March 28.—“Was taken this morning with violent griping pains. These pains were extreme and constant for several hours; so that it seemed impossible for me, without a miracle, to live twenty-four hours in such distress. I lay confined to my bed the whole day, and in distressing pain all the former part of it; but it pleased God to bless means for the abatement of my distress. Was exceedingly weakened by this pain, and continued so for several days following; being exercised with a fever, cough, and nocturnal sweats. In this distressed case, so long as my head was free of vapory confusions, death appeared agreeable to me. I looked on it as the end of toils, and an entrance into a place ‘where the weary are at rest;’ and think I had some relish for the entertainments of the heavenly state; so that by these I was allured and drawn, as well as driven by the fatigues of life. O how happy it is to be drawn by desires of a state of perfect holiness!
April 4.—“Was sunk and dejected, very restless and uneasy, by reason of the misimprovement of time; and yet knew not what to do. I longed to spend time in fasting and prayer, that I might be delivered from indolence and coldness in the things of God; but, alas, I had not bodily strength for these exercises! O how blessed a thing it is to enjoy peace of conscience! but how dreadful is a want of inward peace and composure of soul! It is impossible, I find, to enjoy this happiness without redeeming time, and maintaining a spiritual frame of mind.
Lord’s day, April 5.—“It grieved me to find myself so inconceivably barren. My soul thirsted for grace; but, alas, how far was I from obtaining what appeared to me so exceeding excellent! I was ready to despair of ever being a holy creature, and yet my soul was desirous of ‘following hard after God;’ but never did I see myself so far from ‘having apprehended, or being already perfect,’ as at this time. The Lord’s supper being this day administered, I attended the ordinance; and though I saw in myself a dreadful emptiness and want of grace, and saw myself as it were at an infinite distance from that purity which becomes the gospel, yet at the communion, especially during the distribution of the bread, I enjoyed some warmth of affection, and felt a tender love to the brethren; and, I think, to the glorious Redeemer, the first-born among them. I endeavored then to bring forth mine and his ‘enemies,’ and ‘slay them before him;’ and found great freedom in begging deliverance from this spiritual death, as well as in asking divine favors for my friends and congregation, and the church of Christ in general.
April 10.—“This day my brother John arrived at Elizabethtown. Spent some time in conversation with him; but was extremely weak.”
This brother had been sent for by the Correspondents, to take care of and instruct Brainerd’s congregation of Indians; he being obliged by his illness to be absent from them. He continued to take care of them till Brainerd’s death, and was soon after ordained his successor in his mission, and to the charge of his congregation.
April 17.—“In the evening, could not but think that God helped me to ‘draw near to the throne of grace,’ though most unworthy, and gave me a sense of his favor; which afforded me inexpressible support and encouragement. Though I scarcely dared to hope that the mercy was real, it appeared so great; yet could not but rejoice that ever God should discover his reconciled face to such a vile sinner. Shame and confusion, at times, covered me; and then hope, and joy, and admiration of divine goodness gained the ascendancy. Sometimes I could not but admire the divine goodness, that the Lord had not let me fall into all the grossest and vilest acts of sin.
April 20.—“Was in a very disordered state, and kept my bed most of the day. I enjoyed a little more comfort than in several of the preceding days. This day I arrived at the age of twenty-nine years.
April 21.—“I set out on my journey for New England, in order (if it might be the will of God) to recover my health by riding.”
This proved his final departure from New-Jersey. He travelled slowly, and arrived among his friends at East-Haddam, about the beginning of May. There is very little account in his diary, of the time that passed from his setting out on his journey to May 10. He speaks of his sometimes finding his heart rejoicing in the glorious perfections of God, and longing to live to him; but complains of the unfixedness of his thoughts, and their being easily diverted from divine subjects, and cries out of his leanness, as testifying against him, in the loudest manner. Concerning those diversions which he was obliged to use for his health, he says, that he sometimes found he could use diversions with “singleness of heart,” aiming at the glory of God; but that he also found there was a necessity of great care and watchfulness, lest he should lose that spiritual temper of mind in his diversions, and lest they should degenerate into what was merely selfish, without any supreme aim at the glory of God in them.
Lord’s day, May 10.—“I could not but feel some measure of gratitude to God at this time, that he had always disposed me, in my ministry, to insist on the great doctrines of regeneration, the new creature, faith in Christ, progressive sanctification, supreme love to God, living entirely to the glory of God, being not our own, and the like. God thus helped me to see, in the surest manner, from time to time, that these, and the like doctrines necessarily connected with them, are the only foundation of safety and salvation for perishing sinners and that those divine dispositions which are consonant hereto, are that holiness, ‘without which no man shall see the Lord.’ The exercise of these Godlike tempers—wherein the soul acts in a kind of concert with God, and would be and do every thing that is pleasing to him—I saw, would stand by the soul in a dying hour; for God must, I think, deny himself, if he cast away his own image, even the soul that is one in desires with himself.