

inward to find out whether there was any image painted on the retina. The

man complains that he does not see anything! And why? Because he has turned

his eyes away from the objects of sight. The truth is, our moral feelings

are as much an object of consciousness as our sensations. And the way to

excite is to go on acting, and employing our minds. Then we can tell our

moral feelings by consciousness, just as I could tell my natural feelings by

consciousness, if I should put my hand in the fire.

Self-examination consists in looking at your lives, in considering your

actions, in calling up the past, and learning its true character. Look back

over your past history. Take up your individual sins one by one, and look at

them. I do not mean that you should just cast a glance at your past life,

and see that it has been full of sins, and then go to God and make a sort of

general confession, and ask for pardon. That is not the way. You must take

them up one by one. It will be a good thing to take a pen and paper, as you

go over them, and write them down as they occur to you. Go over them as

carefully as a merchant goes over his books; and as often as a sin comes

before your memory, add it to the list. General confessions of sin will

never do. Your sins were committed one by one; and as far as you can come at

them, they ought to be reviewed and repented of one by one. Now begin; and

take up first what are commonly, but improperly, called your

SINS OF OMISSION.

1. Ingratitude. Take this sin, for instance, and write down under it all the

instances you can remember, wherein you have received favors from God, for

which you have never exercised gratitude. How many cases can you remember?

Some remarkable providence, some wonderful turn of events, that saved you

from ruin. Set down the instances of God’s goodness to you when you were in

sin, before your conversion. Then the mercy of God in the circumstances of

your conversion, for which you have never been half thankful enough. The

numerous mercies you have received since. How long the catalogue of

instances, where your ingratitude is so black that you are forced to hide

your face in confusion! Now go on your knees, and confess them one by one to

God, and ask forgiveness. The very act of confession, by the laws of

suggestion, will bring up others to your memory. Put down these. Go over

these three or four times in this way, and you will find an astonishing

amount of mercies, for which you have never thanked God. Then take another

sin. Let it be,

2. Want of love to God. Write that down, and go over all the instances you

can remember, when you did not give to the blessed God that hearty love

which you ought.

Think how grieved and alarmed you would be, if you discovered any flagging

of affection for you in your wife, husband, or children; if you saw somebody

else engrossing their hearts, and thoughts, and time. Perhaps, in such a

case, you would well nigh die with a just and virtuous jealousy. Now, God

styles himself a jealous God; and have you not given your heart to other

loves: played the harlot, and infinitely offended him?

3. Neglect of the Bible. Put down the cases, when for days, and perhaps for

weeksâ€"yea, it may be, even for months together, you had no pleasure in

God’s word. Perhaps you did not read a chapter, or if you read it, it was in

a way that was still more displeasing to God. Many people read over a whole

chapter in such a way, that if they were put under oath when they have done,

they could not tell what they have been reading. With so little attention do

they read, that they cannot remember where they have read from morning till

evening, unless they put in a string or turn down a leaf. This demonstrates

that they did not lay to heart what they read, that they did not make it a

subject of reflection. If you were reading a novel, or any other piece of

intelligence that greatly interested you, would you not remember what you

read last? And the fact that you fold a leaf or put in a string,

demonstrates that you read rather as a task, than from love or reverence for

the word of God. The word of God is the rule of your duty. And do you pay so

little regard to it as not to remember what you read? If so, no wonder that

you live so at random, and that your religion is such a miserable failure.

4. Unbelief. Instances in which you have virtually charged the God of truth

with lying, by your unbelief of his express promises and declarations. God

has promised to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. Now, have you

believed this? Have you expected him to answer? Have you not virtually said

in your hearts, when you prayed for the Holy Spirit, “I do not believe that

receive the blessing, which God has expressly promised, you have charged him

with lying.

5. Neglect of prayer. Times when you omitted secret prayer, family prayer,

and prayer meetings, or have prayed in such a way as more grievously to

offend God, than to have neglected it altogether.

6. Neglect of the means of grace. When you have suffered trifling excuses to

prevent your attending meetings, have neglected and poured contempt upon the

means of salvation, merely from disrelish of spiritual duties.

7. The manner in which you have performed those dutiesâ€"want of feelingâ€"want

of faithâ€"worldly frame of mindâ€"so that your words were nothing but the mere

chattering of a wretch, that did not deserve that God should feel the least

care for him. When you have fallen down upon your knees, and said your

prayers, in such an unfeeling and careless manner, that if you had been put

under oath five minutes after you left your closet, you could not have told

what you had been praying for.

