If any insist that Brainerd’s religion was mere enthusiasm, the result of a heated imagination, I would ask, What were the FRUITS of his enthusiasm? In him we behold a great degree of honesty and simplicity; sincere and earnest desires and endeavors to know and do whatever is right, and to avoid every thing that is wrong; a high degree of love to God; delight in the perfections of his nature, placing the happiness of life in him, not only in contemplating him, but in being active in pleasing and serving him; a firm and undoubting belief in the Messiah, as the Savior of the world, the great Prophet of God, and King of the church, together with great love to him, delight and complacence in the way of salvation by him, and longing for the enlargement of his kingdom; earnest desires that God may be glorified and the Messiah’s kingdom advanced, whatever instruments are employed; uncommon resignation to the will of God, and that under vast trials; and great and universal benevolence to mankind, reaching all sorts of persons without distinction, manifested in sweetness of speech and behavior, kind treatment, mercy, liberality, and earnestly seeking the good of the souls and bodies of men. All this we behold attended with extraordinary humility, meekness, forgiveness of injuries, and love to enemies. In him we see a modest, discreet, and decent deportment, among superiors, inferiors, and equals; a most diligent improvement of time; earnest care to lose no part of it; and great watchfulness against all sorts of sin, of heart, speech, and action. This example and these endeavors we see attended with most happy fruits, and blessed effects on others, in humanizing, civilizing, and wonderfully reforming and transforming some of the most brutish savages; idle, immoral drunkards, murderers, gross idolaters, and wizards; bringing them to permanent sobriety, diligence, devotion, honesty, conscientiousness, and charity. The foregoing virtues and successful labors all end at last in a marvellous peace, immovable stability, calmness, and resignation, in the sensible approaches of death; with longing for the heavenly state; not only for the honors and circumstantial advantages of it, but above all, for the moral perfection and holy and blessed employments of it. These things are seen in a person indisputably of good understanding and judgment. I therefore say, if all these things are the fruits of enthusiasm, why should not enthusiasm be thought a desirable and excellent thing? For what can true religion, what can the best philosophy, do more?
REFLECTION III.
The preceding history serves to confirm the doctrines of grace. For if it be allowed that there is truth, substance, or value in the main of Brainerd’s religion, it will undoubtedly follow, that those doctrines are divine; since it is evident that the whole of it, from beginning to end, accords with them. He was brought, by doctrines of this kind, to his awakening and deep concern about things of a spiritual and eternal nature; by these doctrines his convictions were maintained and carried on; and his conversion was evidently altogether agreeable to them. His conversion was no confirming and perfecting of moral principles and habits, by use, and practice, and industrious discipline, together with the concurring suggestions and conspiring aids of God’s Spirit; but entirely a supernatural work, at once turning him from darkness to marvellous light, and from the power of sin to the dominion of divine and holy principles. It was an effect, in no respect produced by his strength or labor, or obtained by his virtue; and not accomplished till he was first brought to a full conviction, that all his own virtue, strength, labors and endeavors, could never avail any thing toward producing or procuring this effect.
If ever Brainerd was truly turned from sin to God at all, or ever became truly religious, none can reasonably doubt but that his conversion was at the time when he supposed it to be. The change which he then met with, was evidently the greatest moral change that he ever experienced; and he was then apparently first brought to that kind of religion, that remarkable new habit and temper of mind, which he held all his life after. The narration shows it to be different, in nature and kind, from all of which he was ever the subject before. It was evidently wrought at once without fitting and preparing his mind, by gradually convincing it more and more of the same truths, and bringing it nearer and nearer to such a temper: it was soon after his mind had been remarkably full of blasphemy, and a vehement exercise of sensible enmity against God, and great opposition to those truths which he was now brought with his whole soul to embrace, and rest in as divine and glorious; truths, in the contemplation and improvement of which he placed his happiness. He himself, who was surely best able to judge, declares, that the dispositions and affections which were then given him, and thenceforward maintained in him, were, most sensibly and certainly, altogether different in their nature from all of which he was ever the subject before, or of which he ever had any conception.
