The following quotes from Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney are uncannily written in the same spiritual vein. These servants of the Lord lived one hundred years apart in different generations and would have never agreed with each other’s theology and means for seeking the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ on the earth. Yet they came to similar revelations and conclusions and were both used to inspire faith for powerful breakthroughs and advancement of the Gospel through the Holy Spirit.

One of their main tenets was that the fullness of God’s invading presence was to be expected by the Church as an essential basic provision of the Heavenly Father. They encouraged practical expectation and faith for the release of the Holy Spirit as a specific gift for God’s children; and that the Father’s heart was willing and ready to give this gift which was as basic a necessity to the Church.

Quotes from Edwards and Finney on receiving Spiritual Awakening.

"Some live in spiritual drought because they act like God is not as ready to bestow spiritual blessings upon His people as He is the earthly ones. On the contrary, God has been shown that He is more ready to bestow spiritual blessings much more than He is earthly blessings. Yet, if there is any possibility of obtaining these spiritual blessings, it would behoove us to seek them with vastly greater earnestness and diligence than we do earthly blessings because they are infinitely more necessary."

"He has called you to use your influence to exhort God’s people in this town to earnestly cry out to Him for the renewed outpouring of His Holy Spirit upon us. You know from personal experience that God is more ready to give the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer than any other blessing and therefore there is no reason at all to doubt but that you can obtain this blessing again if you set your hearts and souls to seek it. Undoubtedly, we will have it, if we will for Christ’s sake we ask and receive it. "

"We have seen in some instances how God is ready to hear prayer for such blessings like rain, and consequently, there have been remarkable answers of prayer given for that blessing in times of drought; but God is even much more ready to give Spirit showers than He is physical rain. Christ, evidently at this very hour, comes and stands at the door with this blessing in His hand ready to bestow it upon us waiting to see whether we will have it or not. Now the time is upon us to cry to God for this mercy. Now God is near. Now is the time for us to call upon Him. Lay aside your sins, your parties, your contentions, and leave all other things go and set yourselves with all your heart and soul to seek this mercy. Christ now offers that if you will open your mouths wide He will fill them. Don’t refuse to do it. Don’t say that you need to eat and to sell. Don’t say we have bought land and that we must go and see it, or we have worldly affairs that we must settle. Don’t refuse that glorious feast that Christ is now calling you to."

"I am bold to say that God is now offering the blessing of His Holy Spirit to this town and I am bold to say we can have it only by asking for it. Indeed if we ask in such a way that is appropriate to the worth of the blessing, But if we show that we have no sense of the value of the blessing and that we don’t desire it much, and if we ask in such a way as to implicitly offend God at the same time, then we have no reason to think we will be heard."

"When Jesus speaks in the text of the Father’s readiness to bestow the Holy Spirit on them that ask, it is not meant that God will bestow it without importunate prayer."

"But if we really seek this blessing we may have it. The only reason why we haven’t had it bestowed already is because, and I am bold to say, because we seek this blessing with no more pain than we do for our own worldly interests. But if we want to have it, God will bestow it upon us. And it is a great deal more certain that we will have success in this seeking than we would have in those earthly things we labor for from year to year especially because of the value of such a blessing."

"Therefore, seeing there is some hopeful beginning of a work of God among us, let us be tender and deal gently with it as a new born child. Take heed that we don’t quench the fire that is newly kindled by any means whatsoever so that we would soon extinguish it to our own shame and sorrow. Therefore, let no one by any means do anything to hinder such a blessing."

"God’s is ready to bestow the blessing when it is asked for and He is even much more ready, than earthly parents, to give this blessing. We see that with earthly parents, the more need their children have, and the more beneficial and profitable it would be for their children to have what they are asking for, the more ready parents are to bestow the answer. Surely, our Heavenly Father, will be very ready to bestow the Holy Spirit on His children, since it is a blessing that will be so infinitely beneficial and profitable to them."

"The blessing of the Holy Spirit is as far beyond those earthly blessings, like earthly food which children ask of their parents, so is the Heavenly Father far beyond that bestows the Spirit the earthly fathers and this is one reason why God is more ready to bestow it."

"If, when we stand in need, and ask for earthly bread from God and He gives it, and He is much more ready to bestow this provision upon us than earthly parents are; How much more when we ask for the Holy Spirit, which is a more excellent blessing, is God ready to bestow Him in answer to prayer?"

"God is most ready to bestow the most excellent blessings we need in answer to prayer. This is His heart because:

1. It is more agreeable to God’s infinite goodness to give these blessings for our spiritual wellbeing than the needs of our earthly nature.

2. Those desires that we express in prayers for the most valued blessings are the most valued desires we possess and, therefore, God is most ready to answer them.