8. Your want of love for the souls of your fellow-men. Look round upon your

friends and relations, and remember how little compassion you have felt for

them. You have stood by and seen them going right to hell, and it seems as

though you did not care if they did. How many days have there been, in which

you did not make their condition the subject of a single fervent prayer, or

even an ardent desire for their salvation?

9. Your want of care for the heathen. Perhaps you have not cared enough for

them to attempt to learn their condition; perhaps not even to take a

Missionary paper. Look at this, and see how much you do really care for the

heathen, and set down honestly the real amount of your feelings for them,

and your desire for their salvation. Measure your desire for their salvation

by the self-denial you practise, in giving of your substance to send them

the Gospel. Do you deny yourself even the hurtful superfluities of life,

such as tea, coffee, and tobacco? Do you retrench your style of living, and

really subject yourself to any inconvenience to save them? Do you daily pray

for them in your closet? Do you statedly attend the monthly concert? Are you

from month to month laying by something to put into the treasury of the

Lord, when you go up to pray? If you are not doing these things, and if your

soul is not agonized for the poor benighted heathen, why are you such a

hypocrite as to pretend to be a Christian? Why, your profession is an insult

to Jesus Christ!

10. Your neglect of family duties. How you have lived before them, how you

have prayed, what an example you have set before them. What direct efforts

do you habitually make for their spiritual good? What duty have you not

neglected?

11. Neglect of social duties.

12. Neglect of watchfulness over your own life. Instances in which you have

hurried over your private duties, and not taken yourself to task, nor

honestly made up your accounts with God. Where you have entirely neglected

to watch your conduct, and have been off your guard, and have sinned before

the world, and before the church, and before God.

13. Neglect to watch over your brethren. How often have you broken your

covenant, that you would watch over them in the Lord! How little do you know

or care about the state of their souls! And yet you are under a solemn oath

to watch over them. What have you done to make yourself acquainted with

them? How many of them have you interested yourself for, to know their

spiritual state? Go over the list, and wherever you find there has been a

neglect, write it down. How many times have you seen your brethren growing

cold in religion, and have not spoken to them about it? You have seen them

beginning to neglect one duty after another, and you did not reprove them in

a brotherly way. You have seen them falling into sin, and you let them go

on. And yet you pretend to love them. What a hypocrite! Would you see your

wife or child going into disgrace, or into the fire, and hold your peace?

No, you would not. What do you think of yourself, then, to pretend to love

Christians, and to love Christ, while you can see them going into disgrace,

and say nothing to them?

14. Neglect of self-denial. There are many professors who are willing to do

almost any thing in religion, that does not require self-denial. But when

they are called to do any thing that requires them to deny themselves, Oh!

that is too much. They think they are doing a great deal for God, and doing

about as much as he ought to ask in reason, if they are only doing what they

can do about as well as not; but they are not willing to deny themselves any

comfort or convenience whatever, for the sake of serving the Lord. They will

not willingly suffer reproach for the name of Christ. Nor will they deny

themselves the luxuries of life, to save a world from hell. So far are they

from remembering that self-denial is a condition of discipleship, that they

do not know what self-denial is. They never have really denied themselves a

riband or a pin for Christ, and for the Gospel. Oh, how soon such professors

will be in hell! Some are giving of their abundance, and are giving much,

and are ready to complain that others don’t give more; when, in truth, they

do not give any thing that they need, any thing that they could enjoy, if

they kept it. They only give of their surplus wealth; and perhaps that poor

woman, who puts in twelve and a half cents at the monthly concert, has

exercised more self-denial, than they have in giving thousands.

From these we now turn to

SINS OF COMMISSION.

1. Worldly mindedness. What has been the state of your heart in regard to

your worldly possessions? Have you looked at them as really yoursâ€"as if you

had a right to dispose of them as your own, according to your own will? If

you have, write that down. If you have loved property, and sought after it

for its own sake, or to gratify lust or ambition, or a worldly spirit, or to

lay it up for your families, you have sinned, and must repent.

2. Pride. Recollect all the instances you can, in which you have detected

yourself in the exercise of pride. Vanity is a particular form of pride. How

many times have you detected yourself in consulting vanity, about your dress

and appearance? How many times have you thought more, and taken more pains,

and spent more time, about decorating your body to go to church, than you

have about preparing your mind for the worship of God? You have gone to the

house of God caring more how you appear outwardly in the sight of mortal

men, than how your soul appears in the sight of the heart-searching God. You

have in fact set up yourself to be worshipped by them, rather than prepared

to worship God yourself. You came to divide the worship of God’s house, to

draw off the attention of God’s people to look at your pretty appearance. It

is in vain to pretend now, that you don’t care any thing about having people

look at you. Be honest about it. Would you take all this pains about your

looks if every body was blind?

