ASA MAHAN AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN HOLINESS THEOLOGY
Donald W. Dayton
North Park Theological Seminary
A recent Christianity Today editorial devoted to Asa Mahan was entitled "A Man
Worth Examining.''l One cannot but concur in this judgment. Mahan was successively
president of Oberlin College, Cleveland University, and Adrian College, and then retired
to an active life in Britain as editor and writer. Intensely committed to Charles Finney's
"new measure" revivalism, he participated in the "Arminianizing" of
Calvinist theology and became the major architect of the controversial "Oberlin
perfectionism."
'' Philosophically Mahan was a major figure in the "academic orthodoxy" that
vied with transcendentalism for dominance in preCivil War America and had major impact on
the development of the evangelical traditions and, consequently, on much of American
culture. In his commitment to abolitionism, women's rights, temperance, the peace
movement, and other reform movements, Mahan illustrates the close conjunction of
revivalism and social reform during this period. But these facets of Mahan's career are
already beginning to receive attention.2
I wish to argue that Mahan can also be used to illustrate major shifts that took place
during the nineteenth century in the thinking of perfectionist and holiness groups and to
make clearer the interrelationships of Oberlin perfectionism, Methodistic holiness groups,
and the Keswick movement, as well as shed a great deal of light on the origins of
Pentecostalism.
Interpreters within the Methodistic holiness movement have tended to emphasize the
distinctions between the Wesleyan and Oberlin doctrines of Christian perfection. Though at
one point I took this position myself,3 I am now convinced that these distinctions have
been overdrawn. This becomes clearer when one concentrates on Mahan rather than Finney as
the determinative force behind Oberlin perfectionism. The Oberlin teaching was developed
in part under the influence of Wesley, and its earlier period was designated by B. B.
Warfield as its "Wesleyan period."4
Mahan's Christian Perfection was the major expression of this period, and upon
its publication George Peck, then editor of the Methodist Quarterly Review,
was "satisfied that the thing which we mean by Christian Perfection is truly
set forth in that work."5 It was primarily with the introduction of the doctrine of
the "simplicity of moral action" that major cleavages began to appear in the
Oberlin teaching.6 Finney and his colleagues began to move more in a Pelagian direction
while "Mahan moved closer to Wesleyan theology as he grew older."7
This theological movement was reflected as well in Mahan's institutional alignments. He
spent most of the 1860s as president of Adrian College, which had been founded by the
abolitionist Wesleyan Methodists, and just before his retirement transferred his church
membership to the local Wesleyan Methodist church in Adrian.3 One may also trace the
impact of Mahan on the circles associated with Phoebe Palmer and her "Tuesday
Meeting" for the promotion of holiness.9
The significance of Mahan for the development of holiness thought in the nineteenth
century is best seen in a close comparison of his two most popular books: The Scripture
Doctrine of Christian Perfection (1839)10 and The Baptism of the Holy Ghost (
1870) . 11 Both of these books were originally published under Methodistic holiness
auspices. The first was published by D. S. King, who shortly thereafter became publisher
and then editor of the Guide to Christian Perfection, while the second was
published by the Palmers after Phoebe Palmer had become editor of the same journal, now
renamed the Guide to Holiness.
The first of Mahan's books is fairly typical of the development given to holiness
theology until about the time of the Civil War, while the second book indicates a new
theological development of the doctrine that gained acceptance in the years after the
Civil War and by the turn of the century had become widely accepted not only in holiness
circles but to a certain extent beyond them. The new element is the use of the term
"baptism of the Holy Ghost" and the model of Pentecost in Acts 2 in explicating
the meaning of "entire sanctification."
Some interpreters have assumed that this language can be traced back to Wesley,l2 but a
recent study by Herbert McGonigle l3 strongly calls this assumption into question.
McGonigle argues that Wesley rarely uses the expression "baptism of the Holy
Ghost" and that his major statements of Christian perfection are developed in a
Christological vein that relies little on the development of a doctrine of the work of the
Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. By and large the same is true of other early
British Methodists, though the language does begin to appear in Joseph Benson and John
Fletcher.