"Therefore, if God is so liberal toward us we should not be strait-handed toward Him. "

"In the time of the most recent extreme drought when there was a hopeful cloud that appeared and some drops of rain began to fall, oh how this got our attention and excited desire. How much more concerned should we be about the clouds of the Holy Spirit? How much more should we cry out when we are destitute of the influences of the Spirit of God? Therefore, we need to exhort and pray for and seek Gods Holy Spirit as if we were seeking for rain on the face of the earth in a time of extreme drought. We need to know that sunshine without rain will do you no good – your labors will have been in vain. "

"So how much more happy are the effects of the influences of the Spirit of God than the effects of showers of rain after a great drought? And here I would not only exhort sinners but saints as well to earnestly to seek the influences of the Spirit of God on their own souls and inquire whether your souls have not been in a great measure as dry and parched as the ground is during an extreme drought. I exhort all to take heed that they give their utmost attention to seek for the outpourings of God’s Spirit and learn that it is in itself an exceedingly great blessing. And those who do not seek it will have briars and thorns whose end it is to be burned." -- Jonathan Edwards 1748

"I wish this idea to be impressed on your minds, for there has long been an idea prevalent in the Church that extending Christianity through revival has something very peculiar in it, not at all related to the ordinary principles of life; in short, that there is no connection between the believers use of means and the result, and no tendency in the means to produce the effect. No teaching is more dangerous than this to the prosperity of the Church, and nothing more absurd."

"There is this fact about the government of God worthy of universal observation and of everlasting remembrance; it is this, that the most useful and important things, for the extension of the kingdom of God, are most easily and certainly obtained by the use of faith and appropriate means. This is clearly a principle of God’s Divine administration. Therefore, if all the basic necessities of life are obtained with great certainty by the use of the simplest means, should it not also be true of the kingdom of God."

"As spiritual blessings are concerned, we should expect their fulfillment to be connected with greater certainly with the use of the appropriate means. I fully believe that, could the facts be proven, it would be found that when the appointed means have been rightly used, spiritual blessings have been obtained with greater uniformity than earthly ones."

"If you preach the gospel but you do not expect it to take effect, or, when you pray, you do not expect Your prayers to be answered, you become a stumbling-block to yourself and others. Now, unless this great evil is put away from you, the world will go on as it has been; and it will get worse rather than better. The spirituality of the Church is too low to make any impression upon the world sufficient for it to realize the true value of Christianity."

"Let the churches in London, as a body, pray in faith, and labor devotedly, and this city will be moved. It is impossible that it should be any other way. And let me tell you, that the mass of mankind will never be moved, and there will never be a revival in any Church, till Christianity is a living reality in the hearts of those who profess to be Christ's disciples. The Church needs a fresh anointing. Only let the ministry be anointed afresh--let the Church be anointed afresh--let them pray in the Spirit, labor in the Spirit, preach in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, live in the Spirit, and every day they will shed a mighty, holy, and hallowed influence on the city, and its power will be such as to compel men to believe that there is a reality to Christianity, and the world will soon be converted to God. Amen."

"But let me say again, another difficulty in the way of taking a city is, that Christians operate in unbelief in the possibility of the conversion of their great cities. I have scarcely entered a great city since I have been in the ministry, where this is not true that both pastors and Christians believe that their great city can not be converted. I have been told by these leaders, that I did not understand the peculiar difficulties of their great cities. I did not say, that there is no such thing. They may be great; but they can be overcome.

"But one of the greatest difficulties is, your unbelief, which limits God, that He cannot do His many mighty works, because of your unbelief. All other matters are smaller difficulties, in so far as they produce this result--in so far as they crush Your faith in God—causing you not to believe that God's arm will be made bare, or that Christ is able to take captive the masses around them, and subject them to His Lordship. The extent of this unbelief is frightful. The ministry says it cannot be done. They don't say it outright in their preaching, but multitudes talk just as if such things were impossible."

The thing that has to be done is to lay aside this ungodly unbelief, and have confidence that God's almighty arm can do it. What is this great mountain before Zerubbabel? What are these difficulties to the Almighty? Oh! Do God the honor and believe He is able, for if anything can be done to overcome the unbelief of the Church, the world can be saved. What can be done, my dear friends, get out of Your mind the difficulties with which you think on so often, till your hearts are discouraged? You cannot do it, or expect to do it, while you allow your heads to hang down in doubt and unbelief, and are ready to faint with discouragement.

"Truth is mightier than error, God is stronger then Satan, but Satan is allowed to take the field almost alone. The world is carrying the masses away, we must reclaim them. While the world is running away with the masses, the Church is satisfying herself with securing the support and attendance of the few, while the masses fail to be converted, or even interested."

Charles Finney Approximately 1850