JAMES CAUGHEY-Revivalist" by David Smithers

J. A. Stewart has rightly said, "Apart from the mighty enduement
of the Spirit of Pentecost, all our Gospel services will be in vain.
The natural, unregenerate man cannot comprehend the things of
the Spirit. His darkened mind can only be enlightened by the
divine intervention of God, the Holy Ghost. He cannot be argued,
fascinated, bullied or enthused into accepting Christ as Savior. It
is not enough that we clearly expound the Gospel. It must be
given in the demonstration and power of the Spirit and then
applied by Him." It was this burning revelation that radically
transformed the ministry of a young Methodist preacher by the
name of James Caughey.

James Caughey was born in Northern Ireland on April 9, 1810. The
Caughey family later immigrated to America while James was still
very young. By 1830 Mr. Caughey was working in a large flour mill
in Troy, New York. Between the years of 1830-31, he was soundly
converted, along with thousands of others during the Second Great
Awakening in the "Burned-over District." Two years after his
conversion, he was admitted as a Methodist preacher into the Troy
Conference. He was later ordained in 1834 as deacon and after
two more years was finally ordained as an elder of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Initially he seemed to be merely another
sincere but quite ordinary Methodist preacher. His first ministry
labors were not distinguished by any uncommon results; therefore
his friends and family did not entertain any lofty hopes for his
future ministry. However, Mr. Caughey had already begun to
embrace his own desperate need for a genuine upper room
experience. He resolved to fully yield and entrust his ministry to
the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. Burdened and burning
with conviction, James Caughey vowed to God to always submit
to the following points;

"(1) The absolute necessity of the immediate influence of the Holy
Ghost to impart power, efficacy, and success to a preached Gospel.

(2) The absolute necessity of praying more frequently, more
fervently, more perseveringly, and more believingly for the aid of
the Holy Spirit in my ministry.

(3) That my labors will be powerless, and comfortless, and
valueless, without this aid; a cloud without water, a tree without
fruit, dead and rootless; a sound uncertain, unctionless and
meaningless; such will be the character of my ministry. It is the
Spirit of God alone which imparts significance and power to the
Word preached, without which, as one has expressed it, all the
threatenings of the Bible will be no more than thunder to the deaf
or lightning to the blind. A seal requires weight, a hand upon it in
order to make an impression. The soul of the penitent sinner is the
wax; Gospel truth is the seal, but without the Almighty hand of the
Holy Ghost, that seal is powerless . . .

(4) No man has ever been significantly useful in winning souls to
Christ without the help of the Spirit. With it the humblest talent
may astonish earth and hell, by gathering into the path of life
thousands for the skies, while without the Spirit, the finest and
most splendid talents remain comparatively useless . . ."

From this time Mr. Caughey's labors were more fruitful, but not so
as to distinguish him above many other Methodist preachers of the
day. He pastored and occasionally evangelized in the Northeastern
United States until 1840. Caughey was then impressed of the Lord
to leave his church and go preach in Britain. Almost immediately
he began to minister with a new anointing and power. He obtained
permission from the Methodist Conference to visit Europe, and
quickly set out to bring reformation and revival to the heartland of
Wesleyan Methodism. In July 1841, James Caughey arrived in
Liverpool England and began an extensive tour of Britain that
lasted until 1847. For nearly seven years Caughey was the
ordained means of sparking revival in one industrial city after
another all across Britain. Throughout this continuous season of
revival, Caughey preached on an average of six to ten times a
week, resulting in 22,000 souls converted and thousands more
refreshed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Mr. Caughey's revival
ministry repeatedly emptied the public drinking houses and
miraculously transformed entire communities. Most of his converts
were young people, between the ages of sixteen and thirty years
old. One of those especially impacted by Caughey's preaching
was a tall and gangly youth named William Booth. Mr. Caughey's
ministry gave the young Booth hope and courage to step out in
faith and start a street preaching ministry in the forgotten city
slums of England. This ministry quickly grew and was later
officially established in 1878 under the name, "The Salvation Army".

