In the study of revival and spiritual awakenings,
it is of great importance to be familiar
with men whom God has used in former
times in revivals of religion.
It's worthy of our attention to study historical
extracts of revival and revival men, and our
subject today is Azahel Nettleton.
One of the most accurate examples of Nettleton's
theology is given by Heman Humphrey, who had
labored with him in revival.
It is also a critical look at Azahel's
abilities in the pulpit as well as his
effectiveness with awakened sinners.
The observations are an unbiased look at Nettleton
and provide us with an honest appraisal of
his preaching skills.
Therefore, please listen with interest to Dr. Humphrey's
observations on Azahel Nettleton during the Second Great
Awakening in America.
In his theology, Dr. Nettleton was neither a
high or low Calvinist.
While he admired the illustrious Geneva Reformer and
subscribed ex amino to all the leading doctrines
of his immortal institutes, he called neither Calvin
nor any other man master.
He was an Edwardian rather than a high
Calvinist, and yet profound as his veneration was
for that greatest of theologians, as Dr. Chalmers
styles President Edwards, he thought it his duty
to investigate every subject for himself.
With his little duodecimal bible or his Greek
testament always in his hands, he was one
of the most independent thinkers that I have
ever known.
He was, I might almost say, the last
man to be captivated with visionary theories or
fanciful analogies and interpretations.
Upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, he
stood like a pillar upon the everlasting rock.
Nothing could shake him.
Whether he drew out of his system on
paper, I do not know, but if he
did, it will be found eminently scriptural, lucid,
and symmetrical, nothing more and nothing less than
sound, well-digested, and well-guarded New England
orthodoxy.
As a preacher, Dr. Nettleton had many superiors
in what commonly goes under the name of
pulpit eloquence.
There was nothing particularly captivating in his voice,
in his style, or his delivery, nothing to
make you admire the man, or his writing,
or his speaking, or in any way to
divert your attention from the truths which he
uttered.
His prayers were generally short and always fervent,
scriptural and appropriate.
When he rose to speak, there was a
benign solemnity in his countenance which awed the
most thoughtless into seriousness, while at the same
time it exerted an unwanted desire to hear
what he had to say.
He had a voice of more than ordinary
compass and power, and though there was nothing
harsh or repulsive in its modulations, you sometimes
regretted that he had not enjoyed better early
advantages for training it.
He always commenced on a low key, enunciating
every word and syllable so distinctly, however as
to be heard without difficulty in the remotest
parts of the house.
So simple were his sentences, so plain and
unadorned was his style, and so calm was
his delivery, that for a few moments you
might have thought him dull and sometimes even
commonplace, but for the glance of his piercing
eye and an undefinable something in his whole
manner which insensibly gained and riveted your attention.
As he advanced and his heart grew warm
and his conceptions vivid, his voice caught the
inspiration, his lips seemed to be touched with
a live cold from off the altar, his
face shown, every muscle and feature spoke, his
tones were deep and awfully solemn, his gestures,
though he never flourished off a prettiness in
his life, were natural and at times exceedingly
forcible, but his eye, after all, was the
master power of his delivery, full and clear
and sharp, its glances in the most animated
parts of his discourses were quick and penetrating
beyond almost anything I can recollect ever to
have witnessed, he seemed to look at every
hearer in the face or rather to look
into his soul almost at one and at
the same moment, you felt that you were
in the hands of a master and never
stopped to inquire whether he was a good
or a bad pulpit orator, whatever the critics
might say, in one thing you could not
be mistaken, he arrested your attention and made
you feel, for the time at least, that
religion is indeed the one thing needful.