3. Envy. Look at the cases in which you were envious at those who you

thought were above you in any respect. Or perhaps you have envied those who

have been more talented or more useful than yourself. Have you not so envied

some, that you have been pained to hear them praised? It has been more

agreeable to you to dwell upon their faults, than upon their virtues, upon

their failures, than upon their success. Be honest with yourself, and if you

have harbored this spirit of hell, repent deeply before God, or he will

never forgive you.

4. Censoriousness. Instances in which you have had a bitter spirit, and

spoken of Christians in a manner entirely devoid of charity and

loveâ€"charity, which requires you always to hope the best the case will

admit, and to put the best construction upon any ambiguous conduct.

5. Slander. The times you have spoken behind people’s backs of their faults,

real or supposed, of members of the church or others, unnecessarily or

without good reason. This is slander. You need not lie to be guilty of

slander;â€"to tell the truth with the design to injure, is slander.

6. Levity. How often have you trifled before God, as you would not have

dared to trifle in the presence of an earthly sovereign? You have either

been an Atheist, and forgotten that there was a God, or have had less

respect for him, and his presence, than you would have had for an earthly

judge.

7. Lying. Understand now what lying is. Any species of designed deception

for a selfish reason is lying. If the deception is not a design it is not

lying. But if you design to make an impression contrary to the naked truth,

you lie. Put down all those cases you can recollect. Don’t call them by any

soft name. God calls them LIES, and charges you with LYING, and you had

better charge yourself correctly.

How innumerable are the falsehoods perpetrated every day in business, and in

social intercourse, by words, and looks, and actionsâ€"designed to make an

impression on others contrary to the truth for selfish reasons.

8. Cheating. Set down all the cases in which you have dealt with an

individual, and done to him that which you would not like to have done to

you. That is cheating. God has laid down a rule in the case; “All things

is the rule; and now if you have not done so you are a cheat. Mind, the rule

is not that you should do what you might reasonably expect them to do to

you. That is a rule which would admit of every degree of wickedness. But it

9. Hypocrisy. For instance, in your prayers and confessions to God. Set down

the instances in which you have prayed for things you did not really want.

And the evidence is, that when you had done praying, you could not tell what

you had prayed for. How many times have you confessed sins that you did not

mean to break off, and when you had no solemn purpose not to repeat them?

Yes, have confessed sins when you knew you as much expected to go and repeat

them as you expected to live.

10. Robbing God. Instances in which you have misspent your time, and

squandered hours which God gave you to serve him and save souls, in vain

amusements or foolish conversation, reading novels, or doing nothing; cases

where you have misapplied your talents and powers of mind; where you have

squandered money on your lusts, or spent it for things you did not need, and

which neither contributed to your health, comfort or usefulness. Perhaps

some of you who are here to-night have laid out God’s money for TOBACCO. I

will not speak of rum, for I presume there is no professor of religion here

to-night that would drink rum. I hope there is no one that uses that filthy

poison, tobacco. Think of a professor of religion, using God’s money to

poison himself with tobacco!

11. Bad temper. Perhaps you have abused your wife, or your children, or your

family, or servants, or neighbors. Write it all down.

12. Hindering others from being useful. Perhaps you have weakened their

influence by insinuations against them. You have not only robbed God of your

own talents, but tied the hands of somebody else. What a wicked servant is

he that loiters himself, and hinders the rest! This is done sometimes by

taking their time needlessly; sometimes by destroying Christian confidence

in them. Thus you have played into the hands of Satan, and not only showed

yourself an idle vagabond, but prevented others from working.

If you find you have committed a fault against an individual, and that

individual is within your reach, go and confess it immediately, and get that

out of the way. If the individual you have injured is too far off for you to

go and see him, sit down and write him a letter, and confess the injury, pay

the postage, and put it into the mail immediately. I say, pay the postage,

or otherwise you will only make the matter worse. You will add to the former

injury, by making him a bill of expense. The man that writes a letter on his

own business, and sends it to another without paying the postage, is

dishonest, and has cheated him out of so much. And if he would cheat a man

out of a sixpence or shilling, when the temptation is so small, what would

he not do were the temptation greater, if he had the prospect of impunity?

