Asahel Nettleton, Part 1: Forgotten Preacher from the Second Great Awakening

One of the delights from my time in seminary was studying important figures from church history. I especially enjoyed studying men who impacted worship reforms, including Hezekiah, Nehemiah, Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, the Puritans, Edwards, and eventually, Asahel Nettleton. Although Nettleton’s name may not ring a bell like the rest, Nettleton’s preaching had a tremendous influence on the Second Great Awakening. 

When people think of the Second Great Awakening, they often think of the dynamic Charles Finney. Nettleton lived at the same time as Finney, and they even met on a couple occasions. Finney’s story has been emphasized time and again, but Nettleton has all but vanished into oblivion outside the Academy. It is my desire to bring Nettleton’s name to light, once again, and share his story with a new era of devoted Christians.

This is going to be a series of posts, focusing first on Nettleton’s life as a revival preacher, followed by the doctrines that he preached in his sermons. The series will conclude with a peek into the hymn book he compiled for his later revivals, Village Hymns. These posts contain excerpts from my dissertation, “‘A Civil War in Zion’: Comparing Theology and Hymnody in the Revivals of Asahel Nettleton and Charles Finney.”

Nettleton’s Ministry

Although not a common name among American Christians today, Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844) lived as a revival leader during the American Second Great Awakening and through the work of the Spirit, led many souls from spiritual darkness to God’s eternal glory. He advocated strongly for controlled and orderly revival meetings, which differed from other revival leaders of his day. Although Nettleton was not a writer, his sermons and personal letters were transcribed by his ministry assistant, Bennet Tyler, leaving us an insight into this revival leader of the Second Great Awakening.

Nettleton was born into a modest family of Connecticut farmers in 1783. His childhood contained nothing extraordinary, generally or spiritually. In the year of 1800, when the stirrings of awakening in America were already in motion, Nettleton himself was awakened when the Spirit impressed upon him “the need of a change of heart” in himself (1). He continued to hear sermons that convicted him, and he “could find no rest day or night (2) Finally, in the fall of 1800, he abandoned thinking that his moral goodness would achieve eternal salvation and acknowledged “that his sins must be pardoned, or he could not be saved” (3) From that moment, he took great delight in reading the Scriptures and attending religious services.

In 1805, Nettleton entered the freshmen class at Yale College. He graduated from Yale and was licensed to preach in 1811, at which time he commenced directly into full-time ministry. Almost immediately, his “labors were crowned with signal success. Wherever he went, the Spirit of God seemed to accompany his preaching” (4). In the early nineteenth century, the Second Great Awakening took on different characteristics than the First Great Awakening. The revivals that occurred during this time largely came under the influence of revival leaders that were either untrained in handling the spirit of revival (encouraged and allowed excessive emotional outbursts) or were untrained in preaching the full doctrines of the faith. The consequences of these actions created revivals that were emotionally charged and often did not create sustaining fruit. Nettleton agreed with Jonathan Edwards that revivals are “surprising works of God,” and not something that could be contrived or forced.

Nettleton focused his energy in the Northeast, garnering much respect among his peers for his wisdom in leading revivals. Because Nettleton preached the full Calvinistic doctrines, including the doctrine of depravity, “there were cases of overwhelming distress” in his services. But Tyler records that “this distress was not the result of mere sympathy, but of clear conviction of sin; and in almost all cases, it soon terminated in a peaceful and joyful hope of salvation” (5). He labored throughout the Northeast during these years and attempted to repair “the wastes of Zion” left over from the preceding revivalists (6). 

In 1815, Nettleton heard of an awakening among the people of Salisbury, Connecticut and hastened to the region because he feared “it was taken hold of by some ignorant, officious hands; and they were set to groaning and screaming” (7)  Upon his arrival, he called the people to order, causing a report to circulate that he had put a stop to the revival. E.A. Johnston notes that because Nettleton did not allow the people “to groan and scream, many felt the revival had ended.” However, “the revival was strengthened by the wise handling of these emotional excesses, in a way which helped further the work” (8). Robert Caldwell affirms Nettleton’s leadership in revivals, writing that he “resided over revivals that were both deeply emotional and yet calm and controlled in an effort to avoid enthusiasm” (9). This ability to separate true affections with heightened emotions set him apart from revival leaders that followed in the nineteenth century.

Church historian Iain Murray states, “The spirit of revival is the spirit of profound humility - churches and the wider communities around them find reason to ‘cease from man.’” This is the view that Nettleton held of revivals. He was an instrument in God’s hand to be used where and when God wanted him. His modus operandi consisted of laboring in one spot for a few weeks or months, and then he would move to a new location. His desire was to preach the word of God to a needy people, but he did not disturb the pastor’s role with his own flock. Nettleton never desired the spotlight; rather, if he felt a congregation was revereing him over their pastor, he would leave the region so as not to disturb the everyday faithfulness and workings of the pastor.

Lest anyone think that Nettleton was not a dynamic preacher because he did not use theatrics in his preaching, Johnston writes, “The revivals that occurred [in Farmington, CT] were some of the most powerful of the Second Great Awakening! The wooden floor rumbled under Nettleton’s deep voice as he preached eternity to his startled hearers . . . The revival at Farmington grew in power and influence early in 1821” (10). 

