Asahel Nettleton Revival Preacher

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