It's unfortunate that Finney was taught Scottish Common Sense Realism by George Gale instead of New England theology. Charles Finney rejected some of the core beliefs held by other New Light Calvinists of his day, but despite this, his ministry to sinners and saints was very effective. Your typical evangelical minister today is far more likely to produce false converts than Finney did in his day. For example, Finney would never tell someone they were saved because they sincerely repeated a salvation prayer, and never told someone they were saved because of something they did. Finney would examine seekers in the inquiry room, and "wrote the book" on true and false conversions.

Finney had the most exterme view of saving repentance of any New Light Calvinist. He told sinners once they knew they were sinners, they were guilty of unbelief until they unconditionally repented and placed entire faith in Christ and what He did.

But, Finney challenged what he thought was the inherent culpability of God in the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace, which held that regeneration had to precede saving repentance. In Finney's day, Calvinists typically warned seekers that they wouldn't be able to savingly repent until God had monergistically regenerated their hearts. This gave sinners an excuse for not immediately repenting. Finney saw this as the reason Calvinist ministers couldn't "bear down" on sinners.

As a lawyer, he considered any flaw in the summation of a prosecutor as "wiggle room" for the jury to let a criminal go free. So he shaped his salvation theology to fit what he considered the best arguement for repentance. He told sinners it was entirely their fault for not repenting immediately, something EVERY New Light Calvinist did without altering their salvation theology. Please read Asahel Nettleton's sermon, Genuine Repentance Does Not Precede Regeneration.

Finney used courtroom arguments to strip unrepentant church-goers (the majority of any church) of every excuse for not repenting. Finney felt the sovereignty of God should never be an excuse for sinners to not repent, after all, over 99% of the Bible says "REPENT!", and less than 1% of Scriptures reveal the truth that repentance is a gift of God's grace. No preacher in the Bible, when calling sinners to repentance, ever mentions the sovereignty of God, except to say if they don't repent, God will judge them severely. Preachers in the Bible NEVER tell sinners they can't repent unless God gives them the grace.

John the Baptist: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). "Repent, and believe in the gospel" (John 1:15)."Bear fruits worthy of repentance" (John 3:8).

Jesus Christ: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17)."He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent" (Matthew 11:20)."Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes" (Luke 10:13)."The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here" (Matthew 12:41, Luke 11:32). "Unless you repent you will all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3, Luke 13:5)."There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:7). "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (Luke 5:32)."Repentance and remission of sins should be preached" (Luke 24:47).

The Apostles: "They went out and preached that people should repent" (Mark 6:12).

Paul: "I kept back nothing that was helpful ... testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God" (Acts 20:20-21)."Repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance" (Acts 26:20).: "The goodness of God leads you to repentance" (Romans 2:4).Paul: "God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30).

Peter: "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the [a]remission of sins" (Acts 2:38)."The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

Before reading what Finney thought about regeneration, let me tell you what the Bible says about regeneration being the monergistic, sovereign work of God. Monergistic means God does it without the cooperation of man.

Four things in the Bible are monergistic:

1) Creation: God spoke the universe into existence out of nothing without human help (Hebrews 11:3).

2) Election:  God chose individuals before the foundation of the world according to His own sovereign will (Ephesians 1:4-5).

3) Resurrection: The transformation of saints' bodies from corruptible to incorruptible will be by God’s sovereign power alone (1 Corinthians 15:50).

4) Regeneration: The Scriptures that apply to the resurrection can be applied to regeneration.

1. Spiritual Resurrection (Regeneration) Scripture frequently describes salvation not merely as moral improvement, but as a literal resurrection from spiritual death. In Ephesians 2:1–5, the Apostle Paul states that believers who were "dead in trespasses and sins", God has made "alive together with Christ." A corpse cannot assist in its own resuscitation; likewise, a spiritually dead soul relies entirely on the unilateral, monergistic call of God to receive faith. Ezekiel 36:26: God promises, "I will give you a new heart... I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." The recipient of the new heart is completely passive in the surgery.

2. Physical Resurrection: Just as the Holy Spirit enters a spiritually dead heart to grant faith, the Holy Spirit will quicken the saint's physically dead body. John 5:24–25: Jesus Christ unites these two concepts many times in a single sermon. He first speaks of spiritual regeneration: "he who hears My Word... has passed from death into life", and immediately follows it in verses 28–29 by speaking of physical resurrection: "All who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth". He does it again in John 6:37-39: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me…I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day”. He does it again in John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day”.

