“The effect of a revival upon the Church is no less profound and far reaching. For while the word ‘revive,’ strictly speaking, means ‘to bring to life again,’ the word, in its religious application, has been widened to include the awakening of those who were dead, and the quickening of those already awakened.”

(James Burns, Revivals: Their Laws and Leaders, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1960, 47)

“Every revival goes back more or less to apostolic times, to apostolic simplicity, to primitive conditions, and to the spirit of the early Church. It attempts to rid the Church and the individual soul of the heavy incumbrances imposed in a time of lifelessness and decay; times when men are more intent in proving the doctrines of the Church than in living them. Its central effort thus is to get back to the fountain sources of inspiration and of life.

(James Burns, Revivals: Their Laws and Leaders, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1960, 59-60)

“It is a significant fact also, and we point this out without disparagement of those who do not hold this doctrine, that neither Unitarianism, nor Deism, nor any other system which rejects the Cross, knows anything of revivals.”

(James Burns, Revivals: Their Laws and Leaders, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1960, 61)