Who Was A. B. Simpson? Founder of the Christian & Missionary Alliance

Biography Holy Spirit Holiness Missions

Albert Benjamin Simpson, known as A. B. Simpson, was a Canadian-born preacher who lived from 1843 to 1919. He began as a Presbyterian pastor, then left a well-paid New York pulpit to preach to people no church was reaching. Out of that work came a missionary movement, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and a school that trained hundreds of missionaries. He wrote dozens of books and more than a hundred hymns, and his teaching on Christ living in the believer still shapes how many Christians think about the deeper life.

Here's a fuller look at his life, what he taught, and which of his books to start with.

Prince Edward Island and Ontario

Simpson was born on December 15, 1843, at Bayview, on Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada. His parents were strict Scottish Presbyterians, and while he was still small the family moved to a farm in Ontario. He grew up with the catechism, long Sundays, and a sharp fear of God's judgment.

As a teenager he wanted to be a minister, but he had no peace with God. He found it during the revival of 1859, under the preaching of the Irish evangelist Henry Grattan Guinness, when he saw that he could simply trust Christ's finished work. He trained at Knox College in Toronto and graduated in 1865.

Hamilton, Louisville and New York

At about twenty-one he became pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, Ontario, a large and prominent congregation. He married Margaret Henry, who became his partner for the rest of his life.

In 1873 he moved to Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. There, during a city-wide evangelistic campaign, he came into a deeper experience of Christ. He came to believe that Christ Himself is the Christian's holiness, received by faith, not by striving. That became the center of everything he later taught.

In 1880 he took the pulpit of Thirteenth Street Presbyterian Church in New York. He wanted the church to reach the poor and the immigrants of the city, and many of his members didn't. In 1881 he resigned and began an independent gospel work among the unchurched, with a handful of people and no salary.

Healing and the fourfold gospel

Simpson had been in poor health for years and believed his heart was failing. In the summer of 1881 he became convinced from Scripture that Christ is the healer of the body as well as the soul. He trusted Christ for his own healing, and he went on to preach and work hard for nearly forty more years.

He summed up his message in what he called the fourfold gospel: Jesus Christ our Saviour, our Sanctifier, our Healer and our Coming King. You'll find all four running through his books. On the second of them, he wrote:

Henceforth, it is not we who live, but Christ who liveth in us, and we draw from Him, through the Holy Ghost, every moment, life, and health, and joy, and peace.
Walking in the Spirit, Living in the Spirit

A movement for missions

Simpson's heart was always on the world beyond New York. In 1882 he began training men and women for mission work, and that training school grew into what's now Nyack. In 1887 he organized two societies, one for spreading the deeper-life message at home and one for sending missionaries abroad. Ten years later they joined as the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He didn't set out to found a denomination, but the Alliance became one, with missionaries in many countries.

He believed prayer was the real power behind missions:

Prayer is the mighty engine that is to move the missionary work.
Days of Heaven Upon Earth, March 8

He edited a missionary magazine for decades, preached several times a week, and wrote hymns for his meetings, among them "Himself" and "Yesterday, Today, Forever."

What he taught

Simpson's books keep coming back to a few things.

Christ in us. The Christian life isn't self-improvement. It's Christ Himself living in a surrendered heart. In The Christ Life he wrote:

Dear friends, it is not what you become that is going to save you, but how you become united to Jesus.
The Christ Life, The Personal Christ

Death to self. He was plain that the old self has to go to the cross, not just be polished up. That's the theme of The Self Life and the Christ Life:

If God is going to make anything of you, let all your will go into His hands.
The Self Life and the Christ Life, Not I but Christ

The Holy Spirit. He wrote more about the Spirit than almost anything else, in Walking in the Spirit and When the Comforter Came. For him the Spirit's great work was to make Jesus real.

The coming of the Comforter is to make Jesus intensely real, more real indeed than the Comforter Himself.
When the Comforter Came, Orphaned Lives

Simple faith. He urged people to take God at His word without waiting for feelings.

It is all right, therefore, to tell people not to wait for feeling, but simply to take God at His Word.
When the Comforter Came, The Sealing of the Holy Ghost

His last years

Simpson kept up his work into his seventies. His health finally broke near the end of his life, and he died at Nyack, New York, on October 29, 1919. By then the Alliance he started had sent missionaries around the world.

Why he's still read

Simpson is still read because he writes about Christ as someone you can know, not just a teacher you can admire. His sentences are warm and direct, and he asks a lot of his reader: full surrender, real trust, daily dependence on the Spirit. Many readers find that his short books do them more good than long ones.

Where to start

TheWay Library has eight of his books, all free to read. If you're new to him, start with Days of Heaven Upon Earth, a short reading for every day of the year. For one short book that shows his main message, read The Christ Life. For his teaching on the Holy Spirit, go to Walking in the Spirit.

Our guide to A. B. Simpson's books explains how all eight fit together, and our collection of A. B. Simpson quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the A. B. Simpson author page.