Dr. Nettleton's delivery was always solemn, always earnest
and not seldom even vehement, this was particularly
the case in the height of those numerous
and powerful revivals in the midst of which
he labored for so many years, the action
of his mind was intense, the yearnings of
his soul over the impenitent were irrepressible, his
countenance, his voice, everything showed it, and yet,
incredible as it may seem, in his most
impassioned appeals there was not a particle of
enthusiasm, by this I mean that he was
never hurried away into any extravagance of language
or emotion, he never for one moment lost
the balance of his mind, he was always
perfectly self-possessed, I have seen him in
circumstances of overpowering interest when the movements of
the spirit were like a mighty Russian wind
and could never perceive any wavering in his
judgment or his prudence, he was ever the
same in the pulpit, in the lecture room
and in the inquiry meeting, always earnest and
solemn but never carried away by his feelings
beyond the bounds of propriety, Dr. Nettleton's sermons
were plain, solid, evangelical, instructive and directly to
the purpose, he always knew what he aimed
at and he seldom if ever missed his
mark, dodging was of no avail, his style
was perfectly unadorned, tropes and metaphors he never
sought for and I am not aware that
they ever obtruded themselves upon his imagination, what
he aimed at was to present the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth
to his hearers in the plainest and most
forcible language he could command, the great power
of his preaching consisted in its perspicuity, its
directness, its fearless exposition of the most unwelcome
truths of the Bible and its earnest, solemn
and often terrible appeals to the conscience, no
preacher that I ever heard could make the
law thunder louder in the sinner's ear, the
sword of the spirit was his only weapon
and he wielded it with extraordinary dexterity and
effect, a few ministers I believe have ever
studied the windings of the natural heart with
more diligence and success than he did, hence
those masterly analyses which are used so often
to startle his hearers as if all their
thoughts had been suddenly laid open to the
public gaze, in reviewing the history of Dr.
Nettleton's life and labors it is clear to
me that God raised him up to spend
his best days in promoting revivals of religion
that he raised up Whitfield for the very
same service on a wider theater, they were
unlike in many respects as any two great
revival preachers could be but they had one
Lord and one faith, the same love for
souls and the same irrepressible desire to win
as many of them as possible to Christ,
each was fitted for the age in which
he lived and the work to which he
was called, Whitfield to blow the trumpet over
the dead and buried formalism of the churches
both in Great Britain and America, Nettleton to
strengthen the things that remained and were ready
to die in destitute churches of Connecticut, Massachusetts,
New York and Virginia and to help the
brethren in gathering their spiritual harvests, having no
pastoral charge to confine him and no family
to provide for and living I may say
for years in the midst of these mighty
works he was under better advantages for observing
all the diversities of the operations by the
spirit which are disclosed in times refreshing than
any of his immediate predecessors or early contemporaries
and his master had endowed him with the
requisite gifts both intellectual and moral to make
the most of these advantages, a shrewd pardon
the epithet as no other word would so
exactly express it, observing cautious discriminating and at
the same time fervent in spirit and mightily
constrained by the love of Christ he was
most happily guarded against feverish impulses on the
one hand and antinomian presumptions on the other,
enjoying as he did for so many years
the best possible opportunity for studying the theory
of revivals his benevolent inquisitive and ardent mind
would not allow him to rest satisfied without
putting it to the most rigid test of
scripture experience and observation.
Herein he was in the truest sense a
Christian philosopher and as philosophically was strictly Baconian
it consisted in observing phenomena and recorded facts
I have long thought and it is still
my deliberate conviction that he understood the whole
subject of revivals better than any man with
whom I ever conversed or labored he had
studied it more profoundly indeed no man could
well be a more perfect master of his
business or profession neither Cesar nor Napoleon ever
studied the art of war with greater acidity
than did the heavenly art of winning souls
to Christ this may seem extravagant I presume
it will to some but why should it
he had not far higher grade of motives
for abandoning all the energies of his mind
to learn how to save men than they
could have had for learning how to destroy
them but you wish me to say something
of his manner of laboring and revivals and
of their general character under his preaching and
management this I am the more ready to
do from having had the best opportunities to
observe and judge in one of them which
I have often since heard him speak as
of among the most powerful he ever witnessed
he was with me three months day and
night during which I saw and heard everything
I was anxious to learn all I could
from one whose labors had been so eminently
owned and blessed by the divine head of
the church and not being if I may
say it of an enthusiastical temperament myself I
think I was enabled to form a pretty
correct judgment of his preaching of his daily
intercourse with sinners in every stage of awakening
and conversion and of the effect of those
measures which he had been testing in scores
of other revivals it has been said that
in such seasons we ought to look to
God continually in fervent believe and prayer just
as if he was the sole agent in
carrying on the work and at the same
time to labor with all our might just
as if we had to do it all
ourselves this was Dr. Nettleton's view of the
matter and no man perhaps ever more fully
carried it out and practiced than he did
in his creed the whole process of awakening
