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Finney’s Lectures on Systematic Theology was issued in two volumes in 1846 and 1847. Though it appears Finney planned a work of a number of volumes, only the two were finished: Volume 2 in 1846, and Volume 3 in 1847 (Volume 1 never appeared). In the Preface of the first volume, Finney states “What I have said on the ‘Foundation of Moral Obligation’ is the key to the whole subject.” Finney’s system was based upon the premise of the complete freedom of the human will and the moral responsibility that involves. Dr. Keith Hardman, Finney’s recent biographer, points out that for Finney “… a person must be completely holy or totally sinful. There can be no gradation or degrees. Every person is therefore at any given instant perfectly sinful or perfectly holy. As Finney declared“ Moral agents are at all times either as holy or as sinful as with their knowledge they can be.” Dr. Hardman goes on, “It cannot be overemphasized that Finney makes these states mutually exclusive.” He again quotes Finney, “Sin and holiness, then, both consist in supreme, ultimate, and opposite choices, or intentions, and cannot, by any possibility, coexist.” These difficult concepts begin to explain Finney’s emphasis on the need for perfection. Strong criticism followed the publication of the Systematic Theology, especially from Charles Hodge of Princeton, the renowned Calvinist theologian. Hodge argued that Finney’s system was consistent, but that it was a total departure from the traditional Protestant teaching about justification by Faith, and was more a system of morals. Nevertheless, it is recognized that this work is one of a high degree of sophistication, and despite its difficult reasoning and use of terms, it has had a wide influence.

I have said that this state of mind implies conversion; for although the awakened sinner may have agonies and convictions, yet he has no clear conceptions of what this union with Christ is, nor does he clearly apprehend the need of a perfectly cleansed heart. He needs some experience of what holiness is, and often he seems also to need to have tasted some of the exceeding bitterness of sin as felt by one who has been near the Lord, before he shall fully apprehend this great spiritual want of being made a partaker indeed of Christ’s own perfect righteousness. By righteousness here, we are not to understand something imputed, but something real. It is imparted, not imputed. Christ draws the souls of His people into such union with Himself, that they become “partakers of His holiness.” For this the tried Christian pants. Having had a little taste of it, and then having the bitterness of a relapse into sin, his soul is roused to most intense struggles to realize this blessed union with Christ.

A few words should now be said on what is implied in being filled with this righteousness.

Worldly men incessantly hunger and thirst after worldly good. But attainment never outstrips desire. Hence, they are never filled. There is always a conscious want which no acquisition of this sort of good can satisfy. It is most remarkable that worldly men can never be filled with the things they seek. Well do the Scriptures say—This desire enlarges itself as hell, and is never satisfied. They really hunger and thirst the more by how much the more they obtain.

Let it be especially remarked that this being filled with righteousness is not perfection in the highest sense of this term. Men often use the term perfection, of that which is absolutely complete—a state which precludes improvement and beyond which there can be no progress. There can be no such perfection among Christians in any world—earth or heaven. It can pertain to no being but God. He, and He alone, is perfect beyond possibility of progress. All else but God are making progress—the wicked from bad to worse, the righteous from good to better. Instead of making no more progress in heaven, as some suppose, probably the law of progress is in a geometrical ratio; the more they have, the farther they will advance. I have often queried whether this law which seems to prevail here will operate there, viz. [namely], of what I may call impulsive progression. Here we notice that the mind from time to time gives itself to most intense exertion to make attainments in holiness. The attainment having been made, the mind for a season reposes, as if it had taken its meal and awaited the natural return of appetite before it should put forth its next great effort. May it not be that the same law of progress obtains even in heaven?

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