PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING:

FILES OF THE WRITINGS OF CHARLES G. FINNEY MAY BE COPIED FROM www.gospeltruth.net AND MADE AVAILABLE TO OTHERS PROVIDED:

1. NO CHANGES ARE TO BE MADE TO THE FILE IN ANY WAY.

2. THE FOLLOWING CERTIFICATION IS INCLUDED IN EACH FILE THAT IS COPIED AND PASSED ON TO ANOTHER, and

3. NO FINANCIAL CHARGE IS TO BE MADE IN ANY MANNER IN PASSING ON A FILE TO ANOTHER.

4. CERTIFICATION IS NOT TO BE REMOVED. 

CERTIFICATION BELOW: To Be Included in Files: Please keep this with any downloaded file or cut and paste into any downloaded file. It need not be of the same colors, but should read the same and be conspicuous at the end of the file.

Over the years, some people have taken liberty with Mr. Finney's sermons and lectures to alter them in ways that do injustice to the views as expressed by him. Some have downloaded our files, and posted them on their own web sites, without acknowledging they came from www.GospelTruth.net. In this way, readers can only guess that all copies of a particular sermon are identical, and authentic.

If you have taken these files and posted them elsewhere without acknowledging their source, please reconsider your behavior, and for the SAKE OF THE TRUTH, and not WHO is to get any credit, please put the certification on your files. God knows anyway. Those who live by the spirit of the truth in these lectures will not do otherwise.

It IS NOT our aim to promote Gospel Truth Ministries through these conditions.

It IS our aim to put Mr. Finney's writings as identical to the original text as humanly possible, and let him speak for himself. Some of our visitors have pointed out typographical mistakes, and we have incorporated their corrections by comparing with the original, and making the changes. If you think you find errors, please notify us. Help us improve.

After investing thousands of hours in typing the originals onto computer, and proofreading afterwards, to get them accurate, it is our aim that there will NOT be various "editions or abridgements" of Mr. Finney by others, but that all that are copied and circulated will be identical to the original.

All files on this site were proof-read a second time, comparing the text with the originals, line by line and word by word. There were errors found and corrected. This was done between March 2002 and January 2004. If you have files that were distributed before then from other websites, you probably have files with typographical errors, errors of omission, punctuation, and other errors. All lectures and sermons and articles from the Oberlin Evangelist have come from this website.

Our conditions as set forth above are intended to provide a mechanism so that these texts are circulated without changes. If someone can think up a better method to accomplish that purpose, we welcome the suggestion. --ED.

THANK YOU, GOSPEL TRUTH MINISTRIES

IMPORTANT NOTICE

CharlesFinney.com is in no way connected with Gospel Truth Ministries or the creator who has now passed away, and who wrote the above restrictions. To clear up the restrictions, I may shed some light on the statement above. A website in 1999 called Fires Of Revival published 7 or 8 of Charles Finney's books as whole downloads. I (CharlesFinney.com creator) downloaded those 7 or 8 files in 1999 during a time of personal revival. I revelled in the downloads. They proved themselves without any further need for certification. They already served their purpose. I believe that website was run in part by Bob Borer. Bob Borer's name appears on the credits of some of those files and I had a brief email exchange with him in 2000 AD. He was in some way associated with the creator of GospelTruth.net but he wished to remain somewhat anonymous to avoid the limelight or for some other unknown reason. It was not the original intention to make any database copyright but to make this as free as water.

This means that with one click you could download a whole book of Charles Finney, as you can now do on our homepage (CharlesFinney.com), and you would be free to do as you wish with the files. God would preserve his truth just as he has done with the King James Bible, through many toils and people who wanted to destroy it (in no way do I put Finney at the same level as the Bible, but God can easily preserve what is important. And he has done so on CharlesFinney.com).

Copyright on the database would do more harm than good in this case, to the feelings of the people involved. It does not preserve integrity for public domain works anyway, as that has already been established by being in the public domain.

