When editors have been changing Finney's words in their republications of
his works over the last one hundred and thirty years, it is essential in
understanding the man and his success that republications without changes be
given once again to the public. This new edition does that. While the text
is from the final 1868 revised edition, numerous footnotes are added that
show the changes Finney made from the original 1834 and 1835 editions of
these lectures. Many of the changes made in more recent republications are
also noticed.
From Finney's Preface:
In revising [these lectures] for a new edition, I have done little more than
correct the phraseology in a few instances, add a few footnotes, and replace
the last two Lectures by newly-written ones on the same texts and prepared
especially for this edition. . . These Lectures have been translated in the
Welsh and French languages, and have been 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.
CHARLES G. FINNEY (1792-1875) was America's foremost evangelist. Over half a
million people were soundly converted under his personal ministry in a day
when there was no TV or microphones. He was also an excellent theologian,
philosopher, educator, pastor and reformer while professor of theology and
president of Oberlin College. Harvard's Perry Miller said, "Finney led
America out of the eighteenth century." He is remembered, according to
Harvard's W. G. McLoughlin, for his "textbook on how to promote revivals of
religion. This book is the perennial classic to which all succeeding
generations of revivalists have turned for authority and inspiration." He
was also a father to the evangelical and holiness movements.