If you have defrauded any body, send the money, the full amount and the

interest.

Go thoroughly to work in all this. Go now. Don’t put it off; that will only

make the matter worse. Confess to God those sins that have been committed

against God, and to man those sins that have been committed against man.

Don’t think of getting off by going round the stumbling blocks. Take them up

out of the way. In breaking up your fallow ground, you must remove every

obstruction. Things may be left that you may think little things, and you

may wonder why you do not feel as you wish to in religion, when the reason

is that your proud and carnal mind has covered up something which God

required you to confess and remove. Break up all the ground and turn it

over. Do not balk it, as the farmers say; do not turn aside for little

difficulties; drive the plow right through them, beam deep, and turn the

ground all up, so that it may all be mellow and soft, and fit to receive the

seed and bear fruit a hundred fold.

When you have gone over your whole history in this way, thoroughly, if you

will then go over the ground the second time, and give your solemn and fixed

attention to it, you will find that the things you have put down will

suggest other things of which you have been guilty, connected with them, or

near them. Then go over it a third time, and you will recollect other things

connected with these. And you will find in the end that you can remember an

amount of your history, and particular actions, even in this life, which you

did not think you should remember in eternity. Unless you do take up your

sins in this way, and consider them in detail, one by one, you can form no

idea of the amount of your sins. You should go over it as thoroughly and as

carefully, and as solemnly, as you would if you were just preparing yourself

for the judgment.

As you go over the catalogue of your sins, be sure to resolve upon present

and entire reformation. Wherever you find any thing wrong, resolve at once,

in the strength of God, to sin no more in that way. It will be of no benefit

to examine yourself, unless you determine to amend in every particular that

you find wrong in heart, temper, or conduct.

If you find, as you go on with this duty, that your mind is still all dark,

cast about you, and you will find there is some reason for the Spirit of God

to depart from you. You have not been faithful and thorough. In the progress

of such a work you have got to do violence to yourself, and bring yourself

as a rational being up to this work, with the Bible before you, and try your

heart till you do feel. You need not expect that God will work a miracle for

you to break up your fallow ground. It is to be done by means. Fasten your

attention to the subject of your sins. You cannot look at your sins long and

thoroughly, and see how bad they are, without feeling, and feeling deeply.

Experience abundantly proves the benefit of going over our history in this

way. Set yourself to the work now; resolve that you never will stop till you

find you can pray. You never will have the spirit of prayer, till you

examine yourself, and confess your sins, and break up your fallow ground.

You never will have the Spirit of God dwelling in you, till you have

unraveled this whole mystery of iniquity, and spread out your sins before

God. Let there be this deep work of repentance, and full confession, this

breaking down before God, and you will have as much of the spirit of prayer

as your body can bear up under. The reason why so few Christians know any

thing about the spirit of prayer, is because they never would take the pains

to examine themselves properly, and so never knew what it was to have their

hearts all broken up in this way.

You see I have only begun to lay open this subject to-night. I want to lay

it out before you, in the course of these lectures, so that if you will

begin and go on to do as I say, the results will be just as certain as they

are when the farmer breaks up a fallow field, and mellows it, and sows his

grain. It will be so, if you will only begin in this way, and hold on till

all your hardened and callous hearts break up.

REMARKS.

1. It will do no good to preach to you while your hearts are in this

hardened, and waste, and fallow state. The farmer might just as well sow his

grain on the rock. It will bring forth no fruit. This is the reason why

there are so many fruitless professors in the church, and why there is so

much outside machinery, and so little deep-toned feeling in the church. Look

at the Sabbath-school for instance, and see how much machinery there is, and

how little of the power of godliness. If you go on in this way, the word of

God will continue to harden you, and you will grow worse and worse, just as

the rain and snow on an old fallow field makes the turf thicker, and the

clods stronger.

2. See why so much preaching is wasted, and worse than wasted. It is because

the church will not break up their fallow ground. A preacher may wear out

his life, and do very little good, while there are so many stony-ground

hearers, who have never had their fallow ground broken up. They are only

half converted, and their religion is rather a change of opinion than a

change of the feeling of their hearts. There is mechanical religion enough,

but very little that looks like deep heart-work.