When one turns to the renewed emphasis on Christian perfection in America, whether in
the Guide, in Phoebe Palmer's circles, or in early Oberlin perfectionism, the
development is along classical Wesleyan lines. One occasionally finds references to a
"baptism of the Holy Ghost" but not as a developed doctrine and not usually
applied to the "second blessing." The first hints of this teaching seem to occur
in Oberlin perfectionism, but the exact development is difficult to trace.
Some have made a great deal of Finney's use of the term in his memoirs,14 but there the
reference is to his conversion, and the volume was not published until 1876, when this
language was relatively common. The "baptism of the Holy Ghost" plays little
role in his Views of Sanctification (1840) and no part in his systematic theology (the
relevant section was published in 1847). A similar situation seems to obtain with Mahan.
The "baptism of the Holy Ghost" dominates the Autobiography (1882) and the more
strictly "spiritual" account Out of Darkness into Light (1877). Mahan refers to
those "two great doctrines which have been the theme of my life during the past
fortysix years,''l5 but the early literature does not bear him out. The new language does
not appear in Christian Perfection or his other early writings.
The first real development of this new language appears to have taken place among the
two minor figures of Oberlin perfectionism. In his Holiness of Christians in the
Present Life (1840), Henry Cowles gives greater attention to the Holy Spirit as the
Agent of sanctification, but he does not refer to a "baptism of the Holy Ghost."
Shortly thereafter, however, in two sermons on the "Baptism of the Holy Ghost,"
Cowles concludes that "the plan of salvation contemplates as its prime object, the
sanctification of the Church; and relies on the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the great
efficient power for accomplishing the work.''l6
But it was John Morgan who first gave this teaching extended development in an essay
entitled "The Gift of the Holy Spirit," where he argues that "the baptism
of the Holy Ghost, then, in its Pentecostal fullness, was not to be confined to the
Primitive Church; but is the common privilege of all believers." 17 But this essay
seems not to have had major impact. I do not find it cited until after Mahan's book in
1870 served as the definitive explication of this Oberlin teaching.
It is difficult to determine exactly when Mahan turned to this doctrine. He left
Oberlin in 1850, and a lecture published in 1851 argues in line with his Christian
Perfection that "the mission of the Spirit is wholly subsidiary to that of
Christ, and is coextensive with it in design and actual influence.''l8 On the other hand,
we know from his correspondence with Phoebe Palmer about the publication of Baptism of
the Holy Ghost, 19 that the book consists of lectures developed at Adrian College six
to eight years earlier. These facts indicate that Mahan began to use this language during
the decade of the 1850s or in the early 1860s.
Other currents converge on this same period. One may trace a rising interest in this
doctrine in the Guide to Holiness during the 1850s.20 William Arthur's book The Tongue
of Fire, from Britain, was published in New York in 1856 and called for a "new
Pentecost."21 Much of the literature associated with the revival of 185758 spoke of
"Pentecost" and the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" without identifying
either with the experience of entire sanctification,22 though it should be noticed that
the spread of "higher Christian life" teachings was closely associated with this
period of revival.
It was in 1859 that Phoebe Palmer published The Promise of the Father that
argued from the quotation of Joel in Acts 2 the right of women to preach.23 But it is
especially her letters published in the Guide from her revival campaigns in the
British Isles during the Civil War that reveal the extent to which she had adopted the new
language. Her report from New castle indicates that she preached "the endowment of
power, the full baptism of the Holy Ghost, as the indispensable, ay, absolute
necessity of all the disciples of Jesus."24 She comments as well that the importance
of this way of describing the experience had just recently been impressed upon her.