Hence it is very evident that Brainerd’s religion was the effect of the doctrines of grace applied to his heart: and certainly it cannot be denied that the effect was good, unless we turn atheists or deists. I would ask whether there be any such thing, in reality, as Christian devotion? If there be, what is it? what is its nature? and what its just measure? Should it not be in a great degree? We read abundantly in Scripture of “loving God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength; of delighting in God, of rejoicing in the Lord, rejoicing with joy unspeakable and full of glory; the soul magnifying the Lord, thirsting for God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness; the soul breaking for the longing it hath to God’s judgments, praying to God with groanings that cannot be uttered, mourning for sin with a broken heart and contrite spirit,” &c. How full are the Psalms, and other parts of Scripture, of such things as these! Now wherein do these things, as expressed by and appearing in Brainerd, either the things themselves, or their effects and fruits, differ from the Scripture representations? To these things he was brought by that strange and wonderful transformation of the man, which he called his conversion. Does not this well agree with what is so often said in the Old Testament and the New, concerning “giving a new heart creating a right spirit, being renewed in the spirit of the mind, being sanctified throughout, becoming a new creature?”
REFLECTION IV.
Is there not much in the preceding memoirs of Brainerd to teach, and excite to duty, us who are called to the work of the ministry, and all who are candidates for that great work? What a deep sense did he seem to have of the greatness and importance of that work, and with what weight did it lie on his mind! How sensible was he of his own insufficiency for this work; and how great was his dependence on God’s sufficiency! How solicitous that he might be fitted for it! and to this end, how much time did he spend in prayer and fasting, as well as reading and meditation; giving himself to these things! How did he dedicate his whole life, all his powers and talents to God; and forsake and renounce the world, with all its pleasing and ensnaring enjoyments, that he might be wholly at liberty to serve Christ in this work, and to “please him who had chosen him to be a soldier under the Captain of our salvation!” With what solicitude, solemnity and diligence did he devote himself to God our Savior, and seek his presence and blessing in secret, at the time of his ordination! and how did his whole heart appear to be constantly engaged, his whole time employed, and his whole strength spent in the business he then solemnly undertook, and to which he was publicly set apart! His history shows us the right way to success in the work of the ministry. He sought it, as a resolute soldier seeks victory in a siege or battle; or as a man who runs a race, seeks a great prize. Animated with love to Christ and the souls of men, how did he “labor always fervently,” not only in word and doctrine, in public and private, but in prayers day and night, “wrestling with God” in secret, and “travailing in birth,” with unutterable groans and agonies, “until Christ were formed” in the hearts of the people to whom he was sent! How did he thirst for a blessing on his ministry, and “watch for souls, as one that must give account!” How did he “go forth in the strength of the Lord God,” seeking and depending on a special influence of the Spirit to assist and succeed him! What was the happy fruit at last, though after long waiting, and many dark and discouraging appearances? Like a true son of Jacob, he persevered in wrestling, through all the darkness of the night, until the breaking of the day.
To Missionaries in particular, may his example of laboring, praying, denying himself, and enduring hardness with unfainting resolution and patience, and his faithful, vigilant, and prudent conduct in many other respects, afford instruction.
REFLECTION V.
The foregoing account of Brainerd’s life may afford instruction to Christians in general; as it shows, in many respects, the right way of practising religion, in order to obtain the ends, and receive the benefits of it; or how Christians should “run the race set before them,” if they would not “run in vain, or run as uncertainly,” but would honor God in the world, adorn their profession, be serviceable to mankind, have the comforts of religion while they live, be free from disquieting doubts and dark apprehensions about the state of their souls, enjoy peace in the approaches of death, and “finish their course with joy.” In general, he much recommended, for this purpose, the redemption of time, great diligence in the business of the Christian life, watchfulness, &c. and he very remarkably exemplified these things.