As he continued to labor with great zeal in the 1820s, little did he or his listeners know that these revivals would be the height of his ministerial career, for his contraction of typhus fever would deplete his physical energy for the rest of his life. Nettleton’s biographer writes, “It pleased God in the fall of [1822] to arrest his labors, and to lay him on a bed of sickness” (11). It was while he was sick with typhus that Nettleton compiled his beloved hymnbook, Village Hymns. For the next two years, Nettleton rarely preached and devoted his time to collecting hymns for future revival services. Nettleton took great care in selecting the hymns for this collection, as the hymns accurately reflect his doctrinal and theological teachings. 

Nettleton and Finney

After somewhat recovering from typhus, Nettleton returned to a more active role of preaching, yet with a decrease in physical stamina. It was during this time that Nettleton fired the “first shot over the bow” in confronting the use of new measures (12). The development of “new measures” has often been attributed to Charles Finney, but as Murray points out, they “did not so much derive from Finney as an individual as it did from the whole situation out of which he emerged” (13). These measures consisted of the use of the anxious bench, extended meetings, women-led prayer services, and rushed decisions from sinners to convert to Christ. At the heart, measures were used to secure a decision for Christ in a revival meeting.

Nettleton’s name had mistakenly become associated with the use of measures in western revivals, and his friends urged him to print his views on the matter. He was reluctant to publish his thoughts without first meeting with Charles Finney in person. While Finney was preaching in Troy, New York, Nettleton’s friends invited him to hear Finney preach, which he accepted. Nettleton and Finney met twice while in Troy, with Nettleton trying to convince Finney to abandon his use of new measures in revivals. In a letter to a friend, Nettleton wrote, “As we now have it, the great contest is among professors of religion - a civil war in Zion - a domestic broil in the household of faith. The friends of brother Finney are certainly doing him and the cause of Christ great mischief. They seem more anxious to convert ministers and Christians to their peculiarities, than to convert souls to Christ” (14).

This conflict eventually led to the New Lebanon Conference (1827), in which the meetings “were heated and the topics of the convention included the role of women praying in promiscuous assemblies, irreverent familiarity with God, praying for sinners by name in assemblies, audible groaning in prayer and violent gestures, and other ‘new measure’ concerns” (15).  Nettleton had many reasons for not wanting to attend the conference, one of which was his concern about confronting a trained lawyer who was prepared to defend his position. The result of these meetings was not reconciliation, but further alienation between the two sides. Johnston summarizes the results of the conference as “the popular Charles Finney became more popular, while Asahel Nettleton…fell into the shadows…But the larger and more lasting impact of the New Lebanon Convention did not come down to personalities but to theology and methodology in evangelism, which is felt to this day” (16).

Although he continued to be weakened as a residual from typhus and from the debates at New Lebanon, Nettleton’s final years in ministry continued to be marked by great revivals. Immediately after the conference he responded to a call to Durham, New York, and God breathed a revival through Nettleton’s prayer and preaching, “feeble as he was” (17). His final revival was held in Enfield, Connecticut, in September 1833. He eventually “resigned his spirit into the hand of God who gave it” on May 16, 1844 (18). While he lay sick at the end of his life, hymns continued to bring him comfort and consolation. Tyler concludes, “It was very common for him, when inquired of respecting the state of his mind, instead of giving a direct answer, to point to some hymn or some passage of Scripture, as indicative of his feelings” (19). Nettleton held to the Calvinistic beliefs throughout his thirty-three year ministry and did not include the use of new measures in his revival services.

The next post will examine Nettleton’s doctrines of pneumatology and soteriology as expounded in his sermons and writings. These specific doctrines will then be examined in Village Hymns, which will be the final post of this series. As explained in this post, Asahel Nettleton was a prominent figure in Second Great Awakening and a preacher worth knowing today. If you would like to read more about Nettleton the preacher, I encourage you to pick up a copy of his biography written by Bennet Tyler and Andrew Bonar, Asahel Nettleton: Life and Labours, reprint (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996).

References

(1) Bennet Tyler and Andrew Bonar, Asahel Nettleton: Life and Labours, reprint

(Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996), 20.

(2) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 21

(3) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 24.

(4) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 54.

(5) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 70.

(6) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 70. This particular quotation refers to

Nettleton working in the region of Milton, CT, when he put an end to the

highly emotional outburst and restored order, strengthening the church

through his ministry.

(7) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 83.

(8) E. A. Johnston, Asahel Nettleton: Revival Preacher (Skyland, NC: Revival

Literature, 2012), 134.

(9) Robert W. Caldwell, III, Theologies of the American Revivalists (Downers Grove,

IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 103.

(10) Johnston, Asahel Nettleton: Revival Preacher, 179.

(11) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 232.

(12) Johnston, Asahel Nettleton, 243.

(13) Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism, (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 238.

(14) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 344.

(15) Johnston, Asahel Nettleton, 270.

(16) Johnston, Asahel Nettleton, 274.

(17) Johnston, Asahel Nettleton, 288.

(18) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 428.

(19) Tyler and Bonar, Asahel Nettleton, 435.

Kim has been married to her college sweetheart, Jason, for 24 years and they have one son who is a high school senior. Most recently, Kim completed her Ph.D in Church Music and Worship from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She has presented at Evangelical Theological Society and The Society of Christian Scholarship in Music, and her works have appeared in The Hymn, Artistic Theologian, and Baptist History and Heritage Journal.