That Phoebe Palmer was using Pentecost now as the model of this experience and that it
was to be explicitly identified with "holiness" is made clear in another report
from Newcastle: "At our afternoon meetings, 'Holiness unto the Lord,' or, in other
words, the full baptism of the Holy Spirit, as received by the one hundred and twenty
disciples on the day of Pentecost, is set forth as the absolute necessity of all believers
of every name."25
In spite of these developments Phoebe Palmer was still reluctant to publish Mahan's
book in 1870, arguing that it was too controversial. But Mahan replied that widespread
discussion of the doctrine indicated that the churches were ready for his book in which
"the doctrine of entire sanctification is presented in a form old and yet
new."26
Phoebe Palmer finally capitulated and the book immediately had major impact through
several editions. Less than a dozen years later Mahan could report that "it has been
very extensively circulated in America, in Great Britain and in all missionary lands; and
has been translated into the German and Dutch languages."27
After 1870 one can trace an increasing crescendo of "Pentecostal" and
"baptism of the Holy Ghost" language. In 1871, Oberlin was finally reconciled
with orthodox Congregationalism, and Finney addressed the Oberlin Council of
Congregationalism on the "baptism of the Holy Ghost." It was the same year that
two Free Methodist ladies told D. L. Moody that his preaching lacked power and launched
his spiritual quest for the experience. The teaching became a major theme of Moody and his
successors.
In the early 1870s, Mahan retired to England, where he played a major role in the
Oxford and Brighton meetings for the "promotion of scriptural holiness" out of
which the Keswick movement grew. The report of the earlier meeting indicates that, of all
the "conversational meetings" at Oxford, "none was of more interest than
that in the Town Hall, in which the baptism of the Holy Spirit was the special
subject" under the guidance of Asa Mahan.28 At the Brighton Convention (of which he
was one of the conveners), Mahan directed a series of sectional meetings at which
"the Baptism of the Holy Ghost was the theme of exposition and prayer. Each afternoon
the room was crowded to overflowing."29 Other evidence could be provided.
But Mahan's book and its new terminology also had major impact within Methodism,
especially within the growing holiness movement. The Buffalo Christian Advocate
observed that "the author has hit upon just the right time for his work. ,The church
is awakening to the importance of the baptism of powerhungering for a dainty meal,
abundantly provided, but which few enjoy." The Methodist Recorder found the
theme "central in the current of all New Testament teaching."30 And in 1874,
Daniel Steele, then of Syracuse but later of Boston University, described his own
experience in terms of a "baptism of the Spirit" and advised his brethren
"to cease to discuss the subtleties and endless questions arising from entire
sanctification or Christian Perfection, and all cry mightily to God for the baptism of the
Holy Spirit."3l
One can note in the Guide to Holiness an increasing tendency to use
"Pentecostal" language. This climaxed in 1897 when the latter part of the title
was changed from "and Revival Miscellany" (dating from Phoebe Palmer's days) to
"and Pentecostal Life" in response to the "signs of the times, which
indicate inquiry, research and ardent pursuit of the gifts, graces, and power of the Holy
Spirit. 'The Pentecostal idea' is pervading Christian thought and aspiration more than
ever before."32
The same issue announced inside the front cover a new edition of that "Great
Pentecostal Gift" the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, "this truly magnificent
work of Dr. Mahan on the Great Theme of the Period."
By the turn of the century everything had become "Pentecostal." Sermons are
published in the column "Pentecostal Pulpit"; women's reports are entitled
"Pentecostal Womanhood"; testimonies are "Pentecostal Testimonies";
and devotions are held in the "Pentecostal closet." This is but an extreme
illustration of what had become generally true in most strands of the holiness movement by
1900.
This adoption of "Pentecostal" and "baptism of the Holy Ghost"
language by holiness and related traditions involved much more than a mere shift in
terminology. When "Christian perfection" becomes "baptism of the Holy
Ghost," there is a major theological transformation. The significance of this shift
can best be seen in a close comparison of the two books by Mahan. By this procedure we can
focus the study and, by examining the development in a single mind, see in greater relief
what is taking place.