3. Professors of religion should never satisfy themselves, or expect a

revival, just by starting out of their slumbers, and blustering about, and

making a noise, and talking to sinners. They must get their fallow ground

broken up. It is utterly unphilosophical to think of getting engaged in

religion in this way. If your fallow ground is broken up, then the way to

get more feeling, is to go out and see sinners on the road to hell, and talk

to them, and guide inquiring souls, and you will get more feeling. You may

get into an excitement without this breaking up; you may show a kind of

zeal, but it will not last long, and it will not take hold of sinners,

unless your hearts are broken up. The reason is, that you go about it

mechanically, and have not broken up your fallow ground.

4. And now, finally, will you break up your fallow ground? Will you enter

upon the course now pointed out, and persevere till you are thoroughly

awake? If you fail here, if you do not do this, and get prepared, you can go

no further with me in this course of lectures. I have gone with you as far

as it is of any use to go, until your fallow ground is broken up. Now, you

must make thorough work upon this point, or all I have further to say will

do you little good. Nay, it will only harden and make you worse. If, when

next Friday night arrives, it finds you with unbroken hearts, you need not

expect to be benefited by what I shall say. If you do not set about this

work immediately, I shall take it for granted that you do not mean to be

revived, that you have forsaken your minister, and mean to let him go up to

battle alone. If you do not do this, I charge you with having forsaken

Christ, with refusing to repent and do your first work. But if you will be

prepared to enter upon the work, I propose, God willing, next Friday

evening, to lead you into the work of saving sinners.

_________________________________________________________________

LECTURE IV.

PREVAILING PRAYER.

Text.â€"The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.â€"James

v. 16.

THE last lecture referred principally to the confession of sin. To-night my

remarks will be chiefly confined to the subject of intercession, or prayer.

There are two kinds of means requisite to promote a revival; one to

influence men, the other to influence God. The truth is employed to

influence men, and prayer to move God. When I speak of moving God, I do not

mean that God’s mind is changed by prayer, or that his disposition or

character is changed. But prayer produces such a change in us and fulfils

such conditions as renders it consistent for God to do as it would not be

consistent for him to do otherwise. When a sinner repents, that state of

mind makes it proper for God to forgive him. God has always been ready to

forgive him on that condition, so that when the sinner changes his mind

towards God, it requires no change of feeling in God to pardon him. It is

the sinner’s repentance that renders his forgiveness proper, and is the

occasion of God’s acting as he does. So when Christians offer effectual

prayer, their state of mind renders it proper for God to answer them. He was

always ready to bestow the blessing, on the condition that they felt right,

and offered the right kind of prayer. Whenever this change takes place in

them, and they offer the right kind of prayer, then God, without any change

in himself, can answer them. When we offer effectual fervent prayer for

others, the fact that we offer such prayer renders it consistent for him to

do what we pray for, when otherwise it would not have been consistent.

Prayer is an essential link in the chain of causes that lead to a revival;

as much so as truth is. Some have zealously used truth to convert men, and

laid very little stress on prayer. They have preached, and talked, and

distributed tracts with great zeal, and then wondered that they had so

little success. And the reason was, that they forgot to use the other branch

of the means, effectual prayer. They overlooked the fact, that truth by

itself will never produce the effect, without the Spirit of God, and that

Spirit is given in answer to earnest prayer.

Sometimes it happens that those who are the most engaged in employing truth,

are not the most engaged in prayer. This is always unhappy.â€"For unless they,

or somebody else have the spirit of prayer, the truth by itself will do

nothing but harden men in impenitence. Probably in the day of judgment it

will be found that nothing is ever done by the truth, used ever so

zealously, unless there is a spirit of prayer somewhere in connection with

the presentation of truth.

Others err on the other side. Not that they lay too much stress on prayer.

But they overlook the fact that prayer might be offered for ever, by itself,

and nothing would be done. Because sinners are not converted by direct

contact of the Holy Ghost, but by the truth, employed as a means. To expect

the conversion of sinners by prayer alone, without the employment of truth,

is to tempt God.

The subject of discourse this evening, is

PREVAILING PRAYER.

I. I propose to show what is effectual or prevailing prayer.

II. State some of the most essential attributes of prevailing prayer.

III. Give some reasons why God requires this kind of prayer.

IV. Show that such prayer will avail much.

I. I proceed to show what is prevailing prayer.

1. Effectual, prevailing prayer, does not consist in benevolent desires

merely. Benevolent desires are doubtless pleasing to God. Such desires

pervade heaven, and are found in all holy beings. But they are not prayer.

Men may have these desires as the angels and glorified spirits have them.

But this is not the effectual, prevailing prayer, spoken of in the text.

Prevailing prayer is something more than this.