Mr. Caughey's ministry consistently left an intense impact on all
those who attended his meetings. Often his services were filled
with the sounds of hundreds of hungry souls simultaneously
sobbing and crying out for more of Jesus. In the autumn of 1843 in
Hull England, Mr. Caughey recalled the following miraculous events:
"At this moment an influence, evidently from Heaven, came upon
the people suddenly; it seemed like some mighty bursting of a
storm of wind upon some extensive forest. The entire congregation
was in motion; some preparing to flee from the place, and others in
the act of prostrating themselves before the Lord God of hosts.
Cries for mercy, and piercing supplications for purity of heart were
heard from all parts of the agitated mass -in the galleries, as well
as throughout the body of the chapel; While purified souls were
exulting in the loftiest strains of adoration. The scene was, beyond
description, grand and sublimely awful. It was God's own house,
and heaven's gate. Poor sinners were amazed, and fled; but some
of them fell down, some distance from the chapel, in terror and
agony. Many however remained, repeating the publican's plea,
'God be merciful to me a sinner!' My soul, full of holy awe,
trembled before the majesty of God. Like Elijah, who covered his
face in his mantle when the Lord passed by, I was glad to have a
place of concealment in the bottom of the pulpit. The
superintendent minister, the Rev. Thomas Martin, who was with
me in the pulpit at the time, was so overpowered, that he could do
nothing but weep and adore. Thus it continued for about twenty-five
minutes, when the Lord stayed His hand, and there was a sudden
and heavenly calm, full of sunshine and glory. The number
converted and sanctified on that night was great. It appears the
influence was almost as powerful outside the chapel as within. An
unconverted man, who was standing outside at the time, waiting to
accompany his wife home, said, when she came out, 'I don't know
what has been going on in the chapel, or how you have felt, but
there was a very strange feeling came over me while I was
standing at the door.' A few such shocks of almighty power would
turn the kingdom of the devil in any place or city upside down, and
go far to convert the entire population."

On occasions the manifestations accompanying Mr. Caughey's
ministry went far beyond the accepted norms usually associated
with modern, English Methodism. As we have already noted,
extended seasons of intense weeping and piercing cries were
quite common in Caughey's meetings. However, there were also
some occasional instances of a more drastic nature. In Ireland
there were manifestations of exuberant jumping and rejoicing
accompanied by others being violently overcome with
uncontrollable shaking and trembling. As a result, it was not
uncommon for Mr. Caughey to be accused of promoting emotional
fanaticism by those who were resisting his reforms among the
Wesleyan Methodists. The following comments from Mr.
Caughey's book "Revival Miscellanies" are indicative of how he
responded to his critics. He writes, "I understand the design of
such names as 'fanatics, enthusiasts, madmen, etc.' These
names are fastened upon some of the zealous servants of God for
the same purpose that the skins of wild beasts were put upon the
primitive Christians by their persecutors, that they might more
readily be torn in pieces by the hungry lions in the arena of the
amphitheater. Yet they were Christians still, notwithstanding
these deforming skins, and so are we, though some cover us from
head to foot with the hideous imputations of fanaticism."

Those who were closest to the revivalist were often asked how Mr.
Caughey managed to consistently flow in the power of the Holy
Spirit. The answer was almost always the same. -Knee work!
Knee work! Knee work! This was his secret! James Caughey was
a man committed to faith-filled, travailing prayer. "He spent many
hours of each day on his knees, with his Bible spread open before
him, asking wisdom from on high, and beseeching a blessing from
God on the preaching of His Word. This was his almost constant
employment between breakfast and dinner." Caughey's anointed
ministry was merely the outward fruit of a lifestyle of constant
praying in the Holy Ghost.

Mr. Caughey's lengthy revival ministry in Britain had brought about
an unexpected refreshing among the common people of the
Wesleyan Methodist Church. As a result, his ministry naturally
empowered the growing, Methodist reform movement. These
Methodist reformers sought to encourage spiritual renewal and
ministry-participation among the common English people. They
understood that a lasting revival would prepare and empower the
common man to take his rightful place in the Church. Thus, they
strongly supported James Caughey, as he challenged the
Wesleyan people to return to the apostolic roots of John Wesley's
Methodism. Eventually, Mr. Caughey was stubbornly opposed and
censored by England's Methodist leadership. Finally, in 1847
Caughey reluctantly consented to close his revival meetings in
England and quietly return to America.

Revivals are seasons of intense and rapid spiritual growth, and
such growth always involves change. Growing children demand
new and larger garments, just as growing trees need room for their
expanding roots. The sincere seekers of lasting revival must be
willing to change and yield to the Spirit's control. The wind, water,
and fire of the Holy Ghost are ever moving elements that require
plenty of room to breathe. We must beware of quenching and
smothering the influence of the Holy Spirit by our predetermined
preferences and stiff religious traditions. True revival will not come
through our fleshly might or organizational power, but ONLY by
God's Spirit! Have we given the Holy Spirit permission to change US?

~SOURCE: http://www.watchword.org