1. There is, first of all, a shift from Christocentrism to an emphasis on the Holy
Spirit that is really quite radical in character. Christian Perfection, like Wesley's Plain
Account, is basically oriented to Christ for the work of sanctification. Where Mahan
does speak of the Holy Spirit, it is as the "Divine Teacher" who "sustains
to Christ the same relation that a teacher does to the particular science which he
teaches. His object is not to present himself to the pupil, but the science. So the Spirit
shows not himself, but Christ to our minds."33 In this book Mahan will give no
autonomy to the Spirit in guidance and suggests that a man should resist any undefined
impressions to speak or undertake any particular course of action unless he can advance
clear, rational reasons for such activity.
In the Baptism of the Holy Ghost the fundamental question has now become
"Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" Instead of anchoring the
work of the Spirit in Christ, Mahan now argues that Christ himself was "dependent
upon the indwelling, and influence, and baptism of the Holy Spirit, the same in all
essential particulars as in us."34 And though Mahan is cautious, this shift involves
a movement toward giving the Spirit autonomy in guidance and the enabling to
"prophesy."
2. This shift in emphasis is underlined by another shift in terminology. In Christian
Perfection, salvation history is divided into "covenants," the old covenant
of the moral law and the new covenant of grace, of which Christ is the Mediator. The
pivotal point between the two is Christ, especially His atoning death. In Baptism of the
Holy Ghost salvation history is divided into dispensations. It is the Spirit who is
"the crowning glory and promise of the New Dispensation"35 and it is Pentecost
that is the pivotal point between the dispensations. This shift adds a third division to
salvation history and pre pares the way for easier coalescence with dispensational
theology.
3. This shift in terminology involves as well a radical shift in exegetical foundations
on which the doctrine of sanctification is built. In Christian Perfection, Mahan
relies on a selection of texts that is similar, but not identical, to the set of texts
used by Wesley. Both Mahan and Wesley hardly ever refer to the Book of Acts, and then not
to texts that become important in Mahan's later book.
In the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, however, almost all the key texts are taken
from the Book of Acts. Basic, of course, is the account of Pentecost, but other accounts
of the receiving of the Spirit come into focus. Other passages from the New Testament that
speak of the Holy Spirit play a role, as well as such prophetic passages as Joel 2:28
(quoted, of course, in Acts 2). There are very few texts that appear in both books.
This fact points to an ambiguity that plagued efforts to synthesize these two doctrines
from the days of John Morgan and Henry Cowles. A study of the biblical doctrine of
"perfection" does not naturally lead to the account of Pentecost, and vice
versa. This constitutional instability of the synthesis may help to explain why the
concern for sanctification tended to drop out of the Pentecostal movement.
4. This shift in exegetical foundations tends to bring into view a new set of contexts
and related biblical ideas. Among these are (a) a new emphasis on power (cf. Acts 1:8). We
have seen above how this element moved to the fore when Phoebe Palmer adopted
"Pentecostal" terminology. Mahan notes that at Pentecost "power was
one of the most striking characteristics of this baptism"36 and the idea permeates
the whole of his second book. (b) 1 Corinthians 12 with its list of the gifts of the
Spirit becomes more determinative. Mahan tries, as have other holiness writers, to
emphasize the fruit of the Spirit over the gifts of the Spirit and not "the
miraculous, but common influence of the Spirit."37 But in Baptism of the Holy
Ghost this concern is necessarily weakened. Making Pentecost normative for all
believers cannot but raise the question of the place of the more "miraculous
gifts" like healing, and one can trace after 1870 especially a rising interest in
faith healing in holiness and related traditions. (c) A heavy emphasis falls on
"prophecy" which Mahan understands as "the power of utterance for the
edification of the church and the conviction of sinners." But this gift now becomes
"the common privilege of all believers" and contributes to a concern for
"testimony" and "speaking as the Spirit giveth utterance."38
5. There is also an intensification of the use of prophecy in the predictive sense.
This is manifested in several ways.
(a) A development of the Christian life in terms of living in the Pentecostal reality
makes more difficult the direct appropriation of Old Testament models. The Old Testament
is read more in terms of its looking forward to the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit
in a promisefulfillment pattern. One of the most determinative of the new expressions is
the phrase "the promise of the Father."
