Tried With Fire

In the Biblical doctrine the sinner, being justified, receives the Spirit of holiness, through whose prevalent operations he perseveres to the end. According to Finney the justified person remains justified so long as he perseveres in the obedience which is the condition of his justification. In the Biblical view it is God, in Finney's it is man, who determines the issue: The whole standpoint assumed by Finney is that of a God responsive to human actions rather than that of a man operated upon by divine grace. Perfectionism , B.B. Warfield, The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1958, pg. 158. (italics mine)

"The better to manipulate you with..." I wanted to give Finney the benefit of the doubt regarding his unnerving stare. He is justly criticized for his theology, but he can't help his looks. Maybe he was the victim of a bad portrait painter. But then again, maybe not. As the Second Great Awakening proceed, however, preachers began to employ methods calculated to pressure people into making a decision. The most aggressive was Charles Finney, a lawyer-turned-evangelist who toned down the revivalist style and added a note of rational persuasion to make it palatable to educated, middle-class audiences. His innovations included several high-pressure tactics, however, that were to become quite controversial. Finney "had a flair for pulpit drama", Hofstadter comments. "But his greatest physical assest was his intense, fixating, electrifying, madly prophetic eyes," 1 which he used to great effect in confronting sinners by name in his revival meeti...