The Apostle Paul unites the two concepts in Romans 8:11: "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you". Regeneration is the down payment on resurrection. Paul does it again a little later in Romans 8:23: “We also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body”. In Philippians 3:12-20, Paul says, “I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me…who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body”.

The Greek word palingenesia is used for the supernatural regeneration of sinners to saints in Titus 3:5: “According to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”, and the supernatural regeneration of the resurrection in Matthew 19:28: “in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory”.

The exact same Holy Spirit who enters a person monergistically when they are supernaturally born again, will supernaturally raise the saint's bodies on the last day.|

Ephesians 2:5: “Even when we were dead in trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)”.

Ephesians 2:8: “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God”.

Romans 9:16: “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy”.

In Ezekiel 36:26-27, God speaks monergistically: "I will" statements: "I will give you a new heart... I will remove the heart of stone... I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes." The Old Testament prophesy was repeated in the New Testament description of regeneration in Hebrews 8:10-11: “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me".

In Deuteronomy 30:6, the sinner is the recipient of the surgery, not a co-surgeon. "And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart" Like physical circumcision, the spiritual cutting away of the old nature is performed by another party. The Old Testament prophesy was repeated in the New Testament description of regeneration in Romans 2:29: "He is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God", and Colossians 2:11-13: "In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands ... And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him".

John 1:12-13: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”. This explicitly denies human volition as the source of the new birth. John 3:8: Jesus compares the Spirit’s work in regeneration to the wind: "The wind blows where it wishes... So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." The wind acts sovereignly, outside human command or cooperation. James 1:18: "Of his own will he brought us forth by the Word of truth". Rebirth originates strictly in the sovereign choice and will of God. Titus 3:5: God saved us "not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit."

God alone regenerates who He wishes: "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11). God says, "I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things" (Isaiah 45:7). "A man's heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). "Whatever the Lord pleases He does, In heaven and in earth" (Psalms 135:6). Joseph tells his brothers regarding their betrayal, "you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive" (Genesis 50:20)."We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).

Finney cited Ezekiel 36:26 (make yourself a new heart). So did Asahel Nettleton, five times in one sermon you can read here. Once you realize the New Light Calvinist perspective on this subject, you'll no longer object to telling sinners to "make themselves a new heart". Nettleton is perhaps the most respected evangelist of Finney's day.

He told sinners to immediately repent by quoting Ezekiel 36:26: "make yourself a new heart", but he also acknowledged the rest of Ezekiel's prophesies where God says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you" Ezekiel 36:26. In fact, its a prophesy of Ezekiel that's the ultimate (and longest) salvation Scripture quoted in the New Testament describing what happens when God regenerates the heart and fills with the Holy Spirit: "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me" (Hebrews 8:10-11).

The New Light Calvinists of Finney's day had no problem telling sinners to make themselves a new heart because they has a consecutional view of repentance. Once you accept the fact that saints had their names written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8, Revelation 17:8), Biblical salvation will make sense to you. But first you must accept by faith, that God "chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight" (Ephesians 1:4). Paul repeats this theme in the next verse by noting that God predestined us for adoption: God "saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began" (2 Timothy 1:91). Peter addresses believers as those who are "chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" (Peter 1:1-2). To learn more about the rational basis for New Light Calvinist ministers telling sinners to immediately repent and "make yourself a new heart", click here.

Finney also quoted 1 Corinthians 4:15 as a prooftext for regeneration being the result (without the need of irresistable grace) of believing the Gospel: "For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you through the Gospel". He should have considered James 1:18: "Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures".

The irresistable grace of regeneration is reinforced in John 3:5-8, Titus 3:5, Ephesians 2:4-5, 1 Peter 1:23, 2 Corinthians 5:17, and John 1:12-13.

While it could be argued that Finney was merely following the lead of every preacher in the Bible by emphasizing the 99% message of the Bible (REPENT!) without the 1% caveat in the Bible of the sovereignty of God and election, he goes too far when he says "Both conversion and regeneration are sometimes in the Bible ascribed to God, sometimes to man, and sometimes to the subject; which shows clearly that the distinction under examination is arbitrary and theological, rather than biblical". This comment is just as illogical as John Calvin's saying the two places in the Bible where it says Pharoah hardened his own heart should be ignored because it says nine times that God hardened Pharoah’s heart. Calvin calls it "a mere cavil" to consider those two scriptures as relevant. There are no "mere cavils" in the Bible. You either believe God put it there for a purpose or you don't.