(b) There is also an intensification of the expectation of the ushering in of the
millennium. Mahan felt that the contemporary interest in the Holy Spirit was a sign that
the millennium was dawning and assigned to Methodism a special place in the last days:
The central article of her creed is the great central Truth of the Gospel. If she will
be true to her calling, she will not only enable "the fountain to be opened" in
her own midst, but also in other communions. When this takes place, "then is the
millennium near, even at the door."39
(C) New emphasis falls on problems of the interpretation of prophecy. In the later book
Mahan devoted several pages40 to determining the meaning of the phrases "in that
day" or "in those days" that occur in the prophecies that he is now
utilizing. He concluded that these expressions referred not primarily to Pentecost but to
those final days of spiritual blessing just before the advent of the millennium. In this
discussion one may see the beginning of the distinction between the "earlier"
and "latter" rains of spiritual blessing that became so prominent in later
holiness and Pentecostal thought.
All of these developments take place, of course, within Mahan's postmillennial
framework. But the lectures behind the Baptism of the Holy Ghost were first given
in the 1860s. The prophecy conferences that signaled the rise of premillennialism did not
take place until the late 1870s. And it was not until 1882, for example, that A. T.
Pierson, prominent in the Keswick movement, capitulated to premillennialism.4l But we can
see that once attention is shifted to the "baptism of the Holy Ghost," as Mahan
developed it, the ground is already well prepared for the growth of premillennialism.
6. In the shift from "Christian perfection" to "baptism of the Holy
Ghost" there is also a shift from emphasis on the goal and nature of the
"holy" life to an event in which this change takes place. In the earlier book
this goal is expressed in highly ethical and moral terms. For Mahan "perfection in
holiness implies a full and perfect discharge of our entire duty, of all existing
obligations in respect to God and all other beings. It is perfect obedience to the moral
law."42 It is clear how such a position easily correlates with the mood of social
reform that dominated preCivil War America. The later book has a greater emphasis on
personal "cleansing" and "purity" and concentrates on God's method
for achieving this. Explicating this in terms of the baptism of the Holy Ghost cannot but
emphasize the "eventness" of the experience of holiness, perhaps to the ultimate
detriment of ethical concerns, especially those of social ethics.
7. There is finally in the later book a much stronger emphasis on the assurance that
the Pentecostal baptism brings.43 "Where the Holy Ghost is received, such a change is
wrought in the subject that he himself will become distinctly conscious of the change . .
. a change observable also to others around."44 One can trace after 1870 45 a concern
for a "conscious" baptism of the Spirit. It is easy to see how these sorts of
concern could raise the question of a "physical evidence" of this baptism and
how the experience of "speaking in tongues" could provide an answer to this
concern. Indeed, there seem to be several instances of this experience in holiness circles
between 1870 and the outbreak of Pentecostalism in 1900.46
These comparisons between these two books by Mahan delineate a major theological
reorientation that took place in nineteenthcentury American holiness circles. Two basic
patterns for the development of holiness theology have been explored. By concentrating on
Asa Mahan, who embodies within himself so much of this theological transition, we have
also seen more clearly the close interrelationships between the major holiness currents in
the nineteenth century: Oberlin perfectionism, the Methodistic holiness movement, and the
Keswick movement. Many details of the story need filling out, but the main outline is
clear.
But this study also illuminates the backgrounds of Pentecostalism. It is possible to
trace the rise of "Pentecostal" language through the whole last half of the
nineteenth century. It is not surprising that modern Pentecostalism should sprout in this
wellprepared ground. It was therefore a holiness evangelist who founded Bethel
Bible School near Topeka, Kans., where the doctrine that the evidence of the Pentecostal
baptism of the Holy Spirit is the gift of speaking in tongues was first expounded. And in
1906 it was a black holiness evangelist who came to speak in a Nazarene mission and
saw the launching of the Azusa Street Revival from which the rise of modern Pentecostalism