conviction and regeneration was by the sovereign and
special agency of the holy spirit for this
he prayed and exhorted others to pray without
ceasing while at the same time he labored
with as much as the duty for the
conversion of sinners as if his master had
devolved the whole responsibility upon him his theory
was that while the excellency of the powers
all of God he works by means no
less in the moral than in the natural
world this led him to study the economy
of grace and revivals with the deepest interest
and as the result of it to adopt
measures and use those means which seemed to
him best adapted to the end i do
not say that his manner of conducting revivals
was in all respects to the best that
could have been adopted much less that it
would be best for every minister but i
have yet to learn that a better and
safer system of measures has been devised taken
as a whole it commends itself to my
judgment and observation as eminently wise and guarded
and scriptural it was characterized by a deep
and profound knowledge of human nature as i
think might easily be shown did my limits
permit let those who come after improve upon
it or devise it better if they can
while i am far from believing that nothing
remains to be learned in the heavenly art
of winning souls to christ quite sure i
am that few if any of those professed
revivalists who have succeeded dr nettleton and made
the most noise in the churches or the
mantis show us a more excellent way they
have done what they could with strong lungs
startling appeals new measures and sweeping denunciations and
the blighting effects are truly mournful in some
wide districts which they have overrun it is
feared that churches will not recover from the
desolating eruption for half a century most unwarrantable
is the appeal which sometimes make to dr
nettleton as their forerunner and exemplar nothing gave
him so much concern during the later years
of his life as the manner in which
revivals were corrupted and brought into discredit and
run down by noisy rash and impetuous evangelists
it grieved them to the heart that so
many churches and land were ready to countenance
them and he earnestly protested against their errors
and extravagances to the day of his death
though he would not deny that there might
be some real conversions in the great excitements
which attended their preaching it was his solemn
and painful conviction that multitudes were deceived with
false hopes who under different instruction and measures
might have been brought to a saving knowledge
of the truth in his own management and
times revivals by preaching and personal intercourse nothing
was more deserving of being studied and imitated
than his thoroughness caution and discrimination in these
respects there was a heaven-wide difference between
dr nettleton and some of the most noted
of his professed imitators being thoroughly rooted and
grounded in the truth himself his presentations of
it were clear pungent and searching his revival
topics were systematically and admirably arranged in his
discourse as he began at the beginning a
full believer in the total depravity of the
human heart he arranged centers whether young or
old as rebels against god and made the
threatenings of the law thunder in their ears
as but few preachers have power to do
with him acting as an ambassador of christ
there was no such thing as compromise the
rebels must throw down their arms and submit
unconditionally or he would give them no hope
or pardon hundreds if not thousands can witness
what a terrible dissector he was of the
joints and marrow at the same time that
he showed the impenitent they were lost he
made them feel that they had destroyed themselves
it was difficult to say which he made
plainest the danger or their guilt their immediate
duty to repent or the certainty that without
being drawn and renewed by the spirit of
god they never would repent it was in
vain for them to retreat from one refuge
to another he was sure to strip them
of all their vain excuses and deliver them
over to their consciences to be dealt with
according to law and justice he preached what
are called the hard doctrines such as divine
sovereignty election and regeneration with great plainness discrimination
and power his grand aim was to instruct
convince and persuade to this end his appeals
were constantly made to the understanding the conscience
and the heart the passions he never addressed
nor were his discourses at all calculated to
excite them any outbreak of mere animal feeling
he was always afraid of as tending to
warp the judgment and beget false hopes his
grand aim was to instruct his hearers as
thoroughly and point out difference between true and
spurious conversion so clearly as to make it
difficult for them to get hopes at all
without good spiritual evidence on which to found
them knowing how apt persons are to claim
to their hopes whether good or bad he
depended much more upon holding them back till
they had good evidence than upon shaking them
from their false foundations as might have been
expected under such a course of instruction the
great majority of these who came out and
profess religion so far as i've had opportunity
to observe have worn well they have proved
intelligent stable and consistent christians the revivals under
dr meddleton's preaching always strengthened the churches and
strengthened the pastors where they had them i
do not believe that an interest instance to
the contrary can be induced from the whole
wide field of his labors nor that a
single church can be pointed out which does
not to this day feel their blessed influence
how different are the sad experiences of hundreds
of churches congregations and ministers under the sway
of bold and reckless and disorganized and revivalists
how many once united and flourishing churches have
been divided or broken up and how many
worthy pastors have been undermined and driven away
by them by their fruits you shall know
them the fire shall try every man's work
of what sort it is brought to these
tests all the great revivals under dr meddleton's
labors will stand on the records of the
church in striking contrast as to many bright
evidences of his wisdom fidelity and eminent usefulness