These "whole book" downloads were initially available on GospelTruth.net including the credits but the creator of GospelTruth.net removed the files and credits around 2001 AD. The creator of GospelTruth.net had approached me for me to sell him CharlesFinney.com which I had providentially purchased in 2000. I declined, but took the opportunity to try to engage with Gospel Truth Ministries. I had introduced several innovations, such as having a confession page online and recording the audio of Charles Finney myself, and felt a calling to preserve the work myself. Therefore I had a good reason not to give away the domain. My inclination to keep the domain for the original intention proved itself to be the right decision.

Because GospelTruth did not get the domain CharlesFinney.com they introduced the above "blue label" certification mechanism to point people to GospelTruth.net instead.

In 2001 or 2002, I contacted the creator of GospelTruth.net by phone who gave the reason why the credits were removed. He said that the whole book downloads were not books which Finney himself had written, but later compilations, such as Way of Salvation (even though he later added his own abridgments and selected authors). He also said the files on the Fires Of Revival website contained errors. Furthermore he said some of the people who typed the files were paid and others were voluntary and it was confusing. He further said that the files were taken from him. He said that I was using his files. The creator of GospelTruth.net wanted to keep each chapter as individual files and not create whole book downloads, or printer friendly versions. I asked him to host my audio recordings of Charles Finney but he did not want to accept them, and he never did. He did not wish to associate with me, or others who made more accessible downloads. GospelTruth.net never linked to CharlesFinney.com although he could have done so, and should have done so. Many more people would have been helped.

Maybe it was a search engine optimization goal to drive traffic to GospelTruth.net or maybe it was a way to stop people downloading the whole book to later re-publish and sell. But either way it limited the free availability and accessibility of Charles Finney's books which was the original intention. It also meant people would have to always be online to read Finney (what about the missionaries in remote places?). They would also have to put up with the poorly formatted, small and difficult-to-read-and-print font on GospelTruth.net and a certification label advertised every time. Just compare this text to the text above and you will see what I mean.

The Fires Of Revival website no longer exists, the creator of GospelTruth.net passed away 5 years ago, and the search engine rankings of GospelTruth.net are not significant anymore. I feel I now have a little bit of liberty to share this, without intending to harm anyone's good intentions or character. Simply to set the record straight -

There were some typographical errors in the original Fires Of Revival downloads but these were not intentional and they were not so significant as to change the meaning, and certainly no major omissions which I noticed. Those downloads were provided in a good and true spirit.

I continued in this spirit under CharlesFinney.com and I allowed the complete downloads to remain substantially the same as they were originally published in 1999, available worldwide to anyone who would type in the domain CharlesFinney.com without needing to use search engines.

Regarding Oberlin evangelist, I don't think it is true that everything was copied from GospelTruth.net. We have a significant and complete html collection done by Katie Stewart. All the names and credits of the original contributors have been maintained on our homepage files for a good number of book downloads. In addition we have found whole book downloads of Finney in French which are very important, which GospelTruth.net did not take an interest in. It begs the question, why neglect the work of others? Or if it can be done in French, then why restrict it in English? These were done by other individuals.

May the Lord clear up the matter to everyone involved. The Lord has allowed the whole book downloads to continue freely from CharlesFinney.com for the past 20 or more years, and for that we rejoice. We have not accepted one single penny from this. The Lord has not allowed it.

I have not seen anyone put the GospelTruth.net certification label at the bottom of the files anywhere on the internet or anywhere else over the past 20 years, so it was probably not a successful idea. For a time GospelTruth.net did rank well on the search engines, therefore it is quite important to clear up the matter.

All being said, GospelTruth.net has still done a great deal of work which has added to ensuring the works of Charles Finney are preserved.

Pride is subtle. There will always be temptations involved to hinder such a great work as Finney's, so may the Lord keep all of us humble and forgiving in this endeavor -

PLEASE DO NOT COPYRIGHT FINNEY OR ANY DATABASE AND DO NOT INVOLVE LEGAL PEOPLE IN ANY WAY. GOD WILL INTERVENE WHEN NEEDED.

THANK YOU FOR READING

CharlesFinney.com August 2023

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