is usually dated.47
REFERENCE NOTES
1. Christianity Today, June 22, 1973, p 23.
2. Early in this century Mahan was studied by Paul Fleisch in his uncompleted Zur
Geschichte der Heiligungsbewegung. Erstes Heft: Die Heiligungsbewegung uon Wesley
bis Boardman (Leipzig: Wallmann, 1910); and by Benjamin B. Warfield in articles in the
Princeton Theological Review (1921), later gathered into Vol. 2 of Perfectionism
(New York: Oxford U.P., 1931) and reprinted in an abridged edition by the Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Company, 1958. The period of Mahan's presidency of Oberlin College is
treated in detail in Robert S. Fletcher's twovolume History of Oberlin College
(Oberlin: Oberlin College, 1943), though with insufficient attention to Mahan's religious
and theological development. Mahan is considered to some extent in Edward H. Madden, Civil
Disobedience and Moral Law in Nineteenth Century American Philosophy (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1968); and D. H. Meyer, The Instructed Conscience:
The Shaping of the American National Ethic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1972); but in more detail in Barbara Zikmund, "Asa Mahan and Oberlin
Perfectionism" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1969) and James
Hamilton, "A Comparison of the Moral Theories of Charles Finney and Asa Mahan"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1972). A recent
symposium at Asbury College (April 2324, 1973) on "Asa Mahan and the Academic
Orthodoxy" included papers by Harold B. Kuhn, Edward Madden, Barbara Zikmund, and
Timothy Smith.
3. Cf. Donald W. Dayton, The American Holiness Movement: a Bibliographic
Introduction (Wilmore, Ky.: B. L. Fisher Library, Asbury Theological Seminary, 1971),
pp. 1920. This essay is also available in the 1971 Proceedings of the American
Theological Library Association.
4. Perfectionism (1958 abridgment), p. 66.
5. Methodist Quarterly Review 23 (April, 1841): 3078.
6. Cf. James H. Fairchild, "The Doctrine of Sanctification at Oberlin," Congregational
Quarterly 18 (April,1876), though Warfield is a better guide to the development than
Fairchild for our purposes.
7. Barbara Zikmund, "Asa Mahan and Oberlin Perfectionism," p. 241.
8. Ibid., p. 221, but based on a notice in the Hamilton Literary Monthly 6 (May,
1872): 355.
9. In a review of Phoebe Palmer's Present to My Christian Friend, Mahan found
her writings "among the most profitable that can be placed in the hands of enquirers
after holiness," Oberlin Evangelist 7 (1845):86. Phoebe Palmer, in turn, put
Mahan's testimony first in her anthology Pioneer Experiences (New York: W. C.
Palmer, Jr., 1872), and the second edition of her Way of Holiness (New York: Lane
& Scott, 1851) contains a commendatory preface by Mahan. Mahan was quoted and
published in the Guide, often in the midst of lists of Methodist writers. Cf. Guide
to Holiness 10 (1850):4. Other evidence could be cited.
10. I am using the second edition published by D. S. King of Boston, 1839. There were
10 editions within the first 10 years, as well as a number of later reprints, including a
twentiethcentury edition by the Free Methodist Publishing House.
11. I am using primarily the first edition (New York: W. C. Palmer, Jr., 1870). More
common is a British edition (London: Elliot Stock, n.d.) with an appendix containing
Charles Finney's "Enduement of Power." There have been a number of other
editions, including a very recent paperback reprint distributed by Edwin Newby,
Noblesville, Ind.
12. W. J. Hollenweger comments, for example, that "John Wesley . . . had already
made a distinction between the sanctified, or those who had been baptized in the Spirit,
and ordinary Christians," The Pentecostals (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1972), p.
21.
13. "Pneumatological Nomenclature in Early Methodism," Wesleyan
Theological Journal 8 (spring, 1973): 64.
14. Cf., for example, Frederick Dale Bruner, A Theology of the Holy Spirit
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 4042, 33235, etc.
15. Autobiography, Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual (London: T. Woolmer 1882),
p. 321.
