Is this story relevant? Can we justify the time and expense of printing and reading books about the past when the present overwhelms the church of God? Truth, sin, grace, the ways of God with man—these are items of enduring significance. And they are what these biographical sketches are all about.’ — Christianity Today

Product Description

Of the many volumes written on the Great ‌Awakening which changed the course of American history in the 1740s, none is more interesting than Archibald Alexander’s classic account recorded in this volume. Taking as his starting point William Tennent’s unpretentious theological school (contemptuously called the ‘Log College’), Alexander proceeds through a series of rich biographical chapters to trace the ministerial work of the students who entered pastorates at a time when deadness and formality reigned. ‘Never, perhaps, had the expectation of reaching heaven at last been more general or more confident.’

With Alexander we relive the story of their subsequent toil and success – their preaching and spiritual passion, their experiences of the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, their flesh and blood failings are all graphically portrayed.

Whether we read of Gilbert Tennent of whom Whitefield said, ‘hypocrites must either soon be converted or enraged at his preachings’, or of Samuel Blair, ‘a great textuary who studied the sacred oracles above all other things’, or of Samuel Finley who believed that ‘nothing more helped digestion than a hearty laugh’ and whose glorious death makes unforgettable reading, Alexander holds and moves us throughout. And such was his intention. Commenting on the fact that ‘none of the distinguished ministers of that period, except William Tennent, senior reached the age of seventy; and some of the most able and successful among them did not even arrive at the age of forty’, he writes: ‘These men may be said to have lived fast. They did much for their Lord in a short time. Being burning as well as shining lights, they were themselves consumed while they gave light to others. Oh that a race of ministers, like-minded, burning with a consuming zeal, might be raised up among us!

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‘The Christian world owes a great debt to Archibald Alexander. “Great” because he was the first professor in what would become the preeminent theological institution in the English speaking world—Princeton Seminary. The stamp of his influence on its ethos lasted for a hundred years. Here, in his Thoughts on Religious Experience we encounter the doctrinal richness, the spiritual penetration, and the wise discernment that thirty-nine successive classes of students tasted, and by which their ministries were permanently marked, and those to whom they ministered nourished and transformed. A work to be treasured indeed!’ — SINCLAIR B. FERGUSON

‘Archibald Alexander is not only a favourite for me but one who speaks as though he knows me as a friend. That is the feeling of many who read him, male and female, young and old. “He speaks to my heart”, my wife says. The experiences of a Christian, from new birth to death, are so varied and mysterious that it requires the love and wisdom of Christ to speak of them safely. No one pattern fits all. To Alexander this grace was given. Those who knew him well, such as Dr A.A.Hodge, did not think it too much to say of him: “More than any man of his generation he appeared to those who heard him to be endued with the knowledge and clothed with the authority of a prophet sent immediately from God.”‘ — IAIN H. MURRAY

Book Description

The nature of spiritual experience is probably both the most interesting and the most difficult subject in Christian literature: interesting because it concerns human life in all observable stages from childhood to death, and embraces all the emotions and behaviour possible in a man regenerated by the Holy Spirit; difficult because the adequate treatment of the subject makes immense demands upon the author. To trace sanctification and backsliding, as they appear in human consciousness, presupposes a sound biblical theology as well as a spirituality of mind and a pastoral knowledge broad enough to interpret all the varieties in type which occur. Twenty years a pastor and preacher in a revival era, then forty years a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary (commenced in 1812 when he was the sole instructor), Archibald Alexander brought to this volume the best wisdom of his life. From his own observations, and from case histories drawn from Christian biography, he follows his subject with the hand of a master. He was, in Dr. Theodore Woolsey’s words, ‘The Shakespeare of the Christian heart’. Primarily concerned with what ought to be the impression made upon the life by scriptural truths he has nothing of the vague devotionalism of the religious mystics. But within this biblical context a wide variety of experiences passes under review, along with a consideration of the practical problems involved in an understanding of the new-birth, Christian growth, spiritual conflict and kindred subjects. This is a lucid and fascinating volume almost alone in the field which it covers.

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