2. Prevailing, or effectual prayer, is that prayer which obtains the

blessing that it seeks. It is that prayer which effectually moves God. The

very idea of effectual prayer is, that it effects its object.

II. I will state some of the most essential attributes of prevailing prayer.

I cannot detail in full all the things that go to make up prevailing prayer.

But I will mention some things that are essential to it; some things which a

person must do in order to prevail in prayer.

1. He must pray for a definite object. He need not expect to offer such

prayer, if he prays at random, without any distinct or definite object. He

must have an object distinctly before his mind. I speak now of secret

prayer. Many people go away into their closets, because they must say their

prayers. The time has come that they are in the habit of going by themselves

for prayer, in the morning, or at noon, or at whatever time of day it may

be. And instead of having any thing to say, any definite object before their

mind, they fall down on their knees, and pray for just what comes into their

minds, for everything that floats in their imagination at the time, and when

they have done, they could not tell hardly a word of what they have been

praying for. This is not effectual prayer. What should we think of any body

who should try to move a legislature so, and should say, “Now it is winter,

should go up to the legislature and petition at random, without any definite

object? Do you think such petitions would move the legislature?

A man must have some definite object before his mind. He cannot pray

effectually for a variety of objects at once. The mind of man is so

constituted that it cannot fasten its desires intensely upon many things at

the same time. All the instances of effectual prayer recorded in the Bible

were of this kind. Wherever you see that the blessing sought for in prayer

was attained, you will find that the prayer which was offered was prayer for

that definite object.

2. Prayer, to be effectual, must be in accordance with the revealed will of

God. To pray for things contrary to the revealed will of God, is to tempt

God. There are three ways in which God’s will is revealed to men for their

guidance in prayer.

(1.) By express promises or predictions in the Bible, that he will give or

do certain things. Either by express promises in regard to particular

things, or promises in general terms, so that we may apply them to

particular things. For instance, there is this promise: “Whatsoever things

ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have

(2.) Sometimes God reveals his will by his providence. When he makes it

clear that such and such events are about to take place, it is as much a

revelation as if he had written it in his word. It would be impossible to

reveal every thing in the Bible. But God often makes it clear to those who

have spiritual discernment, that it is his will to grant such and such

blessings.

(3.) By his Spirit. When God’s people are at a loss what to pray for,

agreeable to his will, his Spirit often instructs them. Where there is no

particular revelation, and providence leaves it dark, and we know not what

to pray for as we ought, we are expressly told, that “the Spirit also

subject of praying in faith for things not revealed. It is objected, that

this doctrine implies a new revelation. I answer, that, new or old, it is

the very revelation that Jehovah says he makes. It is just as plain here, as

if it were now revealed by a voice from heaven, that the Spirit of God helps

the people of God to pray according to the will of God, when they themselves

know not what things they ought to pray for. “And he that searcheth the

the saints according to the will of God, and he leads Christians to pray for

just those things, with groanings that cannot be uttered. When neither the

word nor providence enables them to decide, then let them be filled with the

Spirit, as God commands them to be. He says, “Be ye filled with the

grant.

3. To pray effectually, you must pray with submission to the will of God. Do

not confound submission with indifference. No two things are more unlike. I

once knew an individual come where there was a revival. He himself was cold,

and did not enter into the spirit of it, and had no spirit of prayer; and

when he heard the brethren pray as if they could not be denied, he was

shocked at their boldness, and kept all the time insisting on the importance

of praying with submission; when it was as plain as any thing could be, that

he confounded submission with indifference

So again, do not confound submission in prayer with a general confidence

that God will do what is right. It is proper to have this confidence that

God will do what is right in all things. But this is a different thing from

submission. What I mean by submission in prayer, is, acquiescence in the

revealed will of God. To submit to any command of God is to obey it.

Submission to some supposable or possible, but secret decree of God, is not

submission. To submit to any dispensation of Providence is impossible till

it comes. For we never can know what the event is to be, till it takes

place. Take a case: David, when his child was sick, was distressed, and

agonized in prayer, and refused to be comforted. He took it so much to

heart, that when the child died, his servants were afraid to tell him the

child was dead, for fear he would vex himself still worse. But as soon as he

heard that the child was dead, he laid aside his grief, and arose, and asked

for food, and ate and drank as usual. While the child was yet alive, he did

not know what was the will of God, and so he fasted and prayed, and said,

He did not know but that his prayer and agony was the very thing on which it

turned, whether the child was to live or not. He thought tha