16. Oberlin Evangelist 2 (1840):93.
17. Oberlin Quarterly Review 1 (August, 1845):115. This essay was also published
serially in the Oberlin Evangelist and later as a pamphlet with an introduction by
Finney (Oberlin: E. J. Goodrich, 1875), in which form it had major impact on A. J. Gordon,
identified by Frederick Dale Bruner as a major figure on the way to Pentecostalism .
18. Lectures on the Ninth of Romans; Election, and the Influence of the Holy Spirit
(Boston: Charles Pierce, 1851), p. 173.
19. These letters are among the Phoebe Palmer papers in the Drew University Library.
20. Cf. J. D., "Entire Sanctification and the Fullness of the Spirit"
(arguing they are not the same), Guide to Holiness 29 (April,1856):9798, and A. A.
Phelps, "An Important Distinction Between the 'Witness' and the 'Baptism' of the
Spirit;Saving Faith," Guide to Holiness 33 (May, 1858):12931.
21. (New York: Harper, 1856), still in print with Light and Life Press.
22. Cf. reports in Warren Chandler, Great Revivals and the Great Republic
(Nashville: Publishing House of the M. E. Church, 1924) and such reports as Pentecost,
or the Work of God in Philadelphia, by William McClure, sent from Ireland to
investigate the revival.
23. (Boston: Henry V. Degen, 1859).
24. These letters were later collected into Four Years in the Old World (New
York: W. C. Palmer, Jr., 1870) This reference is from a letter dated September 16, 1859,
p. 96.
25. Ibid., p. 107 (letter dated October 12, 1859).
26. Letter of Asa Mahan to Phoebe Palmer, dated May 4 (perhaps 7 or 9), 1870, Drew
University Library. This account is also confirmed by Mahan in his Autobiography,
pp. 41314.
27. Autobiography, p. 414.
28. Account of the Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness Held at
Oxford, Aug. 29 to Sept. 7, 1874 (various publishers, n.d.), p. 141.
29 Record of the Convention for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness Held at
Brighton, May 29 to June 7, 1875 (Brighton, England: W. J. Smith, n.d.), p. 383.
30. Press reports, Guide to Holiness, Vol. 14 (June, 1871), inside front cover.
31. "Baptism of the Spirit," Guide to Holiness 20 (February, 1874):1.
32. "PentecostWhat Is It?" Guide to Holiness 66 (January, 1897) :37.
33. Christian Perfection, pp. 16465.
34. Baptism of the Holy Ghost, p. 21.
35. Ibid., p. 50.
36. Ibid., p. 78.
37. Christian Perfection, p. 166. Cf. Baptism of the Holy Ghost, p. 113.
38. Baptism of the Holy Ghost, p. 47.
39. Ibid., p. 150.
40. Ibid., pp. 13843.
41. D. L. Moody at Home (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1886), p. 168.
42. Christian Perfection, p. 7, apparently Mahan's basic definition.
43. Cf., for example, Baptism of the Holy Ghost, p. 199.
44. Ibid., p. 39.
45. Cf. the papers of Hannah Whitall Smith in Ray Strachey, Religious Fanaticism
(London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928), passim.
46. Cf. the summary of evidence collected by Stanley Frodsham in With Signs
Following in William Menzies, Anointed to Serve: The Story of the Assemblies
of God (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing Company, 1971), pp. 2933. An additional
report may be found in A. M. Kiergan, Historical Sketches of the Revival of True
Holiness and Local Church Polity from 18651916 (Fort Scott, Kans.: Board of
Publication of the Church Advocate and Good Way, 1971), p. 31.
47. For further development of this thesis cf. H. Vinson Synan, The
PentecostalHoliness Movement in the United States (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971) and Donald W. Dayton, "From 'Christian Perfection'
to the 'Baptism of the Holy Ghost': A Study in the Origins of Pentecostalism," in
H. Vinson Synan, Aspects of Pentecostal Origins (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos, 1974). In
progress is a further major statement of this thesis by the present writer.
|